The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[Vermis]

I've always said that I liked GW back when it was broke and run by nerds...before they hired proper business folk to attend to the business.  Remember when White Dwarf showed you how to make a Land Raider from WW1 tank kits, because it wasn't available from GW?

Well, like I say, I wasn't there for most of it. I think my GW/wargaming hobby started at an awkward juncture. I was into model kits when I was younger (I was never not a nerd...) and liked the idea of fighting battles with them. There was also a bit of that 'run by nerds' feeling left, mostly 'Fat Bloke' White Dwarf, which I agree was a good thing.
But it was about the turn of the millenium, when I was already in my late teens - to quote a wise old master, maybe 'too old to begin the training'. It also wouldn't be too long before GW released more considered, balanced games like LotR and the last gasp of the SGs, which only served to highlight the deficiencies of 3rd ed 40K and 6th ed WFB. Or at least that they weren't suited to me, and vice versa. (I have more nostalgia for Epic:A's short run than for 40K and FB combined) I guess it was also about the time that the internet really got going with wargaming communities, and publicising other wargames.
And then it wouldn't be much longer before GW started doubling down on their mercenary image: releasing the infamous 'giant issue' of White Dwarf, cutting off the SGs, etc. That put paid to GW for me.
Trouble was, like I said earlier, I was already hooked on their settings to game in. GW just makes them harder and harder to game in.

It's like... if the only versions of the original Star Wars trilogy you could buy were the ones with horrible special edition and prequel stuff shoehorned in... oh wait.

(With AoS, it's like the original trilogy was scrapped altogether and all you have are the prequels)

Now, the info I'm about to drop is no less than 10 years old, but when my buddy was managing a GW retail store in the very early 2000's the sales policies were aimed at first-time buyers.  The managers were told that the whole goal was to get mom/dad to buy their child $200+/- of stuff in the first big purchase.  Subsequent purchases were not as important in the business strategy at that time.

Aye, I've heard that.

Now, since then...GW shut down the majority of its retail locations and is only now opening up new ones.  I'm sure business practices have changed in 10+ years time.

Were they even sustainable back then? 10+ years ago... about the time the Return of the King movie came out and the LotR bubble burst. Does that suggest that, without LotR propping them up, GW's business practises weren't all that?

I have no idea what sales were like - but all of my gaming group had warbands and copies of Necromunda, Mordheim, etc.  They were definitely plenty popular.  I know Epic never sold too well

In your group, or in general? I'd heard that, before Epic 40K, it was considered GW's third core game.

Appreciated then tldr summary  

[Cubs]

Granted, I wasn't there for most of it, but looking at one example like Oldhammer - and here I take my life in my hands - I get the impression that the main motivation is nostalgia and lost youth, moreso than rules or model quality. Maybe GW always targeted a younger customer base (including excitable teenagers, and especially with it's WFB/40K rules style) but these days it's a bit more apparent, skewed a bit younger. Maybe even part of the reason for gamers ragequitting after GW shakes the snowglobe (i.e. changes editions) is because the rules, viewed in a slightly different form, have been outgrown.

I think that's certainly a factor, no doubt about it. But it all had a much more accessible and familiar aesthetic 'back in the day', and I'm talking the 80's and early 90's here. It all had a Middle Earth feel to it, with races we understood and enjoyed. There was much more of a light hearted and easy going appeal to the background, the rules and the models.

Looking at the models, they had good, classic poses, with realistic proportions and weapons. Lots of people were able to use their historical models for gaming with, because they fitted.

But then looking at how it all changed, from a game that was gently self-deprecating sometimes, to sometimes farcical characters and units, to then the 'Grimdark' flavour that one usually associates with adolescents who are too afraid to look childish, so they try to be as nasty as possible, thinking that's what being adult is. The models all turned into scowling, gurning action figures with bulging biceps and axes it would take a crane to lift. GW's obsession with having a monopoly and crushing all alternative systems led them to give the Warhammer World such a strong and unique flavour, they crammed ever more sigils and totems on the models, without ever wondering if it actually improved them. My suspension of disbelief was snapped then and I found myself outside of the bubble.

The horrible treatment of the Skaven possibly sums this one up. At first they were a brilliant addition to the Old World beastiary, swarming out of sewers and overwhelming humans who towered over them, by sheer weight of numbers. They were manky little ninjas who used stealth and surprise to infiltrate. Then the models got bigger ... and bigger ... and then they had rat ogres ... and jezzails ... okay, a little flavour, that I can live with ... then the wheel of doom thingy, then a gigantic 20-tonne bronze bell that somehow is wheeled about (perfect for sneaking) ... and their Chaos God incarnate ... and then they have become just another maxed-out with special rules army that has lost what was most appealing about it in the beginning.

Did I grow up? Well, if you ask my wife ..... but probably a little. Yet GW also grew down and became slightly puerile. The Oldhammer stuff remains as attractive to me as ever, because I enjoy what it is in itself, not just the memories it stirs in me.

SUMMARY FOR GRANT:

[Rhoderic]

There was a time when the guys running GW were just gamers - now that probably made for a terrible business, but the atmosphere was much less "feed the machine!".

"Feed the machine!" is an excellent way of encapsulating the spirit of contemporary GW. I'll have to remember that phrase.

Well, like I say, I wasn't there for most of it. I think my GW/wargaming hobby started at an awkward juncture. I was into model kits when I was younger (I was never not a nerd...) and liked the idea of fighting battles with them. There was also a bit of that 'run by nerds' feeling left, mostly 'Fat Bloke' White Dwarf, which I agree was a good thing.
But it was about the turn of the millenium, when I was already in my late teens - to quote a wise old master, maybe 'too old to begin the training'. It also wouldn't be too long before GW released more considered, balanced games like LotR and the last gasp of the SGs, which only served to highlight the deficiencies of 3rd ed 40K and 6th ed WFB. Or at least that they weren't suited to me, and vice versa. (I have more nostalgia for Epic:A's short run than for 40K and FB combined) I guess it was also about the time that the internet really got going with wargaming communities, and publicising other wargames.
And then it wouldn't be much longer before GW started doubling down on their mercenary image: releasing the infamous 'giant issue' of White Dwarf, cutting off the SGs, etc. That put paid to GW for me.
Trouble was, like I said earlier, I was already hooked on their settings to game in. GW just makes them harder and harder to game in.

In large parts, this mirrors my early days as a GW fan. I may have started and quit a bit earlier than you, but probably just a bit.

Seriously, I often wish I'd have properly discovered GW (and the miniature wargaming hobby as a whole) in the mid 90s aged 12 (or even the early 90s aged 10) instead of the late 90s aged 15-16. So many other people were into wargaming at age 12 or younger, at a time when GW was relatively speaking much more innocent (80s or early-to-mid 90s), and it feels to me like they have something I don't get to have. In concrete terms, I didn't "get to" experience pre-5th edition WHFB or pre-3rd edition 40K.

Still, I have my small share of nostalgia for late 90s GW and I'm not letting go of it (even if I did take a wrong turn and become a blind-by-faith GW fanboi for a while).

My nostalgia is best encapsulated by the cover artwork of the first issue of White Dwarf I bought:

http://www.geofftaylor-artist.com/galleries/games-workshop/art/white-dwarf-236-eldar

(EDIT: I forgot, GW lawyers don't like us linking to WD pictures. I've removed the image and just linked to the relevant page of the artist's website. Sorry!)

I know it dates from later than the era which many other hobbyists define as the golden age of GW, and honestly I do agree that the golden age was over by the time I discovered the GW games, but as I said, I need to hold on to what nostalgia I can.

Lots of insightful stuff

You put it better than I. Very well written!

[rebelyell2006]

Games Workshop made the news a few days ago, although not really "new" news...

[grant]

Games Workshop made the news a few days ago, although not really "new" news...

That is hilarious. What a great ending! GW truly are stupid.

[Dolmot]

Now wait... There were no names. It could have been any very well known company supplying fantasy wargaming products with a warehouse in Nottingham, right?

[Cubs]

Love it. Nice when people try to shaft someone, only to find they've shafted themselves.

Let me tell you, I've done that more than once at disappointing parties.

[Hobgoblin]

I wholeheartedly agree that the Oldhammer attraction is nostalgia (and not a little charm).  I've always said that I liked GW back when it was broke and run by nerds...before they hired proper business folk to attend to the business.  Remember when White Dwarf showed you how to make a Land Raider from WW1 tank kits, because it wasn't available from GW?  There was a time when the guys running GW were just gamers - now that probably made for a terrible business, but the atmosphere was much less "feed the machine!".

In that context, I think this quote from the second edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle is revealing:

"Although Warhammer has been designed around standard 25-30mm high metal models there is no reason why players shouldn't use any of the currently available plastic 54mm models instead. Citadel plan to release a comprehensive range of plastic models in 60mm, compatible with and suitably heroic looking when placed alongside models from Britains, Matchbox, Airfix, etc."

Add that sort of sentiment to the proliferation of non-Citadel miniatures in the armies shown in Warhammer publications (the siege poster with Minifigs orcs, Bryan Ansell's chaos army, etc) and you can see a glimpse of a very different future for the company - one in which it remained "open", but simply competed (and dominated) on quality.

I wonder what would have happened if GW had continued to take an "open" approach while continuing to improve the quality of its models - and, crucially, keeping plenty of generic models in its range. What the company is doing now is moving further and further away from the generic. That worked in 40K, where the background was sufficiently strong to dominate SF tabletop gaming (and also where the many of the models are still somewhat generic - soldiers in power armour, robots, aliens). But in fantasy, it strikes me that the further the company goes from the old "pathetic aesthetic" that it used to embrace, the more it stakes on the popularity of an entirely unknown quality - the enduring popularity of the AoS aesthetic. To put it another way, the blogosphere is full of pictures of people using GW goblins and dwarfs and beastmen in other games, from SBH to KoW. But the application of winged angel/terminator/centurions to generic games is likely to be limited.

Another point: when I was only a little older than my son is now, I'd spend much of my pocket money in Edinburgh's Games Master store, where you could pick up a Citadel night goblin for 45p - or a cold-one rider for £1.25. The numbers need to be adjusted for inflation, of course, but the "entry barrier" to fantasy gaming was extremely low. My primary school was full of kids with cold ones or skeletons in their pockets, and the early years of secondary school were very similar. The appeal of Citadel miniatures was widespread, and they were in hobby and toy shops everywhere. The first miniatures I bought - a night goblin, a Fantasy Tribes orc and a fighter - were from Edinburgh's venerable department store Jenners, where I'd gone to spend some saved-up pocket money on a Star Wars figure. In contrast, if my kids petition me to take them into Games Workshop today to look around, there's nothing that they can afford to buy - even with some slight parental indulgence. The "impulse purchase" for kids with a proclivity for goblins and trolls is entirely absent - as is the ubiquity.

The obvious thing, it seems to me, is for GW to come up with a simple but good skirmish game that requires only  four or five figures a side. They already have a few small boxes of figures, but no obvious rules or role for them. What, though, if you could use your five skeletons or three chaos marines, or whatever, in simple but engrossing game? Free rules, perhaps - a two-page insert or handout - and profiles for the miniatures in the box. Add in (on the website, with links on the boxes) child-friendly instructions on improvising scenery - books for stepped hills, Lego walls and hedges, yoghurt-pot buildings - and on making more permanent items. Give instructions for using toy dragons and dinosaurs in games - and for painting them up and basing them. Sell accompanying bundles of paints - so that for a box of five skeletons, you might get brown, bone, white, black and a metallic.

Also, don't differentiate between sci-fi and fantasy - so that if your friends fancy space marines, they can fight orcs as well as orks. It's easy enough to balance out rules so that primitives can compete with high-tech opponents. Make the game suitable for multiple players, so that kids can play at school lunchtimes (it's easy enough to smuggle four or five miniatures in anywhere ...).

All of that would provide a sharp hook. And then GW could use it as the gateway to games with more complex rules and the potential for much larger forces (and bigger models).

As it is, the parent who walks in with his kids is generally left shaking his head at the price tags and the complexity of it all.

[Vermis]

So many other people were into wargaming at age 12 or younger, at a time when GW was relatively speaking much more innocent (80s or early-to-mid 90s), and it feels to me like they have something I don't get to have. In concrete terms, I didn't "get to" experience pre-5th edition WHFB or pre-3rd edition 40K.

I get what you mean, especially after Cubs' post.

Ta Cubs. Food for thought. I already know I'm being too harsh about older minis. I've enjoyed watching Hobgoblin's painting log, and I'm not averse to a browse of Stuff of Legends or the Lost Minis Wiki, etc. etc. I almost tried getting a few chaos warriors off ebay to get in on the Oldhammer craze, too.

Given what you say about the direction of GW's aesthetic, I wonder if I'm picking on one period rather than Citadel's entire history. What I saw as 'old models' when I joined. On that note, fair to say that plastic chaos marauders and catachans are the poster boys of the trend you mean?

I've seen the same thing, I think, especially with your example of skaven. I like skaven (maybe because this was the second WD I bought*) and I think their current basic minis are some of the best yet. Stylised and cartoony, but in the right way, to my eyes. I have loads here that I should start painting up for some non-Warhammer gaming. (Though, it has to be said, along with a few older bits like the arquebus guy, here. )

But I agree that most of their appeal is as sneaky, half-mythical creatures striking from the shadows. The doomwheel was actually OOP when I started Warhammer, but I don't think I could stretch to that, or the new version. I liked the idea of big rat monsters in a WD Clan Moulder list; but when they arrived in the main army as the hell pit abomination, on top of everything else, I thought skaven had gone just a little too goofy.

And like you say, that seems to be how it went with everything, once GW upgraded their plastic production. Improvements in 'basic' infantry and cav, but everything else went bigger and more over the top. Every army had to have at least one goofy huge monster, and at least one goofy huge war machine, and ogre-sized monsters, and 'monstrous cavalry'. Empire demigryph knights stick out in my mind, for that one. Part of me thinks 'well, why not?', but I also think that in trying to give every army something special, GW was making every army more samey, and less special.

And then, AoS.

(I still think there can be a little too much nostalgia in Oldhammer, though. The point that made me think that was one too many blog posts hyping Kev Adams sculpts that were... not pleasing.)

* While I did a google for that pic, I stumbled across this. It freaks me out more than any number of fangy snarls, spiky rat ogres, or glowy green gubbins. That's what you should glimpse on a dark Geheimnisnacht, only for it to disappear when you double-take.

[Vermis]

Citadel plan to release a comprehensive range of plastic models in 60mm, compatible with and suitably heroic looking when placed alongside models from Britains, Matchbox, Airfix, etc."

Add that sort of sentiment to the proliferation of non-Citadel miniatures in the armies shown in Warhammer publications (the siege poster with Minifigs orcs, Bryan Ansell's chaos army, etc) and you can see a glimpse of a very different future for the company - one in which it remained "open", but simply competed (and dominated) on quality.

Seems to be a few of those old gamer-friendly plans that fell by the wayside.

Also, agreed that GW could easily compete on mini quality, combined with their plastic production capacity, churning out generic designs. I can understand the desire to make their designs and aesthetics exclusive to their game, but even that could be added to some of the mind-boggling decisions they actually made.

[Hobgoblin]

Seems to be a few of those old gamer-friendly plans that fell by the wayside.

Actually, that particular plan didn't quite fall by the wayside. They did produce a range of 60mm figures, although they were far too big (as I remember it) to fit in with 54mm Airfix soldiers. I used to use one of the orcs as a giant for my orcish warhammer army, and also as a balrog (I painted his cloak to look like a sheet of fire). That was widespread practice for a while, I think. The third edition of Warhammer has photos of one of the plastic ogres being used as a giant (he looks pretty good).

[3 fingers]

I wholeheartedly agree that the Oldhammer attraction is nostalgia (and not a little charm).  I've always said that I liked GW back when it was broke and run by nerds...before they hired proper business folk to attend to the business.  Remember when White Dwarf showed you how to make a Land Raider from WW1 tank kits, because it wasn't available from GW?  There was a time when the guys running GW were just gamers - now that probably made for a terrible business, but the atmosphere was much less "feed the machine!".

Now, the info I'm about to drop is no less than 10 years old, but when my buddy was managing a GW retail store in the very early 2000's the sales policies were aimed at first-time buyers.  The managers were told that the whole goal was to get mom/dad to buy their child $200+/- of stuff in the first big purchase.  Subsequent purchases were not as important in the business strategy at that time.  They didn't care too much about the occasional gamer picking up a single box or a paint brush or paint now and then.  Of course this strategy was laid out to the managers in their yearly conferences.

Now, since then...GW shut down the majority of its retail locations and is only now opening up new ones.  I'm sure business practices have changed in 10+ years time.

Regarding the specialist stuff, I always thought these were far superior to the build-armies games.  They were about $60 at the time, offered a complete game in a box, and in general were definitely more deep.  I thought they were easily GW's best products.  I have no idea what sales were like - but all of my gaming group had warbands and copies of Necromunda, Mordheim, etc.  They were definitely plenty popular.  I know Epic never sold too well, and the old Man o' War wasn't too successful.  I think for a retail store though it was a good idea to have these "one stop boxes" for the purchasers looking to get their kid into something but unable/unwilling to buy $200+ worth of stuff to get started.

I think they had some seriously quality titles available via their Historicals side...but that's another subject entirely.

Ah shampoo spaceship good times.

[Major_Gilbear]

The horrible treatment of the Skaven possibly sums this one up. At first they were a brilliant addition to the Old World beastiary, swarming out of sewers and overwhelming humans who towered over them, by sheer weight of numbers. They were manky little ninjas who used stealth and surprise to infiltrate. Then the models got bigger ... and bigger ... and then they had rat ogres ... and jezzails ... okay, a little flavour, that I can live with ... then the wheel of doom thingy, then a gigantic 20-tonne bronze bell that somehow is wheeled about (perfect for sneaking) ... and their Chaos God incarnate ... and then they have become just another maxed-out with special rules army that has lost what was most appealing about it in the beginning.

I agree and disagree here... I remember seeing Andy Chambers' original Skaven army, later accompanied by a scratch-built screaming bell, looong ago. So whilst the original range and fluff perhaps didn't include such items, they did get included quite early on in the race's development.

On the other hand, the Doomwheel was silly, and I think in a good way. In fact, it was one of the models that was cut after 5th edition because it was silly. It was replaced with the Warp Lightning Cannon, and although I liked the cannon too, I always felt that something fun and zany had been lost from the army.

At the other end of the scale were Plague Catapults, steampunk Rat Ogres with gun nipples, and the Hellpit Abomination; rather than fun/zany/silly, these just felt powergamey and unimaginative to me. Worse, they are very hard to proxy with totally different models/designs in a suitably satisfactory way, and to some extent are unfortunately somewhat required as part of a balanced army post-7th Edition. To me, this highlights the sharp business practice of "required" models before "fun games" starkly - a typical customer trap that many are now really sick of.

I actually hope that a rumoured Mordheim re-release will include a nice sprue of Clan Eshin rats in the Seb Perbet style that will finally look like I always imaged them to. That way, even if the re-released game is shit, I still get some nice models that match my collection and let me play older editions with.

On the subject of nostalgia, I leave you with this (taken from Realm Of Chaos 80s blog):

RoC80s: Looking back, what are your views about the early editions of Warhammer (1-3), Rogue Trader and WFRP compared to the more recent editions?

Andy Chambers: Nostalgia aside the more modern versions are superior products in pretty much every regard. I don't know WFRP very well but that's been well received in the new version by the players I do know.

And yet.

You can never beat your first time. The second generation is shinier, stronger, faster and superior in every regard save one, and it's an unfair criticism to level, but it simply can't be as original.

[FionaWhite]

I am not ashamed to say i would buy that...

I'm all for skyships but if GW was to make one, with their pricing I'd probably be cheaper off having someone design and 3D-print a custom one for me.
They do seem to make some kind of sky.. boat for their High Elves or Aelfes or whatever they're called now.

[richstrach]

Another point: when I was only a little older than my son is now, I'd spend much of my pocket money in Edinburgh's Games Master store, where you could pick up a Citadel night goblin for 45p - or a cold-one rider for £1.25. 

I wonder if we're of the same vintage? Do you remember Mac's Models down the bottom of the Canongate (the original location?) That's where all my Citadel stuff came from before GW opened on the High Street, and I remember it being a pocket-money hobby.