The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[Momotaro]

Except there's no real crossover with the specialist games. What other games do you use an Epic fleet with, a blood bowl team, a Man o War fleet? Admittedly you could potentially use Mordheim figures with WHFB, oh wait.......

Er.... same as you did last time?

[grant]

Many years ago, there were ways to do a grand campaign, I think in White Dwarf, where a Battlefleet Gothic space battle would determine how an Epic game would be played, and each Epic encounter could break down into a 40k game.

But really these games were great for standing on their own. I had and played BFG, Necromunda, Bloodbowl, Mordheim, Epic; I tried  to do something with both Inquisitor and Warmaster but I just never got it off the ground.

I've long been out of the GW Hobby ^TM. Probably keep it that way.

[Vermis]

Gibby: I don't disagree, and I wasn't singling you out. Sorry if it seemed that way. But the notion of 'support' is one that I've seen bandied about on other forums like Dakka (I should really limit my visits there...) especially in light of this news, and it's like a trigger.

Until recently I probably would've welcomed new SG stuff from GW. Now though, like I say, it's like "No! Shove off! You had your chance!"

I'm sceptical about how much support GW might provide anyway, if this goes off like their other recent box sets. Nice to have a box with official models, manufactured to GW's high standards, true; maybe, say, an Epic or BFG box with a force of Space Marines and a force of Orks. (Though these days, more likely a force of 'goodie' Space Marines and a force of 'baddie' Space Marines) And then what?

I have a feeling that the community projects and proxy makers might actually already provide more support, in some areas, even with their limited ranges and resources.
In fact, I remember the last release of Epic - Epic: Armageddon, the edition when the Epic bug bit me. Three forces for the initial book: Space Marines, Orks and Steel Legion IG. Updated vehicles for the SMs and orks, at least, but the plastic infantry sprues were retooled from previous editions. Unless I miss my guess, they were the same retooled plastic infantry from all the way back to the original Adeptus Titanicus expansions! For the E:A Stormwind expansion there were Eldar releases, and a limited range of metal vehicles for Baran Siegemaster IG and Feral Orks. (Those latter two completed with minis from the initial IG and ork ranges) There was also a sprueful of plastic CSM available for a while, and FW made a splash with their 6mm Tau and Grey Knights, before it all fizzled out.

So, five relatively complete ranges - six counting the GK (moar SMs) to be generous - and bits and pieces besides. Gonna be honest, that's more than than I thought when I started counting. But there were still a lot of factions that weren't catered for. Will we even get that much this time around?
I think the proxy sellers that popped up were able to match GW's output and fill a few gaps. Without going off on a long list of ranges, the output of Dark Realm, Steel Crown, Onslaught, Troublemaker, Microworld, Bradley and Khurasan easily added up to eleven factions - ten still available - with some duplicates and variations, and their own bits and pieces besides.

Major Gilbear: agreed!

The companies stepping in to make unofficial miniatures for the SGs are indeed doing a heroic effort, and I'll gladly play/collect any and all SGs that catch my fancy with any miniatures suitable to that end, official or not. It's just that some miniatures are not available, even from third-party manufacturers.

True. I admit I don't know too much about what's going on with potential SG proxies outside the Epic bubble, but even there I'd say there are still noticeable gaps. It's limited by the time and resources available to a bunch of one-man operations, not to mention the spectre of GW's legal team hovering about. But I've been watching people fill a lot of gaps anyway, and I wonder how far it can go.

I can't in good conscience cheer these companies on as they sail so close to the wind in regard to IP. That's not because I feel any sympathy toward GW and its IP struggles (I don't), but simply because making unofficial SG miniatures might be a gamble due to C&D umbrage, and I shouldn't be encouraging other people to gamble their money just so I can have what I want.

If it's any consolation, the folk making these things want to have them too, and they've likely already gambled the money. There's also the strange thing that GW overlooked quite a few close shaves, at 6mm anyway. The necrons that became edenites, for one. (They may have been modified, I'm not sure) Though that's not to say they were totally blind - I know of one wee enterprise, producing very close matches, that got stamped on.

I have a feeling that GW's remoras have gone through a lot of trial and error to sound out what they can do or get away with,  and the Chapterhouse case in particular has shown up how generic or unprotectable some of their concepts and designs are. I dunno. Maybe I'd have to get stung myself to see how right or wrong I am, and maybe this Specialist Studio bit will make GW more prickly again, but it's not something that stresses me too much.

So, I'm sad to say that when I look at the SG games, I do it with some melancholy, never being entirely sure whether they're quite as much alive today as they were back when GW was less cynical and still supported the games its own self.

I'll say they're not, unfortunately, with me own melancholy. I'm vocal about it because of the frustration of watching lots of people recoil from the letters 'OOP' like they were poison, and I know there are plenty who will never consider a game because of that, regardless of good reports or the availability of some resources.

But 'not quite as much alive' =/= 'dead'.

Momotaro: I think I'd be much happier if FF were handed the SGs, and I know I'm not the only one. I'm not entirely sure GW still knows how to pull off that box set-to-range thing.

The Calth box reminds me of the last edition of Space Hulk. Folk were grabbing that to play and to stick the termies in their SM armies, too. Arguably a tiny bit of what doomed Dreadfleet too: unplayable game, incompatible minis.

For one-off SG boxes... I'm not sure. On Mo's side, older gamers can use them to expand their old forces, and I've no doubt they'll be bought for that. But on Nord's side, going back to the issue of support: how many kids playing GW games these days will have a boxful of SG stuff in mothballs, and how will they flesh out that new box if it's a one-off?

[Dim_Reaper]

Overall, I've watched fans pick up the SGs from where GW dropped them, watched the fans support them and make them their own. It wasn't good enough for folk who didn't like their games without an official stamp, who thought that only GW was capable or deserving of providing support; but I thought it was an almost heroic effort - is an almost heroic effort - and I honestly regret not doing something about it myself.

...And another sad thing is that a lot of old SG fans won't care, because they're getting their officially-stamped one-off box sets.

I think this statement here from Vermis earlier sums up my frustration. I've been involved with various fan projects over the years, and it's led me to this conclusion: a weak concept from a position of authority is more powerful and influential than a stronger concept from a position with less to no authority.

Fans have been keeping the SGs afloat for years, and almost entirely without thanks. Other fans have been modifying some of the cores, and the general attitude throughout the community has been that such writers are little more than wish-listing power gamers who want to recapture old power plays. Fan Rules are distrusted, House Rules barely used. It's not surprising, there have been generations of gamers since the 90s who value officialdom over everything else and have never even contemplated the idea of modifying rules to suit and using common sense to resolve rules issues.

These generations, ones that are happier to stick with what is official, said source who had writers, who for the sake of fairness to a new community I have been welcomed into: are at the very least controversial names who have not been popular, and some of them are still there. Who have put out arse covering platitudes that encourage wargamers to forsake all linguistic sense in favour of literal interpretations and inflexible attitudes to interpretation. Because GW got away with pretty much all of this, it's not surprising what else they get away with. I would say that their Rules Writing has been wanting for over a decade at this point, and it has been getting steadily worse.

Whilst I will confess a bit of a soft spot for Age of Sigmar (I never had much fondness for WHFB or much of its community), it's still proof beyond all doubt that GW's writers were never merely failing because of trying to keep the integrity of a system intact. Age of Sigmar barely functions, and issues a massive cop-out that threatens to endanger the integrity of rules writers in the entire industry in at least 3 different ways. Sure, it's fun to play, it even to my mind works a little better than WHFB did in giving some factions an actual chance, but it still broadly fails at this.

People are talking about these new statements as if GW are "Supporting" the Old Specialist Games. That isn't necessarily the case. Just because they're going to stick Necromunda, Mordheim, Bloodbowl or Epic onto the front of a high-def printed box doesn't mean that this is remotely what it contains. It hasn't been stated that it'll be the herald of concurrent releases, and I seriously have my doubts that it will.

GW have had a Design Studio going for quite a while, and looking at Age of Sigmar, 40k and the Hobbit game collectively, they're not a very good one.

They can certainly come up with some good ideas from time to time, even games that are broadly good (Execution Force), but the principles upon which they write are ridiculous, and the cop outs they employ as damage control are testament to that.

Even if GW are going to "Support" Specialist Games again, representing more than just the factions they choose to put in a boxed game, there are no guarantees that what they produce will be remotely good, or even a single patch on any of the Old Games they are replacing. Why do I believe this? Take a look at Necromunda: Underhive. From any perspective, this latter day update was a complete and total failure. It was deluged with typos, but more importantly, it was a factory reset of the old game that took out a lot of character (and all of Outlanders) and repackaged it "modernised". It added one good rule, and then it initiated a paperchase with the Outlander updates, many of which were vastly more overpowered than their first edition versions. Against a Redemption player in Underhive who knows what they are doing you have virtually no chance of dealing with them.

What I like about Specialist Games was that they were left alone. They weren't going to get screwed around with. They weren't going to deteriorate. They may not have been perfect, but at least they were stable, unlike the Cores, that have become a mess of ridiculous inequalities. Most of the SGs were written by writers that I rate highly. Of them all, only Jervis still works for the company, and given his "Standard Bearer", which started the tides of roll-offs and RAW, I'm not a big fan any more. I don't rate any of the others either. The endless reams of platitude-ridden cop-outs have been it for me, and I wont be buying any more rulebooks from this company. Forging the Narrative, the miniatures company label, removing specific author names from their publications, all of these are about damage control and are hollow statements that aren't even true. 40k isn't a narrative game (certainly no more than tiddly winks is), they still make rules and fluff for their models, because they admit by action that without them they'd be pointless, and writers still mostly solo books, it's just they don't like admitting who, and occasionally White Dwarf lets slip who it is.

So, to end a long-winded rant with a conclusion, I'm not looking forward to these new "games". I don't have any respect for their writers, and GW are only ultimately good at things that computer software can fix for them. It's been a bugbear for quite a while now, and I'm tired of it.

As a Specialist Games enthusiast, whether they bring out a new version or not isn't going to bother me. I own the publications that matter to me, and I'll stick to using those. I'm sure I'm not the only SG gamer who will do that.

[grant]

So, it's a no from you, then? 

[thenamelessdead]

Probably the most fun I ever had with any GW game was SG's, particularly Blood Bowl and Mordheim. The rules are there, albeit the 'living' versions might not technically be wholly GW's any longer (anyone know how this works?). I really find it difficult to believe that it can be in any way difficult for such a large company to give these fine games another run. They are begging to be given a refresh and introduced to a new generation of gamers while making a lot of older ones very happy. The problem is that GW no longer appears to be interested in the games or settings. So I think they'll either make expensive, limited, one-box games of maybe one or two of the old SG's, or nothing at all. Can anyone really imagine them making huge ranges of teams/gangs/fleets etc in this day and age?

[Momotaro]

Probably the most fun I ever had with any GW game was SG's, particularly Blood Bowl and Mordheim. The rules are there, albeit the 'living' versions might not technically be wholly GW's any longer (anyone know how this works?).

You can't copyright rules, only the expression of them (the actual document).  Copyright, unlike trademarks, does not have to be defended to remain valid.

So GW still owns the games as they were written.  If the living documents use blocks of text, tables and artwork from the original, GW still owns those.  New rules, sections of rules that have been rewritten - all those belong to the respective authors.  If you try to publish with big chunks of GW copyrighted material, they're perfectly within their rights to demand you take the material down.

If the living documents use GW trademarks, then the document has to acknowledge GW's ownership of those TMs.  Otherwise, the document can be understood as a challenge to the trademark - in that case, GW MUST litigate to retain control of them.

The converse is true - if GW likes a "new" rule, they could rewrite those sections to use the algorithms.

So the answer lies with the specific contents of the living rulebooks, but I'd put money on GW having them by the balls...

[Momotaro]

Momotaro: I think I'd be much happier if FF were handed the SGs, and I know I'm not the only one. I'm not entirely sure GW still knows how to pull off that box set-to-range thing.

The Calth box reminds me of the last edition of Space Hulk. Folk were grabbing that to play and to stick the termies in their SM armies, too. Arguably a tiny bit of what doomed Dreadfleet too: unplayable game, incompatible minis.

For one-off SG boxes... I'm not sure. On Mo's side, older gamers can use them to expand their old forces, and I've no doubt they'll be bought for that. But on Nord's side, going back to the issue of support: how many kids playing GW games these days will have a boxful of SG stuff in mothballs, and how will they flesh out that new box if it's a one-off?

GW's games have often been saturated with choice - often more than their minis ranges supported.  I'd actually argue that 40k and WFB are/were badly written partly because they are overloaded with "trap" choices - army builds and model weapon choices that are strictly inferior to others in all situations.  And bloody hard to correct once the figures are glued together...

Other games replace model options with options for spells, abilities, gear and events.  I'm not claiming that GW is capable of writing that kind of tight, clever ruleset, but it's not impossible.  Agree with you about what FFG rulesets could achieve with GW models, but to my mind they can go too far the other way  - TOO MANY cards on the table.

There's a happy medium somewhere...

Dreadfleet was the perfect storm of uselessness.  You wouldn't buy it for the rules; what could you even use the ships for?

To be honest, I'm surprised that the Calth box even contains non-40k rules.  I'm pretty sure that everyone and their dog is buying them for 30k armies.

I'm more excited that GW are advertising for new Middle-Earth designers and writers alongside the SG ones.  Clearly something is stirring in GW-land...

[grant]

To be honest, I'm surprised that the Calth box even contains non-40k rules.  I'm pretty sure that everyone and their dog is buying them for 30k armies.

I'm more excited that GW are advertising for new Middle-Earth designers and writers alongside the SG ones.  Clearly something is stirring in GW-land...

Well, they wouldn't have had to, if all the talent was retained. I guess some schmuck will still do it.

In the recycling heap archeology dig 1000 years from now, the vast quantities of the contents of Calth box barring the miniatures will make the future wonder - just what happened here? Why did they ALL throw the cardboard box, rules, and all the other useless crap in the recycling heap? Where are all the plastics?

[Momotaro]

I could find a use for the hex boards and dice if they come up cheap on eBay...

I believe a large quantity of the original Dark Heresy RPG was landfilled when GW decided to ditch the line the DAY AFTER they released it...

[Rhoderic]

In the recycling heap archeology dig 1000 years from now, the vast quantities of the contents of Calth box barring the miniatures will make the future wonder - just what happened here? Why did they ALL throw the cardboard box, rules, and all the other useless crap in the recycling heap? Where are all the plastics?

This. If the SGs return in any form, I'll only be interested in scavenging miniatures off of them (and that's only assuming the cost-benefit works out in my favour, which it may well not).

GW studio rules? I'd almost forgotten that sort of thing even exists.

[richstrach]

I was obsessed with GW stuff in the late 1980s/early 1990s, and 40K/WHFB (and Fantasy Roleplay - what on earth happened to that again?) was my life when I was a kid, but by 1993 or so I started a long hiatus from wargaming and so all the specialist games passed me by. Since getting back into the hobby though, Mordheim is a name that keeps coming up, and I'd love to see an updated version of it in whatever format. The LotR news interests me most though; when I got back into gaming, I kept wanting to get into The Hobbit, but even to a relative outsider it seems obvious that it gets no support from GW. I'll be intrigued to see what they do with it, even though my finances make GW's prices completely out of my range.

[mcfonz]

Well, they wouldn't have had to, if all the talent was retained. I guess some schmuck will still do it.

In the recycling heap archeology dig 1000 years from now, the vast quantities of the contents of Calth box barring the miniatures will make the future wonder - just what happened here? Why did they ALL throw the cardboard box, rules, and all the other useless crap in the recycling heap? Where are all the plastics?

Actually, I think it makes complete sense and is quite intuitive.

They released a 30k boardgame with 28mm miniatures. This way it is not a 30k starter set. It doesn't have to be 'balanced'. It's not competing directly with 40k and is a complete stand-a-lone.

It will appeal to more than the 40k players. It will appeal to those who perhaps only have time or inclination for boardgames now (and Zombicide has shown that it isn't a small market). People who stopped collecting years ago but who have been buying and reading the Black Library books on the Horus Heresy etc. A stand a lone board game will appeal to them more or as much as getting back into the full on wargame side of things.

If they had just done it as a 'starter set' I don't think the appeal would have been as broad.

[Vermis]

With all the hype about the Horus Heresy these last few years, BL novels etc., GW Prime doing something like this about it is probably one of the best things they could do. But by that token it is kind of a no-brainer.

But then, based on recent performance, GW may be lacking a brain in the first place, which makes it impressive again... it's a real chicken-egg conundrum.

Lots of things

A sincere and hearty welcome to the LAF, Dim_Reaper.

[grant]

And the recycling of the useless junk begins:

"All the rules, dice, cards and boards from Horus Heresy: Betrayal At Calth"
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=84465.0