"The Best Thing GW Has Ever Done?" Topic

Spoonfeeding garbage to children and basementdwellers in return for increasingly greater sums of their parents' money.

Two things, I think:

GW raised the bar for painting with their early 'Eavy Metal columns in the pre-house organ days of White Dwarf. Without that nudge, modern painting techniques would probably be about 20 years behind.

Love it or hate it, 40k and the relentless marketing made miniatures "cool" to a whole new generation, and more recently their kids. To put the effect in context, the biggest retail-friendly game that hard-wired rules to a miniatures line prior to WFB and 40k was Battletech.

GW's best things ?

So many.

Stocking D&D

Licensing Cthulhu from Chaosium (made it affordable in the UK)

Stocking SPI games.

Stocking Archive and Der Kriegspieler Fantastique figures. And that short lived range of Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy figures (even if there was an IP issues with them !)

Probably the best thing they ever id was their own range of games – Valley of the four winds, the awesome Fury of Dracula, Judge Dredd – all great games.

Oh and White Dwarf Up to ~Issue 50.

Thanks GW – you really helped me get started, and though we went our seperate ways (~1990) I've always got the old stuff to go back to.

LOTR, before they flogged it to death and tried to import Warhammery-type elements.

Expanding out their services to other games.
e.g. working with Milton Bradley for the Space Crusade and Heroquest lines.
Great amount of exposure when you can see a minis game at larger stores (Toys r Us, etc…)

First Editions Mordheim and Man O' War.

1. LotR Miniatures
2. Making me happy in 1988 when I discovered their "universe"
3. Making me happy in 2012 seeing my 13 year old son so thrilled to be working on his Imperial Guard and Tau* while I work on my Tyranids and Eldar.

*My son also paints and games with Saxons and Greeks in 28mm to fight my Normans and Romans respectively. Oh and he has thanks to me a large Samurai army to fight my Choseon.

Kev Adams Orcs and Orks.

Ya Mordheim.

LOTR – I still remember reading in Dragon that GW had the license. I was a skeptic. They fully delivered (of course with the occassional ill-considered miniatures or concept), but extremely well done in my view.

link

Lost Pict

Spoonfeeding garbage to children and basementdwellers in return for increasingly greater sums of their parents' money.

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yes some of my gaming friends would agree with that too – plus sullying real (historical) wargaming with all that orcs and Marines nonsense! And allowing children into the hobby! Re the spoonfeeding bit though, i am unsure as to where else one would go to find the history of the Dark Angels or the Tau as its not like researching the British Army of the War of Jenkins Ear on t'internet

Having a ludicrously good staff discount whilst I worked for them.

Firing me. I am oh dear lord so much happier now. I never liked drinking the Kool-Aid that much anyway.

I'll second Chilledenuff, the staff discount of 50% did indeed rock.

The MERP role playing game and the Judge Dredd board game along with Warlock of Firetop Mountain board game

Good tank and infantry designs, thats it!

Moved Historicon to Fredericksburg.

Publishing White Dwarf which (at the time) reviewed and brought to light a wide swath of the rpg and miniatures wargame market.

Heck, I didn't even know that people painted game pieces before a friend showed me that magazine.

1998 and earlier? Lots of great stuff.

1999 and later? Massive annual price increases that opened up the sci-fi and fantasy market in 28mm scale to competition in a whole new way.

The MERP role playing game

Must have been a sub-license from Iron Crown. GW did a lot of that sort of thing before 40k.

Epic Space Marine, Space Hulk and the Lord of the Rings,