The Samurai Gunslinger

Picking a winner from among the nominees for the 2007 Tabletop Gaming News Editor’s Choice Award was difficult to say the least. Pruning the list to a top ten list was even more problematic. But we have finally managed to pick a winner for the Editor’s Choice Award. This year has seen a flood of great new games and miniatures and the expansion of previously niche gaming markets, like Pulp and Weird War, as they gain new games and audiences.

Without a doubt the most important, and perhaps controversial, changes in the hobby this year have been in the area of pre-painted plastic miniatures and the winner of the 2007 Tabletop Gaming News Editor’s Choice Award, Rackham’s AT-43 game, represents this controversy but also epitomises what we think is the potential benefit of this type of game.

AT-43 is at once a threat to the established order of the hobby and also represents a potential for the hobby to continue to grow and expand. In less than a year it has become an inescapably huge player in the sci-fi battle game market and Rackham have obviously bet the company on a different way of doing things. Pre-painted and pre-assembled plastic miniatures are going to upset some gamers and miniature enthusiasts, but for those who don’t have the time to build and paint an army, those who are put off by the hobby aspect of tabletop games or those of the Playstation generation this may be a factor that gets them playing when otherwise they wouldn’t.

Read full article here.