The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[carlos13th]

I was just going to remark that I like the various ghosts/spirits, but the rest looks rather... weird..?

€85 for ONE character model??!! I wonder what it'll cost to field a playable army if starting from scratch...

I am just now planning to make a full Lords of Undeath army for God of Battles out of old GW plastic skeletons, GW Ethereals, GW Mummies, the odd GW wight, a necromancer or liche (or maybe even the old dodgey Nagash, which I have had sitting in a drawer for 15 odd years - part of a second hand buy) and some Mantic zombies. I have just about everything I need for a full 60 pts. army (largest recommended size), just need to get a few bits and bobs for enhancement markers and such.

Your first born child and a tithe of 30% of your annual income is the current estimation.

[Gibby]

Warcraft really bled into and fucked up the aesthetic of a lot of games, D&D and Pathfinder being very notable. I actually liked Warcraft quite a bit, but I certainly didn't need to see that video game reverse influence tabletop games. To make matters worse WotC and Blizzard seem bent on homogenizing the look of fantasy. Looking through Spectrum books, I can't tell the new artists apart from each other, and at GenCon the only thing that might distinguish one fantasy advert banner from another was the company logo.

Yes! This! So much has this horribly samey aesthetic now! Fantasy Flight Games are also guilty of it with their Descent artwork!

[beefcake]

I don't think there are enough skullz inside those horses.

[nic-e]

I don't think there are enough skullz inside those horses.

Well thats' what you get when yous ay nagash doesn't have enough skulls.

The design team at GW MUST know by now that the skulls are pretty much a meme? are they deliberately carrying on the joke by giving us a horse literally made of skulls, or do they not realize just how often they put skulls in things?

Is the anyone in the warhammer world left with a skull actually in their head?

[Argonor]

Is the anyone in the warhammer world left with a skull actually in their head?

Nope, and the brains are gone with it... 

But, really! I can buy almost a full army for many rules/settiings for that amount. Why can't they see what they're doing to themselves??

[Cubs]

Oh .... dear ....

Is 'jumping the shark' applicable to this stuff? Yes, the spirit host coming out of the grave is quite well done, but why do they need knives?

Everything else ... that has made me sad. If it's 'horror' stuff, shouldn't it be scary? All they've done is put giant hats on everything, with giant weapons in their hands ... and they're riding giant fossil things. Christ on a bike, how did these 'action figures' get past the design stage?

The argument used to be that GW had silly prices, but at least they made the best models. I know that's going to be a judgement call from each individual POV, but I don't think I'm alone in thinking that really, really is not the case any more.

Again, the technical sculpting looks top-notch, I don't think you could really nitpick there. But the actual aesthetics are ... nonsense. Bigger, brasher, weirder, yeah that's the way to go.

[nic-e]

Nope, and the brains are gone with it... 

But, really! I can buy almost a full army for many rules/settiings for that amount. Why can't they see what they're doing to themselves??

Yup, the deadzone starter set plus some extra figures and scenery cost me less,plus my mantic points got me 10 free orcs.
And now i use it to play with my inq28 warbands.

[Cubs]

I quite like the Shieldwolf plastic Mountain Orcs. Very much the 'Savage Orc' feel to them and at £25 for 20 of them, that's pretty affordable.

[nic-e]

Oh .... dear ....

Is 'jumping the shark' applicable to this stuff? Yes, the spirit host coming out of the grave is quite well done, but why do they need knives?

Everything else ... that has made me sad. If it's 'horror' stuff, shouldn't it be scary? All they've done is put giant hats on everything, with giant weapons in their hands ... and they're riding giant fossil things. Christ on a bike, how did these 'action figures' get past the design stage?

The argument used to be that GW had silly prices, but at least they made the best models. I know that's going to be a judgement call from each individual POV, but I don't think I'm alone in thinking that really, really is not the case any more.

Again, the technical sculpting looks top-notch, I don't think you could really nitpick there. But the actual aesthetics are ... nonsense. Bigger, brasher, weirder, yeah that's the way to go.

 digital sculpting has basically given them free reign to make the first thing they can think of.the limits of casting and sculpting before meant they had to focus on tone and character to show what the figure is, now they can just make it huge and covered in skulls.

[Argonor]

They should be affordable - they've got second hand weapons!  

A bit more than a quid each seems quite appropriate for plastic minis - and more in line with much other stuff out there.

Mind you, I don't get chuffed by having to pay a little extra for high quality - Hasslefree minis, for example, are not cheap, but they are really, really nice. But bigger and bigger, uglier and uglier monstrosities that bear resemblance to some of the action toys aimed at 10-years old boys (at a 10th of the price) just don't do it for me. Period.

I got into 28mm gaming through GW. The way things are now, I never would have. I think we're lucky to have the internet these days, where it's easy to show things to potential newcomers to the hobby - and almost everything is easily accessible - or we might have seen a drastic decrease in new 'playmates' (we may still, only time will tell).

[von Lucky]

All I can think of is the Perry Twins.

Were they ever have to apply for a job, I'm sure there's one former employer they'd conveniently leave off their resume...

[nic-e]

They should be affordable - they've got second hand weapons!  

A bit more than a quid each seems quite appropriate for plastic minis - and more in line with much other stuff out there.

Mind you, I don't get chuffed by having to pay a little extra for high quality - Hasslefree minis, for example, are not cheap, but they are really, really nice. But bigger and bigger, uglier and uglier monstrosities that bear resemblance to some of the action toys aimed at 10-years old boys (at a 10th of the price) just don't do it for me. Period.

I got into 28mm gaming through GW. The way things are now, I never would have. I think we're lucky to have the internet these days, where it's easy to show things to potential newcomers to the hobby - and almost everything is easily accessible - or we might have seen a drastic decrease in new 'playmates' (we may still, only time will tell).

I think it'll cause a divide in the hobby.the big toy like kits and simple (or not) rules will bring in younger kids, who will either outgrow it in their teens because all the darker grittier stuff is gone , or parents will no  longer support the habit, or they'll be intimidated by the other parts of the hobby and see them as too advanced, give up and never go back to it.

I got into 40k when i was 6, it was fun, me and my friends basically played toy soldiers with them and abused the rules, then they gave up but i explored the world and found how dark and grim it was and kept with it, now i enjoy lots of different parts of the hobby.
If GW get rid of the dark fluff, make it all too silly and light and get rid of the smaller intricate models then kids are gonna stop when they think it's all got too childish.

[Vermis]

Oh, grief. Big munstars and big hats and skullz and bonez for everyone!

I quite like the spirit host, but that's about it.

They have taken the Old World and turned it into Azeroth from World of Warcraft. Cartoony junk year after year.

This.

Shaking up the background a bit is kinda interesting, but the alternate universe business is kind of a copout, a bit like Storm of Chaos. And on that note, looks like Archaon's invasion is not just rewound to 'imminent', but also retconned to being stalled by all this new junk!
It's all meant to revamp and refresh Warhammer, but I think all the focus on 'death' and 'the end times' is more indicative of what's happening.

(And y'know, since we're dumping on the WoW aesthetic, I'm not so dazzled by the Shieldwall orcs either...   )

[weismonsters]

Like others I quite like the ghosties but the rib cage full of skulls idea on the horses does not quite work for me.

All they've done is put giant hats on everything,

 

[Vermis]

I think it'll cause a divide in the hobby.the big toy like kits and simple (or not) rules will bring in younger kids, who will either outgrow it in their teens because all the darker grittier stuff is gone , or parents will no  longer support the habit, or they'll be intimidated by the other parts of the hobby and see them as too advanced, give up and never go back to it.

I got into 40k when i was 6, it was fun, me and my friends basically played toy soldiers with them and abused the rules, then they gave up but i explored the world and found how dark and grim it was and kept with it, now i enjoy lots of different parts of the hobby.
If GW get rid of the dark fluff, make it all too silly and light and get rid of the smaller intricate models then kids are gonna stop when they think it's all got too childish.

IMO, and I think I've mentioned this before, kids around their early teens or just before get into GW games because of the grimdarkness. Granted, the minis have become chunkier and more OTT over time, but they're still all covered in spikes and skulls and severed heads and things. They look more grim, dangerous, and 'grown up' than what 11-12yos might've just grown out of.

You could make the argument that a vampire-ridden mechano-horse filled with skulls, scouring a dying world on the whim of it's genocidal master, is 'silly and light', but I don't know if you'd get much traction with it. I think you've nailed the right reaction but for the wrong reason: IMO the real turn-off is that we outgrew it because of the darker, grittier stuff. Not so light, but eventually recognised as a bit silly, rather than 'mature and grown up'. We stopped when we thought "it's all got too childish".

I think it's well-circulated, or used to be, that GW makes their bread and butter from targeting kids (or their parents), and selling a starter set and a few unit boxes before that kid loses interest. So I agree with your first paragraph (though not with the 'not dark and gritty' reason), and agree that it's helping to kill GW right now.
I dunno what other distractions kids have these days, though I'd guess the fact that video games and that culture are apparently mainstream these days, while tabletop wargaming is still (generally) a 'sad nerd hobby', has a lot to do with it. In any case, GW's sales are falling so I'd hazard that major revenue source (if it be so) is petering out for some reason; so it seems they're stuck, chasing it even harder and investing more into what they think kids will like - big, chunky minis with superpowered, killy rules. And in that, exacerbating another issue that they've been indulging in for a while: the alienation of older gamers who still like the background and do most of their 'marketing' for them, but who no longer like the OTT aspects of it, who want less childish rules, and who scrutinise the price stickers a little more closely.

Heck, GW have even got loads of older fans who still love the OTT aspects and childish rules, but are just now starting to hesitate and peel away in the face of ratcheting prices. Even just a bit of recognition of that hard core, who stick to them like limpets rather than get bored and wander off, might stall their death spiral. Maybe.

TL;DR: if GW focused less on kids with desperate grimdarkness; dialled it all back a bit - maybe even with a little 'silly lightness'; and acknowledged that there are other age brackets with changed views and tastes, they could possibly see a way to dig themselves out of their hole. But at the mo the only way they can see is to dig deeper...