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I've been thinking about this of late and I wondered how others felt.

It's been a rough 6 or so years for me in my relationship with Games Workshop. We went through very dark times, it felt for many of them that the company was actively hostile towards me and the rest of its customer base. The carpet bombing of C&D letters, the elimination of support, the vilification, the bad rules, the worse rules and the idiot renaming obsession, between the gross disappointment of 6th, the compounding of 7th and the stake through my heart that was the ork codex, I damned near sold the lot on ebay and walked away forever.

We're not in the clear yet, that's still a ways off, but I can finally see, finally think to see a light at the end of the tunnel, I see boxed sets that allow you to price things more reasonably whilst maintaining your pride and appeasing shareholder speeches about 'no sales', I see, after so long with a variable aesthetic direction, some beautiful ranges coming out, the Ad Mech, the Genestealer Cult, and those ranges bring a great combination of nostalgia and the breath of fresh air of a new range and new army to build.

So, GW might still come back in from the cold, I am a lot more optimistic than I was this time last year or several years prior. I hope and pray for a return to a decent ruleset for 40k and a resolution to the AoS lack of points cost.

But, there's a reason I'm still here at all, a reason I'm writing this and a reason I still give a damn about GW despite all the things that nearly drove me away for good. That reason is Forge World.

Forge World kept the faith, even at the darkest times for me with GW's seemingly hostile attitude. Yes it's pricey stuff, it's 'boutique' (although over those years of GW 'prime's price rises, not nearly as much as it was), but it's been consistently beautiful, consistently ignited interest in me, I've still purchased from them, marveled at how they've managed to get it so entirely right. They continued to communicate when the rest of GW seemed like a closed fortress, still attended non-GW events, still listened to feedback, still provided previews and tempted you with greens and showcases. I recently began delving into 30k and, despite a distinct lack of orks, it's the sort of wargaming in the grim n gothic future that I want to get involved in, the armies are beautiful and there's been a strong focus in rules writing to give a sense of some balance to the armies and rules.

So, Forge World, take a bow, you're certainly the reason that, if GW does continue to come in from the cold, I'll still be around to enjoy it, to collect a Genestealer army, to play Blood Bowl and to compete in 40k tourneys and enjoy 40k pick up games in the future, and I suspect there's a fair few more who only hung around for what you were giving us as well.

Thanks.

Forge World has also kept me in the game in the long run, especially after personally becoming more and more dissatisfied with both the current Imperial Guard codex and the rather lacklustre Imperial Knight codex bs they did in two years time. I love both factions to death, but their codex books are rather.. lacking. Plus, especially with the Imperial Guard, it required me to play certain builds that I simply could not enjoy or see myself purchasing just to stand a chance against some of the other players at the store.

Honestly, I did not care one bit for the whole Horus Heresy thing Forge World had going on until they released their fourth book, Conquest, which contained lists for both the Solar Auxilia, a more elite ancestor of the Imperial Guard and the Questoris Knights, a proper army list for Imperial Knights with some actually nice additions like ranks, upgrades and an actual force organisation chart instead of some bloody formation.

I'm extremely grateful to Forge World for giving me a pair of army lists that are not only enjoyable, but also work for me personally, as though I do not always agree with how the parent company has behaved in the past, I still very much love the setting to death and would not swap it for another system in a million years, because it just isn't the same.

Forge World is what keeps me around. 30k is flatly better made than 40k - if you dislike Marines that is subjective, but the game is objectively better balanced and better designed with fluff in mind, and the sculpts are gorgeous.

If it wasn't for Forgeworld and the Imperial Armour series, let alone the whole 30k wonderfulness, I'd have left the GW stable years ago.

Welcome to the excellent 30k world - the big black books are a goldmine, and they just ooze a passion for the game that you thought was lost!

I will always love them for their beautiful Chaos Dwarf range. The original "Big Hats" were my first painted army in WHFB.
The models put out in their 'Warhammer Forge' range was inspirational stuff. It was disappointing to see the GW Studio not co-ordinate tie ins and cross promotion with that range in any way. Very disappointing and a real wasted opportunity for WHFB. Hopefully WF gets some renewed life breathed into it some time down the road a la AoS.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
I will always love them for their beautiful Chaos Dwarf range. The original "Big Hats" were my first painted army in WHFB.
The models put out in their 'Warhammer Forge' range was inspirational stuff. It was disappointing to see the GW Studio not co-ordinate tie ins and cross promotion with that range in any way. Very disappointing and a real wasted opportunity for WHFB. Hopefully WF gets some renewed life breathed into it some time down the road a la AoS.

I keep twitching over the basilisk and merwyrm. Lovely.

Aye, Forgeworld for me has long been the shining example of the Games Workshop brand for me, much like a lot of rest of the gaming industry (be it video gaming or tabletop) Forgeworld has always been happy to let us know what is coming, building quiet hype for new releases, often talking about things in the pipeline, their attitude reminds me of the better board game companies like FFG, and that has long left me with a strong sense of good will when dealing with them, they have always been quick with rules updates when changes come across from the GW end as well, and their quality and design has always left me satisfied as a collector. I can't think of many FW models that have left me disappointed.

On top of that interaction with the consumers, they have also done a lot of great character stuff and filled in some useful blanks 40K and fantasy side, the Nuln range they where working on fantasy side before the change to AoS was excellent, I was prepping a Nuln army but alas the rug was pulled with AoS and I decided to leave it. The Imperium tanks, especially the Guard variants are amazing, and the titans are stunning, invoking memories of old epic/space Marine on the 40K scaled table top. If I'm honest I'd love to see more from them, always would have loved them to do a Gaunts Ghosts characters range, fill in some of the faves of the Black Library with a Black Library collection etc. Of course, Horus Heresy has been pretty much amazing, but there is a load more I'd like to see and hopefully given time we will.

I have to note, I am starting to get a similar vibe from the Blood Bowl page on facebook, that one GW page is producing more good will to me in recent months than basically anything GW has done over the last two years, it is a refreshing direction, one I much approve of.

Forge World is what is keeping me in the game right now, actually. All of my 40k armies have departed, but I own two gigantic 30k armies and I love it.

Forge World certainly kept the fire lit during the dark times... Their weekly news cycle, superior, non super skullz sculpts and their drive to pull things out of the fluff made me buy into gw product, just to support my forgeworld habbit at the time. They sparked action in 30k fluff, upped the game on in-codex writing in the ward blood toothbrush and bloodfloss dentle care years... They gave us primarchs and warlords... All of it. They never faltered, and at the time, even their worst sculpts were competitive with anything core gw was putting out.

In addition to that, customer service, convention presence done right too.

I miss the days when the focus was more evenly spread away from marines, but not because i dont still love legion stuff, just because i miss the inpiration of their takes on other topics. Tau titan being the most recent awesomeness in that arena.

GW owes FW alot in my opinion!

I haven't bought a model from Games Workshop in years at this point, but I bought a Meka Dread a few weeks ago.

There are a lot of reasons for this - some of which are personal; I have less time for the hobby, less interest, and so on.

However, I "have less time for the hobby" at a time when I have vastly more free time and disposable income than at any other time in my life. So, there are other factors as well.

Games Workshop has tainted the brand in my mind. For me, they are now always going to be associated with heavy-handed baseless litigation, claiming they own IP for things that only an idiot would claim they own, trademark bullying, and atop that, worst of all - ruining the aesthetics and feel of the game not because of artistic choicse, but to make their models more "trademarkable". IP considerations are why they had to change the names of the entire paint line twice in a short timeframe, why every model now is slathered in garbage and skull bling, why we have stupid-ass names like Orruks. Atop that, the rules just keep getting worse, and worse, and worse.

This is pretty much the opposite of what FW does. They just make the models, and the models are amazing.

Agreed. They've also had very much the right 'attitude' in letting people know what's coming - both to let them get excited by it and to keep a narrative going.

The whole 'experimental rules' thing that a lot of units have been released with means that the rules which get into (gorgeous) printed publication have had that massed playtesting by inventive rules lawyers and easily confused players, and hence tend often get scaled back from 'draft 1' - which as a free .pdf that didn't cost us anything, few people will mind.

The most important thing is that they are, first and foremost, gamers themselves. you feel that slight degree more eager response than from the now much more business-driven GW themselves (the ever-awesome events team aside).

I agree with the above sentiments that Forgeworld is a wonderful company that produces beautiful models and offers gold standard customer service, but never again could I ever bring myself to purchase any of their products, and it's a heartbreaker for me, because ultimately, a pound for Forgeworld is a pound for GW plc, and GW plc deserve hellfire and damnation for there actions these past 10 years.

Sorry to sound harsh, and good luck to FW for the future, but that's how I feel...

Isn't FW just doing what normal companies do - telling customers what is coming and trying to shill product to them?

I'll wait for bloodbowl before giving any applause. Could be crap.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
Isn't FW just doing what normal companies do - telling customers what is coming and trying to shill product to them?

Of course it is. It's the only division of GW that appears to be run by adults, but because we're used to the standard GW method we see them as exceptional.

FW are good, and they should be celebrated for making great products, but from a business perspective they're doing what GW should be doing.

I've always seen the GW method as the "exceptional" one. Or plain odd one.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
I've always seen the GW method as the "exceptional" one. Or plain odd one.

Well, I've often taken exception to GW methods....

There have been times where the only downside that I have seen for GW collapsing and going away was that they would take Forge World with them.

The Auld Grump

When i get a forgeworld update in my inbox it still excites me after 25yrs in the hobby i still get the tingling feeling about what new models I'm going to see, the same way i did when being taken to the old dingy model shop as a kid ! What new and weird things will i discover this time ? . Gw hasn't made me have that feeling for almost 20yrs gone are the days of ringing the mail order trolls and asking for that months promo poster to be sent out ...gone are the days of running to w.h.smiths on a Saturday morning to see what marvels are in the latest copy.
Gone are the days of sitting engrossed for hours and reading every single word and digesting every pictures in that copy and then doing the same again every day for weeks with my friends .
And i don't thing that has the samey on youngsters now days ether with it's dumbed down world of warcraft ip .

But forgeworld still has that effect to some extent , every book is a new world to get lost in and every release even if not something i wouldn't buy pulls me in die to the love and attention that obviously go's into each release.

And part of me is heartbroken that the main gw stuff cant do this for me anymore its like a friend of 25 years has died.

Genestealer cult and admech have been flashes of that old friend and i just hope that they continue with that so that i can welcome them back and that other slightly weird 10yr olds can have those experiences and visit those weird worlds that i used to get lost in .