The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[Streetline]

is GW ex-boyfriend/girlfriend[-ish]?

An ex partner most of us look at, shake our heads and wonder what happened.  Such potential.  Such fun.  We thought it was forever but we were young, we moved on, went in different directions.  Now we have new, often younger, partners, better in many ways; but your first is always your first.  Now we look at look at pictures of what they're up to on the internet.  And sometimes, when we can afford it, we go back.

Doesn't sound very wholesome...

[Vermis]

What Elbows said. The 'GW Hobby' view isn't just upheld by GW itself. I've seen plenty of gamers who don't see any point in even glancing at other games, considering their minis inferior and even viewing WFB's 'giant skirmish' mechanics to be the proper way of mass battle games. Although a lot of those who moved to KoW to get their mass battle fix after WFB blew up, were surprised how much they liked unit-based mechanics...

Me, I've all but moved on too, at least out of the 'GW is wargaming' mindset, but it wasn't entirely by choice. If you want to torture the ex-partner analogy, it's like an ex who's almost always sauntering by, making googoo eyes at you while still being the psycho hose beast that chased you off.

(Does that make AoS the gun rack?)

I'll still buy GW stuff, for gaming in the old warhammer world; but - at the mo - only their smaller models at deep discounts, and only for smaller skirmish armies.

[Vladimir Raukov]

I'm still at the point where I really wish I could still love GW, but the things I loved seem to be gone. Maybe we'll go back to being friends one day, but not yet.

Also, I'm slightly annoyed that they put up a 'last chance to buy' section after they axed oxyotyl...

[grant]

When they killed Warhammer, I don't even look for nostalgic reasons anymore.

A local retailer says he is only carrying 40k from now, everything else is dead.

[Elbows]

From a retail store point...I actually thought it would have been interesting to stock the following:

-Starter Box
-"Start Collecting" box for each faction (assuming they eventually do more to cover the races)
-Paint sets and some hobby bits, White Dwarf
-Specialist Games (if they ever release them proper)

And leave the rest to order, and have a catalogue handy.  I've never seen a hobby store which could afford to have anywhere near 20% of the 40K range available on the shelf.  The start collecting boxes would help with that. 

[grant]

The shop I'm talking about carries (carried?) more than a GW store. For them to be all but done with GW says a LOT!

[Elbows]

I guess I mean, I can see a "retail lite" version of GW's (admittedly, rather silly) retail procedures.  They've always done all they could to minimize shops carrying their product, whether knowingly or not.

I feel as if you could come up with a easy intro-package with a lighter buy in for hobby shops.  We all know most hobbyshops are run on a shoe-string budget and often can't afford the huge buy-in required for certain GW products.  I think it'd be smart for GW to get exposure by using a lighter method.  You can't expect most hobbyshops to carry 1100+ product codes. 

[Arlequín]

Same as anything, I think the greatest emotional reaction came from those who felt they had invested the most in the company and then felt betrayed by the direction they took.

Or it's the mistaken sense of entitlement that seems to be perpetuating society in general nowadays.

Imagine a guy who bought Ford Escorts every year from their introduction back in the day... when they stopped making them he most likely didn't set his on fire or storm the gates of Dagenham, he got on with his life. I've no idea whether he would soldier on with the last one he bought, buying spare parts where he could find them, or whether he just bought something else. I don't imagine he sat in the pub moaning incessantly about it for months though.

 

I'm another Proto-High Street Shop fan. I remember the licensed products and while I wasn't into fantasy, they had historicals back then... essentially what passes as Wargames Foundry today. I even bought some of their Warhammer products to adapt to medieval games and wished someone could do the same for historicals... which eventually happened much later.

It all changed a long time ago for me, although I didn't feel the angst or betrayal some people appear to... things change, you move on.  

[Elbows]

I have to say, I don't think it's a sense of entitlement at all.

Unlike the average wargame, Warhammer Fantasy had been around for 30+ years.  As I mentioned in another post, there are people whose whole hobby was this particular game, collecting, gaming, competing, attending tournaments etc.  Many folks had huge amounts of time, money etc. invested in a hobby genre/platform that they had no reason to expect to suddenly cease.  That's a crap way to treat a large portion of your customer base.

Now, that's not saying they can't continue to game in the last generation etc.  but the continuation of their hobby world is no more.  That sucks.  This isn't like discontinuing a board game, etc.  I think Mantic is being smart with their new KoW which will seek to provide a way for people to continue, but I suspect a lot of Warhammer folks won't move to another company even if the game supports their figures.

Entitlement is not partaking in a hobby or a gaming "world" for 10-20-30 years and then have it disappear.  That's just bad business and piss-poor customer service. 

[Arlequín]

I don't want to press the point, but the "we're special" is exactly what I mean... there are vintage Escort owners out there whose hobby is all of the things you've claimed for Warhammer Fantasy... there are probably a few more examples of the sudden end of something that was important to some group or other. 'The Escort' (WHF) is gone, how about a 'Ford Focus' instead (AoS)?

I won't argue that it wasn't a shitty thing to do and the way they went about it was wrong on many levels... but the only relationship there was between GW and its customers, was essentially that of any company and its customers... they sell and you buy, or not, and that's as far as it goes.

I don't wish to come across as blunt and unfeeling and I'm not, I think it was a phenomenal mistake on their part... but there it is. 

[Brummie]

I sometimes wonder if Warhammer will enter the Specialist Games Arena.

There is a precedent for it, since apparently during a similar major campaign involving Archaon, years back, that was a practice run for end times (One that GW allowed the customers to choose the outcome for) which resulted in Grimgor beating Chaos, saving the Empire and then wandering of back to the Badlands to put another warband together. Games Workshop rapidly delegated this outcome as apart of some 'Alternate Universe', where Chaos was laid low and the world carries on (and was promptly never spoken of again).

Personally with the Old world gone, I'm just more inclined to use Warhammer stuff in my own fantasy setting to keep certain aspects of Warhammer alive for myself at least, expand on it and provide more variety (because lets be honest, it wasn't like Warhammer was particularly deep, there were some exceptions, but generally the setting came second to waging mass fantasy battles as was to be expected).

Honestly I do like the idea behind AoS with different dimensions.
Some of the Models are actually kind of cool.
It just sucks that this new setting couldn't have been an extension of and co-existing with the original Warhammer, without needing to obliterate it.

[Hawkeye]

Is it really true that the people who invested a lot of time, energy, money, and so on into Warhammer had no reason to think it would suddenly cease? I can't think of anything, really, that anyone could not reasonably expect to change over a thirty-year period. In fact, I think it's amazing - almost unbelievable, in fact - that people got to play Warhammer (albeit in different editions) for as long as they did, with really only gradual changes occurring from edition to edition. Surely nobody playing particular computer games franchises expects to still be playing them thirty years later? Or people reading a series of novels by a particular writer - do they expect to still be reading new novels in the series after thirty years? I don't think so, and I don't understand why anybody expected this to be the case for Warhammer, or why anybody will expect it to be the case for other miniature games, like Warmachine, or Kings of War.

[beefcake]

Especially when people would have spent thousands on the End Times campaign setting for then all of those new purchases to effectively be null and void when it comes to things like tournaments etc. Yes they can still play it but if you are someone that is involved in going to GW events then that world you invested so many time and hours into is now probably not available any more at these official events. They would also argue that unofficial events, however useful they would be, are not the same therefore not worth time attending. GW has really set themselves up well with the Aura(?) of their events. If they don't set it up, it's not worth going to. GW hobby and all.

[Hobgoblin]

What I really don't get about all of this is why GW not supporting Warhammer stops anyone playing it. I mean, I have no desire to play Warhammer whatsoever, but I still have the first-edition rulebooks (bought second-hand when I was a kid). A couple of months ago, I bought third edition second-hand for a fiver - to amuse my kids with the illustrations and descriptions of monsters, rather than than to play. But if I wanted to play it - well, I would! I've got the book, I've got plenty of miniatures, and I know how the game is played. My opponents generally prefer to play SoBH and Lion/Dragon Rampant, but I'd have no problem persuading them to play a nostalgic game or two of Warhammer.

So - a genuine question - what on earth is stopping everyone else? Third edition had its problems as a game (mainly that it took so long; the magic was also overpowered for my tastes), but if you've got the book, you've got the "world".  And I presume that holds true for other editions as well. Why don't people just play which ever edition they prefer? Why the outcry?

I am genuinely puzzled.

[beefcake]

That's it though isn't it. GW fanboys even if they have had the rug pulled out from under them won't have anything to do with something not supported by GW. I guess they think GW knows best.