The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[Tactalvanic]

I'm writing my own ending. It goes something like, "Bobby Ewing woke up in the shower and realised it was all a dream."

It all reminds me of a child who has ballsed up a picture or a piece of writing and then decides to rip all the paper up instead of trying to make it right.

That. But not yet, for at least ten years or so if they can go that long, then they will flip it around and go Surprise ! We were only teasing, its actually all back to the old world again! You are to far ahead of their current master plans..

Ultramarine rat ogres with chest guns! etc etc

Next all the multi-part kits will mutate into multiposable, action figures...

Still, we will all play what we want and they can go do whatever with their new warhammer fantasy 40k battles in the any millennium....

Regardless we are all bad for their business just like everything else outside the GW hobby.

Its a good thing we don't really exist in their 'world'

[Momotaro]

Next all the multi-part kits will mutate into multiposable, action figures...

I know what you're saying, but frankly, GW wishes they could make something that good.  The average 5" Gundam kit from Bandai is snap-fit to a level of precision that GW has only recently reached, comes in different-coloured plastics so you don't need to paint it and is articulated using soft-plastic joints.  Cost in Japan is a few quid; even as an import they're about a tenner.

Master-grade Bandai kits are seriously big, snap-fit kits with articulation as fine as individual fingers and again are already coloured.  I'm looking at an 8" tall Zaku II right now - it cost £30 (£15 if you're in Japan) and pisses all over £70 GW kits.

Sadly the style on these kits is seriously 80s , but hey, so am I  

[Momotaro]

Cubs: yeah, that's pretty much GW's problem. Nobody buying your game? It's the customer's fault! It's the game's fault! Get rid of it.

8th edition looks a pretty solid game, but every time I've thought about getting into it, I've run into the same problem.  My Island of Blood skaven - 40 clanrats, great models - are about a month's painting for me, and basically act as 40 hit points for one of my characters.

At a time when, as a middle-aged git, I finally have the money to spend on a big army, I no longer have the time or the inclination - other games give me better bang for my investment of time+money.  I'd rather play a game where my character had 40 hit points...

[deep voice] In a world...  that contains the perfection that is X-Wing [ok, stop that], GW desperately needs a smart intro game.  All their competitors get you playing pretty seriously with £75, and you can expand your army or change its play style for a fraction of that. Instead, GW's thinking is that everyone who would buy Warhammer skirmish already has the models - no thought of how to entice people in with something new, grow the player base, or keep existing customers interested.

They already have a game that's not far off the sweet spot - LotR/Hobbit - but that's a sorry tale if ever there was one.

It's hard to fight against something that makes money for you, even if it's killing your company.  Microsoft found, as we got into the era of apps and cloud storage, that its MS Office division was killing off any change within the company because it was so successful - you couldn't threaten their revenue stream.  So for a long time after Apple and Google started making billions off their "app ecosystem" model (and taking that money from Microsoft in the process), Microsoft was still trying to persuade people to spend £300 every three years on the same piece of desktop software they already had, with minor tweaks.  

Sound familiar? So some kudos to GW for trying something new, although the ham-fisted execution, total lack of information and potential for a massive "screw you" to their existing custmers is about par for the course.

Seriously though, X-wing is The Little Game That Got It Right.

[YPU]

Huh, didn't think they would actually do it. And they even mention some obscure wood elf fluff in the final seconds.
Thrush is that GW has been working very hard to make WH fantasy something less then is used to be. Without going into detail their world has contained a lot of elements I simply did not care for quite some time now, and I'm not that sad to see it go.

Heck I'm even a bit curious as to what's next. Chances are I'm going to hate it but hey I also watch bad movies for entertainment. 

Honestly I prefer this, the whole "We've been talking about the end of the world for decades, well here it is now" thing takes guts. (white wolf did it with their RPG's nicely) I much prefer it to them mucking up the world even further over the next years. And with centurion marine ogre gatling babies out of the way in their new setting maybe there will be room for propper oldhammer somewhere in the future. Who knows.

[Gibby]

Best case scenario:

1) Take their current and shrinking market with them into this Warhammer Blobs-Of-Reality-With-Fantasy-Space-Marines and call it the alternative timeline.

2) Meanwhile, someone at GW has noticed how popular this Oldhammer movement is now, and how much people are willing to pay for the older sculpts. For them, they will release Warhammer Classic. The Old World as it was before all the Warcrafty/Hasbro crap turned up, with the older style rules for fun and narrative games, and with lots of the old figures ranges in METAL being made available to buy again.

I can dream...

[Vermis]

Momotaro, YPU: 9th ed is rumoured to have a smaller model count, somewhere around God of Battles or ranked-up-40K I think, so it's assumed this is the skirmish game with a smaller buy-in cost. Personally, I'm not even opposed to the idea of orbiting universes (for the old fluff, as the apocryphal author said: "all my books are still here on the shelf, they're fine"), though I don't know if I trust GW to pull it off, same as I don't really trust them to write good rules for it or make it actual good value for money.

And yeah, that Microsoft example sounds familiar.

[Vladimir Raukov]

Either that, or it'll be a horus heresy-style alternate game, costing infinity-billion dollars to get off the ground. If it's an alternate universe dealy, I'd be somewhat okay with it though.

...I still want my mobile weapons platform slaan back though.

[beefcake]

I wonder what tenth edition will be like? 

[Modhail]

It's whatever you and your gaming buddy write on the paper napkin just before the game...

[The Voivod]

Honestly I prefer this, the whole "We've been talking about the end of the world for decades, well here it is now" thing takes guts. (white wolf did it with their RPG's nicely)

Yup, and I went from loyal white wolf costumer to loyal aftermarket costumer. Can't imgaine I was the only one.

I'm reserving final judgement on the whole deal, but I can't say I'm overly optimistic.

[Tactalvanic]

Master-grade Bandai kits are seriously big, snap-fit kits with articulation as fine as individual fingers and again are already coloured.  I'm looking at an 8" tall Zaku II right now - it cost £30 (£15 if you're in Japan) and pisses all over £70 GW kits.

Sadly the style on these kits is seriously 80s , but hey, so am I  

Not saying they will be that good. and nothing wrong with some seriously 80's style stuff...

Including some 80s GW stuff for that matter.

Still  I don't mind changes, but sadly, in this case we are dealing with a company thats a bit naf at the implementation and execution of them well (from a customer perspective at the least), beyond product reduction and price increases.

And we know that with that change, they destroy/erase any knowledge of or use of older versions, you must if you are part of the GW Hobby and true to it, be using the current editions and fluff etc.

I don't mind adding it to the list of ways to play, I do mind that they will try and say "this is the only way play! - until 10th edition, and then that's the only way to play!.." its a bit boring really.

Guessing 10th Edition will be the beginning of Convergence - eg Warhammer! Convergence! 40K / Fantasy world bubbles  all in the same bubble-verse bouncing into each other so everybody can get some with each other. Then they don't have maintain two rulebooks, just charge for them as if they were two. Like a special offer - one for the price of two.

Skaven verses Eldar or Empire remnants verses Tau anybody?

[matthais-mouse]

The York manager said to me and two friends the other day that when the new style comes out we can still play the previous game in store.

When asked if we could still play Mordheim he said not at all as it is no longer supported. 

Which to me sounds like when they actually release the new version you won't be able to play the old version.

The only nice manager I've found at a games workshop store was at doncaster as he is a really friendly guy and other stuff I won't put here as I don't want a GW person seeing it and getting him in trouble. He seems to really enjoy ALL of the game systems though.

[YPU]

Yup, and I went from loyal white wolf costumer to loyal aftermarket costumer. Can't imgaine I was the only one.

I'm reserving final judgement on the whole deal, but I can't say I'm overly optimistic.

I'm not saying it makes a lot of sense business wise, but then it would be silly to expect that from GW anyway right?

[Tactalvanic]

Well whether it makes sense in this reality or only the bubble they are in, its ok.

Success or not, we will all watch and see. But its all good as even without investing in any of the product, they still manage to provide lots of entertainment.   

[Connectamabob]

Oh wow. They're really blowing it all up? That's some "end of an era" type shizzle, that is.

Seems tempting fate to me. I mean, to my eyes it seemed like it was the sheer fandom for the WH40K fluff/world that was keeping GW successful. If they ditch that, what will compel people to put up with their prices, product quality, and belligerent indifference to their customers? Golden goose, meet boning knife.

Meanwhile, I've only just discovered this rich little vein of joy ore:
https://09cd64678bddc0198cca7fef0df8ce7b359fff2d.googledrive.com/host/0B3Z9sXPTD9rpN2owNGdVWmdFWXM/agp.html
I'm sure it's been passed around here before, but that is awesome, and it's made me an IG fan. Apparently just in time for the IG to get JJ'd out of existence.