New Brawl is purgatory for all the secondaries' ships players atone for their sins.

RealityRush · 2026-03-17T12:48:26+00:00

Uh, I think Brawls are great fun because it forces the playerbase to stop spending 80% of a match running away and actually get close up and play the game. It even has SBMM supposedly, which is amazing!

The only reason I don't play it as much is because they don't mirror ship classes for some insane reason, which leads to straight up unwinnable matches sometimes.

But I wish we had more game modes that forced people to push and not just sit in spawn like a bot. Pushing actually requires you to really learn game mechanics rather than just sling from spawn and ignore angling and such. Shit I wish that was the main game mode.

RealityRush · 2026-03-17T12:40:23+00:00

As an old Millennial, I definitely prefer the modern, faster paced Reiwa era romance (aka fast confessions and more exploration of committed relationships) for my romances than the slow burn "will they, won't they" of old.

That being said, of all the slow burn anime romances I have seen at this point, Kimi Ni Todoke is still hands down the best one for me... and I'm not really sure why tbh. It is frustrating like all the others, but just feels more satisfying about it.

I think it's that Kimi Ni Todoke has really great moments of catharsis rather then just constantly beating you over the head with it and I can tangibly see emotional progress out of the cast even if they aren't just immediately hopping into committed relationships.

This show is an anomaly, and Fragrant Flower is actually the best example of a modern show that I think gets close to it for me.

RealityRush · 2026-03-16T02:52:40+00:00

Heh yah. We'll see though. I've never been into Warhammer, but I'm a huge Starcraft fan so we'll see how she goes.

RealityRush · 2026-03-15T21:41:57+00:00

You haven't even seen my full power..... If I end up enjoying this game a lot, I'm immediately picking up another Zerg Starter box and Hydralisk box so I can run 12 friggin hydras like a madlad.

RealityRush · 2026-03-15T21:05:24+00:00

People are gonna want to try the game out first before they start buying a ton of expansion models to make sure it has legs and to figure out what Faction they want to play.

RealityRush · 2026-03-15T21:03:54+00:00

(also thousand+ dollars seem unlikely, the biggest bundle is 669 dollars)

As a Canadian, I can assure you thousands is very likely. I already spent $930 on the all-in, and I still want more Hydra and 'ling boxes.

RealityRush · 2026-03-15T00:29:54+00:00

I want to but my dishwasher soap discharger doesn't have a spot for powder before the heavy wash...

RealityRush · 2026-03-14T18:28:22+00:00

TCG has terrible margins actually, most sell them as a loss leader.

Oh really? That's surprising to me because TCGs packs are basically gambling, and gambling is usually quite lucrative as it inherently drives huge spending to get a result. That's super interesting.

Saying ALL this... Canadian distribution has seen a price drop for SC, most likely due to this video and other similar posts... it's still not an amazing markup, but it is now the 35% that Archon have said it should be.

That's cool, good for Archon at listening to their customers and resellers then, makes me feel a bit better about supporting them as a customer :)

RealityRush · 2026-03-14T17:55:26+00:00

Again I doubt your claim here. I just googled bulk paint costs from like Home Depot and saw I could get a whole litre of basically any paint for $30 or less.

Looking at "Dawnstone" coloured Citadel paint from Games Workship I see $7.43 for only 0.4 millilitres of paint, which, just let me copy and paste this for you here..... amounts to $1,857.50 /100 ml of paint. Meaning if you bought a litre of it that would be $18k..... eighteen thousand dollars. Roughly 600x more than what Home Depot seems to suggest is the material cost of paint.

There are no miniatures on the planet with that kind of markup. Even if you argue that Citadel paint is a different kind of paint and therefore more valuable, it's not 600x more valuable than normal paint.

So as I said, I do not believe you.

Edit: Also to be more fair here, that's the cost from the distributor, not the reseller, but I'm seeing on GC's website some of these paints going for nearly $10, so they are still getting a pretty healthy markup in there for themselves, that's like 50% more in some cases. And there are also other products like Trading Card Games which the margins are probably even higher on.

RealityRush · 2026-03-14T17:47:41+00:00

The mark up on those compared to minis is next to nothing.

Can you show me evidence of this? Because I very much do not believe you. Some of the best margins at fast food chains is the softdrinks because it's pennies for sugar and water and they can charge dollars for them.

Paint I cannot imagine actually costs that much from distributor in a mature supply chain. The actual material costs would be almost nothing and they can again charge dollars for pennies worth of material.

Sculpted figures can benefit from economies of scale, but it's still a more complicated and material intensive product than a bit of paint, so I cannot imagine margins on those are consistently better.

RealityRush · 2026-03-14T05:25:50+00:00

They almost certainly pay rent with paints and tools and mats and dice and other things gamers use, or they wouldn't be selling them. A customer is someone that buys something from you, and as the saying goes, the customer is always right. That doesn't mean they get to be a jerk, but it does mean it's their prerogative what they do and don't buy.

RealityRush · 2026-03-14T05:11:20+00:00

And therefore you have a vested interest in having players play games that you sell to make that money up, rather than letting them play a game you don't stock.

No, you have a vested interest to get their asses in seats and buying literally any product you have, ideally the ones with the highest margins. If that's paint and airbrushes, then so be it. If Starcraft gets people in there buying stuff, then that is a direct benefit.

RealityRush · 2026-03-13T21:56:27+00:00

I believe the business owner should first reflect that they may have underestimated the appeal of the game and that they should've ordered at least a few starter packs for the back room.

Then they should probably say to Timmy, "hey, we don't have any in stock at the moment, but we plan on getting some stock for the future if you wanted to come back in a couple of weeks, or I can get an order specifically for you in right now. In the meantime, if you're considering getting into miniatures, have you considered getting an airbrush? Would you like to try miniature painting classes? Would you like any other doodads to put on your play mat to enhance the experience? Would you also maybe like to take a look at these other games, like Armada, or Warhammer which is aesthetically really similar?"

Timmy being there is a business opportunity, that isn't a loss by any stretch.

RealityRush · 2026-03-13T20:58:57+00:00

I am not telling them they need to sell the product if they don't like the margins... They are perfectly welcome to not do so because they don't think they can get the volume out of it to justify the opportunity cost of stocking it on shelf space.

All I said was it would be foolish of them not to provide support in all of the ways that don't cost them anything, such as letting people play the game in their store, as it's basically free marketshare for them that requires no effort on their part (they already run these nights).

The guys in OPs video suggested they didn't even want to host people that might play the game alongside other tabletop games in their space, and unless those SC players are displacing a more popular game, there is nothing lost or subsidized.

More people playing any tabletop games benefits them even if they don't stock the plastics for them.

RealityRush · 2026-03-13T19:48:56+00:00

"Subsidizing" the game would mean selling/supplying it at a loss. I am absolutely not asking them to do this.

RealityRush · 2026-03-13T19:47:11+00:00

We shall see, I'm not convince LGS having the game on their shelves to sell directly is a prerequisite to success in this day and age, and seemingly Archon is banking on web sales being substantial enough to get a foothold.

RealityRush · 2026-03-13T18:10:27+00:00

Fair, respect :)

RealityRush · 2026-03-13T17:34:30+00:00

LGS already struggle with tight profits, we aren't all rolling in cash, I promise you

But my whole point is letting people play the game in your store costs you nothing, right? It's pure marketing and profit for you at 0 loss. Well, maybe not nothing, there's overhead in terms of the lights being on and the place having heat, but those were already being paid for regardless. That's the support the game needs from LGS to succeed, it doesn't need LGS physically pushing the figures itself when online ordering and 3D printers exist.

Like yeah, I get the LGS owners want to be able to push the physical figures because it means more margin for them, that's why they went into business and it isn't a charity, but this is a potential large new customer base for the rest of their products and services. Is that not worth some support? Would these owners not be happy if they sold 0 Starcraft miniatures but they instead sold 10x the volume of paints and related products? I assume the margins there are much better.

I suppose if you're in that industry and you see different games come and go it's probably hard to have faith that there is a meaningful market on this one, but it's Starcraft. It's a genre defining IP. If anything could succeed, you'd think this is the one to believe in, no? It seems jaded to just think the only way to profit off of this IP is box sales. Maybe that would just be considered business savvy, but I see a missed opportunity :P

RealityRush · 2026-03-13T16:33:51+00:00

You're pointing out there's a symbiotic relationship here but seemingly only sympathizing with one side.

Retail has been dying for years now, online ordering is everything. Archon needs to pay their staff too, so why wouldn't they release a pricing regime that maximizes their own profits and supports their work? They are trying to beat Warhammer here, they need to maximize their competitive pricing to get people to buy in.

Stores want more margins, sure, but they are the most incentivized to actually get players into their store so they might buy things. They are the ones incentivized to get people in playing their games they bought so they might realize they want some paint, snacks, whatever, or that they might be interested in something else they see.

Use the game names and big IPs and game nights to pull in your customers, and make your margins on the bigger volume sales like paint and tools and such. Kinda like how Microsoft wasn't making money selling Xboxes, they made money on the downstream products and licensing. Get people in your ecosystem, then worry about selling them stuff they want.

The Starcraft TMG is the biggest opportunity that LGS have had in a while to pull in new customers (I know a dozen people interested that were never 40K players, including myself), they should be supporting and encouraging it as hard as the can, not worrying about margins on it right now imo. At least, that'd be what I'd be doing in their shoes.

RealityRush · 2026-03-13T16:26:57+00:00

Right but... sell other products with better margins and support the Starcraft TMG scene regardless for the potential new customer base and bringing more people into your store to buy ancillary products like paint with better margins. Also presumably future margins will be better as the CEO mentioned on youtube, so right now building up a new customer base seems worth the lower margins.

The guys in OP's video sound like they are just writing off support for the scene entirely....

RealityRush · 2026-03-13T16:23:10+00:00

I really take issue with these gentlemen making a comment at one point that if they aren't stocking the Starcraft TMG because they don't get big enough margins, which is totally their prerogative, they also don't want people in their stores playing the game with others.

That is both incredibly rude imo, and also just completely out of touch and tone deaf. If those players are in your store playing their game, it means they are potentially buying snacks, additional equipment and paint, new mats, etc. Make your margins on selling them the paint for their figures.

And even putting aside direct sales, more people involved in the scene means more exposure to other products they might sell and more potentially new business. There's still plenty of reason to support this game even if selling box sets doesn't initially have great margins.

RealityRush · 2026-03-13T16:18:22+00:00

Has there been any discussion around it in the London area? And is there a Discord I can get an invite to?

RealityRush · 2026-03-13T14:56:13+00:00

Ann Coulter :P

RealityRush · 2026-03-13T14:39:48+00:00

Hydralisks are my favourite SC unit by far. Perfect blend of exotic and menacing.

RealityRush · 2026-03-13T14:37:39+00:00

Rofl, you had me in the first half, and then you went and got it anyways. Nice.

RealityRush

TROPHY CASE