The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[throwsFireball]

Apparently one of the reasons GW killed Fantasy and has been cutting back on stores etc is because they feel they've reached market saturation.

Maybe they've reached market saturation because their products price out 95% of the population?

[Vermis]

I'd go for the latter, for a couple of reasons: Kirby practically boasted they do no market research, how would they know how saturated the market is? (Though maybe it's different with the new guy) ICv2 figures suggest the tabletop gaming market is growing, while GW is standing still or shrinking. And forums are full of people saying they'd buy GW again, if it wasn't for the price or some other factor.

[throwsFireball]

I'd go for the latter, for a couple of reasons: Kirby practically boasted they do no market research, how would they know how saturated the market is? (Though maybe it's different with the new guy) ICv2 figures suggest the tabletop gaming market is growing, while GW is standing still or shrinking. And forums are full of people saying they'd buy GW again, if it wasn't for the price or some other factor.

They need to reinvent their games.

40k has became a bloated mess, Fantasy was a bloated mess etc etc.

Cut down 28mm to skirmish games and collector's pieces (to be used for the skirmish games). Bring back Epic / Warmaster and use them for mass combat games. Also allows you to price them considerably lower for the sake of getting other customers.

Use a variety of scales, make the rulesets work together in some way and voila you've got a god damn money train. Get the customers on cheap smaller scale armies and then work them up to skirmish games with more expensive miniatures.

[beefcake]

When I first started with 40k, (2nd edition) it basically was a skirmish system, none of this load yourself up n tanks nonsense. (Although I guess technically speaking the size of the battles would still be a skirmish by napoleonic standards. )

[pixelgeek]

They need to reinvent their games.

Well they make more money selling 30mm minis and vehicle kits. Until the company addresses that attitude and begins to make good games and focus on gameplay then they are SOL.

People say they might get back into GW games if the prices go down but that won't change the fact that for the most part their games are utter shit. Compare AoS or 40K to any of the games that get frequent mention here and ask yourself which one you would spend your money and time on based on the quality of the game.

Models attract people to a game but the quality of the game and the experience you get is what keeps you there.

[Elbows]

I'm working on a 2nd Ed. project...but I can assure you I shant be getting anywhere near the mess that is 40K.

I've been listening to a lot of 40K podcasts lately just to kinda see what the game is.  It blows my mind how...different the game as become.

1) Create rule.
2) Create character which ignores said rule with special rule.
3) Create unit which ignores special rules which ignore the first rule.
4) Create character rule which allows character to use special rule when confronting a unit which ignores units which ignore the initial rule.
5) Create unit which undoes all special rules.
6) Create character rule which allows it to make a save against special rules which don't allow special rules...

It's gone beyond absurd to insane from what I can decipher.  I see big pie-plate templates and everything is Strength 8 or don't bother.  Characters have weapons which allow them to roll up to 12-15 additional attacks (all undone when units have boosted toughness, invulnerable saves on top of normal saves, with re-rolls etc. etc. etc.).

I always rather enjoyed the "absurdity" of 2nd edition, but it's got nothing on the weird meta-game which is the current 40K.  It also sounds (from what I can tell) that they're still dragging armies along with codices which are several editions old, but just get crutched to play current games.  Half of the armies in any given edition have current rulebooks, whilst others are patch-work quilts from previous editions.

[Argonor]

People say they might get back into GW games if the prices go down but that won't change the fact that for the most part their games are utter shit. Compare AoS or 40K to any of the games that get frequent mention here and ask yourself which one you would spend your money and time on based on the quality of the game.

Sums up nicely how I felt about GW rules since the beginning (probably the reason why I never got an army painted - simply not eager to play - although I ended up with umpty editions of both WFB and W40K and quite a couple of boxes worth minis) - only when I found LAF I discovered the galaxy of non-GW miniatures games, and I never really looked back since then...

[throwsFireball]

When I first started with 40k, (2nd edition) it basically was a skirmish system, none of this load yourself up n tanks nonsense. (Although I guess technically speaking the size of the battles would still be a skirmish by napoleonic standards. )

I just think the scale of the game now is crazy and you need a massive board to play anything with maneuverability on. I've watched a few Battle Reports and even the "professionals" have boards way too small for the game they're playing.

Well they make more money selling 30mm minis and vehicle kits. Until the company addresses that attitude and begins to make good games and focus on gameplay then they are SOL.

People say they might get back into GW games if the prices go down but that won't change the fact that for the most part their games are utter shit. Compare AoS or 40K to any of the games that get frequent mention here and ask yourself which one you would spend your money and time on based on the quality of the game.

Models attract people to a game but the quality of the game and the experience you get is what keeps you there.

I guess we'll see how their CEO does. If you've reached market saturation, though, then you don't eliminate your market presence, you switch to a new market.

Like making multiple miniature scales.

[pixelgeek]

I guess we'll see how their CEO does. If you've reached market saturation, though, then you don't eliminate your market presence, you switch to a new market.

Well as was mentioned before, I can't see how they think they are at market saturation when they don't do any market research.

I also doubt that comment since X-Wing sells more product than they do now. If anything they have saturated their remaining market. They aren't going to sell any more figures to their existing market.

Multiple scales only works as a solution if you produce good games. Bringing back Blood Bowl is one thing but ultimately Blood Bowl is a pretty bad, and boring, game. Same with Necromunda and Mordheim. Both of them succeeded because they were GW games and were in a market that wasn't full of competing titles. I doubt anyone would be dropping Frostgrave or SoBH to play Mordheim. Especially since neither of those games was balanced.

Epic is about the only game that they did that would succeed as a game and its also the one product they had that had extensive outside playtesting.

[Vermis]

40k has became a bloated mess, Fantasy was a bloated mess etc etc.

Cut down 28mm to skirmish games and collector's pieces (to be used for the skirmish games). Bring back Epic / Warmaster and use them for mass combat games.

Way back when the first rumours of shakeups in Warhammer, and splitting it into a skirmish game and mass battle game appeared, I thought they could do worse than take all those ridonkulously huge armies and units of 8th ed and make the new mass battle game a 28mm-ified Warmaster. Similar to what Rick Priestly did when he turned it into Hail Caesar. Could've competed a bit better with KoW, rather than letting it - frankly - take over the stranglehold on fantasy mass battles.

Making a smaller buy-in/starting point skirmish game was still a right move; though maybe that detail was the only right decision in the process, because...

People say they might get back into GW games if the prices go down but that won't change the fact that for the most part their games are utter shit.

True! As we've said recently, it's almost as if the smaller starting point of AoS is just a piece of bait - a fake fly or a plastic worm on a hook - to get people interested, before funnelling them right back into the GW Hobby of buying expensive models, big armies, too many hardback books with unbalanced meta-gamey rules...

I can't imagine I'd ever get back into 40K rules either, and what Elbows said only makes it even more unlikely. In a similar vein to the AoS hook, I saw someone on another forum declare that GW was now gamer-friendly again because they offered 'free'  40K rules for genestealer hybrids in White Dwarf. Apart from the facts of the cost and availability of that issue, it didn't cross his mind that people might consider 40K to be some of the most gamer-unfriendly rules on the market, and a bit lacking as an enticement.

But, as I pointed out to him, I like to be able to buy GW minis for use with other rules. Unfortunately, that still leaves the problem of high prices, to some degree. No rule in alternate systems that says 'on a roll of 4+, GW minis magically cost half of what they do', AFAIK.

[grant]

I do still miss 40k 2nd edition.

I also confess to remembering fondly all the fantasy years, from 5th edition through 7th, when I honestly enjoyed Fantasy.

Oh well. I do other stuff.

[eilif]

Went back and played 2nd edition a couple years ago.  Ruined most any nostalgia I had for that game.  It may not be quite as rules heavy as current versions, but it is CLUNKY!  The 2nd edition mechanics work great for Necromunda but for a squad-based game it's ridiculous. Rolling for the location of each individual jump pack marine? Come on...

I'm really looking forward to the new Warpath edition for some fast-playing rules that will let me field my 40k figs in a game that has a 40k'ish feel of gameplay without the layers upon layers of rules.

[Elbows]

I've started a time-consuming conversion for 2nd edition (basically streamlining it, removing some of the minutia, etc.) but it'll be a loooong process.

[Nord]

I do still miss 40k 2nd edition.

I also confess to remembering fondly all the fantasy years, from 5th edition through 7th, when I honestly enjoyed Fantasy.

Oh well. I do other stuff.

Same sentiment here. I  miss playing fantasy battles in which the troops are engineered to be different and have different play styles. I thought that 8th edition was about the cleanest in terms of rules written, it was just the "buy more figures" engineering that ruined it. Strip out the need for huge units and it could have been perfect, for me at any rate.

Theses days I play Dragon Rampant, it's a nice enough system and we have had some good games, but it is bland compared to good old WHFB. My dwarfs are elite foot, my opponents beastmen are elite foot, my other opponents chaos warriors are elite foot, ad nauseum. I miss the crunch of the good old days. Part of the appeal was the distinctness of the different races - both in how they looked and how they played. Abstracted and simplified rules do not have this. The troops certainly look different on the table top, but they act in exactly the same way. We gave up using DR for WHFB and use it for LotR instead, which works better.

Yep, I miss good old WHFB. I thought I would still be playing it in my old age, it lasted over 20 years and gave me countless hours of enjoyment. It's still a sad loss to me. I know, I know, I can still play it, but others seem less inclined these days.

[pixelgeek]

Went back and played 2nd edition a couple years ago.  Ruined most any nostalgia I had for that game.  It may not be quite as rules heavy as current versions, but it is CLUNKY! 

I had the same experience. The grenade rules alone can kill a game :-)