So no one's posted anything here for a week?

[Just Tony]

Yeah, I can get behind this. I find that the trolls treat it like a game, the people who are pleasant a hobby.

You're not painting figures for a game, you're painting your toy soldiers. YOUR toy soldiers. It can be very personal and possessive, but too many people just slap on a GW suggested painting scheme and push around nameless guys.

The hobby is a lot more fun when you paint your guys how you like and name them, then you get sweet stories like the ratling weapon team who killed a doomwheel--in melee combat.

I don't think these things are mutually exclusive. Every aspect of my army selection right down to the paint scheme comes from the appeal of the hobby aspect. I most assuredly don't want to model something that will not work well in a game, but at the same time, I don't run netlist of the week, nor do I settle for the 4 color "legal" paint job. Every character I have has a name and history, I wrote a very specific message on my HE BSE in Elven runes. I can guarantee you that I wouldn't have bought the models if there wasn't a game tied to them. How many of you can say you WOULD have?

[Erik Setzer]

I don't think these things are mutually exclusive. Every aspect of my army selection right down to the paint scheme comes from the appeal of the hobby aspect. I most assuredly don't want to model something that will not work well in a game, but at the same time, I don't run netlist of the week, nor do I settle for the 4 color "legal" paint job. Every character I have has a name and history, I wrote a very specific message on my HE BSE in Elven runes. I can guarantee you that I wouldn't have bought the models if there wasn't a game tied to them. How many of you can say you WOULD have?

Yeah, I'm a gamer, but I prefer to run painted models, and I run armies with a theme rather than trying for something to just beat in my opponent's face. I name character, I write backstories, I convert and paint, all that jazz.

But I know that these ARE games. Age of Sigmar is a game. You don't have to be a "troll" to know that. And you can disagree with claims that it's not while still being "pleasant." They didn't just wipe out WFB and release a bunch of fluff and say, "This is the Age of Sigmar. Enjoy reading and buying a couple of new factions!" Nope, they released rules and put out PDFs for all the existing armies. They made a game. They know the models don't sell without a game. The army books are called "BATTLEtomes," suggesting use for BATTLE, i.e. in a game, not just fluff. Everything about the game highlights that it's a game.

It's more accurate to say that people who insist it isn't a game in order to bash the people who have problems with the game are the "trolls" who are being "unpleasant." You can't deny reality and then attack people who point out an undeniable fact: Age of Sigmar is a GAME. If there was no game, the sales would tank and GW would drop it in an instant. There'd be no more Age of Sigmar.

If you enjoy the game, fine, keep on enjoying it and have fun. But don't claim it's not a game. Otherwise, you'd have to say every miniatures game on the market is really a "hobby," not a game.

Oh, and can we stop claiming that particular games are a hobby to themselves? They're not. They're part of a larger hobby that includes many games. 40K is not a hobby. AoS is not a hobby. Warmachine is not a hobby. They are all part of the miniatures gaming hobby. (And yes, playing games is a hobby! So why, again, do we have people trying to insist that something can't be a game and part of a hobby?)