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I'm just seeing the same thing that always happens. Not really feeling any optimism from it, although it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

I think GW is saving themselves, with one caveat, AoS (sucks). But the 40k & now 30K stuff, may be their saving grace, as well as specialist games coming back.

 krazynadechukr wrote:
I think GW is saving themselves, with one caveat, AoS (sucks). But the 40k & now 30K stuff, may be their saving grace, as well as specialist games coming back.

Is there an indication that specialist games are coming back?
What we can see is that they release board games which are usually not that successful. See Dreadfleet.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 krazynadechukr wrote:
I think GW is saving themselves, with one caveat, AoS (sucks). But the 40k & now 30K stuff, may be their saving grace, as well as specialist games coming back.

Is there an indication that specialist games are coming back?
What we can see is that they release board games which are usually not that successful. See Dreadfleet.

GW have announced that Specialist Games are coming back, mentioning Blood Bowl, Necromunda, Epic etc specifically, so I guess you could see that as an indication!

 Mymearan wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

 krazynadechukr wrote:
I think GW is saving themselves, with one caveat, AoS (sucks). But the 40k & now 30K stuff, may be their saving grace, as well as specialist games coming back.

Is there an indication that specialist games are coming back?
What we can see is that they release board games which are usually not that successful. See Dreadfleet.

GW have announced that Specialist Games are coming back, mentioning Blood Bowl, Necromunda, Epic etc specifically, so I guess you could see that as an indication!

This.

I am cautiously hopeful of this, but my biggest concern is about the pricing. New SG's are a ripe way for GW to crank up the brand pricing.

There are different types of customers who like different types of models. GW seems like a big enough company to serve several segments of the market. They seem a bit schizophrenic at the moment. AoS in particular seems calcualted to appeal to new beginners, who are the lowest in modelling skills, and all the models need assembly and painting.

I think starter sets with pre-painted or multi-coloured figures could do well. The Revell Star Wars kits really impressed me. Between multi-coloured plastic, spray-painted areas in the frame, and stickers, you can have a great looking model just for the effort of cutting out and snap-fitting it together.

 Mymearan wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

 krazynadechukr wrote:
I think GW is saving themselves, with one caveat, AoS (sucks). But the 40k & now 30K stuff, may be their saving grace, as well as specialist games coming back.

Is there an indication that specialist games are coming back?
What we can see is that they release board games which are usually not that successful. See Dreadfleet.

GW have announced that Specialist Games are coming back, mentioning Blood Bowl, Necromunda, Epic etc specifically, so I guess you could see that as an indication!

Well, during the last few years GW avoided announcements, up to those made one week before.
If so, it sounds like bull by the horns.

 krazynadechukr wrote:
I think GW is saving themselves, with one caveat, AoS (sucks). But the 40k & now 30K stuff, may be their saving grace, as well as specialist games coming back.

I'm not sure you can call the mess that is 7th 40K a saving grace. Alongside the damp squib that is AOS killing Fantasy, games of 40K at my club are now a novelty, and 3 years ago in late 5th, 40K was all the club played, organically, not because we were a specifically GW or 40K only club. It's also the changes introduced in 6th that correlate most closely to the period when GW's revenue began to drop off, so while we don't have a breakdown, Fantasy's issues pre-date the shrinkage, and LotR was near flatlining before too. 7th following 6th so quickly could be seen as a reaction to that too.

It's also important to remember that until BaC, 30K was strictly a FW thing, and while undoubtedly an unprecedented success for them, FW contributes a very small amount to the total bottom line (last reports had BL, FW and the website combined as ~20% of GW's total revenue.) So, in purely financial terms, 30K is a long way from saving GW. Whether BaC makes the whole thing more mainstream and starts generating new sales is yet to be seen, but I think there's a healthy chance that most BaC boxes will go to people buying it instead of something else, rather than entirely new money. That still may be better for GW if the margins on the box are better than FW equivalents, but I'd suspect they're similar at best.

Diversification is generally a healthy thing for a company to do (as long as it doesn't dilute its identity in the process) so more games and ranges for people to buy is almost certainly a good thing, but 7th is very likely a reason that GW need to save themselves in the first place, not a saviour.

Diversification is generally a healthy thing for a company to do (as long as it doesn't dilute its identity in the process) so more games and ranges for people to buy is almost certainly a good thing, but 7th is very likely a reason that GW need to save themselves in the first place, not a saviour.

Diversification is key for GW to survive.
As we have discussed here a few weeks ago, 40k is not playable like chess or WMH. Its playable only in a closed group with players being similarly minded. Otherwise, the diversification of the army lists (unbound, LoW) is too wide to make pickup games fun.

 wuestenfux wrote:

Diversification is generally a healthy thing for a company to do (as long as it doesn't dilute its identity in the process) so more games and ranges for people to buy is almost certainly a good thing, but 7th is very likely a reason that GW need to save themselves in the first place, not a saviour.

Diversification is key for GW to survive.

They offer a wide variety of space marines, if you look.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

Diversification is generally a healthy thing for a company to do (as long as it doesn't dilute its identity in the process) so more games and ranges for people to buy is almost certainly a good thing, but 7th is very likely a reason that GW need to save themselves in the first place, not a saviour.

Diversification is key for GW to survive.

They offer a wide variety of space marines, if you look.

That's not too much. Besides vanilla Marines, just SW, BA, and DA, and vanilla CSM.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

Diversification is generally a healthy thing for a company to do (as long as it doesn't dilute its identity in the process) so more games and ranges for people to buy is almost certainly a good thing, but 7th is very likely a reason that GW need to save themselves in the first place, not a saviour.

Diversification is key for GW to survive.

They offer a wide variety of space marines, if you look.

That's not too much. Besides vanilla Marines, just SW, BA, and DA, and vanilla CSM.

GKs too..

On topic.
Diversification is needed but not without making the company and its products attractive to a broader audience. Here's where that ugly word, market research, comes into play. We know that the tabletop games market has witnessed a large amount of growth but that growth hasn't necessarily been in the miniature wargaming category. So, they need to find out what customers are spending their money on and then leverage their IP into a product line(s) that will meet the customer where they're shopping instead of the current model of throw gack at the wall and see what sticks while targeting a dwindling customer base.

If something, Dreadfleet for example, doesn't sell; they need to find out WHY it didn't sell instead of just scrapping it out of hand. If it's the rules, write better rules and then make a v2.0 of the box with a free pdf of the rules. If it's the models, what didn't people like about them? These types of questions need to be asked before you get to the "throw them all in the landfill" stage.

GW is slowly coming to realize, I think, that consumers have so much more available to them that they can be selective in their purchases these days. Ship game? There are several, very good ship games. I'm not convinced that just bringing back specialist games is going to be the "fix" that many people expect it to be. Why buy battlefleet gothic 2.0 when you can play numerous other games already on the market? Yes, IP is important but so is the fact that they're coming back into a market where they have real competition and will be in unfamiliar territory in that they'll actually have to compete for consumer spending. The same goes for all of the other specialist games; when GW pulled back, they created a vacuum that other companies were more than happy to fill and these companies are now established.

Gacky rules won't fly anymore, people are spoiled for choice these days and have the luxury to be a bit more discerning where they spend their hard-earned money.

Also, prices.

It's a bit boring to keep bring this up but despite all the comparative arguments of GW versus Infinity versus Warmachine and so on, the bare fact is that GW rules are very, very expensive these days compared to many alternatives.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

Diversification is generally a healthy thing for a company to do (as long as it doesn't dilute its identity in the process) so more games and ranges for people to buy is almost certainly a good thing, but 7th is very likely a reason that GW need to save themselves in the first place, not a saviour.

Diversification is key for GW to survive.

They offer a wide variety of space marines, if you look.

Blue, green, red, yellow, white, black, grey, spikey, there are even golden Space Marines now!

The problem that I have is that the community is probably about 9:1 in favor of competitive players or players that want to play competitive style pick up games over those wanting to do narrative.

If every company always tries to appease that majority solely there's nothing out there for the minority.

5th ed 40k is a good example. THe reason why they introduced lords of war as part of the core game is because in tournament edition 5th ed no one would touch them because they weren't tournament legal.

It was hard getting a game of anything not standard (no city fight no planet strike, nothing - because people don't want to buy models they'll only use for special scenarios outside of standard)

The problem GW IMHO is that there are cheaper alternatives out there for a lot of the Specialist Games. I would be interested in BFG but I know GW won't do it cheap and it won't contain that much. I already play X Wing & Armada and if I was going to invest in another Space Battle game I'd likely go down the Halo Fleet Battles route.

I think GW are planning on relying on nostalgia and that GW fans will pay silly money no matter what.

auticus wrote:
The problem that I have is that the community is probably about 9:1 in favor of competitive players or players that want to play competitive style pick up games over those wanting to do narrative.

If every company always tries to appease that majority solely there's nothing out there for the minority.

5th ed 40k is a good example. THe reason why they introduced lords of war as part of the core game is because in tournament edition 5th ed no one would touch them because they weren't tournament legal.

It was hard getting a game of anything not standard (no city fight no planet strike, nothing - because people don't want to buy models they'll only use for special scenarios outside of standard)

I think that there's a logic flaw in your assumption that it is impossible to create a system in which both types of customers are served equally (there are actually more than two in my opinion).






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wolfstan wrote:
The problem GW IMHO is that there are cheaper alternatives out there for a lot of the Specialist Games. I would be interested in BFG but I know GW won't do it cheap and it won't contain that much. I already play X Wing & Armada and if I was going to invest in another Space Battle game I'd likely go down the Halo Fleet Battles route.

I think GW are planning on relying on nostalgia and that GW fans will pay silly money no matter what.

I agree; however, where GW has an opportunity is in the variety of factions that BFG can bring. I'm not overly interested in XWing because there're two factions with a 3rd, quasi-faction and the same can be said for the other systems out there barring the star trek game (is that armada?).

I also agree that price is a large contributing factor in both GW's current stagnation as well as an inhibitor to future growth.

 Wolfstan wrote:
The problem GW IMHO is that there are cheaper alternatives out there for a lot of the Specialist Games. I would be interested in BFG but I know GW won't do it cheap and it won't contain that much. I already play X Wing & Armada and if I was going to invest in another Space Battle game I'd likely go down the Halo Fleet Battles route.

I think GW are planning on relying on nostalgia and that GW fans will pay silly money no matter what.

I disagree with the notion that people that are buying GW product are automatons that buy anything GW put out. How else would you explain Dreadfleet not being a sell-out success?

What GW does have are some interesting IPs with distinct factions that capture the imagination of a great many gamers. They back this up with very nice box games and usually lots of additional units.

It's then the old Value vs Worth which is very subjective as is the term "silly money".

As for cheaper alternatives, I've had Battletech since long before Epic came out, never found a game here or anyone that owns so much as a Mech nevermind a Lance. I can still find Epic players though.

That's because Battletech is recreational book-keeping.

You know I would have thought they are saving themselves with the HH plastics and talk of specialist games coming back.

And then Archaon is leaked at $280aud.

Yeah by the time they release something like Bloob Bowl or Necromunda that could be a big financial success for them they'll be trying to charge $400 for it and people will just laugh.

 agnosto wrote:

auticus wrote:
The problem that I have is that the community is probably about 9:1 in favor of competitive players or players that want to play competitive style pick up games over those wanting to do narrative.

If every company always tries to appease that majority solely there's nothing out there for the minority.

5th ed 40k is a good example. THe reason why they introduced lords of war as part of the core game is because in tournament edition 5th ed no one would touch them because they weren't tournament legal.

It was hard getting a game of anything not standard (no city fight no planet strike, nothing - because people don't want to buy models they'll only use for special scenarios outside of standard)

I think that there's a logic flaw in your assumption that it is impossible to create a system in which both types of customers are served equally (there are actually more than two in my opinion).

Not only that, but a narrative pick up game is effectively impossible, the sheer range of options and different notions of what is "fair" makes two strangers meeting, agreeing on all the parameters and having a good time fairly unlikely. Almost inherently, narrative games and variants are the realm of established groups with history together. Anyone wishing to play fast and loose with the rules is still better served with a solid baseline ruleset they can then modify rather than something impossibly wooly that's already trying to do that for them.

All ways up, the largest player in the market doesn't turn things around by catering to a 10% minority of the market.

I still have my old Blood Bowl board and Snotling team... though who knows how indepth the new rules will be or how good they might be.
Just because they say they'll release them doesn't mean the rules will be good, the price will be good or anyone will want to play it.
Truth be told I'd play X-Wing before Battlefleet Gothic because Star Wars is much more iconic then GW stuff.
Or one of the many Star Trek ship games out there, I am spoiled for choice in ship to ship space fights as it is.
Not to mention the sci fi and fantasy skirmish games with much better rules.
Like KoW took a lot of the fantasy players, I am just waiting for some company to come along and make a not 40k game

I hardly think this is saving themselves, while I liked and actually bought Dreadfleet (my friends don't much care to toss in much to a game and it was an easy sell to them, magic mutant pirates and dragons and such) I can see why no one really cared about it otherwise.
If it came out now I wouldn't have bought it, I have far less money these days and a 150 dollar board game really isn't at the top of my must haves.

Until I see the rules and the models (though to be fair I converted all my specialist game models- eg blood bowl and necromunda) so we wait.
But I am not too optimistic...

 notprop wrote:

 Wolfstan wrote:
The problem GW IMHO is that there are cheaper alternatives out there for a lot of the Specialist Games. I would be interested in BFG but I know GW won't do it cheap and it won't contain that much. I already play X Wing & Armada and if I was going to invest in another Space Battle game I'd likely go down the Halo Fleet Battles route.

I think GW are planning on relying on nostalgia and that GW fans will pay silly money no matter what.

I disagree with the notion that people that are buying GW product are automatons that buy anything GW put out. How else would you explain Dreadfleet not being a sell-out success?

What GW does have are some interesting IPs with distinct factions that capture the imagination of a great many gamers. They back this up with very nice box games and usually lots of additional units.

It's then the old Value vs Worth which is very subjective as is the term "silly money".

As for cheaper alternatives, I've had Battletech since long before Epic came out, never found a game here or anyone that owns so much as a Mech nevermind a Lance. I can still find Epic players though.

I certainly agree about the amount of gamers out there still who either still play Specialist Games or would love to, it just worries me that GW will milk it the usual way. That they can just spruce it up, up the price and bang it out there with no real follow up. They must know there is a ton of stuff of stuff out there already, so how do they get fresh sales?

Dreadfleet is a totally different beast. It wasn't a re-released classic. Space Hulk was, and we all know that went down well with GW fans.

 agnosto wrote:
I think that there's a logic flaw in your assumption that it is impossible to create a system in which both types of customers are served equally (there are actually more than two in my opinion).

Largely agreed. I don't doubt that there was a problem with folk sticking to strict tourney lists, but I'd say that was a situation of GW's own making - developing a game that was ostensibly 'narrative', according to rumours about studio games, and with unbalanced units; but that was overly focused on listbuilding, with a strict force organisation, which could hardly do anything but encourage exploitation of the ingrained unit imbalance for the sole purpose of wiping the other side out. ('Tabling', I believe?) Small wonder gamers had a horror of anything approaching actual narrative or scenario games - might mean they'd have to play the game with the hand they were dealt, rather than show off how good they were at mathammering.

But I don't know if doing a 180 with 'unbound' and giant war machines for all, inherently makes the game much more narrative. A sudden switch from structure (as creaky as that structure is) to no structure is not going to make the scales drop from every single player's eyes. "Oh boy, I was supposed to play out a story all along!" I'd say the majority of responses would be doubling down on the exploitation, and quitting in disgust at the sheer amount of change.
Fair to say that - disgruntlement at prices aside - GW's falling sales and AoS's unpopularity bear that out, to some extent?

A while ago I called AoS a latter-day Dreadfleet: flashy models but poor rules or game structure. After typing all this, it strikes me that a better comparison for AoS and Unbound might be an even earlier example - Inquisitor. Lots and lots of 'unit' types and special rules but IIRC absolutely no rhyme or reason about how to put it all together, what's limited, what's overpowering, etc. etc. The intent was purely to - if you'll pardon me - "forge the narrative"; that players would 'naturally' or 'instinctively' balance games themselves. The result was that some gamers 'got it', but too many stayed away in droves because of the lack of structure and the exploitability of same. It just wasn't the style of game they expected, or wanted.

So I was going to say that if GW are starting to save themselves, they need to take a look further than the end of their nose. They need to get some kind of handle of what needs to go into a purely narrative free-for-all game; what needs to go into a structured, balanced game (either narrative, competitive or easily both); and which type gamers are actually looking for. (My money's on the latter)
But if they're still so dead set on pushing unstructured, random games - going from the introduction of the idea in a couple of unpopular sideline games to... foisting the style on their two main lines - I have to say I'm having a few more doubts about whether they can go the route to save themselves.

I feel bad about saying all that about Inquisitor. I bought the book - twice - and still have it on my shelf with a few supplements. I think it's an interesting idea to try out a couple of times and I knew a few guys who loved it. But it is kinda niche...

(I wonder what people would think about a GM for AoS and modern 40K?)

I agree; however, where GW has an opportunity is in the variety of factions that BFG can bring.

Aye.

But how many will it bring?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:They offer a wide variety of space marines, if you look.

notprop wrote:
I disagree with the notion that people that are buying GW product are automatons that buy anything GW put out. How else would you explain Dreadfleet not being a sell-out success?

Because it didn't creep up on them over several editions?

jonolikespie wrote:
And then Archaon is leaked at $280aud.

The model, a book, or...?

(You might tell I don't keep up with many GW releases these days)

 Vermis wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
I think that there's a logic flaw in your assumption that it is impossible to create a system in which both types of customers are served equally (there are actually more than two in my opinion).

Largely agreed. I don't doubt that there was a problem with folk sticking to strict tourney lists, but I'd say that was a situation of GW's own making - developing a game that was ostensibly 'narrative', according to rumours about studio games, and with unbalanced units; but that was overly focused on listbuilding, with a strict force organisation, which could hardly do anything but encourage exploitation of the ingrained unit imbalance for the sole purpose of wiping the other side out. ('Tabling', I believe?) Small wonder gamers had a horror of anything approaching actual narrative or scenario games - might mean they'd have to play the game with the hand they were dealt, rather than show off how good they were at mathammering.

But I don't know if doing a 180 with 'unbound' and giant war machines for all, inherently makes the game much more narrative. A sudden switch from structure (as creaky as that structure is) to no structure is not going to make the scales drop from every single player's eyes. "Oh boy, I was supposed to play out a story all along!" I'd say the majority of responses would be doubling down on the exploitation, and quitting in disgust at the sheer amount of change.
Fair to say that - disgruntlement at prices aside - GW's falling sales and AoS's unpopularity bear that out, to some extent?

A while ago I called AoS a latter-day Dreadfleet: flashy models but poor rules or game structure. After typing all this, it strikes me that a better comparison for AoS and Unbound might be an even earlier example - Inquisitor. Lots and lots of 'unit' types and special rules but IIRC absolutely no rhyme or reason about how to put it all together, what's limited, what's overpowering, etc. etc. The intent was purely to - if you'll pardon me - "forge the narrative"; that players would 'naturally' or 'instinctively' balance games themselves. The result was that some gamers 'got it', but too many stayed away in droves because of the lack of structure and the exploitability of same. It just wasn't the style of game they expected, or wanted.

So I was going to say that if GW are starting to save themselves, they need to take a look further than the end of their nose. They need to get some kind of handle of what needs to go into a purely narrative free-for-all game; what needs to go into a structured, balanced game (either narrative, competitive or easily both); and which type gamers are actually looking for. (My money's on the latter)
But if they're still so dead set on pushing unstructured, random games - going from the introduction of the idea in a couple of unpopular sideline games to... foisting the style on their two main lines - I have to say I'm having a few more doubts about whether they can go the route to save themselves.

I feel bad about saying all that about Inquisitor. I bought the book - twice - and still have it on my shelf with a few supplements. I think it's an interesting idea to try out a couple of times and I knew a few guys who loved it. But it is kinda niche...

(I wonder what people would think about a GM for AoS and modern 40K?)

Very well said and you do a credible job of illustrating the real issue with GW. Fantastic concepts with shoddy implementation.

The impression that I get from GW is that the rules and games are just a vehicle to push the models and while they have some nice models, the market for just models is pretty low whereas actual, playable rules are widely attractive to collectors and gamers alike.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wolfstan wrote:

 notprop wrote:

 Wolfstan wrote:
The problem GW IMHO is that there are cheaper alternatives out there for a lot of the Specialist Games. I would be interested in BFG but I know GW won't do it cheap and it won't contain that much. I already play X Wing & Armada and if I was going to invest in another Space Battle game I'd likely go down the Halo Fleet Battles route.

I think GW are planning on relying on nostalgia and that GW fans will pay silly money no matter what.

I disagree with the notion that people that are buying GW product are automatons that buy anything GW put out. How else would you explain Dreadfleet not being a sell-out success?

What GW does have are some interesting IPs with distinct factions that capture the imagination of a great many gamers. They back this up with very nice box games and usually lots of additional units.

It's then the old Value vs Worth which is very subjective as is the term "silly money".

As for cheaper alternatives, I've had Battletech since long before Epic came out, never found a game here or anyone that owns so much as a Mech nevermind a Lance. I can still find Epic players though.

I certainly agree about the amount of gamers out there still who either still play Specialist Games or would love to, it just worries me that GW will milk it the usual way. That they can just spruce it up, up the price and bang it out there with no real follow up. They must know there is a ton of stuff of stuff out there already, so how do they get fresh sales?

Dreadfleet is a totally different beast. It wasn't a re-released classic. Space Hulk was, and we all know that went down well with GW fans.

The cynic in me is expecting limited releases akin to Space Hulk. That they'll take these smaller games, that could serve as a relatively inexpensive gateway into the IP and just milk it for every dime that they can, continuing the short-term profit taking that has resulted in their current stagnation.

The problem is that people were expecting Man-O-War and they got Dreadfleet. I never understood why they went the dreadfleet route when they could have rebooted MoW.

Space Hulk was only limited insofar as it was a single production run, albeit of 70,000 copies.

You can't get quality card printing done in the UK so all that card for the board (and the box) will have to be made up and shipped from China.

So I think to be fair to GW your cynicism might be misplaced.

I absolutely would expect any boxgame GW do to be equally limited unless it is all plastic.

auticus wrote:
The problem that I have is that the community is probably about 9:1 in favor of competitive players or players that want to play competitive style pick up games over those wanting to do narrative.

If every company always tries to appease that majority solely there's nothing out there for the minority.

5th ed 40k is a good example. THe reason why they introduced lords of war as part of the core game is because in tournament edition 5th ed no one would touch them because they weren't tournament legal.

It was hard getting a game of anything not standard (no city fight no planet strike, nothing - because people don't want to buy models they'll only use for special scenarios outside of standard)

The thing I never got about this mindset is if GW is about pushing the narrative... where is the narrative books? Where is the guidelines for linking games together to form a narrative, or a GW version of Featherstone's Wargaming Campaigns (the old classic) that gives guidelines for it? They don't do anything to indicate their games are meant for story/narrative beyond just saying "The game is meant for narrative play", and that's not actually doing anything. GW pushes the idea their games are meant for stories and narrative, but it's not because they don't actually give anything to help narrative gamers along.

Besides, a tight set of rules benefits everybody, not just competitive players. The issue is that people feel it's binary: Either you have a competitive set of rules, or you have a casual/narrative one. You can have both, and both should be the goal. The competitive gamers then like a balanced set of rules with little ambiguity or argument, and the narrative gamers benefit from a solid backbone of rules that they can expand as needed for their one-off scenarios and campaigns. Everybody wins. Instead, you have a messy hodgepodge that caters to nobody and instead ends up causing arguments because it's unbalanced for competitive play, and narrative gamers get caught in the crossfire because Bob wants to play Terminators (which suck) and Tim wants to play Eldar Jetbikes (which are good) so they are already unbalanced and Tim has the advantage out of the gate just because he happens to like the better models, because the rules are so unbalanced. A balanced game wouldn't have that problem, and Bob and Tim could still have an enjoyable narrative game without it being lopsided.

WayneTheGame wrote:
...and narrative gamers get caught in the crossfire because Bob wants to play Terminators (which suck) and Tim wants to play Eldar Jetbikes (which are good) so they are already unbalanced and Tim has the advantage out of the gate just because he happens to like the better models, because the rules are so unbalanced.

And it doesn't match 'the narrative' 'cos terminators are supposed to be unstoppable badasses.

Besides, a tight set of rules benefits everybody, not just competitive players. The issue is that people feel it's binary: Either you have a competitive set of rules, or you have a casual/narrative one.

Thats probably because largely games that have great rules are dominated by competitive players and you don't see much in the way of narrative. Thats also because competitive players make up the vast bulk of players that play in public so finding people to do narrative games is a lot more difficult.

Warmachine is a great example. Great game. Magnet for competitive players. I've never seen or read about a campaign since Warmachine came out over a decade ago.

Technically you are correct. Technically you should be able to produce a great game that caters to both but that in my experience has never happened; the community polarizes itself.

I'll believe GW produce 'narrative' games next time I see them release a set of rules for HQs gaining xp and getting abilities over battles.

Again, leaving every other issue I'd take with what you're saying aside, what sense does it make for the largest producer of what is still the biggest selling system to cater for what you yourself say is a minority of gamers?

GW clearly aren't going to target the "10%" over the remainder deliberately, the whole narrative thing is an attempt to retroactively excuse a poor product.