The state of Games Workshop

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Okay so here's the thing. 8th edition for Warhammre 40k is coming out soon(like, next week soon) and its gonna be a big change up.
People are calling it NewHammer because its changing everything from the ground up. The entire game system is being re-written, with a stated emphasis on quick play and lethality of models. They want the games to be fasted and bloodier. Whether or not the rules will actually play out that way is up for debate, and personally after the debacle that was Age of Sigmar, I have very little faith in GW's ability to write their own rules.

But my larger point isn't the edition change-over or the new lore/models, its the new attitude GW is forcing on their stores.
I'll tell you a story; I was playing a match a few days ago with my Orks and the manager walks over and sees my looted land raider. And he gives me a look and says 'Oh what's this? allied space marines?' and I'm all 'No, its a battlewagon.' and he said 'but its a land raider' and I was 'yeah, looted land raider. Orks man.' And he walks away.
Comes back a few minutes later and says 'I hate to do this, but I'm gonna have to ask you to take that model off the table.'
'What? Why?'
'because its not the official kit'
'Yeah it is. Its the land raider kit. I just added orks and some plastic card.'
'Yeah I get that but the thing is there's an actual battlwagon kit, and you're gonna have to use that instead.'
Luckily I did have a battlwagon to hand and was able to sub it in.

So I talked to the manager about this afterward when the store was about to close, 'cause...the fuck? And he's a friend of mine so he was pretty honest. He had gotten the verbal shit kicked out of him by the regional manager for not enforcing the 'New' GW rules.
Here's the breakdown of what he told me had was being forced to do:
-No 3rd Party models. Honestly, fair enough.
-No swearing. Again, sure.
-No smoking outside the building. Kinda 90s, but whatever.
-No using the bathroom in back. Shitty.
-Only official kits can be used. When I pressed him on this, he said if GW sells a kit, you can't substitute in a conversion of something else. GW has an official Battlewagon kit, so you can only use that kit for battlewagons. No more looted tanks, no more using Age of Sigmar dudes as other dudes, no more kit-bashed Inquisitors or converted Terminators from other army ranges, nothing.
Now the grace allowed is conversions are okay if there is no official kit. GW doesn't make a librarian on a bike for normal marines, so feel free to make your own. But they do make normal librarians, so that kitbash out of a grey knight box has to go.
-only official GW carrying cases. GW cases are shit and almost always break models, and they make loads of models that don't fit inside what cases they do make. I have an Ork stompa, and GW doesn't make a case that fits it.
I even asked about my backpack I carry my rule books in and he shrugged and said he's prefer if I didn't bring it.
-Only GW dice and accessories. No more generic $5 per 1lbs dice, no more generic measuring tape, or custom objective markers. The rule of thumb he gave me is that if GW sells it, you have to use the GW version of it.
I jokingly asked if we had to use only GW paints and brushes and he said he won't ask, but don't ever admit to anything.

And that's it. That's the 'We listened to our customers and did what they want' New Games Workshop is telling their store managers needs to happen. Horrifically anti-consumer rules, almost designed to drive away their customers. And it kinda' shows what I've always assumed of GW - the game and the customers are a burden to them. They don't want a community, they don't want to have to write rules and edit them or keep up to date with anything. They want you to buy models, and leave. Whether you put them together or not doesn't matter to them as long as you bought the kits.
Thankfully there are other stores in town, but they're a bit further away. But if this is the reception I, as a very loyal and friendly customer and player, can expect in 8th, it might be time to move on.

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

I entered the thread with a joke on hand that Games Workshop had finally gotten so full of themselves that they were declaring themselves an independent national city-state.

Then I read the OP.

My joke either isn't a joke or it's too close to reality to be funny anymore. Sheesh. This is not a company that intends to survive for very long. They seem to be so obessed with control over every aspect of their product that they're going into a controlled crash dive.

 

[American Tanker]

Yep, drop GW like they're radioactive and just play... Literally anything that's not GW's.

Hopefully, you can find ways to convert rules from other systems to suit your stuff. And that thing about the Land Raider not being allowed to be a Battlewagon, what the FUCK is that SHIT? No Looted shit for Orks anymore? And all that tight-assed-ness about what models can be used for what? GO FUCK YOURSELVES, GREED WORKSHOP.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

I doubt people are gonna care about store rules when the store products are so obscenely expensive.

I mean seriosly how can anyone fork over the money to buy such obscenely expensive products.

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Imperial-Guard-Baneblade

And people complained about DLC in Total War: Warhammer. You need to spend 100s of cash for 1 unit in the tabletop.

I mean seriously who is the Tabletop made for? Elitist High Class Rich People, Celebraties?

Seriously when did Tabletop gaming became the equivilant to buying a Ferrari?

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

But on topic, Does stores that sells Wizards of the Coast (D&D and Magic the Gathering) products suffer the same issues?

 

[Queen Michael]

I've said it before. I'll say it again. This? This kind of stuff? It's the reason I stick to reading the novels.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

I've said it before. I'll say it again. This? This kind of stuff? It's the reason I stick to reading the novels.

Or video games to which is miles better.

 

[jademunky]

See now, I have never actually played the tabletop and just admired it from afar due to the insane price tag but has anyone ever explained the justification for plastic miniatures to cost so much? I mean, seriously, children's toys are just as detailed and a fraction of the cost. Granted, I don't expect GW to be able to leverage the economy of scale that Mattel does but still.

 

[American Tanker]

Or video games to which is miles better.

You know, I kinda do want a game where you play as a badass Space Marine, but, well...

Look, I know that 1d4chan has nothing but praise for Captain Titus, player character of the 40K: Space Marine game, but he's an Ultramarine. You know, the single most boring Chapter in the history of 40K.

Would it be too much to be allowed to play as a Captain from the Raptors, a stealthy sharpshooter marine that fights less like a warrior monk and more like an actual soldier?

Just include some suitably brutal close quarters stealth takedowns when I get the drop on my enemies. At least that way, yes, I can melee; but it's really in my best interests to stick to the shadows and eliminate my enemies from afar.

Or would this not be 40K enough? Too Ghost Recon, maybe?

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

That's...uh, wow. I mean...using the official models is standard rules for tournaments, because they're tournaments and WYSIWYG and so on. It's important for the other player that he know what it is he's looking at. For in-store games, I have no idea what the deal is because making a custom model usually costs a player more money, because they buy a Land Raider and some Battlewagon parts instead of just a Battlewagon. I mean, the people who make those ridiculous conversions usually spend way more time and money working on it than the people who just assemble a model out of a kit. So I don't get the reasoning behind that.

But only GW carrying cases? Only GW dice? Dice! They're six-sided dice, they're the most common dice on the planet. I looted all my six-sided dice from old board games!

And no using the bathroom? What the fuck, GW?!

I mean seriously who is the Tabletop made for? Elitist High Class Rich People, Celebraties?

Seriously when did Tabletop gaming became the equivilant to buying a Ferrari?

Warhammer has been expensive for a long time, but specifically since about 2008, where the CEO made the deliberate decision to raise prices (during a global recession) on the basis that...its customer base were children with rich parents, who would see the front of a box and demand that their parents buy it, so the price tag didn't matter. Their parents would just put in on a card.

See, in America and Australia, Warhammer is something played by nerdy college students and hobbyists. That's where it gets most of its exposure in popular culture. But in the UK, Warhammer models are toys for spoiled rich kids, and the management are so myopic that they haven't realised there are any other types of customer. So when the Warhammer player base spent decades complaining that GW ignores them, they were 100% correct. GW does not care about the people who actually play their games.

See now, I have never actually played the tabletop and just admired it from afar due to the insane price tag but has anyone ever explained the justification for plastic miniatures to cost so much?

Back in Ye Olden Days, there were two explanations. The first was that the models were made of pewter and not plastic, and were therefore slightly more expensive to produce. The second was that much of the overhead involved in producing a model was in producing the mold, which had to be designed and sculpted and cast etc. before production could even begin. The high price tag was explained as a way of recouping that significant up-front cost.

Now, of course, advantages in technology like fine-casting and 3d printing means that GW can produce plastic models that are vastly more detailed than pewter for much cheaper than they could in the 80s or 90s. They retain the high price tag because why the fuck wouldn't they?

What GW never really realised was that if they dropped their prices, they would sell more models. Instead, as sales wane and the player base stagnates, they keep jacking up the prices incrementally to make up for the lost sales, which drive more people out of the hobby, which reduces sales, so they jack up prices some more...it's a vicious cycle that has been going on for a long, long time.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Or video games to which is miles better.

You know, I kinda do want a game where you play as a badass Space Marine, but, well...

Look, I know that 1d4chan has nothing but praise for Captain Titus, player character of the 40K: Space Marine game, but he's an Ultramarine. You know, the single most boring Chapter in the history of 40K.

Would it be too much to be allowed to play as a Captain from the Raptors, a stealthy sharpshooter marine that fights less like a warrior monk and more like an actual soldier?

Just include some suitably brutal close quarters stealth takedowns when I get the drop on my enemies. At least that way, yes, I can melee; but it's really in my best interests to stick to the shadows and eliminate my enemies from afar.

Or would this not be 40K enough? Too Ghost Recon, maybe?

Bah the Ultramarines are anything but boring, you want boring look at the Imperial Fist.

The Ultramarines are just GLORIOUS!!!

 

[American Tanker]

Bah the Ultramarines are anything but boring, you want boring look at the Imperial Fist.

The Ultramarines are just GLORIOUS!!!

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like every depiction of Space Marines you ever hear about is Ultramarines. Sure, they've got the most Successors; but would it really be too much to ask for some other Chapter, descended from some other First Founding Legion, to get the spotlight? Just briefly?

I'll keep saying it even after you get tired of it: My favorite Primarch is Corvus Corax of the Raven Guard. He just seems more in line with my idea of combat: Know everything you can about your enemy, strike without warning, exploit his weaknesses to the fullest and end the fight as quick as possible, preferably before he has a chance to really make it a fight. But of course, where I differ from the mainline Raven Guard is in my preference for eliminating the enemy at a safe distance, hence why I prefer the RG's Second Founding Successors, the Raptors.

And yeah, I get that if I wanted to play a shooty army, I'd be better off going Tau. But I don't want to be a Commie Weeaboo Cheesemonger reliant almost entirely on walkers. Seriously, do the Tau have any effective options in Elites or Heavy Support that AREN'T Battlesuits? If you go with the Raptors, you can have a sneaky, shooty army of professional badass Space Marines backed up by tanks. Predator tanks are nothing compared to a Leman Russ, sure, but they're not to be taken lightly. Camp a squad of Lascannon Devastator Marines on an objective within your deployment zone and stick Chapter Master Issodon with them and dare the enemy to come and claim it; odds are, they won't be able to budge those guys without powerful Ignores Cover weapons, which is why you use Issodon's Reserves reroll to keep a squad of Assault Terminator Marines ready to stop up any melee threat that threatens this dakka bunker.

And yes, I understand, I'm basically repeating shit from 1d4chan. I've never actually played anything 40K, but I spend way too much time on 1d4chan.

 

[Souplex]

So I've been meaning to ask: Do 40K players exist in real life, or are they entirely internetizens? Because I've never seen one in spite of how much the internet talks about them. Same with MrAs while I'm at it.

 

[pookie101]

I doubt people are gonna care about store rules when the store products are so obscenely expensive.

I mean seriosly how can anyone fork over the money to buy such obscenely expensive products.

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Imperial-Guard-Baneblade

And people complained about DLC in Total War: Warhammer. You need to spend 100s of cash for 1 unit in the tabletop.

I mean seriously who is the Tabletop made for? Elitist High Class Rich People, Celebraties?

Seriously when did Tabletop gaming became the equivilant to buying a Ferrari?

$140 for a baneblade?????? WTF

ive always heard people complaining about how expensive it was but thats left me dumbfounded

ive only ever played a single game of 1st edition and haha yeah that was with lego space marines

 

[Sonicron]

So I've been meaning to ask: Do 40K players exist in real life, or are they entirely internetizens? Because I've never seen one in spite of how much the internet talks about them. Same with MrAs while I'm at it.

Oh, they certainly exist. Go to any sort of local game store where they sell miniatures and painting equipment, CCGs, board games etc, and you'll likely bump into them. Also, if you know where to look there are all sorts of small conventions and other events where matches and tournaments are held.

 

[Queen Michael]

So I've been meaning to ask: Do 40K players exist in real life, or are they entirely internetizens? Because I've never seen one in spite of how much the internet talks about them. Same with MrAs while I'm at it.

I visited my cousins the other day, and one of them has started collecting figures. I knew he liked the computer games, but this was new.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

So I've been meaning to ask: Do 40K players exist in real life, or are they entirely internetizens? Because I've never seen one in spite of how much the internet talks about them. Same with MrAs while I'm at it.

I swear to you I am real. I have, over the course of roughly 15 years, acquired probably $2000+ worth of models. And I legitimately love playing the game, until recently loved the atmosphere of the GW stores, and loved competing in the painting contests held.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

But only GW carrying cases? Only GW dice? Dice! They're six-sided dice, they're the most common dice on the planet. I looted all my six-sided dice from old board games!

I have some Chessex custom made dice, with an ork symbol, I custom ordered. GW doesn't make it. They loose no money. I've used them a hundred times in front of the manager. He even said they were "so dope, look at these fuckers!"
Tried using them the other day and he was like "Look, I have to ask you to use GW dice. Its the rules, you have to use our dice in our store."
Again thankfully I have a set of their block dice, but...

I asked about generic white d6s. And he was visibly upset when he said just use our dice please. He knows its shit, and GW is simply full of shit!

Yeah. Really.

 

[Souplex]

So I've been meaning to ask: Do 40K players exist in real life, or are they entirely internetizens? Because I've never seen one in spite of how much the internet talks about them. Same with MrAs while I'm at it.

Oh, they certainly exist. Go to any sort of local game store where they sell miniatures and painting equipment, CCGs, board games etc, and you'll likely bump into them. Also, if you know where to look there are all sorts of small conventions and other events where matches and tournaments are held.

I visit a local gamestore on a weekly+ basis. There's always an employee painting minis, but I've never seen anyone play 40K there. It's all D&D, Magic, and miscellaneous boardgames.

 

[vallorn]

Their managers and staff are gonna be suffering such a morale deficit with this. Having to tell people they can't use stuff they've been using for years, people who have probably been regulars for years or even decades, it's gonna be heartbreaking for them to do this stuff and I can't see them hanging on for long under these conditions.

With their experienced staff and management going, how are they going to maintain their stores? They wont. This is gonna kill Games Workshop stores.