"Overheard GW News/Rumors" Topic

After years of hacking away at metal miniatures to get the effects I've wanted, GW plastics have been a revelation. The Tomb Kings army I'm putting together now is going like a dream, and I can't fault the detail. I only wish the Casket of Souls had been a plastic kit too, because there's some moulding defects on that that are going to be the devil to clean up…

The only thing I can't get my head around is why they mould a trumpet for the skeleton musician. Surely breath would be in somewhat short supply for skellies? Still, drums aren't going to be hard to model.

It'll be interesting to see where the new technology takes GW. Comparing at the stuff they produce now to what they did a couple of years ago I'd say the improvement is marked. I look forward to seeing what they come up with next…

GW Plastics are a hell of a lot better than the originals used to be. The psychostyrene dwarfs and drastic plastic orcs were really poor, but then they were seriously cheap to buy! Ditto the first plastic regiment set they did with 60 figures. Those in particular were dreadful.

Their old skeleton horde was nice but their new skellies are much easier to paint because the detail's that bit sharper but then they're bigger.

I agree with GypsyComet, the new Space Marine Landspeeder is a right pig to put together!

Dispelling a couple of myths…

1st… I would bet that MANY people at GW have already HAD the 3DO programs necessary to create rapid prototypes and make molds out of plastics…

Open GL on Macs will do this cheaply enough, and can produce Auto-CAD compatible files with little difficulty (I should say NO difficulty)…

As for "Obtaining" other CAD equipment… For what GW needs to produce this would be a REALLY insignificant item in their budget. a few thousand dollars of equipment. Not exactly a lot of outlay for a multi-million dollar a year industry. A fully licensed copy of Auto-CAD for instance is only $5000, and that comes with so many bells and whistles that GW would NOT need (I am sure that they are going to need to run a bit-changable 40 ton 5-axis vertical mill capable of producing parts to .000001 tolerance)… The equipment that they need does not have to be machine quality tolerance and as such can be obtained for a few thousand more. You can even get several types of Rapid Prototyping machines for under five grand now… Some for as little as a couple of thousand dollars that could produce the level of detail that GW would need

As for the ability to produce FW models in plastic… That has been in the process for some of the vehicles for some time. I imagine that more of them will continue to find their way across to the Plastic of metal of GW products… save for the group that i am most interested in: The Epic stuff…

Most of the Epic Models that FW produces would have to be RREALLY re-worked to be produced in plastic. They have too many small undercuts and pieces that would have to be thickened a lot before they would cast with the kind of money that GW spends on its molds… If it were Tamiya or Another large Plastics kit maker… They could probably pull it off, but from the recent stuff that I have seen from GW… Probably not… That isn't even considering that all of the Epic Stuff is in the hands of Specialist Games division of GW, and I doubt that they would be given the necessary time and money to pull of something as minor as getting the FW stuff produced in plastic (Which I would really like as I am using the Valkyries as Section transports for a Sci-Fi battalion that i have built, and I have a Tau Infantry company that i am using for another Sci-Fi game as well – I don't do 40K though)….

Something that they are REALLY dropping the ball on that I am sure another company will come up with soon (ME if no one else will hurry up) is using 3DO/CAD files to produce a miniature line in ALL scales.

Once you begin producing masters in 3DO all you need to do to re-scale a file is to pull down the scaling menu and hit (50%, and 10%, or whatever size you want to make the thing) and you will have yourself a 15mm miniature that was made from the original 3DO file, or a 10mm or 6mm miniature master… If you are going to spend the money to make them in CAD files then you might as welll make sure that you cover ALL of the bases in scales…

I know that there are a LOT of miniatures that I do not buy (and others will not buy as well) simply because they are not in a scale that I would want to use them for. For instance, I have no use for 28mm miniatures these days, but I would but the hell out of 6mm, 10mm, or 15mm… If a company does not make that scale then they cannot get my business… The same goes in other directions as well…

If a company only makes 6mm, 10mm, or 15mm minis; they are losing out on the business that they could be getting from people who only buy 28mm minis….

I am not sure that GW is smart enough to do something like that though (Or thoughful enough about their clientelle)

PeteUK, one of the old skellie sets had metal drum arm bits for the musicians. I could probably find you the parts code if you are interested.

Thanks for the offer, Mweaver, but I'll be making the drums out of Milliput. As far as I've been able to ascertain, ancient Egyptian war drums looked a bit like an elongated rugby-ball with the ends flattened off, held horizontally on a strap around the neck and beaten on both ends. I'll base my design on that…

The arms themselves will be easy to modify, too, being plastic.

It was the 1980s…
"Da-Dah!" plastic shields, to reduce prices!
Prices stayed same.

""Da-Dah!" Plastic slotta bases, to reduce prices!
Prices stayed same.

Seriously doubt this will ever change.

DahDah – i have no recollecection of them ever saying this would reduce prices.

Plastic Slotta bases were not to reduce price – they were so the figures all stood up properly and could be based uniformly. I don't remember GW ever saying 'this will allow us to reduce our prices!!" ; They ain't that dumb.

Pat

Ratbone – I was referring to Tamiya & Italieri 1/35 armor kits which are available online for $15 USD – 30. GW armor kits go for $30 USD – $60. USD If you can get GW kits for a comparable price to military kits you must be getting a great discount on GW, or be paying way too much for the military stuff.

While I agree that the level of detail in GW's plastic kits has grown by leaps and bounds in the last 15 years, I find most contemporary military kits still have better detail than contemporary GW kits.

Pat- definitely how I recall the idea being sold to WHITE DWARF readers at the time…

Sadly, I can't possibly believe that any cost savings in their manufacturing processes would be passed along to consumers. GW has worked too hard to create a feeling of an elite hobby that consumers must expect to pay dearly for to undermine it by reducing prices. Have to keep the riff-raff out, you know.

I must say, in general, I love and adore most of the plastic sets. At least for infantry, anyways. The vehicles Im not so keen on, but thats not the plastic per se, as much as the general design

"My suspicion is that they might be trying to stop anyone else manufacturing LOTR models and thus corner the market."

I read their annual report the other day. That was stated as being a key reason for getting the LOTR licence (#2 to "because it fits well", I believe). It was quite open about it.

"I'm not a GW stockholder, but from a stockholder point of view would that be a legitimate way to report expenses and earnings?"

Not my exact field of accounting and at first I thought ? But thinking about it, I think this probably relates to onerous lease provisions. They'll provide for the cost of a store's remaining lease term, which will hit income.

Oh, and I should add that accounting is perfectly legitimate.

Happily they can't stop anyone producing fantasy figures to the same proportion as the LotR stuff and in a 'sympathetic' style! (for generic types, of course)

WH 40K… I will never understand how people can buy a 30$ toy that looks like something you get with a 5$ McDonald Happy Meal.

I thinl LotR will last, its got a solid fan base and the sculpters are among the very best in the world.

I've not built any Italieri or Tamiya, when I see their boxes they have a cheap 'look' to them that makes me feel like the lower price is for a lower quality product. I might give one a chance if you say the detail is that good.

Wait, I did put together Wild Weasel (can't remember the real jet ID) from Vietnam, it was Tamiya, but it was 1/72nd. It was quite a good model, though I was annoyed at how small everything was and how easily things broke so I had to be ever so gentle. This was my foray into small stuff and I won't go back except for special occasions. I can't fault the quality of the model though. Far better than the previous Rhino. Though it was either 10 or 15 bucks for something that ended up about the same size as a big commander from GW, or maybe one of the shrimpy war walker types which GW usually sells for 30 or more. So the price was great too, but then it's tough to understand why game value and popularity drives prices in GW stuff rather than overall size and expense of the production.

Oh yeah, I've built two land speeders and I didn't think they were all that much trouble. The real trouble came from not being able to set it down neatly cause of the stupid little thing hanging down (nads?). I can't speak for the dwarves though.

And it had much better detail than the Rhinos. In fact the Rhino had the worst detailing until they made the new kits. They were just awful, plain and smooth with no life to them.

"GW has bought a rather expensive piece of CAD diemaking equipment that should allow them to cast the ForgeWorld line in injection molded plastic rather than resin."

—White Dwarf 314 makes no secret about this…IN FACT, GW announced this purchase about how they were utilizing this "new" technology/purchase back in issue 304 (which means, due to printing lag time, they wrote about having this new equipment, 2-3 months before that, and were incorporating it for a few months before that). Really, it's no secret. My standard rebuttle to the "too expensive" battlecry is, welcome to the free(ish) market economy. This is what stock markets (and publicly-traded companies) do: buy low, sell high. Next time, maybe vote for a party that promises to put more government into the economy….or move to Switzerland, perhaps. :)

"GW has finished negotiating with Christopher Tolkien who owns the rights to The Silmarillion."

—Whereas that bit *is * new, waaaaay back Alessio Caviatore wrote a LotR update where he announced the exciing times a'coming due to GW's securing rights to make miniatures based off LotR literature. This announcement came before Shadow & Flame was released (that book was released before the Return of the King movie was in theatres!)—this puts the article being printed back in the 270s-range of White Dwarfs.
Again, really no secret.

"Apparently, GW factors in around two years' of operating expenses up front when opening a new store. These costs are charged against income in the year that the store is opened."
—This seems, to me, to be fairly typical. It probably has something to do with them not wanting to worry about the possibility of the store having to close in its first 2 years while they try to grow a customer base in that shop's area. Seems to me if you have pockets deep enough,it's a smart thing to do…plus it probably also lets you have more solid info as to what's on the horizon (expense-wise) when reporting to investors. I'm sure very few investors put money into companies that are unsure as to where they'll be in 2 year's time.

Sorry about this rant, but all this "black helicopters" talk about GW is really silly. Being a publicly-traded company means it's fairly difficult for them to keep secrets about how they do business (keeping open books and all).

Oh yeah, and despite the slowdown of LotR (with no movies to keep it in the public and non-game-players' eyes), the game remains possibly the most elegant set of rules the company has released. Granted, it takes a few more games played before you see the game TOTALLY shine; I think it may just be GW's best game. Burst shmurst. There's still more people involved than would be had they never released the game at all—and about time a company with a real budget was able to tackle Lord of the Rings (as much as I love LotR, I was never able to get behind the sculpts at Mithril….except for their 9 ringwraiths in armour).

okay, I'll stop now

"This seems, to me, to be fairly typical."

Well I would hope not because, strictly as it was written, the accounting would be fraudulent. But my guess is someone misunderstood exactly what the accounting was, especially as there is not benefit to be gained from following that treatment on a consistent basis.