Games Workshop is Dead! Long Live Games Workshop!

[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.

 

[Stu35]

When I was a child, my parents baulked at the price of GW minis, but I still managed to get into the game. I spent many, many happy years playing 40K, WFB, Blood Bowl, Mordheim, Epic 40k and so on and so forth.

That started with my parents buying me the occasional box of Space Wolves or Bretonnians for a birthday or christmas. Armies built up slowly over many, many years. Games played with oh-so-many "proxies" to stretch my 1,500 points of models into a 2,000 point army.

I got older, I got jobs, I started to buy my own models (and branch out into the sub-games), I didn't need proxies any more, if I wanted a 2,000 point guard infantry army I'd buy a fucking 2,000 point guard army (I've still got a few boxes of unassembled, unpainted Catachans from that particular pay-day splurge when I was about 17).

I got older still, it got ever more expensive, my free time vanished, I moved away, many of my friends who I used to play with also moved away. I came back to find my friends (the ones I still hang out with) now play Malifaux et. al. I've kinda just grown out of the whole hobby.

I honestly don't know how many thousands of pounds I (and my parents) have funneled into GW over the years. This includes plenty of trips down to Nottingham and manys a Pint of "Bugmanns Beer" quaffed (and one less-than-legal drive back to Yorkshire as a reckless 17 year old with more brass than sense, but that's another story altogether)

I do know that with the pricing structure the way it is now, this would never have happened if I was a child these days.

Even if I had the free time and inclination, there's no way I'd buy a GW product again now - I had 3 weeks off a while ago, and considered buying some new models, paints, and all the other detritus I don't have anymore. Looked at the prices, and immediately decided against it.


Honestly. I don't understand how GW is still in business, much less profitable... Then again, I never understood how "X-Factor" is still going whilst "Community" keeps getting cancelled.

 

[Atomic Spy Crab]

Well it was pretty obvious games workshop wouldn't die because 1/1000 of its money dropped (Price joke)
Also on the topic of prices, can we complain about something else for once? Such as the lack of a sisters or ork update?
(Even though $50 for tetto'eko is outrageous)

I stopped playing due to lack of support for Orks. I would get seriously ruined by all these other players armies having all this stuff I don't know about and wrecking my shit with it. The prices over here are awful too, around $80-90 (That's NZD) for a pack of just 10 Space Marines? It's a complete rip off.

10 marines is $40

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Well it was pretty obvious games workshop wouldn't die because 1/1000 of its money dropped (Price joke)
Also on the topic of prices, can we complain about something else for once? Such as the lack of a sisters or ork update?
(Even though $50 for tetto'eko is outrageous)

I stopped playing due to lack of support for Orks. I would get seriously ruined by all these other players armies having all this stuff I don't know about and wrecking my shit with it. The prices over here are awful too, around $80-90 (That's NZD) for a pack of just 10 Space Marines? It's a complete rip off.

10 marines is $40

Maybe in the United States, I clarified that it was in NZD in my post. This NZ site http://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/Warhammer-40000-Space-Marine-Tactical-Squad/20302119 has them listed normally for $73 NZD, Games Workshop themselves charge http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=&prodId=prod2160142a $75 for them for people in New Zealand, it may reroute you to the US or UK store depending on where you are, but if you can, choose the NZ one to have a look. Make sure to check before correcting someone. They may not be up to $90 anymore, but I distinctly remember them being that much at one point, because I had a discussion with a guy at the Games Workshop near my place about the prices.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Guess what.

They've pulled the miniature ranges for Mordheim.

Technically, yes. Well, there is an elf mage you can get in Australia still online.

However, the original models that came with the boxed set, the mercenaries and the skaven are still around, as Empire Militia, or Skaven Nightrunngers respectively.

But what I find is that since plastic figures aren't often conceptualized as a finished product if they're designed to be modular, then they generally result in finished products that have no sense of motion. Compare the Space Marine Vanguard Veteran [http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440195a&prodId=prod2160152a] squad with Nomad Hellcats [http://www.infinitythegame.com/infinity/en/2013/miniatures/hellcats-4/]. The GW product looks chunky and oddly static for figures who are supposed to be rapid assault drop troops, while the Hellcats not only look more correctly proportioned, they appear to move the way an actual human being would. Rather than having a bunch of random accessories tacked on, the flat spaces are broken up with believable sci-fi combat equipment.

Not sure that's fair, surely it's in how they are assembled?

The proportions are off, true, but GW has always intentionally gone for weird proportions to look more heroic or something. Except for necroumundan Van Saars, which made them hard to convert.

 

[endtherapture]

Not sure that's fair, surely it's in how they are assembled?

It's that they're designed to be assembled that makes them come out looking unnatural.

When a sculptor designs a metal, non-poseable figure, they imagine the whole figure from start to finish as a single connected body. Even when for technical reasons it has to be assembled from multiple parts, the sculptor knows how those parts must go together. There's a natural flow of movement connecting the pieces. In the best cases, there's a natural, humanistic movement to the piece. The weapons and equipment they're carrying appear to have weight.

Multi-part plastics OTOH, are not designed this way. They're designed to maximize versatility, but that necessitates a loss in accuracy of form. Look at those Space Marines I linked to in my prior post. At best, only the beakie is assembled into a pose the human body would naturally adopt when in movement. And the squad leader and the Thunder Hammer marines are carrying extremely large weapons, but there's no hint from their pose that those weapons have any bit of weight at all. Their bodies aren't counter-balancing the weight of a 9 foot sword of a giant hammer- they can't, because the rest of the miniature was never sculpted with those pieces exclusively in mind.

Now look at the Hellcat miniatures. Both of them are designed as a single piece, so the body parts flow to imply a natural sort of movement. Were you to stand in a pose matching the space marines, if you didn't fall flat on your face you'd struggle to understand what the moment path was. But if you were to stand like the hellcats, you'd know exactly what sort of movement you were making. The one with the heavy machine gun looks like his weapon has weight, and the weight is shown by the way it is braced against his body. The hacker's combi rifle also looks to have weight, the way the weapon has been raised up and the whole torso has been shifted to counter balance it. This is an effect you simply cannot have in multipart plastics.

GW proportions are bad, yeah. But this is not an issue of proportions. This is about the natural way that the different body parts of a model kit connect. If the sculptor doesn't know how the different body parts will be assembled, there is no possible way to ensure that they will connect naturalistically.

GW proportions aren't bad, Warhammer and 40K ones are.

Have you seen the LoTR range? Brilliant looking, elegant, well proportioned models.