The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[Dim_Reaper]

GW were market leaders for a long time before they got crap, so no, it's not just the 'I liked them before they were successful' thing. It was when they became market overlords they started to become crap. It was by doing all the good stuff they went from just another miniature company, to the leading miniature company, to a monopoly. Along the way they copied a lot of fantasy and sci-fi ideas from other sources, but that's okay, because there's nothing truly original under the sun, every idea comes from somewhere. Unfortunately it's what they did next that was the problem, ironically, this is arguably a direct result of having no real competition.

Well that goes along with what I was saying about their attitude. It's their attitude that is the problem, and it is disastrously devaluing their product.

As to "tweeness", I don't really see it. The knights of chaos in the image I posted before would fit in plausibly with historical miniatures; most of their equipment is plausible if extravagant. Given any one of them a bunch of Sassanid or Seljuk or Varangian followers from a good historical manufacturer and you'd have a decent fantasy warband. As I type, I'm looking at goblins: some of the plastic ones from a Warhammer boxed set (which are quite good) and some Perry solid-based ones from the 1980s. I like both, but the Perry ones are better for a number of reasons - less cartoonish, more natural-looking posture, more plausible hoods where they have them (those goblins must get through a lot of starch!), less stylised weapons and greater variety. And yes, they have more character, but they're certainly less twee. If you were to size either set up to use as garden gnomes (there's surely nothing more twee!), then you'd go for the plastic ones every time!

Oh come on, you have got to be kidding. Sure, some of it probably isn't twee, but a lot of it is also naff. I personally do not demand realism in my completely fictional fantasy miniatures. A bit of crazy, nonsensical madness does me quite nicely. If we take the LOTR stuff, which isn't Heroic Scale, those things are barely fun to paint. Twee means quaint. It isn't about scale, it's about style. Sure, some of the models are quite iconic, but it's often through sifting over a massive amount of models that look incredibly dated and incredibly generic. There's nothing I've seen, from, say, the 4th Edition WHFB Chaos range that you couldn't easily spot in any B Movie fantasy movie like Hawk the Slayer, Sword of the Sorcerer or Krull. And whilst those images undoubtedly have charm about them, if I had to take say, the modern Lord of the Rings films, 300 or 47 Ronin or the aforementioned films, I wouldn't think about it for long. The older 3 may be guilty pleasures of mine, but I'd rather watch something nuts like 300 over them if I wanted to be entertained for an evening. My attitude is similar when it comes to miniatures.

They look dated. They utterly do. I have a lot of the Rogue Trader Ork models. I love them for their character. But they are twee, and they are dated.

Fitting in with Historical Miniatures also doesn't fit with my benchmark of good. I personally didn't like the models you posted. I'd actually rather have the Varanguard. I'm not saying nobody could like the models you posted up, I'm just saying there is a market for their models, and that's the one thing that wont change quickly. Frankly, I find a lot of Old Hammer models dull. Uninspiring, necessarily generic, because GW hadn't found what their fantasy was about, and so piddled around with all the typical sorts of tropes and visages you find on the cover of any trashy LOTR knock off book.

[Hupp n at em]

Fitting in with Historical Miniatures also doesn't fit with my benchmark of good. I personally didn't like the models you posted. I'd actually rather have the Varanguard. I'm not saying nobody could like the models you posted up, I'm just saying there is a market for their models, and that's the one thing that wont change quickly. Frankly, I find a lot of Old Hammer models dull. Uninspiring, necessarily generic, because GW hadn't found what their fantasy was about, and so piddled around with all the typical sorts of tropes and visages you find on the cover of any trashy LOTR knock off book.

I agree with you on Oldhammer, but also really dislike the current stuff. Guess I'm the chaotic neutral in this thread. 

[Ray Rivers]

Left.. kinda weird, right... kinda dorky, center... definitely badass... 

[Elbows]

I agree with you on Oldhammer, but also really dislike the current stuff. Guess I'm the chaotic neutral in this thread. 

Nah, I'm with you. The bulk of the character-ful stuff to me is a bit...meh, but it was the attitude of the company which attracted me to that genre.  I think there is room for a middle-ground.  You can be plenty grimdark (I love the aesthetic it's just way toooo OTT most of the time) without being absurdly over-dramatic/overdone.

Look at Red Box Games...definitely fantastical stuff, character-ful, fits with grim-dark yet isn't completely comical in design.  There is a place for awesome fantasy and sci-fi designs...GW have just missed it.

[Rhoderic]

Out of curiosity, Dim Reaper, has Mat Ward by any chance secured a restraining order against you?

As for grimdarkitude, to the limited extent that I still care about the official GW game settings, I'm more dispirited by the rising tide of grimdarkness in the WHFB/AoS setting than in the 40K setting. Now, I am aware that the Warhammer world has always had a strong undercurrent of dark fantasy - just look at Mordheim or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (which I believe has always overtly identified itself as a "dark fantasy RPG"). But still, at some point the grimness and the darkness of WHFB took on a new tone that was far less sublime and far more "to the max!!!". To me, the first hint of that change was the Storm of Chaos campaign, but at any rate it was full-on by the time the End Times were an official concept. AoS has been a continuation of that trend. More than anything, it's the Wagnerian doomsday romanticism that gets to me. Gods, but I hate Wagner and the things his legacy have done to our culture.

I see some of that maxed-out mentality mirrored in contemporary 40K. It's certainly always been grimdark, and by the time I got into 40K the setting had progressed well past the zany Rogue Trader days, but I guess my problem is that grimdarkness, when maxed-out and approached with zero self-distance, feels... pandering. Somewhere along the line, GW lost the touch.

It's like everything GW does these days, it does perfunctorily. The grimdarkness, the aesthetic, the rules (from what I hear). It's as if their sole motivation for doing what they do nowadays is "We're GW, this is what we do". Why the turgid doomsday romanticism? "We're GW". Why the camouflage of detail? "We're GW". Why all the spikes and skulls on every surface? "We're GW".

[Malebolgia]

Left.. kinda weird, right... kinda dorky, center... definitely badass... 

All three are utter shit IMO. But hey, there's no point discussing taste eh

[Cubs]

I think there's confusion over what constitutes 'Oldhammer'. Generally it's taken as early 90's and before - kind of 1st, 2nd and 3rd Ed WHFB. I think it's fair to say the majority of Oldhammerers think things peaked at 3rd Ed and those rules are their favourite. Personally I like the really early stuff, 1st and 2nd, but I'm just in it for the models.

You think 4th Ed onwards looks silly? I agree, that was their comical phase - the infamous 'Red Era', which I also disliked. It went from an easy-going, laid back sort of understated brand of fantasy to high farce. Then it snapped to grimdark.

40K was never my bag, so I can't comment one way or the other.

[Hobgoblin]

Oh come on, you have got to be kidding.

Not in the slightest! 

Sure, some of it probably isn't twee, but a lot of it is also naff. I personally do not demand realism in my completely fictional fantasy miniatures. A bit of crazy, nonsensical madness does me quite nicely. If we take the LOTR stuff, which isn't Heroic Scale, those things are barely fun to paint. Twee means quaint. It isn't about scale, it's about style.

I'd agree about the LotR stuff not being much fun to paint. I'm not a great fan of the films (though I do like the Rohirrim miniatures), and I much prefer Citadel's early metal "heroic scale" LotR range from the 80s (there were some shockers in that, but also some very good models that hold up well today).

My point about the goblins had nothing to do with scale: the recent plastics are much more twee - like garden gnomes - than the Perry solid-based metal ones (e.g. the night goblins and chaos goblins). As well as being quaint, the plastic goblins are also more cartoonish and less plausible. They're not bad, (the one-piece hooded range) but they are nothing like as convincing as their solid-based brethren of yore.

Sure, some of the models are quite iconic, but it's often through sifting over a massive amount of models that look incredibly dated and incredibly generic.

But there are whole ranges that are terrific. Aly Morrison's pre-slotta hobgoblins, for example: some of the best "orcish" miniatures ever made. The C15 armoured orcs. The Perrys' night goblins and chaos goblins. Their Slann. Their broo. Tom Meier's trolls, giant goblins, lizardmen and troglodytes. Or Trish Morrison's beastmen (it was all downhill from there - from eerie wretchedness and a suitably chaotic menagerie to cricket-bat swords, steroids and identikit goatmen; that said, I do quite like the recent ungor plastics, which are much better than anything since the Morrison ones, though still too goatish). And so on.

There's nothing I've seen, from, say, the 4th Edition WHFB Chaos range that you couldn't easily spot in any B Movie fantasy movie like Hawk the Slayer, Sword of the Sorcerer or Krull. And whilst those images undoubtedly have charm about them, if I had to take say, the modern Lord of the Rings films, 300 or 47 Ronin or the aforementioned films, I wouldn't think about it for long. The older 3 may be guilty pleasures of mine, but I'd rather watch something nuts like 300 over them if I wanted to be entertained for an evening. My attitude is similar when it comes to miniatures.

Now, I agree with you on the fourth-edition stuff. It's terrible: camp and cartoony. I think a lot of Citadel ranges got brasher, camper and sillier once slotta-basing freed up the posing. But I don't quite follow your argument. Surely the reason that the LotR films work better than the 80s ones you mention is, in part, because so much effort was put into making the costumes plausible. The miniature equivalents, to me, are the understated, non-cartoony Perry night goblins and armoured orcs, or the Morrison hobgoblins. They're plausible, in the way that Peter Jackson's costuming is and Hawk the Slayer's is not. You could field a warband of Morrison hobgoblins against Foundry Samurai and have a pretty convincing-looking tabletop battle - and all in "heroic scale".

They look dated. They utterly do. I have a lot of the Rogue Trader Ork models. I love them for their character. But they are twee, and they are dated.

As I remember it, the Orks were pretty goofy from the start. There were one or two of the early nobles in power armour that looked quite sinister in a Treen sort of way, and the odd other exception, but they were goofy from the get-go. I haven't followed their progress much, but the latest ones seem to have layered a steroidal campness on the goofiness.

Fitting in with Historical Miniatures also doesn't fit with my benchmark of good. I personally didn't like the models you posted. I'd actually rather have the Varanguard. I'm not saying nobody could like the models you posted up, I'm just saying there is a market for their models, and that's the one thing that wont change quickly. Frankly, I find a lot of Old Hammer models dull. Uninspiring, necessarily generic, because GW hadn't found what their fantasy was about, and so piddled around with all the typical sorts of tropes and visages you find on the cover of any trashy LOTR knock off book.

But it's hard to see how miniatures that fit in well with historicals can be twee. Convincing, plausible, naturalistic (I think the best pre-slotta Perry and Morrison stuff is all that), but not twee. Now, once you get into the slottabase era, all sorts of silliness and tweeness comes spilling out. Much as I love the Morrisons' early stuff, I think the whole Marauder range is pretty twee (barring a few exceptions). I'd take a Morrison hobgoblin over a Marauder orc any time.

I agree with all that Cubs said above. I think the third edition of Warhammer was around the time when things began to decline. Miniatures lost much of their character, but also became goofier. The first and second editions had great scenarios and very limited background, which was all to the good. The more scope for using your imagination, the better. The rules were patchy, but they were RPG-like: you improvised or filled in the gaps.

And on that note - that's one other thing I dislike about current GW figures. Unless you're heavily into conversion and alterations, there are far fewer blanks to fill in when painting. It's hard to spot the opportunities for some quick freehand on those Varanguard, for example. I've painted precisely one AOS miniature, and it took a lot of chopping, scraping and filing to make some space for painting designs on the shield and armour.

[Hupp n at em]

All three are utter shit IMO. But hey, there's no point discussing taste eh

Yeah, this is more my idea of "badass" when it comes to a horseman.

[Vermis]

I don't entirely disagree with Dim Reaper, but I don't entirely agree either. One set of old Citadel minis, before my time, I'd give most leeway to are the C11 halflings. A decent example of iffy sculpting but lots of character. They're twee, but that's why I like them. Moreso than other halflings, including the realistic Perry hobbit sculpts for the LotR SBG.

As for Mantic; yes, it's true that they copy GW and ride their coat tales to drum up business.
However, theirs is a peculiar problem now of wanting to sell huge armies, for huge games, for "cheap". Well, the only sci-fi and fantasy games of note like that (in 28mm no less) are GW's, and so all the potential customers who come to Mantic ask "can I use my existing army"? Mantic say yes, and that leads their path round into a circle.
I personally think that aiming for better models and better quality whilst also reducing the number of models required for their games would really help them, (and allow them to forge their own path) but... They don't seem to want to.

This. I was turned off KoW rules because there were elements still too similar to Warhammer for my liking. IGOUGO, characters as close combat beasts rather than commanders, things like orcs on 25mm bases when everything else is on 20mms, when it's all about the entire unit footprint anyway. I can understand it was to ease the transition of WFB players;  but when rumours of WFB turning to a round-base skirmish game started popping up, and I wondered if KoW would eventually change some of those elements, I was met with a few blank stares. "Why would they do that?"

On the matter of Mantic orcs, Hupp n at em: not to say that I think the only orcs should be Tolkien style orcs, but I don't think they should only be GW style orcs either. (And Tolkien style orcs are thin on the ground anyway)

It's like everything GW does these days, it does perfunctorily. The grimdarkness, the aesthetic, the rules (from what I hear). It's as if their sole motivation for doing what they do nowadays is "We're GW, this is what we do". Why the turgid doomsday romanticism? "We're GW". Why the camouflage of detail? "We're GW". Why all the spikes and skulls on every surface? "We're GW".

Oh yes.

You think 4th Ed onwards looks silly? I agree, that was their comical phase - the infamous 'Red Era', which I also disliked. It went from an easy-going, laid back sort of understated brand of fantasy to high farce.

I think that confirms the period of models I'm least fussed on, myself.

And 'understated'. Yup. That's what missing from fantasy, in too many ways. Understatement and subtlety. GW minis are covered in spikez and skullz, fighting with unrelenting fury over the carnivorous forests and geological layers of skulls of a planet five minutes from blowing up, and now over a load of single-biome universes. Mantic takes the 'slender elf' trope and turns it into something with the anatomy and apparent movement of Woody from Toy Story. Peter Jackson... well, Peter Jackson.

On that note, on the Khorne Kavalry lineup: I don't see what makes the right model look so much more dorky than the other two. Shave some of the giant spikes off and it'd look decent. I kinda like the juggernaught too. (though I think they were a bit more sinister, meaningful and cooler when they were more scarce) Shave a few spikes off that too, tone it down and streamline it a bit.
Shave the spikes off the varanguard, and... I'm not sure what would be left. Maybe there's a decent mini underneath all that, but I don't think it looks badass, because it looks like it's trying too hard to be badass. It's one of the best examples of the adolescent idea of 'badass' that GW's chasing. It's huge, for... reasons. It's wreathed in spikes and skulls and this and that. The pose and motion are spastic. The giant fangy mouth and claws flying, remind me of the 'slasher pose' that's complained about in OTT palaeoart. It's exhausting to look at.

[Vermis]

Surely the reason that the LotR films work better than the 80s ones you mention is, in part, because so much effort was put into making the costumes plausible. The miniature equivalents, to me, are the understated, non-cartoony Perry night goblins and armoured orcs, or the Morrison hobgoblins. They're plausible, in the way that Peter Jackson's costuming is and Hawk the Slayer's is not. You could field a warband of Morrison hobgoblins against Foundry Samurai and have a pretty convincing-looking tabletop battle - and all in "heroic scale".

Verisimilitude! I've been ranting about it - mostly in relation to dragons and other monsters - for years. (Though the thing that might disappoint you is, I can't stand Trish's dragons!)

Yeah, this is more my idea of "badass" when it comes to a horseman.

 

I think even Frazetta's Deathdealer looks more like that, than like a varanguard.

[Rhoderic]

Not in reply to anyone, but just in elaboration of what I was trying to get across in my previous post:

40K has always rested on a bedrock of "grimdark", and WHFB has always had an undercurrent of that as well (if we take "grimdark" to be largely the same as "dark fantasy"), but that concept has changed in tone and timbre over the years, turning frankly dumber and more banal.

The concept of grimdark in the 40K and Warhammer worlds used to be like: "Beware the [forest/underhive], for there are mutants somewhere in those murky depths, and it is whispered they worship dark and twisted things...". It had a sense of ambience, depth, profoundness and ensnaring allure about it.

Now it's more like: "GRRAAAAHHH!! LOOK AT MY MUSCLES!! LOOK AT MY SPIKES!! GRRAAAAHHH!!!!"

[Hobgoblin]

Verisimilitude! I've been ranting about it - mostly in relation to dragons and other monsters - for years. (Though the thing that might disappoint you is, I can't stand Trish's dragons!)

 

I'm not sure if I've ever seen her dragons. I love her beastmen, troglodytes and her first batch of slann (not the static, standing-on-their-toes ones that came later, but the earlier ones that blend pretty well with the Perry ones, and the hound handler, who accompanied the static ones but seems of a piece with the earlier batch).

And on GW's beastmen: why did it have to go all goaty? The Morrison ones were fabulously diverse (and wretched-looking with it): camel-men, eagle-men, locust-men, slug-men, seahorse-men, etc. At least the Runequest broo had a good, if disgusting, reason for mainly resembling livestock - and even then, the Perrys managed to squeeze in the odd iguana, rhino or unicorn.

[Hobgoblin]

The concept of grimdark in the 40K and Warhammer worlds used to be like: "Beware the [forest/underhive], for there are mutants somewhere in those murky depths, and it is whispered they worship dark and twisted things...". It had a sense of ambience, depth, profoundness and ensnaring allure about it.

Now it's more like: "GRRAAAAHHH!! LOOK AT MY MUSCLES!! LOOK AT MY SPIKES!! GRRAAAAHHH!!!!"

That is perfectly put! A cloven hoof glimpsed beneath a robe is much more sinister than Mr Universe rolled in barbed wire.

[Dim_Reaper]

First, some apologies are necessary. Firstly, sorry to everyone for what seems to have been opening up pandora's box to a world of disagreements over taste. To a fair extent that wasn't the intent, but it was part of it. I think I can better elucidate my point here now that I've had time to think through how to express it.

Also to Hobgoblin, I've obviously misunderstood some of your point. I did get what you were on about with realistic proportions, but I really do wish you had used a modern example from the fantasy range to highlight your point (as you have in your reply). I'll get to why shortly.

I'm also sorry if I make anyone feel old. But I'm afraid that's inevitable given what I'm going to say in precisely two seconds.

So let's get the latter apology out of the way. To be honest, I barely know anything about 4th Edition, it's before my time. It is just about within the vision of the point at which I had entered the hobby, but that's only because I had gaming buddies at the time who were older than me. I started when 5th Ed WHFB and 2nd Ed 40k were about, and I was 9. The edition of Fantasy that typifies my experience was 6th Edition. I did play 5th, but I only had about two years of it, and I flitted between Dark Elves and Skaven. I love the Doomwheel, and 5th Edition is why.

So my only experience is the "goofy" Warhammer. I just don't see what's wrong with it. I'm reticent to suggest the nostalgia filter for those who prefer the older editions, as I think that would be unfair, but also because I can't rule out myself having similar biases. Whilst I'm prepared to accept that part of GW's problem has been models that go too far, but I think it's unfair to call this bad. It's different, that's all. If it was such a glaring problem, where are the understated minis trying to cash in? Perhaps I've missed them, but most follow GW's lead.

I would assert there's a reason for this. It links to one of your comments, so I'll follow up after the quote:

And on that note - that's one other thing I dislike about current GW figures. Unless you're heavily into conversion and alterations, there are far fewer blanks to fill in when painting. It's hard to spot the opportunities for some quick freehand on those Varanguard, for example. I've painted precisely one AOS miniature, and it took a lot of chopping, scraping and filing to make some space for painting designs on the shield and armour.

See here, I agree and disagree, and mostly disagree, actually. Whilst it is certainly nice to have room for a bit of flourish, it's something that exists largely for those with the talent to apply flourish well, and the amount of people who can do that are a minority in the industry. I've seen there are people on here who are undoubtedly good enough to fit into this category. I barely fit into it, and a lot of the people in my local club say I'm one of the better painters in the group. That is not to say that I'm good (I consider myself passable) but that most people aren't, for whatever reason. One of the things that is good about having so much detail, is that a few simple techniques that anyone can learn can be applied to these and have very, very good effects. One of the things GW has been good at is making paints that help the inept, and having models that partly paint themselves. That's one of the upshots of so much detail. There are recesses that acquire ink, and that can be drybrushed over, that can be layered over and edge-highlighted without much effort.

Whereas Freehand, whilst not a forgotten art, is fiddly. It isn't wet blending fiddly, but it is fiddly. Freehand also exists to a great extent because it was needed before, and now it isn't. Casting and production have improved, CAD has come in. Detail in minute levels is possible on a scale that simply wasn't before. So models were plainer and simpler back in the day. To many extents, that was more by necessity than design. Detail porn just wouldn't work as well on spin casting as it will on the latest 3D printers and plastic pressure moulds.

So to a great extent, GW's models are over the top, because they can be. I for one don't think the Varanguard look naff (as much as their name certainly is). Over the top? Certainly. But that fits with the feel that GW is going for. It is a perfectly valid direction to go in, and I for one generally like the results. As you say, elements of the GW range have been pretty wacky for so long now. Undoubtedly for a longer time than when they were more conservative, or believable, realistic etc. Don't you think it'd be a bigger betrayal to knock their current aesthetic back now, than return to a time of GW's production, that I hasten to add, although somewhat regrettably, most people are too young to know about?

Now, that is not to say that they need to for those reasons, or that indeed, less can be more. But more can be more too. I like the crazy detail. Let's have an example. Hmm... yes, let's go crazy:

These are Morghast Harbingers (yeah, their naming principles have been awful for years now) and they came out with all the End Times stuff. I rather like them (in spite of them being an absolute pig to build) and have 4. There's a halberd variant called Morghast Archai as well, and I'll probably have 4 of those too. I like all of their skeletal range, across Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings (even the oversized, older skeletons), and I'm loving the fact that AoS has given me the chance to build an entire Skeletal army across the two ranges that actually works together.

They are typically citadelly gratuitous: loads and loads of skulls, oversized weapons, crazy poses and mad base connections. It makes them a pain to transport, but all the over-the-top-ness makes me love them more. It's not rational, that I know. But I find them appealing. My tastes are quite eclectic in wargaming. I own an odd mix of stuff, but I am most attracted to things that are a little excessive. This will become evident when I show off my Infamy Kickstarter Minis in the Victorian SF section.

Some have also mentioned that GW have lost this sense of irony and fun and gone too far down a serious road. Whilst with merit, it's not strictly true. There's always the odd bit of fun in there, even if you just have to take things such as GW running a competition for players to take a stab at how many skulls were on GW's new bit of Chaos terrain. They do at least seem aware of the ridiculousness of their models, but note them as an appealing part of the citadel brand, and I personally agree with them.

Like I said, it's a matter of difference for me. I don't mind realistic poses and proportions. I don't actively avoid them. But I don't need them. For me, it's all about aesthetics. I like pretty models. Whether they're cluttered or not, doesn't seem to bother me in most cases. We don't need to descend into this route, as there's nothing more personal than taste. However, I think some of my points have been misunderstood. Reading through my somewhat reactionary posts that's evidently my fault, although I will stand by quite a few of my points.

The purpose of mentioning the films, and indeed, LOTR especially, was that for me, the issue seemed to be more about Old vs. New, than the issue of proportioning. This is why I feel a more modern example would have proved your point better, I feel. To some extent, I still feel this is part of it, and my film examples still make a point. LOTR fits into your proportions argument, but it can and that's largely the point. Cinema has improved visually, and to a huge extent, films can actually be adapted without ridiculously detracting from the source material. Certainly I fit into the category of person who thinks 9 of 10 of Jackson's pragmatic adaptations for LOTR worked better than the source material (wont say the same for the Hobbit, though).

But 300, 47 Ronin, or any other CG Fest film could do the same, and yet they don't. Does that make them inferior? Not necessarily, and that's broadly my point. Likewise, whilst I have a soft spot for the 3 B Movies I mentioned, they are by many accounts, utterly shit. They have a charm to them, but they don't deserve to be elevated above modern films just because they come from a time when the audience didn't expect as much at the flicks, or from a VHS.

That's what worries me about some of this argument. It straddles the line of nostalgia jingoism. Of everything being better back in the day of simpler times, of less corporate attitudes. Because I've hit 30, and I feel the same about my first experiences of the miniatures, from the early-mid 90s, and thus I have a great deal of suspicion of the whole deal. Because it can't just be a wholesale deterioration. It simply can't. I criticise GW more than most, but I don't think it's all been downhill from 2nd Edition 40k and 5th Edition Fantasy. They were both incredibly flawed. There's been ups and downs since, and the corporate attitude has grown, but so too has industry knowledge, and production abilities.

There is no longer any need to print off the same plastic shield 50 times and get the customer to break a dozen transfers or develop arthritis of the wrist free-handing a simple, doable symbol, when a modern printer, resin master, or injection mould can do all of that in seconds.

The industry moves on. GW are content aiming their stuff at the common denominator. The sorts of people that big budget CG-athons appeal to, deliberately over the top and obviously satisfying to as many senses as possible, but artistically about as deep as a puddle. I kind of agree with them too. I don't have very high standards when it comes to miniatures. I'm quite expectant with rules (which is why it is so surprising that I still play GW's) but with miniatures I'm pretty easily satisfied. I like to think I can spot what will become iconic miniatures in the future, but that's the extent to my discernment. I don't feel every miniature needs to be fine art, and since I became a Rackham Collector, I've never bothered look at GW for my fix for them. To coin a Computer Gaming analogy: not every game has to be the next Shadow of the Colossus. A good dozen or so that are simply fun will do.

Over the Top does it for me. I quite like those sorts of miniatures. I like understated too. But I don't need every model to be individual either. I just know what I like when I see it. I don't have an issue with GW coming up with elaborate kits. I get pretty annoyed with GW's rather increasingly dogmatic kits that are hard to modify and convert (that's a true USP that they are singularly fucking up) that lead to very familiar static poses (rather going against GW's plan to encourage playing massive games), but I do like the visuals. Most of my ire comes from their determination to match up stunning and brilliantly cast plastic miniatures alongside rules systems that are utter dogshit. That's the point at which the price tag bothers me. Not before.

Out of curiosity, Dim Reaper, has Mat Ward by any chance secured a restraining order against you?

He would probably want to. I've only ever had about two sentences to say about him that were nice. I've said a lot more than that in my time. But it's quite simple really, and I'd like to sidestep the action for a second and address this. To my mind, no person has ever done more damage to this industry than he has. I will allow for opinions that say he wasn't that bad (not accepting they're right, as they aren't, but they're irrelevant), but here's a test to show. You own a wargaming company, and you want a hire a writer. Mat Ward has a GW CV, but you know enough about his reputation (and if you hadn't, look him up on 1D4chan. They're pretty accurate), would you hire him to work for your company? The answer to that simply has to be no, if you care about your fanbase. Because that reputation will follow him, and your fans will suspect him of doing similar damage to your brand. Out of consideration for your fanbase you would have to avoid hiring him. Now, ask the question again, only you're hiring a Tea Boy, and not a Writer. It wont take long to realise that your answer should be exactly the same for exactly the same reasons. At that point, I rest my case.

I'm a rules writer, in an amateur sense, I guess. I've made a few wargames, skirmish games, and mini-games and I'm working on more. I'd like, one day, to get paid for it. Mat Ward offends every sensibility I have developed in the 20+ years I've made my own rules and fan-rules, on principle. If there is ever a more odious, talentless and horrendous blot on the world of wargame writing, we will literally know the True Wargaming End Times. And it'll be messier.

The best thing Mat Ward could do is get a career answering phones. Just hearing him talk or utter sentences makes me want to hit him in the face, so he's perfect for it. For wargaming writing, he's the most unsuitable human being who has ever walked the earth, with the possible exception of the nutcase who wrote FATAL. But there's not much in it. For one thing they have a similar view of women by most accounts...

It's like everything GW does these days, it does perfunctorily. The grimdarkness, the aesthetic, the rules (from what I hear). It's as if their sole motivation for doing what they do nowadays is "We're GW, this is what we do". Why the turgid doomsday romanticism? "We're GW". Why the camouflage of detail? "We're GW". Why all the spikes and skulls on every surface? "We're GW".

Well again, it's that attitude problem. They seem to run on classic game theory. Admitting fault means sacrificing authority and face. So they don't do it. Still, at least they're sticking to their guns on something. It'd be nice if that found its way into rules, and then we could actually see what kind of games they want to make, rather than a hodgepodge of collective shrugs.

This. I was turned off KoW rules because there were elements still too similar to Warhammer for my liking. IGOUGO, characters as close combat beasts rather than commanders, things like orcs on 25mm bases when everything else is on 20mms, when it's all about the entire unit footprint anyway. I can understand it was to ease the transition of WFB players;  but when rumours of WFB turning to a round-base skirmish game started popping up, and I wondered if KoW would eventually change some of those elements, I was met with a few blank stares. "Why would they do that?"

Let's continue the cycle: This. I am rather tired, it must be said, of gamers letting companies get away with nonsense like this, or to talk about expecting similar corporate shenanigans from companies just because they're not GW. The Privateer Press fanbase are pretty unbearable with this. Notwithstanding that after 5 or so years of PP bitching about GW and how much they suck, that they've fallen into pretty much all of the same traps in much less of the time it took GW, and their miniatures are still not a patch on the detail and quality that GW can put out. Sure, Mk.1 was a pretty crisp ruleset, but they've endeavoured to screw up pretty much all of its merits in favour of following the usual corporate ante-upping nonsense that they've forced themselves into using because of the way that their games work.

Mantic gets away with so much just because they mock GW, or offer "what GW refuses to do". Whilst there is some truth in GW's shocking attitude, not enough is made of companies like this that force GW to be militantly protective of IP and do crazed things to enforce it. Mantic are as dangerous to the industry as GW is, and as are PP in their own way. They all promote a large amount of misconceptions and reductive attitudes to wargaming products. Perhaps they need to, in order to keep afloat as a business, but it doesn't seem like any of them have the talent to try anything different, and resort to similar tricks as GW, and very rarely get called out on it.

It is rather surprising that some WHFB players think Mantic are the solutions to their problems. Harbouring a few ex-GW writers that I never rated anyway, I'd say they're just a tad naive.

TL,DR: Actually grant, you might just want to give this one a miss...