Games Workshop is Dead! Long Live Games Workshop!

[Elijah Newton]

I'd like to underscore this great suggestion. I loved Mordheim to pieces. The scale of it was perfectly matched to the scope of its story (competing warbands scavenging a devestated city for Warp McGuffins) and the games were frickin' lightning round fast compared to WH40k battles.

Guess what.

They've pulled the miniature ranges for Mordheim.

Did they just do this? I had made the (entirely uninformed) assumption these minis had been off the shevles for years now.

It's a pity but, as you've noticed, a nice wake-up call that other people do the similar things better.

 

[RicoADF]

Sure thing, the game's called Firestorm Armada and it's made by a company called Spartan Games.

The models are gorgeous but they're hard to evaluate in pictures, Spartan doesn't have many decent model painters on staff so the pictures just don't do them justice. Here's two of mine, the brute in the background is half done and the smaller vessel up front is finished. My paint job is terrible but you can see the detail on the model is very good.

Spoiler

By the way that's not pink, it's the flash

Heh I actually found that after asking you, yeah it looks quite nice and in a few weeks I might get a few models, I'll check some hobby shops here. Yeah the model detail looks amazing, have you tried dry brushing? The paint would come out better on the model.

They do need more physical painted models images for players to see what their selling.

 

[ForumSafari]

Yeah the model detail looks amazing, have you tried dry brushing? The paint would come out better on the model.

I have funnily enough. Started with a black undercoat, drybrushed silver and inked over with black. As I say they're not great but the camera does them no favours.

 

[RicoADF]

I have funnily enough. Started with a black undercoat, drybrushed silver and inked over with black. As I say they're not great but the camera does them no favours.

The silver part does look better, it's the red that looks flat and painted on.
I just hope I can find somewhere around here to get the game as GBP to AUD has a terrible conversion rate (approx $150 AUD for 80 GBP)

 

[ForumSafari]

The silver part does look better, it's the red that looks flat and painted on.
I just hope I can find somewhere around here to get the game as GBP to AUD has a terrible conversion rate (approx $150 AUD for 80 GBP)

I'm considering inking it to add depth but to be honest I like it looking flat and painted on, it seems appropriate for a space ship to have its' main colours painted on very cleanly.

Don't know what to recommend on price, it's a small game and its' British so most sellers are from over here. Maybe eBay will have a storefront or something?

 

[thehorror2]

I want GW to die a painful death, slowly enough that they have to auction off their IPs to avoid debt-driven lawsuits, THQ style. Why? Because WH40k under Privateer Press would be a thing of beauty. Those guys know how to make a wargame that sells. Look at how well they did, with a fraction of Warhammer's installed base to support them.

 

[rednightmare]

I still have two 40K armies lying around here. Part of me wants to get back into it, But the cost to just update the rules and the time to paint the remaining models is way to high for me right now (especially since they discontinued my main color for one of the armies).

Above them there are 6 Hordes Models. 4 of these form a playable army. I got them for ?50 new and they came with rules even. It's just very hard to consider going back to Warhammer 40K, when Hordes and Warmachine have better and easier rules, lower entry costs and far smaller armies to paint.

I don't neccesarily want GW to burn, but in the end I never felt like Games Workshop respected me as a customer. Maybe Privateer Press will.

 

[Mangod]

snip

Or you could go for the GW starter boxed set, which is the equivalent of $90, gives you 2 armies (48 models including a dreadnought, & a few bikes), rulebook, templates, dice etc.

Sure, you're stuck with marines or chaos, but getting started isn't that expensive. It's the add ons that cost bucks. They get you hooked on free cheap samples then jack up the price.

Fair enough. Yes, you could go for a starter box, but like you said, that's predicated, at least in part, on you wanting to play Space Marines or Chaos Space Marines. But if you want to play Orks, for example, you still need to fork over $185.25* to get started. So it's still more expensive unless you want to play some flavor of Marine.

Sorry if this seems confrontational in any way.

*$74.25 for the rulebook, $33 for the codex, $20 for the warboss and $29X2 for two units of Boyz.

 

[Weaver]

Wow, I didn't know Warhammer was so cheap in the US! That a Tac Squad, Rhino, and 5 paints would cost me $135 here. I can't imagine why anyone in Australia plays the game.

The sad part is I remember when I first started collecting, $100 would have gotten me all of that plus the Codex Astartes with change left over for a White Dwarf. Oh yeah...And all ten marines were made from lead or pewter.

I started at the beginning of 2nd edition and I actually have a pewter dreadnaught which cost me less than the plastic ones are now.

 

[Sir Shockwave]

That's why I was kind of excited about the Kill Team rules.....had they had a print version instead of a release just on iOS or e-reader devices that I don't own. Of course, for the new player, they'd still have to buy the main rule book to make use of Kill Team which probably makes that of dubious value as a cost of entry thing.

Actually, this brings up a point the article didn't raise.

I see the push into Digital as generally a bad thing. There's a reason companies like PP, Corvus Belli (Infinity) and Spartan (Dystopian Wars, Firestorm Armada) haven't gone fully digital - it's a terrible idea. Asides the general enjoyment of holding a book in your hand, having to buy an E Reader or iPad device for what is essentially DLC in a Tabletop Wargame? Not worth it. Heck, the two that I do have on my PC (a converted version of the Eldar Ghost Warriors Dataslate and a pirated copy of Codex: Inquisition) show Microsoft Word skills that would put a four year old to shame in how easy to read.

And once again, they're also overpriced. Codex: Inquisition for example is by and large a reprint of material from Codex: Grey Knights, with a quick clean up job to make it work in 6th Edition. The Ghost Warriors Dataslate is even worse, containing only two pages of actual rules! I'm willing to wager money if the upcoming Imperial Knights rumor is accurate that we're also going to see some real disappointment.

They could at least do the Mantic solution and make this stuff a free download, with a physical rulebook as an option.

 

[Aedwynn]

My poison of choice was always Battlefleet Gothic, I liked 40k well enough but BFG was my favourite game by GW.

Naturally they dropped all support for it.

I stopped playing Warhammer due to the insane turn lengths and the frankly insulting prices, I play the odd game of Warmachine now and I've got a new toy spaceship game with models easily as nice as BFG and half the price. My complete fleet will probably run me £200.

May I ask what game is this, Id like to find another BFG like game but can only find mongooses armada, been wanting to find out if the model quality is any good since I display the models more than play them.

Firestorm Armada by Spartan Games.

Link
http://www.spartangames.co.uk/

 

[Verlander]

This is what happens when you take advantage of loyalty and market dominance. Apple is starting to feel the same sting (albeit at a far lower rate) with their charger policy. It's difficult to resist when opportunities arise that feel like you're printing money, but you have to balance that with consumer satisfaction.

 

[Ieyke]

They're not dead. They're just getting a long deserved ass-kicking that will hopefully beat some sense into them.
They are THE best wargames/miniatures company, but they have the business sense of a dead houseplant.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Fair enough. Yes, you could go for a starter box, but like you said, that's predicated, at least in part, on you wanting to play Space Marines or Chaos Space Marines. But if you want to play Orks, for example, you still need to fork over $185.25* to get started. So it's still more expensive unless you want to play some flavor of Marine.

Sorry if this seems confrontational in any way.

*$74.25 for the rulebook, $33 for the codex, $20 for the warboss and $29X2 for two units of Boyz.

Nope, not at all. Perfectly civil.

True, I certainly think they should do more varied starter packs. They really should have kept producing Assault on Black Reach, then orks would be costing the same to start. If they had then they'd have starter packs for 3 races (I refuse to call dark angels and vanilla marines a separate race) that are significantly better value that the Warmachine ones. Sure you can play a game with either, but you get a lot more toy soldiers with GW.

But the real difference in cost isn't the miniatures, it's the rulebooks and they are pretty much a one off outlay, at least in the short term. After that the miniatures aren't much different in price, some GW stuff is significantly cheaper (e.g., I was looking for some alternate guard troops and saw the khador winter guard..."oooh, some fancy alternate Valhallans I thought...£40 for ten...fuuuuuuuck. I could get 20 regular metal Valhallans for that"). If you're going to keep collecting then the price is going to balance out.

But yes, if you don't want to collect marines or chaos the startup price for warmachine is cheaper. If you do though...

EDIT:

Also, I'm not particularly familiar with warmachine as a game, I guess Prime is the main rule book but how do Colossals, Wrath and the various Forces of X books fit in? Is it necessary to buy them to use certain models or are they just fluff?

 

[Mangod]

EDIT:

Also, I'm not particularly familiar with warmachine as a game, I guess Prime is the main rule book but how do Colossals, Wrath and the various Forces of X books fit in? Is it necessary to buy them to use certain models or are they just fluff?

Well, Prime/Primal are the basic rulebooks for Warmachine and Hordes respectively, including the rules for how to play the game, as well as the rules for the most basic units and warjacks/beasts for each of the factions (3 Warcasters/locks per faction, 6-4 Warjacks/beasts, 5 units and a solo), with Colossals, Wrath and the like working sort of like 40k's Cities of Death, Planetstrike and similar, adding rules for new Warcaster/locks, 'jacks/beasts, units, solos, siege engines, and Colossals/Gargantuans.

The "Forces of X" books are essentially compilations of the rules from prior books, so it serves the same function as a Codex in 40k, only all the models from prior books and editions are still legal, with their rules and cost updated for the new rules.

Note that all PP models for Hordes and Warmachine come with cards that include all the stats, rules and abilities of the model(s), so with the exception of the basic rulebook, none of the books are necessary to play the newer units. They're still well made, contain more elaborate descriptions of units, and include some pretty decent fluff that advance an actual story, unlike 40k's and WHFB's almost static setting, but it is not necessary to buy them.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

The "Forces of X" books are essentially compilations of the rules from prior books, so it serves the same function as a Codex in 40k, only all the models from prior books and editions are still legal, with their rules and cost updated for the new rules.

Note that all PP models for Hordes and Warmachine come with cards that include all the stats, rules and abilities of the units, so with the exception of the basic rulebook, none of the books are necessary to play the newer units. They're still well made, contain more elaborate descriptions of units, and include some pretty decent fluff that advance an actual story, unlike 40k's and WHFB's almost static setting.

That's a pretty good idea. Making the codices unnecessary would bring the cost down quite a bit, enough for another 10 man squad, and I'm guessing most people would buy them in the end anyway. Make it cheap as possible to get into no matter which army you want to collect, then lure people in with all the shiny, the latter being what GW do best. "I want the shiny" breeds much less ill will than "I have to buy this if I want to play".

 

[Ashley Blalock]

A complaint I often hear is that Tom Kirby knows the ship is sinking and is simply attempting to ensure a personal place on a lifeboat with as much money as he can gather from price hikes and employee cutbacks.

If you look at recent board appointees, it appears that Mr Kirby may well intend to sell off GW to Hasbro or similar.

Getting sold to somewhere like Hasbro might actually be for the best.

Part of the problem it seems to me is that the fictional world might be interesting but the focus is just too narrow with a table top game being the only outlet. Let's face it table top gaming isn't exactly a dominate force when people have so many and cheaper ways to entertain themselves. Kind of hard to get kids to play Warhammer 40K when it's cheaper to just buy an X-Box or Playstation and play games with people from far away and not take forever to play.

If Hasbro purchased Games Workshop then they would not be content with the only one way into the Warhammer 40K universe. They would look to make action figures, Kre-O sets, or with the popularity of Skylanders some sort of Warhammer game where you used the pre-painted figure to play a video game. You want into Warhammer 40K the Games Workshop way then you better have deep pockets and a commitment to army building. Hasbro on the other hand would see the value of selling some Warhammer 40K Kre-O figures at a lower price point to many people instead of only expensive stuff to a handful of hardcore fans. That's why Hasbro might put out a few Masterpiece Transformers figures but they know their bread and butter is the far cheaper deluxe figure.

I've got enough nostalgia for Warhammer 40K that I'd buy a Kre-O Space Wolves mini-figure without a hesitation, but there is just no way I can swing the Games Workshop price for something with no articulation and that I have to paint myself. But outside of the Space Marine game for X-Box and Playstation I haven't seen Games Workshop make any real attempt to expand the brand beyond table top gaming. I think it will take getting purchased by a bigger company to drag the brand into the modern world of diversified products at wide range of price points.

Really a shame Games Workshop has missed so many trends by their instance at being an expensive table top only brand. I'm sure Lego sold far more Lord of the Rings sets than Games Workshop did Lord of the Rings table top figures.

 

[FFHAuthor]

They lost me when they decided to completely annihilate and re-make the Imperial Guard rules twice. First change it to the 'Regiment' style where you can used designed regiments with special rules to fight certain ways, or you could design your own regiment. Excellent idea in my mind, make my army even more personalized. Designed a light infantry/urban warfare army perfect for fighting in cities, hell, I went out and bought the cityfight rules to get a better understanding of the army. I plan everything out and start purchasing units, put about three hundred dollars into it.

Then they change the Guard rules to the next idea, toss out the regiment idea and change the Cityfight rules to boot.

Makes my entire play concept useless, and makes it so that if I WANT to use the few hundred dollars of models to fight with I need to spend another few hundred dollars to make my army reasonably competitive. Not to mention that they change the rules for other factions and tend to inbalance one faction to make it 'fair' for the other factions, all the while just creating another issue with imbalance.

Yeah, forget it. I take interest in a hobby, put down a fair chunk of change into it, and when I can actually play, they change their rules so I can't play.

Only thing I care about is them giving the Warhammer Licence to Creative Assembly so we can see a Warhammer Total war game that isn't horrifyingly unbalanced.

 

[daveNYC]

Pretty sure you'd still need to buy the army codex though.

Startup costs are pretty killer with WH. Not only is it pretty expensive to get the absolute bare minimum of units for a legal army, the cost of getting the 1000-2000 points that you'd probably want if you're going to play a lot is much worse.

If it's bad for adults with real jobs, just imagine what a teen is thinking or what parents are thinking when little Timmy wants to get $100 in plastic soldiers for Christmas.

 

[Mangod]

Pretty sure you'd still need to buy the army codex though.

Startup costs are pretty killer with WH. Not only is it pretty expensive to get the absolute bare minimum of units for a legal army, the cost of getting the 1000-2000 points that you'd probably want if you're going to play a lot is much worse.

If it's bad for adults with real jobs, just imagine what a teen is thinking or what parents are thinking when little Timmy wants to get $100 in plastic soldiers for Christmas.

This is really the gist of GW's problems right now; they are losing their old adult customers, and they are not getting new adult ones to replace their lost customers at the same pace, because they have competition in this expensive niche of the hobby market.

So, in order to compensate for this loss, they've decided to, and I quote, "sell toy soldiers to children"... who I'm pretty sure do not have the kind of income that allows someone to pursue this hobby.

I want GW to succeed, variety being healthy for the industry in general, but I don't think their current business strategy will allow them to remain competitive.