"G.W. Specialist Games are back: but in what form?" Topic

Hi guys,

A new article up on the website regarding the already late news that G.W. will republish Specialist Games. This is my take on the matter and how i think they will go about doing that:

Link:

link

As always, below full text, but you don't get the awesome pictures from my website. :)

A little bit of history on Specialist Games

Once upon a time there was a great age. An age where mighty ships powered by sails, steam or magic roamed the seas (Man O'War), where adventurers of all races, size and shape explored a doomed city (Mordheim), or where a king could quietly go to the stadium and have a keg while watching some good old fashioned bashing (Bloodbowl). And on top of it all mighty heroic armies swept the world in search of honor, gold or conquest (Warmaster). In a different plain the strife of war was also present, as lumbering titans and gigantic armies pounded one another eternally (Epic Armageddon) while in the heavens ships the size of small cities fought over control of the star routes or in defense of their home worlds (Battlefleet Gothic).

And that's but maybe half of the awesomeness that got killed along the way, slowly, as Games Workshop decided those lines were not economically viable anymore. I'm not here to blame them or to bash them, as us as wargamers will surely yell: I played it! There was a community! It was making money! but we are sometimes blind to the truth (that being able to play maybe 3 games a year and buying 2 boxed sets on Christmas and Easter is not making that company that much) but when things got discontinued there were 2 things that happened: our hearts sunk low and ebay prices rose as fast as a Chinese sky scrapper gets built (19 days? sheesh). Quite funny to mention the chinese as they are one of the main forces behind recasting those old Out Of Production (OOP) miniatures. So it was natural that fists where clenched and shaked in the general direction of the G.W. Headquarters and also hunting parties with pitchforks and torches went out to search for people like Gunblzzer74 that sold "Emperor Titan NIB 100 quid buy it now". And things are pretty much the same since then, with the occasional small/big company that started to trespass the paths closed long ago (Infinity to Inquisitor, Firestorm Armada to BFG, etc).

Rejoice as they are coming back

By now it's no news or it should not be that the Specialist Games are back in style. Games workshop has announced that it will form a new division to work on the old titles and bring them up to speed.

I feel describing my happiness as that of a squirrel in a barn full of nuts (Ice Age, you know?) would be a gross understatement. I was overwhelmed by positive feelings and i said to myself: They are finally getting it! Well, are they? The below is a collection of logical thoughts and facts that passed my mind after the initial rush faded and Earth said hello to my feet again.

First of all, let us look at what generated such a shift in their mindset. How can such a big company turn 180 degrees and focus on reviving old products that were deemed economically non-viable a while ago? Because let's be completely honest, money rules the world and unless you're a small garage enterprise with a dream and money to burn the corporate world does not move itself neither fast nor following a dream (regardless of the "we want to make a better world" bullcrap that we get served by nearly all major players in any domain) unless someone did a successful pitch and drafted a revenue plan that makes sense.

I have to go a bit around things so that i can arrive at the point i make in force. For some years now various companies have published rules systems that have cheap core sets at their forefront. X-Wing and Armada are probably the most notorious and successful of the bunch (in that we measure success at the amount of market share they gathered from – crucially – non-wargaming people) with an entry cost of 25-30 pounds (30-35 euros). Infinity, Deadzone, any Mantic game actually, and others followed suit. And what do all these systems have in common? You can start and play at low level points, with a minimum investment, in quite a short time (X-Wing is nice, sweet, short and quite cinematic to be honest). You could say that epic armies are dead and buried, together with the hundreds of pounds required to even start building them (although let's not just go there, as that's a hardcore wargame choice, not a casual one).

That's not to say that bigger packages are not successfully selling. It's just that they have a more refined target and demographic. You can't expect (in this age of speed and easily distracted teens) to wave a "buy this 80 pound starter set then pour a few hundred more plus some serious dozens of hours of painting and you can now play our game as it was intended" and have people flock to your banner. Do that with a 25 pound starter set and advertise a 30 min long battle with prepainted ships and you will have quite a different reaction. Because spare time is at a premium (not to mention money) and short activity bursts fill this quite nicely. I was a young gamer too, and i still remember those 6 to 8 hour long WFB games (filled with smoking breaks, ordering food, eating said food and toilet break periods) and while i have fond feelings towards those memories nowadays i can't seem to dedicate more then 1 or 2 hours at a time to any hobby related activity. Guess what, that's what small skirmish games exploit. That "so i can play several games in under 2 hours?" question is what turns most of the peeps towards them.

Games Workshop actually has a history of delving into lower cash investment and time consuming games with its very successful boardgame Space Hulk. Commanding a dozen or so Space Marine Terminators (the veterans of the Space Marine forces) while exploring a derelict ship filled with booby traps, false enemy signals and actual very killy xenomorphs has proven to be a good recipe in selling this quite fast, as Space Hulk editions have been literally flying off the shelves as soon as they were printed. They hit upon collector's value also as being limited editions they were sure that people will value them slightly higher as soon as they went back out of print (as evidenced by Ebay all the time). Betrayal at Calth hit this nerve again, with good results. It took a vastly underexploited area which actually got some good feedback from the consumer as soon as it was opened and struck that iron while mildly hot to bring it near incandescent temperature. And somehow, somewhere, someone clicked. Or at least that's what i think it is…

Wait, what?

I'm not saying i'm correct on this one, but everything points to a likely scenario that Games Workshop finally realized (and maybe the joke is on us too as i didn't see many people asking for this path) not what sells (as they know by now that 40k is their main franchise, followed by Paints and probably Fantasy as 3rd, and by the way, the Paints part is probably a sad but true fact) but in what shape it sells. The Betrayal set features around 40 miniatures for a sum of 95 pounds, but truth be told people have done the math and those miniatures alone (let alone that they were previously only Forge World available) would take you to around double that sum. The boardgame (as it is a boardgame) plays as a stand alone system independent of other Games Workshop releases however something interesting to observe: the miniatures in the box are actually multipart and not single pose as we have been previously accustomed. Releasing them as stand alone seems an obvious move in the near future.

So what does the set achieve? Well, for one, wargamers can buy it for good miniature value and use them in the 30k setting (which will get fleshed out soon enough) and non-wargamers can buy it and enjoy a good boardgame, bonus points for being able to trade the set for good value when they get bored of it (trade value is actually quite important if you're an avid boardgamer that fuels his desire by constantly exchanging games). Everyone's a winner!

This makes it all the more possible for us to witness the renaissance of Specialist Games through various core sets and boxed sets that can easily play alone or can be expanded upon regularly (as mentioned in the communique).

We will see Battlefleet Gothic core sets released in the manner of X-Wing with future releases as addons to ships (and how awesome would that be?).
We will see Necromunda and Mordheim go through a DnD like Core set + Monster/Henchmen expansions allowing you to play either small or expanded scenarios.
We will definitely see a stand alone different then anything else Epic 40k core set (i think this one will be the closest to the Betrayal set as approach and overall design and strategy, with re-boxable miniatures in case of success).
And many more will follow.

I won't expect massive releases and a clear fleshed out direction from the start towards grand strategy games. I think G.W. burned itself already with this one (remember Lord of the Rings Strategy Game?) and they will try to get money by being more tactically aligned rather then strategically driven. Have a nice 40 pounds starter set out with 3 Ork escorts versus 1 Imperial Cruiser and see how that goes. Do a 5 dwarfs vs 5 humans 30 pounds starter set for Mordheim and get value out of those. Go ahead and do a nice 100 pound big box of epic gold and awesomeness for Epic 40k and include a damn plastic titan and you are set! And then release boosters/expansions to whichever system sells more. If done correctly (and this might be the plan all along, see again Betrayal set) the initial sales alone will make up in mould costs and they are free to cast at will after that one, being sure of the profit (let's be clear, plastic costs pennies and they charge at least 30 to 40 times the value of it).

But this is still good!

Well, of course it is. It's good for the hobby, it's good for the company and it's good for you. But let me shatter your optimism regarding prices, as that's where a lot of people went: yay, no more Ebay inflated prices!

First of all, there is no guarantee these models will be cheaper then Ebay. Sure, we might turn our heads when we see 10 quid Imperial Cruisers on Ebay but how much do you think G.W. is going to charge you for a brand new one? Less then 5? I'd say we're lucky if we don't see a price increase. Given that most of the sets have doubled in price over the years and have had their content reduced, i don't think it's far fetched to see a single cruiser cost up to 15 quid NIB. The same treatment could be given to individual miniatures or party/faction boxes. Sure, you won't see the absurd prices some Mordheim miniatures fetch but add a bit of "latest technology in plastic" and couple that with the fact that this new Specialist Games department is going to be part of Forgeworld and you get my point. Quality will come at a premium, because when was the last time you saw G.W. charge something reasonably? The 70's? Another factor is if they will actually redo some of the released kits. Prices may remain stable if they release the old casts. If they reboot the setting and do new kits, expect the old kits to actually not go through the roof but reach the stratosphere. OOP and now definitely OOP again as they are planning on new ships or miniatures? That's like 1000% the value now.

I'm still excited and can't wait to see what gets out next, don't get me wrong. I think it's still one of the most exciting news to date and given that for the past years these side-games haven't seen much love any love is now sufficient for me. I'm mostly waiting for (as you guessed it) news on the Battlefleet Gothic front, as that's where i plan to focus my financial reserves but no doubt there are many of you who will be happy with Epc, Mordheim, etc. I guess time will tell and my only desire is to have this Specialist Games department flourish and do great things once again, in the spirit of the good old day of the past. And maybe, just maybe, Games Workshop will be able to become again a great company with a plethora of great games in its portfolio. Amen!

No ideea what those 3 posts at the beginning are doing there. :)

No ideea [sic] what those 3 posts at the beginning are doing there

Blame it on the bug as usual.

By far my favorite Specialist Game release is 'Blood Bowl.' It is also the most successful with a strong following and leagues around the world, not to mention platform and PC game spin-offs.

I think GW's new strategy is to use the re-introduction of Specialist titles like 'Epic,' 'Battlefleet Gothic' and 'Titan Legions' as well as reasonably priced stand-alone boardgames like 'Betrayal at Calth' and the upcoming 'Deathwatch' as gateway drugs into Warhammer 40K, which has gotten so bloated that it can be daunting for newbies to enter.

Man O' War, here. Fingers crossed that it doesn't get Dreadfleeted . . .

What other systems are people considering using for their combat walkers? I used to play BGWW2 extensively before starting to write for the NUTS system, resulting in a Weird War 2 rule system that includes combat walkers and a DIY vehicle design system.

Here's a BATREP from many moons ago:

link

Agis at AD Publishing did an awesome job on the 1/56th scale combat walkers from Company B!

link

I also love blood bowl. but as the owner of well over 1200(yes. 1200+)blood bowl/fantasy football figures, 12 pitch'es, over 60 block dice…gw will have to do something special to get me to buy gw blood bowl stuff.

Oddly most of these are getting the PC gaming treatment. Battlefleet Gothic just got released.

link

One hundred and fifty bucks for Calth is still a pretty steep into. Neal at the Warstore has Deadzone from Mantic for roughly half that, plus you get quite a bit of terrain. When Mantic ships the new Warpath kickstarter, we'll get a much bigger combat force and large force rules. So…unless GW does a relatively inexpensive Epic (NOT Armageddon, but the earlier game), I'm still comfortable on my fence.

I want Man O' War with simpler minis than Dreadfleet, which I dread attempting to assemble and paint.

I'd love to see a return of Warmaster figs, but I doubt that's on their list. But if so, it would probably mean that other manufacturers would boost their 10mm lines, too. And I still want my Dwarf archers. (Archers, not crossbowmen, not handgunners, but archers, guldarnit).

When?

@Dragon Gunner: 12th of Never.

I admit, I'd love to see Epic and Battlefleet Gothic minis available again. I still want to build the entire Dark Angels chapter, with ALL the vehicles.

But I'm expecting massive sticker shock.

I ended up reading this on TMP instead of on your blog because the medium-gray text makes the text too hard to read.

I want Titan Legions back.

Be careful guys when saying anything less than positive about GW/FW … I made a minor comment about GW/FW on the 40K board. Like this

One hundred and fifty bucks for Calth is still a pretty steep

And was told by PM to stop harassing guys about 40K … … And he was serious … so beware …

I've been DH'd many times and even Locked … but never for stating an opinion about toy soldier manufactures !

WoW !!!! More and more it is clear to me to not become a TMP Supporting Member. Hell … I'll probably DH's for this post !!!!!

Getting nutty around here, right?

Getting ?!?!?

Necromunda for me.
Is there even a specialist games web site yet?

I wouldn't mind a new set of Necromunda books.

I don't know why they didn't take a note from WOTC and reprinted the Rogue Trader book with a nice, new cover as a nostalgia edition. It'd move a lot of copies I think.

Legion 4, thank goodness you didn't also point your finger when saying that otherwise you also could have been sued for harassment! Ah, the world has become a weird place.

I'd like to see Warmaster, Necromunda, Mordheim, BFG, and Epic return. I would become such a fanboy again. I would not be willing to pay current GW prices though.

Maybe we need to form a new political party: The GW's Prices Are Too Damn High Party.

The question with rereleasing these old specialist games is whether the old fans who are in favour of a rerelease will actually buy new stuff.

It's one thing to be happy that an old favourite is rereleased. It's another matter to buy enough new stuff on top of all the old stuff you already have to make it worthwhile for the company.

New improved sculpts and models to cover items made since GW stopped supporting Epic would sell to me anyway…

I would also buy the Necromunda miniatures.

Mordheim and Man o War are very doubtful in anything resembling their original form because Age of Sigmar.

Legion 4, thank goodness you didn't also point your finger when saying that otherwise you also could have been sued for harassment! Ah, the world has become a weird place.

I'd like to see Warmaster, Necromunda, Mordheim, BFG, and Epic return. I would become such a fanboy again. I would not be willing to pay current GW prices though.

Maybe we need to form a new political party: The GW's Prices Are Too Damn High Party.

I'm afraid to say anymore ! Big Bro is Watching …

Indeed, "New Mordheim" doesn't really fit the current marketing model.

And was told by PM to stop harassing guys about 40K … huh? … And he was serious … so beware …

You not the only one.

But I once did end up in the Dawghouse.

But if GW did bring any of these great old games back chances are they would ending up being like AoS.

Oh and everything will be way over priced and the rules will need tons of FAQ's to make them playable.

Wow !! Scary … very scary …

As a store who has not stocked GW since 1984, it will not affect my sales.

Legion,

It is petty well owned that I am not a big fan of GW and there are some individuals here you get offended about some of my Anti-GW comments.

So if GW does bring any of these games back it will more than likely be nothing but a money grab so that they can inflated their profits.

Because I really doubt that AoS is doing all that well.

Plus they would be short term as well.

GW track record of supporting good games is very poor.

I Have got large lots of most of the old games…was touching up 3K of High elves for Warmaster the other day. If they release the game with compatable new mins or recasts of the old lines good I am there. If they screw around and release new mins that will not work with the old lines (I.E. just highjack the name) then I do not come back.

The ball is in their court and I suspect they will drop it again (old habits are hard to break)

Thing is the rules will not be filled with mistakes since they will only be doing this to get quick money.

Then once they got it will stop all support.

Well if the rules don't have any mistakes, why will they need to support them? It sounds as though they will be perfect.

I sold 98% of my epic armies over the last 4 or so years years so won't be going back for those. The box games may entice me to try one, maybe.
I figure it was a missed opportunity to keep closing lines like they did. If you don't keep people interested in your product they find something else. I went back to historical gaming and am enjoying the renaissance.

As for any type of epic miniatures, it usually means a different basing type, You have to be current or it's all 'old school'!

Well if the rules don't have any mistakes, why will they need to support them?

We are talking about GW here and there rules for the last two decades has had quite a few mistakes.

Take the release of Epic 40K 3rd Edition nearly 20 years ago.

It was horrible and that set of rules killed Epic.

Sure they came out with Epic Armageddon in 2004 but after putting out two books it died as well.

Then we have the many Editions of WFB until it was killed off by GW. Those books were also filled with errors.

GW had quite a few games that could be making them some profit.

Man-O-War – Status OOP (I.E. Dead)
Blood Bowl – Status OOP (I.E. Dead)
Necromunda – Status OOP (I.E. Dead)
Battlefleet Gothic – Status OOP (I.E. Dead)
Epic 40K – Status OOP (I.E. Dead)
Warmaster – Status OOP (I.E. Dead)
Mordheim – Status OOP (I.E. Dead)
Warhammer Fantasy Battle – Status OOP (I.E. Dead)

Each of these games could be making them profit but they decided nearly 20 years ago to kill most of them off.

They have a very bad track record with supporting their games.

But you said they wouldn't be filled with mistakes. You are contradicting yourself.

Besides they have a much better track record than probably 95% of companies out there for supporting their games.

I agree with Pictors 100%.

I have heard it again and again on Youtube channels from self-appointed gamer so-called "experts on GW" who think they know better than GW their own company and what they were and are.

The great misconception here is that GW didn't support their games well. I think that is blatantly false and altogether nonsense, all due respect to those who have those sentiments.

And what exactly is the definition of "support" in gamers' minds???

Every GW game that I knew that I played from the 80s up through the 2000s, WHFB, some of the epic scale games like WF 40K epic, to Bloodbowl, Mordheim, etc…. all of those games not only had hundreds of supplements and hundreds of White Dwarf articles published for them, but they all had numerous rules erratas published time and again to correct errors in the rules!

I find it amazing how many channels on Youtube complain and rant about GW's supposed lack of support for supposedly inferiorly written rules, and yet they played those games for years on end! If those games were supposedly so horribly written and so horribly supported as hardcore GW gamers claim, then WHY did they play them and put up with it? Makes no sense.

I think what happened here is that GW simply became the most visible of the gaming flagships and has always been the biggest and easiest target to pick on, nothing more.

A couple things need to be clarified here… GW makes ROLEPLAYING GAMES. Yes, you heard me right. Even their long-standing Fantasy Battle and 40K, at their heart, are roleplaying games more than they are strategy or tactical games. If you think I'm wrong, do a google search on Jervis Johnson and see what he has to say about competitive Warhammer gaming.

When GW published their specialty games, they were also publishing games that had more in common with an RPG like Dungeons & Dragons than they did a set of detailed historical rules or a seriously detailed tactical board game. Seriously.

With Warhammer Fantasy Battle for example, their flagship battle game, their supposed "lack of support" for that game included 8 editions spanning 20+ years, about 100+ army books or more, hundreds of rules supplements, campaign supplements, and modeling/painting supplements, with EACH edition having a new and updated full-length rulebook, with erratas for both the rule books as well as the army books as they were needed. Not only that, but at the same time that GW was producing thousands of minis and hundreds of publications for its fantasy battle game, they were ALSO supporting 40k in exactly the same way…and ALSO at the same time were supporting all their specialty games.

I find it amusing when people say that GW didn't support their games.

The thing is, when a company like GW stops producing a game, that DOESN'T mean that they "failed to continue supporting" it!

Lets take Mordheim. People still play it because it was a hugely popular set of fantasy skirmish rules. When GW stopped producing Mordheim, they didn't stop "supporting" it! They stopped making it. The rules, in and of themselves, were timeless, they were solid and could be played with for years to come, unto infinity. The rules are there, the minis are there, people still own them. How exactly is GW supposed to "support" something that is already a completed product in their eyes. They made it, people bought it, and they still own it!! End of story.

Same goes for their editions of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. 8th edition was published, the 8th edition army books were published, supplements were published, new lore supplements were published, and erratas were published covering all the mistakes that were made in both the rule book and the army book. DONE. What exactly am I missing here?

GW NEVER produced ANY edition of Warhammer with the promise that they would support it indefinitely with constant new tweaks and twists just to satisfy the perpetual latest round of "imbalance" complaints from the tournament community… LOL. Seriously?

Furthermore, all of the rants and raving that took place among competitive gamers when supposedly "imbalanced" army books were published by GW is pure nonsense.

GW NEVER INTENDED to make a game that was designed for competitive play OR for any kind of supported "balance", and they NEVER INTENDED any of their specialist games to be played competitively either. I'm serious. GW's main concern was publishing a set of rules that allowed the players to become immersed in the world that they laid out in the rules.

Army books and the point system they were structured around were NEVER meant to hard and fast official rules, merely suggestions. For example, when GW published the 8th edition Skaven army book, there was this huge backlash among competitive players and the tournament community, they screamed foul and screamed that GW were morons for not knowing how to write a balanced army book – and that it made the Skaven too powerful and wrecked the balance of their tournaments.

Little news flash here – GW knew exactly what they were writing when they wrote their army books. They were writing the Skaven army book with roleplaying in mind first, immersion second, and balance third. And GW clearly states in ALL of its rules and supplements, that if you as the players think that something isn't balanced or doesn't work to your tastes, then YOU as the players can tweak the points any way you want to make a game work for you.

It was NEVER SUPPOSED to be this "offical" thing that a community would hinge on waiting for every new announcement from GW for a clarification or rules update. That is NOT what GW ever intended their games for, yet that is exactly what the tournament community has insisted since the beginning. I have always found that to be both arrogant and self-centered frankly.

Finally, the whole notion that GW gave players "the middle finger" when it stopped producing certain games like its Warhammer Fantasy battle or its specialty games is also nonsense. No company can make a product line forever and keep it current forever. At some point, the product stands as is and whoever still owns it can choose to play it or not. It's as simple as that.

GW's specialty games were exactly that – specialty games that were side games to their main products of Fantasy battle and 40k. The fact that they stopped making them doesn't equate to them failing to support them!

I will end by saying that I remind you that while GW was producing two flagship games for the better part of three decades, while also supporting numerous specialty games for nearly the same length of time, they were ALSO supporting an entire RPG system, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, which also had numerous rules editions and supplements – and I didn't even mention that they maintained a monthly full-length publication for 20+ years with White Dwarf Magazine.

That's…that's…an awful LOT of creating, writing, producing, and support going on for things that gamers claim there wasn't support for!

I have to agree with Baranovich.

There's a lot of bull-poo spoken about "lack of support" for games.

The truth is somewhere very close to 100% of gaming companies fail to give 100% support to any of their games.

Hell, very few even provide a full gaming package to begin with.

Being the 10,000th garage-workshop-based manufacturer to cobble together an ill-fitting off-scale M4A1 Sherman does not exactly constitute "support" but, if you can bear the tedium, you can generally get away with it without being battered by TMP-ers.

If Bloodbowl is the first in line for a re-release and is 2017 then it's going to be a while before we see the Specialist Games.

Lets take Mordheim. People still play it because it was a hugely popular set of fantasy skirmish rules. When GW stopped producing Mordheim, they didn't stop "supporting" it! They stopped making it. The rules, in and of themselves, were timeless, they were solid and could be played with for years to come, unto infinity. The rules are there, the minis are there, people still own them. How exactly is GW supposed to "support" something that is already a completed product in their eyes.

Well how about someone that wants to get into the game?

Where are they going to get the rules?

Oh that right they can't unless they commit copyright violations.

As for 40K Epic the prices for those OOP miniatures make GW AoS mini's look cheap.

GW could still make the miniatures but they decided to not do that.

The same goes for every single game that I listed above.

Now for me I picked up most of my GW stuff 20 years ago.

But today someone who would get into one of those games can't.

@Mithee,

A gamer today can't get into Mordheim because GW no longer makes it???

You can get the Mordheim rules, minis, buildings, box sets off Ebay, there are literally hundreds of listings. Same goes for every edition of WHFB, as well as 40k, Bloodbowl, even old boxed sets like Space Marine and Tyranid. You can get into any GW game you want, and often times get it new still in its shrinkwrap. How is GW at fault??? They produced games over the years, like any company, and in the process those products sold well enough that a lot of product has made it into the secondary market which is still available for consumer purchase… which could describe ANY gaming company that made games during the course of its existence! I am not seeing where GW is at fault in this!

Ebay and sites like it make it possible to get into ANY GW game, even GW games that are twenty or more years old!

The internet has made it possible to get into any GW game that was published from the beginning.

So I'm sorry, but your argument doesn't hold water.

Did you honestly expect for GW to continue to produce and stock each and every one of the hundreds of games that had run their course and were no longer profitable for them? Just for the benefit of the possibility that "someone might want to try it out" someday???

They are a BUSINESS. And like any business, they have to stop producing certain products so that they can put resources into new ones.

Honestly, I am at a total loss as to why gamers insist and have always insisted on putting GW into some special category, declaring that they should have it both ways, as if GW's job is to go broke for the sake of keeping every gamer happy forever and always…

…if GW had continued to mindlessly and perpetualy churn out endless new copies of every single specialist game it ever made it would have gone out of business YEARS AGO. It would have imploded under the weight of its own overhead and under the weight of its own overproduction and stock that it could not sell.

Yet that is what you are saying GW should have done!

I just don't get it…

But at what cost and what quality?

Here are few items for Man-O-War.

auction

This one has it so you pick one and the price will change for which item you pick.

Like you can get a Skaven Doombringer for around $112. USD

That is one approx 2.5" ship for that amount.

These miniatures have been OOP for over two decades and sure you can get them off of Ebay but because they have been OOP for so long they are not going to come cheap.

Like this Black Ark for $130 USD

auction

But it is around 5"-6" long so it is a far better deal than that Doombringer.

Oh and this is a steal at $245. USD

auction

As for the comments about carrying overhead that is BS since they could have gone to what GMT does with their P500 system.

Put it up and once it cracks a certain amount of orders then they make and send off.

No carrying of excess overhead or inventory you make to order and I will tell you that they would have been making a profit.

But they do not know now to run a company all that well and I would bet that their earnings report this year will show that.

Hell they should just hand this off to Fantasy Flight and they would be doing a far better job.

How well is Rackham supporting Confrontation or Ragnarock?

Or any of the other companies that are out of business.

I know that you run a very successful multinational corporation with sales in the billions of dollars. Games Workshop would be wise to listen to your business advice. But somehow they have managed to scrape along these last 30 odd years to become the only publicly traded miniature gaming company in existence. The only one to operate a chain of their own retails stores. The only one to really be a multinational concern.

"But they do not know how to run a company." I wish I didn't know how to run company that well.

The comments about carrying overhead are not bull. Games Workshop has retail stores. If they were not carrying all of the specialist games stuff you would still be complaining that they were not properly supporting their products.

They support their products much better than most other companies simply because they are still in business. If you want to play Warhammer or Warhammer 40K you can still do that. You can still buy new models for the game.

You could even play Mordheim with either human or Skaven armies.

You can get an entire Mordnheim war band for $35 USD or less.

A Skaven one, depending on what you wanted in it, for slightly more.

You could even put together a Necromunda band from the current 40K line with a few easy conversions. A Goliath gang would be easy to make out of a Catachan box and other bits.

What I'd like to see is the return of some of their older games such as Dragon Masters…
And of course a good set of Titan combat rules with a few Titans backed up by a support company, based more on the Epic 40K rules rather than E:Armageddon.

Hey, Pictors? GW's President is on record as not trusting any of the financial predictive formulas, and only goes with his gun feeling. That's grounds for a stockholder suit for corporate malfeasance in the US. Stockholder annual report from about 2010.

The only reason he hasn't been sued is because he keeps giving dividends, even when that money would be better spent plowed back into the business.

Look, GW is basically on a pump-and-dump model right now, making money off the churn as opposed to making models that all the old players want to buy (because it's a cool model, not because they won't win without one). The problem with pump-and-dump is that it bloats the used market for GW product, which directly competes with GW's profits!

Hey Lion In The Stars, people have been saying that about GW for the last 20 years. At least.

I've only been paying attention since about 1996 and the whole time everyone has always said GW is going under.

But they haven't.

GW is making models I want to buy. I don't know what you consider old but I've been playing GW games since 1995 and buying GW models since about 1987.

They have made lots of cool models in the last year and a half. The Betrayal At Calth Boxed set is selling like crazy. The Tau stuff is going over very well.

And the concept of buying things because you can't win without them is a total fallacy in Age of Sigmar because their aren't points in the game.

Mithmee on Mordheim "Well how about someone that wants to get into the game? Where are they going to get the rules?"

Suggestion: start with a box of Empire Free Company militia, giving you 20 multipart humans = enough for a couple of starter warbands.

Download the rules for free as a pdf. Yes, those Evil Money-grabbers at GW published the 'living rule books' to Mordheim as a free download. What a rip-off. Free.

[GW-bashing TMP'ers may now debate among themselves whether this represents: A. further evidence that GW are about to go bankrupt (as per 50% of GW-based discussion threads in the previous 30 years) or B. Just another attempt to steal our money, wipe out all other gaming companies and rule the multiverse alone (as per the other 50% of GW-based discussion threads in the previous 30 years)]

Continue to build a range of warbands using other readily-available boxed plastics. Alternativly, buy up any of the millions of WH figures which GW-bashers have oh-so-righteously predicted will flood the market to saturation point as a consequence of GW's "lack of support" for pre-Sigmar versions of Fantasy Battles. (You're not allowed to play WHFB any more, hadn't you heard? It's now illegal due to the existence of Age of Stigma.)

Or they can just go over to playing Frostgrave.

They can play Frostgrave, they can play ping pong or they can play the banjo…………… none of which has anything to do with whether or nay GW "support" or "kill" their own games.

Btw, has anyone pledged themselves to publishing Frostgrave (or anything else) forever?

What do members actually mean by the term "support" ? Whether or not we are entitled to feel let down by a lack of support, it would be useful to have a definitive list of what constitutes "support" for a game system.

@Wonkothesane,

I cannot tell you how refreshing and encouraging it truly is to be reading your recent posts! It is rare to see another gamer who has a truly balanced view of GW and talks about them fairly.

People have asked why I bother to rant in GW's favor as I have in several threads. I seem to either love them or hate them at times, so I seem to not be consistent. What people often don't see is that I'm actually very consistent in my views of GW, if you really look at the content of what's being said.

I can tell you exactly what the majority of gamers' definition of "support" is. I'm not saying all gamers, but I am saying many of them.

It's one of my central pet peeves with Warhammer and how it's played as a game, I've been going back and forth on this topic for ten years with other Warhammer gamers.

For many gamers, many competitive Warhammer gamers especially, "support" means THIS:

YouTube link
YouTube link

Now, after you watch these, understand that I'm not bashing people who care about winning in general or care about their armies having the ability to win a game. Of course gamers want to know that their armies have a fighting chance of winning a game, naturally.

HOWEVER, what I AM bashing is the mentality that this guy Furion and so many others have. Namely that it was supposedly GW's job to not only keep Warhammer Fantasy Battle going forever and ever, whether it made GW money or not, just for the tournament community's benefit, but that it was also GW's job to cater to the tournament community and to ensure that every single army book and every rule set was perfectly balanced so that they could continue to play their precious Warhammer Olympics.

As far as I'm concerned, Furion is an example of why the concept of "support" for a game like WH has become so distorted and so twisted. Notwithstanding the fact that I don't think Warhammer was ever meant to be played at this level of fanatical competition because to me it undermines the whole point of playing it – but the tournament community made it an issue of SUPPORT as well as an issue of IMBALANCE, and they blame BOTH on GW!

Now think about that for a minute! This community, these tournament guys, who proclaim themselves to be the best generals, the true military geniuses, which to me is a bunch of c**p – I call what they do Spreadsheet Hammer – they call it tactics and strategy.

But think about this! These guys have been putting up with and playing tournament level Warhammer with 6th, 7th, and recently 8th editions of the game. They even go so far as to make their own comps to supposedly "balance" the game better for their purposes. So they use GW's rules, they use their point system, they use their army books, and they use their movement and measuring, etc. etc. But then they proceed to make their own version of 8th to facilitate their little elite tournament scene.

My point here is that they were already modifying the game for tournament play – the question is, WHY would they even care if GW continued to support the rules of the game or NOT???? In other words, if they thought that the army books were so bad and so out of balance, then WHY the f'n heck was it so important to them what GW's official rules were for an army in the first place???

In other words, to them the game was only "viable" and "alive" if GW continued to publish new rules and new army books for it, and continued to support those books with new stats and rules(stats and rules that they considered to be c**p) – but yet were considered vital to keeping tournaments going! HUH? WHA?

Imagine that! The games sucks but we want to win, so we'll put up with GW's lousy rules and we'll hang on every word when a new update comes out for an army book, because the next tournament's outcome could hinge on it!!!

And, if you listen to Furion's first video, he says, "with recent events of GW giving us the middle finger…"

Now wait a minute. I thought they went and used their own edition of 8th any way with ETC and Swedish Comp? So…so…why would they consider GW's ceasing to produce Warhammer any more to be "the middle finger"????

Why does it even matter? Why the he** do they care if GW "supports" the game or not, they consider GW's support for the game to be inferior, YET they played it all the while and essentially used GW's game engine with their own tweaks.

So they played a game for years, a game that they considered to be lazily written, badly conceived, and constantly needed in their eyes to be completely recomped to make it "playable". LOL. LOL. LOL.

And then GW comes out with Age of Sigmar, announces that they will not be making a Warhammer 9th, and this same community screams foul and demands to know where the latest stats are for their tournament armies, because NOW their armies, their beloved game, and their entire world are in limbo.

And SOMEHOW, just because GW failed to publish a 9th edition, every other edition of Warhammer is now suddenly and mysteriously DEAD. The game loses all "official support" and the tournaments implode and I guess the world cracks in half too.

And that is their definition of "lack of support" for a game. LOL. Narcissism ya think?

I know, it makes me laugh too. It just drives me f'n insane the mentality of people who think that something belongs to them and that it existed for their benefit and their benefit alone. I have news for them. Warhammer as a "supported" game never belonged to them. It was a game owned and published by GW for our enjoyment to play, or NOT play. Totally up to us. And that's it.

But try telling the Warhammer Olympians that.

I agree with you 100% on the tournament scene, and you still see it with 40K, where any new release is met with a slew of 'check out this latest broken combo' posts which makes me both laugh and cry at the same time.

The issue with support from where *I* sit, as a gamer who plays fluffy games yet still likes to win, is that model support for several armies will almost certainly be coming to an end shortly. Whatever they do with the Undead, it's my believe that chances are that much of the Tomb Kings standard troop types will disappear in favor of the newer Vampire Counts versions. Anything in finecast has a limited lifespan and so do any named characters it seems. Yes there is always ebay and thanks to the rage quitters there are some really good deals to be had there, but I like to (a) support my local store where possible, and (b) ebay is not exactly a reliable source of minis.

As far as 8th and AoS goes, we play both at my FLGS although I'm glad to say that 8th is making something of a comeback of late, with several players dusting off their old armies and getting their mass combat back on – a game is never truly dead as long as people remain that want to play it :)