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Miniatures Adventure => Pikes, Muskets and Flouncy Shirts => Topic started by: Furt on 22 July 2008, 11:55:17 AM
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Hear ye vagabonds, pirates, corsairs, buccaneers and ne'er-do-wells.
It has come to my attention through a recent post on the LotHS Yahoo Forum, from the honorable Dan Angelino, that Warhammer Historical will not be producing any LotHS expansions. This is an insult and blot on the good names of all cut-throats the world round! Please read the Rob Broom Q&A here http://warhammer-historical.com/articles/rob-qanda.asp (http://warhammer-historical.com/articles/rob-qanda.asp) for the full story.
Anyone who has played LotHS knows it is an enjoyable and fun game in a genre which has proven extremely popular throughout time, not to mention the recent pirate mania. The interest LotHS has generated on other forums is proof of the popularity of this particular pirate rule set. Personally I would like to see more development in this line - LotOW certainly got it's fair share of expansions - I don't see why LotHS shouldn't be the same. There is a lot of room for expansion.
I have dropped a line to Rob Broom (RobB@games-workshop.co.uk), titled "LotHS Expansion" in the hope of showing my support for future LotHS supplements and would urge any others who agree to drop him a similiar short, polite message. Maybe the powers of the Brethren Court can sway Mr. Broom!
Are ye with me or against me? ARRGH!
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Ha, In my experience letters to Rob Broom go unanswered.
I asked him when Divine Wind (remember that?) was due out - no reply.
I'm still waiting for all the scenarios from the various books to be put online, that he he told me he would do years ago.
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Was really sad when I read that. The questions arose from another German forum I'm visiting. I looked forward to the expansion as there were so many great ideas around on the web and esp. the Yahoo group (a sophisticated campaign system, first of all). Don't know why they are cutting a promising sapling.
Okay, it goes with some very awkward decisions from Mr Broom these days. I'm a fan of the GW systems - but absolutely not of the Historical-section's recent politics. >:(
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GW seem to have made huge cutbacks in the last year or so. Even the Specialist website has now been frozen and I fear Historical warhammer gets little more than lipservice, after all they don't sell the expensive figures or £30 rule books..............
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Sounds to me like it's time to work out your own expansion material. Develop new character choices, write your own scenarios. Prove we don't need no stinking GW! lol
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After my last larrupping, I'm wary of chipping in here, but think what this tells us is that GW are in trouble.
They've dropped from a £13.5M pre-tax profit in 2005 to a £3M pre-tax loss last year. They slashed their dividend by 75%. Their share price has collapsed from £8.00 GBP in 2005 to as low as 116 pence a little while ago. In part this is due to the general woes of the stock market, but GW's share performance is significantly underperforming the market as a whole, which tells you that analysts and major investors see problems now and troubles ahead. It's been a long time coming. The LOTR movies and licensed ranges gave GW a massive fillip for a few years, and staved off the inevitable - but that particular rich seam has now been mined to extinction. Can they hang on for the Jackson / Del Toro Hobbit movies due in 2011/2012? I'm doubtful, and in any case that doesn't affect the long term prospects for GW, or the profound structural issues with their business (too big, too fast? One trick pony?) and market (shrinking fast in the face of video game technology and a squillion other things for teenagers to spend their money on... )
Cutting back on new product innovation and retrenching in your core market would be one logical strategy to try to dig oneself out of this hole. So we have probably seen the zenith of Warhammer historical - at least for a while - and look out for GW shops in 'non core locations' starting to close down.
Maybe we will all be saved by events from future arguments about 'GW - good or bad for the wider world of wargaming...'
Or maybe they'll stage a miraculous recovery... Looking at the numbers right now, I wouldn't invest.
Time will tell. ;)
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Odd, they've just opened a new shop in the town where I was born (20 miles south of here). Even out here in the sticks we have a Games Workshop now.
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He doesn't exactly say that there won't be any expansions, just that they won't be expanding into other settings (yeah, I know they amount to pretty much the same thing...)
And if someone does write extra expansions for the web, then that's free content, so yay (I'm clearly a 'glass half full kinda guy).
And there's another naval game coming out soon, so not all bad news.
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Odd, they've just opened a new shop in the town where I was born (20 miles south of here). Even out here in the sticks we have a Games Workshop now.
Hm. Therein lies the problem one suspects. Maybe GW thinks it can expand its way out of trouble, but GW has almost certainly overreached itself in the last 3 years by expanding into 'sub-prime' high streets where there simply isn't the market to support the costs of acquiring, fitting out and running a shop.
GW has a pretty well defined (what marketers like to call) core demographic.
It's not all teenagers that buy GW product - only a certain subset of teenagers. And that audience is only present in sufficient numbers in certain high streets. GW almost certainly now have too many shops in high streets where there are not enough of the right kind of teenager...
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Sounds to me like it's time to work out your own expansion material. Develop new character choices, write your own scenarios. Prove we don't need no stinking GW! lol
My thoughts exactly - that's why I have already begun some preliminary work on "Legends of Darkest Africa"....
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But there is nothing to attract older gamers. I will buy a new dark Elf book, as I bought the Dwarf one, but UI will not buy any new figures. They need to bring out something new. If all figure manufacturers did was to resculpt every few years they would soon go out of business.
With LOTR I tend only to buy those things that were in the films, not their creations. The local manager was taken aback when I asked why the axemen of Lossarnach had halberds and not axes!
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Sounds to me like it's time to work out your own expansion material. Develop new character choices, write your own scenarios. Prove we don't need no stinking GW! lol
My thoughts exactly - that's why I have already begun some preliminary work on "Legends of Darkest Africa"....
You too, huh?
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Cheers for the team who made loths! not only did they manage to do a good work, but they also have:
1 - put a great number of sails in the sea, and for now on we the players are the responsible ones to get the vessels into good port!
2 - prove that this game system can be used in a lot of wargame settings, from the interstellar campaigns in alpha-centauri to the davis cup matches in wimbledon!
:)
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It is a pretty versatile rules mechanism, I have adapted and used others adaptaions for all sorts of stuff and therein lies the nub of the problem methinks. What can be done has already been done to a greater or lesser extent, well done or otherwise etc.
So why publish official books would be my thought.
Now a sponsored community would be ideal with "chapter" approved amendments, expansions perhaps in pdfs or why not put it into White Dwarf instead of flogging the LOTR rules like a dead horse, that would surely boost sales of the magazine and open the Sci Fi and fantasy guys into other genrees which would open their market instead of re-cycling WFB and 40K
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I think Lowtardog has an excellent idea there. To be honest, I was initially very keen on the LotOW book, but I was a bit disappointed by the supplements. Both seemed like 3-4 pages of reall meat with a lot of garnish. Nice, but not value for money IMO.
A nice compromise would be to put out "approved" PDFs and then combine them into a print annual.
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To be honest, I was initially very keen on the LotOW book, but I was a bit disappointed by the supplements. Both seemed like 3-4 pages of reall meat with a lot of garnish. Nice, but not value for money IMO.
Especially the last one, lot of pages on periods you could play, without much information to actually do them. A bit of a wasted opportunity.
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There really is no need for an expansion. Everything is covered in the LOTHS book. The rest would just be scenarios and minor ad-ons. I've seen this with other disappointing expansions to rules sets that I wish I had never bought. We can do mods and add-ons ourselves. They don't have to be "official" to be good.
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After my last larrupping, I'm wary of chipping in here, but think what this tells us is that GW are in trouble.
They've dropped from a £13.5M pre-tax profit in 2005 to a £3M pre-tax loss last year. They slashed their dividend by 75%. Their share price has collapsed from £8.00 GBP in 2005 to as low as 116 pence a little while ago. In part this is due to the general woes of the stock market, but GW's share performance is significantly underperforming the market as a whole, which tells you that analysts and major investors see problems now and troubles ahead.
I told you, they crashed and burned with Apocalypse. Totally wrong assessment of a market that's going in the opposite direction with more and more small-scale/skirmish games. AND the ever re-cycling of 2-3 games without coming up with any real novelties...
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Sounds to me like it's time to work out your own expansion material. Develop new character choices, write your own scenarios. Prove we don't need no stinking GW! lol
I'm actually thinking of doing some Romans vs. Gauls (combining with other ancients along the way)... making up some stats based on LotR, then doing something like the Battle Companies to slowly build up some forces worhty of an adaption of the War in Middle-Earth fan ruleset.
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I told you, they crashed and burned with Apocalypse. Totally wrong assessment of a market that's going in the opposite direction with more and more small-scale/skirmish games. AND the ever re-cycling of 2-3 games without coming up with any real novelties...
Hmm, well the other day I was given a hint from a reliable source that a news of a new LOTR expansion is due around December and to make sure I had lots of figures painted up ready for it. I asked if it was rules for a large-scale game [as opposed to the current skirmish scale] and received a broad grin in response. I was also told that figures etc for the Hobbit film are already well underway.
Will this be both enough and in time to halt the demise that Cap'n Blood predicts?
I hope so, because even with their gross unpopularity in many quarters, I genuinely believe there is a place for GW, even if I don't agree with all their practices. LOTR, Warhammer Historical etc have made them more than just a place for spotty oiks to spend their parents' hard-earned cash. Expensive as they are, the figures are usually of very high quality and a joy to paint.
I agree that Apocalypse was a bad idea - it's just not feasible for most people to buy, build, paint and find space to game with this system. Every game I have seen is just a slugfest, with as many figures, tanks etc piled [literally!] onto the table as possible, with no maneuvering or tactical thinking. Even the average 13 year old will soon tire of this sort of game. Anyway, I thought that large-scale 40k games was what the "Epic" scale was for.......
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Hmmm. I'd be extremely dubious about the suggestion that figures for the Hobbit films are well underway at GW, given that the two films (scheduled for release in 2011 and 2012) are not even in serious pre-production yet.
I saw a webchat with Peter Jackson and Guillermo Del Toro (who is directing) a couple of months ago, and they were still very much at the initial concept stages for creature design and wardrobe.
I don't think GW are in on this process!
;)
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Hmmm. I'd be extremely dubious about the suggestion that figures for the Hobbit films are well underway at GW, given that the two films (scheduled for release in 2011 and 2012) are not even in serious pre-production yet.
I saw a webchat with Peter Jackson and Guillermo Del Toro (who is directing) a couple of months ago, and they were still very much at the initial concept stages for creature design and wardrobe.
I don't think GW are in on this process!
;)
You're probably correct :(
Apologies for the crossed-out text, BTW - I don't know how that happened, as it looked fine in my preview ???
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Sounds to me like it's time to work out your own expansion material. Develop new character choices, write your own scenarios. Prove we don't need no stinking GW! lol
I'm actually thinking of doing some Romans vs. Gauls (combining with other ancients along the way)... making up some stats based on LotR, then doing something like the Battle Companies to slowly build up some forces worhty of an adaption of the War in Middle-Earth fan ruleset.
Argonor, I've been wanting to do something like that for a long time. I love 28mm ancients but I have no desire to play WAB. If you ever get it going please post all the details. LOTR Battle Companies are a great way to play games.
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Sounds to me like it's time to work out your own expansion material. Develop new character choices, write your own scenarios. Prove we don't need no stinking GW! lol
I'm actually thinking of doing some Romans vs. Gauls (combining with other ancients along the way)... making up some stats based on LotR, then doing something like the Battle Companies to slowly build up some forces worhty of an adaption of the War in Middle-Earth fan ruleset.
Argonor, I've been wanting to do something like that for a long time. I love 28mm ancients but I have no desire to play WAB. If you ever get it going please post all the details. LOTR Battle Companies are a great way to play games.
Okies - I'll hopefully get started this fall/winter. I have a VERY large batch of Foundry Celts (worth appr. £150 back in the mid-90's) lying around, and the recent Romans/Celts hype by Warlord and Wargames Factory has made my fingers itch...
It simply cannot take that long to do some quick rules... an Imperial Roman Legionaire can be based on a Warrior of Gondor, for instance.... Then add some rules for the Pilum... ;D
Maybe I should look at it tonight, actually - if I get something written up, I can post it or others to comment/elaborate on :)
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Being the author of LotHS I have watched this thread for awhile & I applaud fsultana for the effort, but it looks like, for the time being that I will not be expanding the LotHS book.
It is not because I do not want too, I actually had plans to do another book (working title was to be Shipwrecked) which would have add a few more crew types (Chinese, Corsairs) as well as nationalities for the Navy Crew (French, Dutch, Spanish). I also wanted to focus more on a map based campaign as well as adding other scenarios and fleshing out the Ship Wright points as well as adding cool things like fires onboard ships.
I too was disappointed in how Showdown (for LotOW) was put together & I did not want to have the same thing for LotHS book. But it looks like Warhammer Historical is only looking for online articles at this time & does not want to commit to another book, so for the time being there will be only one book which is currently out.
I love the fact that so many folks have enjoyed playing LotHS & also that so many folks can see the potential for using the rules in other systems. In fact my local game group has been using the Legends formatt for pulp gaming as well as some Zombie and viking raid games. There really is no limit to what you can do with it.
So if anything changes I will let you all know & If Shipwreck does see the light of day, than I will be comming here for painted figures like I did for the first book.
Tim Kulinski
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@Argonor.
Discussion on using LOTR for Romans and Celts. There's also a file in the files section named Rome, it's right at the bottom of the first page.
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/LOTRvariants/message/666
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/LOTRvariants/message/623
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I too was disappointed in how Showdown (for LotOW) was put together & I did not want to have the same thing for LotHS book. But it looks like Warhammer Historical is only looking for online articles at this time & does not want to commit to another book, so for the time being there will be only one book which is currently out.
I feel that I need to clarify this statement, When I said the above, this was not an attack against Mark Latham and his fine work he did on the whole LotOW books, heck he is one reason why I wrote LotHS. Showdown is a good book, but it could have been much much more & I know what mark went through doing this book. So yes I am disappointed in the size of the book, but the quality is still there and Mark did the best job he could with it.
And yes I hope Mark Latham forgives me & understands this is not an attack on his work, heck I know about folks attacking your work now.
Tim Kulinski
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I too was disappointed in how Showdown (for LotOW) was put together & I did not want to have the same thing for LotHS book. But it looks like Warhammer Historical is only looking for online articles at this time & does not want to commit to another book, so for the time being there will be only one book which is currently out.
I feel that I need to clarify this statement, When I said the above, this was not an attack against Mark Latham and his fine work he did on the whole LotOW books, heck he is one reason why I wrote LotHS. Showdown is a good book, but it could have been much much more & I know what mark went through doing this book. So yes I am disappointed in the size of the book, but the quality is still there and Mark did the best job he could with it.
And yes I hope Mark Latham forgives me & understands this is not an attack on his work, heck I know about folks attacking your work now.
Tim Kulinski
I am sure he didnt take it as such
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So if GW isnt gunna support the LotHS, then is it free game to do other factions and countries, and post them on the Yahoo grooup?
Also Tim, is there any chance you could post up your notes that you mention on the group and give us home players a starting point on how to expand the game with homebrew rules?
That would really help!
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Also Tim, is there any chance you could post up your notes that you mention on the group and give us home players a starting point on how to expand the game with homebrew rules?
I know this is a big ask - seeings that u did intend on getting this published and all - but I second that request. It appears WH will not extend this line.
Sorry Tim I did try.... :'(
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Don't actually know if people have missed Rob Broom's 'call for papers' concering additional materials for LotHS. Here's the quote from the mailing list:
Ah Har my hearties, hoist the main brace and stand ready.
A little while back I did ask if willing deck hands wanted to submit scenarios, extra characters or other related material they could do so, and the best ones we would place on the WHW web site.
As yet, the request seems to have fallen on calm waters, because there have been no submissions at all.
So I thought I would remind you all and see if we get any responses or interest.
If we get enough good submissions we could even consider compiling them into some form of Legends “special” publication.
Kind regards
Rob
Rob Broom
Warhammer Historical Manager
rob.broom@games-workshop.co.uk
Personally, I never heard of that before, but maybe we talked at cross-purposes? ???
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@Argonor.
Discussion on using LOTR for Romans and Celts. There's also a file in the files section named Rome, it's right at the bottom of the first page.
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/LOTRvariants/message/666
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/LOTRvariants/message/623
Ah... no need to invent the soup saucer a second time :D
Nice, I'll have a look there, thanks!!
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And yes I hope Mark Latham forgives me & understands this is not an attack on his work, heck I know about folks attacking your work now.
Tim Kulinski
If you know that, it means you've made something! and that's the most important thing!
so carry on! :)
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Yup. I know that its a big order, and if there was another book, I would plunk down my hard earned cash for it. But since there is no book on the horizon... Which is too bad. All the things that Tim was talking about for the new book seemed like great additions to an already fun game.
And I have never heard that quote either. Where would anybody put submissions to WHH to anyway? All I see are a few for Ancients and a few for LotOW...
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Heres an alternative to place the booty
http://wabforum.co.uk/
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Here are my thoughts on the matter.
http://4sparta.blogspot.com/
In the broadcasting industry they'd say that GW has "jumped the shark"...