The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[YPU]

I suspect in a year or two the conversation will be,  "Remember GW that company that folded?  They used to make great stuff int he 90's..."

Honestly I have been hoping for GW to fold for a while, as there would be a minor chance for fans to pick up the rights and actually hammer out a decent game at some point. 

Actually I'd rather have GW going this completely different route. I'd prefer something "fresh" that I don't really recognize as the game I used to love rather then seeing is twisted bit by bit. 

[Argonor]

I think 2015 is going to be a glorious year.

For Mantic, and maybe Wargames Foundry, too (God of Battles is my favourite fantasy battle game, and the first I've ever completed armies for).

[3 fingers]

Bought the rule book for god of battles before xmas as it was cheap. 

[Vermis]

This is speculation, but I wonder which races will get offed.
Bretonnians seem (regrettably) to be in the running to get the chop: although they could be absorbed into the human group I doubt they would retain their flavour.
Lizardmen, I'd guess - who would they go with?
All undead and all elves would become batches (so goodbye wood elves?)....

Speculation about the six factions that I've heard:

Elves together are one. They've already been lumped together, despite centuries of in-universe bitterness and enmity, for this Nagash thing.

Humans (What's left of Empire and Bretonnia) + dwarfs. Including the new fantasy space marines. Seems like Karl Franz has somehow transformed into the first of these.

Chaos.

Skaven. Being one of GW's more defensible races, apparently, despite being basic ratmen with a bell fetish.

Greenskins, possibly with ogres lumped in.

Undead.

Lizardmen are probably out. From what I hear there's already been a throwaway line in one of the End Times books about them evacuating the planet.

But then there's been one of these rumour compilations by Harry or someone on Warseer, saying how the shakeup will be greater and some of the six factions may be completely new.

[YPU]

I'm curious to what these six factions will entail. Not necessarily positively so, but curious all the same.

[Momotaro]

I dont get it. I am not saying you guys are lying but you must realise how insane this all sounds. So they know something we don't?

Here's my vague understanding of the situation, scraped together from various places:

1)  90% of GW sales are 40k - in fact 2/3 of their sales are JUST space marines;

2) LotR/Hobbit sales are tiny - read somewhere that the Desolation of Smaug sourcebook sold in the hundreds.  That's... pathetic - RPG sales figures, not GW and certainly not a licensed product.  That explains the minimal effort put into the Christmas Hobbit releases;

3) Fantasy is between the two - about 10% of sales, but it isn't producing the same return on investment as 40k for a game that fills half the shops;

4)  GW recognise that the cost of entry to the game is too high - a basic army costs hundreds even using the starter set.  That includes the huge pile of rules you have to accumulate and digest just to get going;

5)  Business analytics would suggest that they just can the line and fall back on 40k - smaller but safer turnover and more profit on fewer sales;

6) They can't just release a skirmish game - people buy the book then just use their existing armies;

7)  Too many of the models are 10-15+ years old and looking dated;

8 )  Too many other companies are making cheaper elves, dwarves, orcs etc.  Some companies are specifically making replacements and add-ons for GW figures;

9)  I've seen figures of 15-20% annual growth in the tabletop games market (board, RPG and minis games).  Against that background, GW sales are shrinking.  Reading between the lines of their annual report, some folks have suggested that their sales have collapsed and it's only the inflated prices and selling every word they write that are keeping them going - plus the occasional piece of brilliance (End Times, Imperial Knight);

10)  Plenty of their competitors have a much better (cheaper, more structured) business model for players to buy into and expand their purchases - with quality components and slick rules, even boardgames are now, arguably, reproducing the tabletop wargame experience just as well as wargames.

So the plan is smaller armies of models with a design that's new and unique to GW, and containing the huge centrepiece models that only GW make.  Smaller army = easier/cheaper to start playing.  Nobody else makes giant ratmen with gatling gun hands (or food blenders or oompah bands, judging from that Stormfiend photo), so customers MUST buy from GW.  It also allows a smaller core ruleset with campaign-specific add-ons - no more spending £300 on rulebooks to keep up with the local scene.

At the same time, they streamline the inventory, stimulate sales with new models and keep the sales ticking over and inventory tight with regular limited releases.  Win-win right?

On the down site...

1) With their usual tin ear for customer feedback, they may underestimate the number of people who just stick with what they have, proxy with existing models anyway, or simply rage-quit GW games (see also: D&D 4th Edition, New Coke).  If these people are not buying much though, will GW even miss them, or are parents instrumental in getting kids into the hobby?

2) Their prices are STILL too high.  You can buy into plenty of other games with £50-100 TOTAL investment.  £55 for a giant army leader and £40 for a single unit of three giant ratmen may STILL be to expensive.  Pricing remains to be seen;

3)  It still doesn't sound like a coherent plan to bring in and retain new players while giving the old-timers something to do.  On the other hand, it could work - if they bring out a great game and some cool models at sane prices, it could be brilliant.

Simple answer is - who knows?

[Argonor]

As I see it, there are two key components in that: Price and mini quality.

There is, however, as I see it, nothing (in the current state of affairs AND experience) to suggest that those two components will be at a level that spawns success. What we see is ever bigger - and, in my opinion, uglier - over-the-top sculpts at ever increasing prices (especially the latter to a point that defies sanity).

There might be a market consisting of millionaire heir playboys for this, but I doubt it. GW products has certainly been outside my financial reach for quite a while, now, and I wonder how many parents are dragged into a hobby store by their hopeful offspring, just to flee screaming or laughing (depending on mood), never to set foot in one again...

[FramFramson]

The thing about the GW business model of charging way WAY too much is that it's predicated on old timers hanging on - those are the people who are already invested in the game and who may be old enough to afford it. So blowing it all up to start a new game but using the same horrifying price structure will only alienate the last of the old customers who're keeping things going while not admitting new ones.

Plus I'm not even sure they have it in them to make a genuinely attractive and fun game anymore - I'm not sure many people would see those rat ogres and get excited to play a new game that looked like that unless it turned out to be some silly bonkers post-apoc game.

In theory, WFB dying is like the GW collapse in miniature. It was always a smaller game than 40k (though years ago it had to have commanded a bigger share than just 10%) and it was always much easier to find competing or alternative products, so it was more vulnerable by far. This is the end result of them pricing themselves out of the market and destroying their fanbase. This End Times explosion is just the last grab at the cliff edge before oblivion. 

One other thing...

The six planetoids really has me thinking of an MMO online game sort of structure. Maybe the fallback if the explosive revamp fails is to reuse the IP for another computer game?

[FramFramson]

By the way, GW will be bought out before they fold. I would bet good money that at least one or two major toy companies - Hasbro or their ilk - have been keeping an eye on GW for a while and are just waiting for the moment their stock collapses.


Even if those big fellows aren't paying that much attention now (after all, we pay such close attention because we're directly interested), they'll wake up to the takeover possibilities once the stock tanks.

[Vanvlak]

Am I right in saying that Warhammer was the game which launched the GW success? Wouldn't they be losing their flagship?

FramFramson - if that does happen, I wonder where they'd take wargaming to...

[FramFramson]

It's funny too when you think of how many multi-faction fantasy wargames essentially rip off the GW world concept. It's been an enduring and popular basis for fantasy wargaming.

[qazbnm]

Actually a skirmish game sounds like the sensible thing to do. They should have done it ages ago by integrating Warhammer skirmish from 6th ed more with the mass battle rules. I doubt that they'll get it right now though. None of their new releases have been appealing to me,  ever since I got back into the 'games workshop hobby'. If they have a problem with people buying toys from other manufacturers, maybe they should do better toys instead of trying to force people back by getting rid of the old units.

The limited edition thing to boost the amount of new figures isn't a new strategy though. Didn't ansell do something similar in the 80s by letting sculptors convert the masters before casting the molds?

[FramFramson]

Been holding off on a couple of fairly large bits orders for a while. Finally caved and grabbed a slew of stuff because the way things are going who knows how things will end.

Now if I could just find some damned Ungor heads anywhere.

[beefcake]

Speculation about the six factions that I've heard:

Elves together are one. They've already been lumped together, despite centuries of in-universe bitterness and enmity, for this Nagash thing.

Humans (What's left of Empire and Bretonnia) + dwarfs. Including the new fantasy space marines. Seems like Karl Franz has somehow transformed into the first of these.

Chaos.

Skaven. Being one of GW's more defensible races, apparently, despite being basic ratmen with a bell fetish.

Greenskins, possibly with ogres lumped in.

Undead.

Lizardmen are probably out. From what I hear there's already been a throwaway line in one of the End Times books about them evacuating the planet.

But then there's been one of these rumour compilations by Harry or someone on Warseer, saying how the shakeup will be greater and some of the six factions may be completely new.

New race - fantasy Tau, , or just kill everyone off with a Tyranid invasion. Or perhaps th e skaven created tyranids out of warp stone and then turned into tyranids themselves and that's how they are in 40k.
Wow I should be GW CEO

[Hauptgefreiter]

Now if I could just find some damned Ungor heads anywhere.

What about Broolian Beastmen Heads from Victoria Miniatures?