Sounds like: "miniatures are not toy soldiers, except they are..." to me
They aren't toys. They are gaming miniatures for fucks sake. They are used according to game rules.
If there were no rules, they wouldn't be used for playing (like in wroom wroom, I hit a toy car with toy cat, so fun! sense) but would be sitting on shelves as a decoration/collectible items.
Then there's the whole hobby aspect of learning to paint them well (one scary thing is that there are actually people who buy these expensive miniatures without bothering to develop painting skills to paint them well).
If it was primarily about gameplay, you would be playing with printed tokens, instead of wasting hundreds/thousands bucks on pathetic plastic toys.
Then you people dare to get butthurt about DLC ripoffs in computer gaming
Yeah, they are pathetic, but not because they are used for wargaming but because they are shit and overpriced. That's why I don't play Warhammer 40k.
When I was a kid, I have read a newspaper article about WHFB and I loved the look of the miniatures. I didn't have money so I tried to sculpt my own miniatures. I didn't know how to do it so it didn't go too well.
I was experimenting with carving in hardened polymer clay, layering, that sort of stuff. Later I learned about greenstuff. I started trying to sculpt in it.
When I finally could afford collecting WHFB miniatures, I bought myself a mega paint set and the first box of miniatures and then I realised that they are crappy and poor proportioned. My bit of artistic self-education made me appreciate good proportions too much to be interested in collecting these sad caricatures.
So, it's mostly a game for people interested in painting and modelling and having nice-looking models and miniatures on shelves.
As for playing with counters. I play Battlefleet Gothic with counters because the ships are supposed to be much smaller than the miniatures.
So, these ships look nice, yes?
Except that the ship in game is supposed to be as small as a single atom in the stem of the base the base represents the space of a few thousands kilometres around the ship and weapons fire at tens of thousands of kilometres.
So, counters are much better for it.
When it comes to Wh40k, I wouldn't use counters. Playing with miniatures like playing isometric games on computer to me. It adds extra graphics.
Though I probably wouldn't be interested in playing above skirmish level.
When playing Epic40k, I'd probably prefer to use counters for squads and miniatures for vehicles. Or counters for everything.
Is anyone here not a geek? It just seems like a weird place to try to belittle people who like miniature games. So what if some people enjoy painting and playing with them, even if they're expensive. I've "wasted" thousands of dollars on pc games, but it's my hobby, so who gives a shit.
I think that liking miniature wargames requires being a bit of an artfag besides just being a gamefag.