The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[Cubs]

So they are blaming independent stockist for the lack of sales. Man up and take the blame yourself rather than passing it on.

Sadly they've alienated the independent stockists by treating them so badly and a lot of them ditched GW in favour of their competitors.

[FramFramson]

Its ok Fram. Its another C&C type game but is far less build up huge force slowly slog across the map 1 was. Much more click frenzy tentacle arms required though

Urrrrggh crap... I like the idea of skirmish so that I can focus better and actually play tactically instead of just trying to churn out as many dorks as I can, as fast as I can. Multitasking is not my thing.

Why is it a click frenzy - too much special ability management?

[Barbarian]

Almost Rpg, with abilities to activate.

[The Voivod]

I actually rather liked the rpg elements. Including finding and equiping new items to taylor your force.

It's not that much worse then DoW I in multitasking. You simply have one little unit with a jetpack instead of hordes.

In effect you have to learn and manage 5 units tops.

[FramFramson]

I figure I will have little-to-zero interest in multiplayer and will only play the single player campaign. So maybe the clicking is not too bad for single player?

[Tactalvanic]

So.

If I wants a brand new, high-quality plastic, 28mm leader for my skaven force, they are available at the current limited edition price of... 13.50 GBP.

http://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Skaven-Warlord-2014

http://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Skaven-Grey-Seer-2014

errrr, no ta, I don't think I will bother.

Now the new FW robots do look cheap compared to that.

And increasingly as already mentioned, foundry resin is starting to look more cheap/viable than GW plastics

The price is high of course (too high for me), but I think those are 40mm bases (and probably 40mm figs) and new resin sculpts rather than 20 year old plastics who's second hands molds have already been paid for many times over.

When one considers the cost and effort required for mass production of resin, plus whatever portion of the profits or licensing fees have to be paid to GW corporate, FW prices really don't surprise me.  They seem to be doing well, but I doubt that FW financials are spectacularly impressive.

My hat is still off, regardless of the lesser quality to those old robots from EM4, because they are old, still available and more than good enough to do something with.

Still I  am tempted by FW - not enough to buy them but still. Tempted

As for Skaven leaders, I wonder if they will be limited edition/availability or still available, as the molds age into the middle of 2015, and the price rises to 15 GBP...

[zemjw]

£13.50 is still cheaper than the £15.00 I paid for the chaos lord before Christmas

What I find interesting is that these are kits that should be in F***cast, but they seem to have abandoned that material(*).

The problem I'm finding with the plastic kits is that they are not painter friendly, in so much as there are areas that are almost impossible to get to. It will hopefully change as the sculptors get more familiar with the process, but at the moment they almost require painting up the pieces separately and gluing them all together afterwards. Unfortunately the kits aren't cut into pieces that facilitate that approach, so there's a lot of brush poking and touching up required 

(*) I know there have been attempts to retcon F***cast as a temporary measure, but it was launched with a huge fanfare, so I have serious doubts about that.

[Cubs]

What has happened to the fur on the Skaven? They appear to have bald bodies now. Are they mole rat mutants?

[Tactalvanic]

£13.50 is still cheaper than the £15.00 I paid for the chaos lord before Christmas

What I find interesting is that these are kits that should be in F***cast, but they seem to have abandoned that material(*).

The problem I'm finding with the plastic kits is that they are not painter friendly, in so much as there are areas that are almost impossible to get to. It will hopefully change as the sculptors get more familiar with the process, but at the moment they almost require painting up the pieces separately and gluing them all together afterwards. Unfortunately the kits aren't cut into pieces that facilitate that approach, so there's a lot of brush poking and touching up required  

(*) I know there have been attempts to retcon F***cast as a temporary measure, but it was launched with a huge fanfare, so I have serious doubts about that.

If it had been f-cast then it would simply be worse.

Although they launched it with great fan-fare they did indeed make it clear at the time it was temporary - that temporary just seems to have lasted for a considerable length of time - I assume until they used as much of it up as possible. I own no f-cast miniatures, and am happy with that result - Did not enjoy the medium.

I don't mind the plastic miniatures, I do mind the price, and  it will be £15.00 soon. Ok I admit the chaos lord by then will £18.00 if its still available, and not replaced with a new version for £25.00..

What has happened to the fur on the Skaven? They appear to have bald bodies now. Are they mole rat mutants?

Probably - saves on hair care products?

[Cubs]

Probably - saves on hair care products?

True. I used to have a pet rat and we'd shampoo him in the sink from time to time when he got stinky. He liked it about as much as dogs like having a bath, but he did like the warm air from the blow-dryer afterwards. I'm sure the Clan Skyre could invent a warpstone-powered salon for the discerning skaven.

[Tactalvanic]

I suspect though in the end its just cheaper/easier to do them smooth and hairless

That or GW intend to add mole rat to their IP.

[Mr Brown]

(*) I know there have been attempts to retcon F***cast as a temporary measure, but it was launched with a huge fanfare, so I have serious doubts about that.

For some reason it wont let me use the quote function... Anyways it matter not.

I remember the chat around the press release of switching out from metal to resin, sorry Finecast, was a temporary measure before moving everything to plastic. I don't think these new mentions of Finecast being a temporary measure are actually new or too far from a plausible truth. As for the fanfare at launch, why wouldn't you make a big deal out of it. It would be daft not to.

In any business I've worked in, the goal is to sell whatever it is you have.

If I had a mini business that was struggling with metal and was looking long term at plastic but had a stop gap product in resin. Would I say "Hey guys, this is just temporary until we move to all plastic kits. Its a good product that'll tide us all over." I definitely wouldn't. Would I however say something like, "Hey guys, with the changes in material availability, we've decided that we don't want to lose our place as one of the best manufacturers in the market. We are no longer going to use metal but our new formulation material called Finecast which shows detail in crisp definition. Don't worry, our plastic ranges are staying around too."

Its marketing and making the best of everything you have. Whether that has worked or not is a different matter entirely

[Tactalvanic]

Exactly right Mr Brown.

Sell what u got and hype it to the max.

Or in the case of good old GW - the above and put the price up as well.

I remember some press releases and  articles about what a good formulation it was, good properties of this/that etc, as metal was just to expensive to continue with but moving over to tooling for plastic etc was to excessively expensive, the quality was not good enough yet etc, but f-cast, great stuff, as good as - nearly, completely, definitely - metal and would provide the necessary time for developing the needed techniques etc to move over to plastic....

I agree though there were mentions of temporary right from the start.

ummm yes that was good marketing... After all they did sell manage to sell it.

[Tactalvanic]

oh and I do like this :

http://www.avolakcastings.com/#!miniatures/vstc1=daemonic-rat

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=74824.0

Sadly I don't think its available to buy 

[zemjw]

Last f*cast post, promise

found this blogpost from around the time of the launch, containing the GW announcement. Sadly the GW site link is to the old site, so doesn't go anywhere. Of particular note

Last week we announced something very special - so special in fact that it's nothing less than a new era in wargaming, as we launch the highest quality miniatures the world has ever seen - Citadel Finecast

The announcement gets even more effusive after that paragraph

So while there may have been rumours of it being temporary, and I apprectiate marketing have a job to do, it still rankles

I also found this forum post suggesting that as of Q2 2014 they have ceased f*cast production