It's like the title says, what do you think sets GW at the top of its form, and what do you think represents it at its worst. I suspect that the same thing will appear in either column, depending on the person.

GW at its best: In my opinion, the recent DE releases are definitely representitive of some serious talent and skill, and are easily worth the price.

GW at it's worst: The constant recycling from earlier editions of 40K rules from earlier editions and the fact 40K is moving back to a hero based system as shown in the Grey Knights and BA codexes.

GW is well past it's best. Sorry, it's not all nostalgia, it was better years ago.

Some of the recent fluff has to be the real nadir. The Blood Angels teaming up with Necrons, or Grey Knights butchering a load of Battle Sisters. Sad are the days that this adolescent twaddle was professionally published.

Howard A Treesong wrote:GW is well past it's best. Sorry, it's not all nostalgia, it was better years ago.

Some of the recent fluff has to be the real nadir. The Blood Angels teaming up with Necrons,

They didn't "team up with Necrons". They fought the same enemy and the words "impromptu alliance" were used. That doesn't mean they fistbumped or whatever stupid tripe gets used to describe it. They had been beating the pants off each other until the Tyranids showed up, after which they focused on the real threat.

or Grey Knights butchering a load of Battle Sisters.

If by "butchering a load of Battle Sisters" you mean "killing those who survived a Daemonic taint that corrupted an entire fething Shrineworld and its attendant Order of Adepta Sororitas leaving few untouched", sure.
And if by "butchered" you mean "killed in a manner that isn't described".
If you want to start with that "bathed in blood" trash I'm fine with that too. Especially because the wording is that they "anointed" their wargear, and it describes how the blood was used alongside sacred unguents and oils commonly used to repel Daemonic influences in a ritual to allow them to go through what y'know...corrupted an entire Shrineworld.

Sad are the days that this adolescent twaddle was professionally published.

Sad are the days that people whine about things without having read them.

Sisters used to be untaintable and necrons once killed all living things on sight.

corpsesarefun wrote:Sisters used to be untaintable

Sisters used to be uncorruptable. Taint != corruption. We've gone over this dozens, if not hundreds, of times in the Background forum.
You can be tainted without being corrupted. Corruption is willingly doing something, taint is just being exposed to something.

and necrons once killed all living things on sight.

Nope. Not since the 13th Black Crusade has that been true.

I've read enough of the way that they keep trying to make characters ever more ludicrously whup-ass with Draigo floating around the warp killing bloodthirsters and carving his mate's name in to the heart of Mortarion, who lets not forget is a chaos-beefed up Primarch and all the other guff about him burnign Nurgle's garden and being a one man army in the realm of chaos itself.

It's just a joke. You can tell GW is for kids now, it like a cartoon full of 'kewl' crap about slaughtering people.

Howard A Treesong wrote:I've read enough of the way that they keep trying to make characters ever more ludicrously whup-ass with Draigo floating around the warp killing bloodthirsters

You mean Draigo, the Grey Knight who essentially has become a Daemon himself and is used as a kind of myth amongst the Grey Knights of the worst possible
fate for their kind?

and carving his mate's name in to the heart of Mortarion, who lets not forget is a chaos-beefed up Primarch

And let's not forget Mortarion is also a Daemon, and it was in the midst of a battle between the Grey Knights and a Daemonic horde led by Mortarion.

and all the other guff about him burning Nurgle's garden and being a one man army in the realm of chaos itself.

And "all the other guff" also includes the fact that every single triumph he has within the Realm of Chaos itself is undone in the blink of an eye.
He burned down Nurgle's Garden--and it was rebuilt in the space of him turning his back on the smoldering ashes.

Draigo is, without coming off as too analytical, Ward's attempt at creating a Sisyphus-styled character within the Grey Knights.

And guess what? It works. The whole point of Draigo is that for as powerful as he is, he's essentially a "slave" to the whim of the Ruinous Powers. He's amusing them with his antics, if they focused even a fraction of their power towards destroying him there's not a damn thing he could do.

It's just a joke.

No sir, the joke is that people continually comment on this stuff without having actually read the material in question.

Is it something that will be hailed as literary gold? Of bloody course not. But then again, neither is an Ork destroying a Titan by crashing his motorcycle through it.

Howard A Treesong wrote:I've read enough of the way that they keep trying to make characters ever more ludicrously whup-ass with Draigo floating around the warp killing bloodthirsters and carving his mate's name in to the heart of Mortarion, who lets not forget is a chaos-beefed up Primarch and all the other guff about him burnign Nurgle's garden and being a one man army in the realm of chaos itself.

It's just a joke. You can tell GW is for kids now, it like a cartoon full of 'kewl' crap about slaughtering people.

QFT

We're getting a lot of examples of how people think GW can be at it's worst, but what is it about the times that people think GW was at its best?
There had to have been something good or you guys wouldn't have found your way to a mainly GW forum.
Let's all remember that the opinions expressed are just that, opinions and not go the route of drawing a 10 foot circle and throwing in the knives.

I really feel that GW is at its best and worst at the same time, it can't be argued that the sculpting abilities of the artists working for GW are improving just about every model produced by games workshop and that these artists can be considered some of the best miniature sculptors in the world, look at some models from 10 years ago compared to today, it a whole new ball park so in that aspect I would have to say hands down that GW is at its best. Now, for the other side of the post.... I would also through the argument that GW is at its worst right now too, and its not entirely their fault, we are still stuck in a global recession and therefore most people don't have a lot of disposable income to throw at games and instead of trying to lower prices to increase sales they have chosen to raise prices to maintain larger profit margins, and because of their chosen tactics I would also say that GW is currently at their worst, I would even be happy if they did a 10% decrease across the board in it would prove to me that they are in this for the game not just the money. that being said, I thank you for taking the time to read my post. Happy gaming!

GW, in the main, has great customer service. Aided by the fact that they have a easy to understand and contact customer service centre, the same can not be said of every other miniatures / gaming producer.

Kanluwen wrote:
Draigo is, without coming off as too analytical, Ward's attempt at creating a Sisyphus-styled character within the Grey Knights.

And guess what? It works. The whole point of Draigo is that for as powerful as he is, he's essentially a "slave" to the whim of the Ruinous Powers. He's amusing them with his antics, if they focused even a fraction of their power towards destroying him there's not a damn thing he could do.

Yeah. "Attempt". At the hands of a man with actual literary talent, it might even been a good idea. Sadly, Mr. Ward is not that man. He wouldn't know good storytelling if it walked up and ate his heart.

Kan, you're adding a lot of interesting points to these characters and their situations, but it's you the one who's adding them. If anything, it's a testament to Ward's incompetence as a writer. You assume more depth than is actually there.

Publishing a Dark Angels novel that got my friend with literacy problems into reading and talking about what she'd read.

Leaving it for so long before giving Dark Angels parity with Codex SM that said friend lost patience and sold her DA army.

Another GW Hatred thread VS anyone who decides legitimately to spend their money on a product that is "overpriced, out of date, lacking in quality, stiffling the market, THE DEVILS QUORUM"



Ah moan on guys/girls; wont make a smidgen of a difference to the "GW CORPORTATE MACHINE".

Like the game/idea: buy it.
Dont: play something else and relax.

Everyone happy?

GW at its best would be what they did with Epic and Blood Bowl. GW at its worst is likely the model they use for the edition cycling of 40k and WHFB.

Fafnir wrote:Kan, you're adding a lot of interesting points to these characters and their situations, but it's you the one who's adding them.

It's not so much that I'm "adding them", it's that I'm putting forth my interpretation of what is there--especially given the way that Ward talks about his writings. I can easily believe that he has these ideas--but can't present them in a written format so well. I even made a note of that in my post when I said that it won't be hailed as literary gold.

It's no different than Andy Chambers, who could spin a yarn that would make you genuinely care about everything in it. But when it came to rules for those characters? He wasn't that great.

Where they both, in my opinion, come together is that you can tell that they both do have an understanding of the setting and in Ward's case--genuinely seems to be happy just to be working within a setting he loves.

If anything, it's a testament to Ward's incompetence as a writer. You assume more depth than is actually there.

I'd be remiss to not assume there's more depth there.

In any case, what I've done is no different than the people you see attributing children's books to being political indoctrination tools.

Which kind of makes me feel dirty.

There's worse things out there than Draigo to be sure. Sons of Malice comes to mind.

@Kanluwen

LOL.

Are you seriously backing Matt Ward????

DrownedRat117 wrote:@Kanluwen

LOL.

Are you seriously backing Matt Ward????

You got a problem with that?

In Kanluwens defence, interpretation of depth in stories is nothing new or strange, each person takes from a piece of literature what they will, case in point, the Bible.

To be honest, I don't necessarily see what all the fuss is about with Mat Ward, it's not like the guy is trying to re-write history (real history) he's expanding stories within a gaming setting, and adding his own perspective.....Blood Angels fighting alongside Necrons.....yeah why not? Grey Knights killing SoB, why not, the Space Wolves did that to, and for less of a reason....

I think if y'all remember the fact that it's a game, things start to stress you less.

Melissia wrote:There's worse things out there than Draigo to be sure. Sons of Malice comes to mind.

Whats wrong with the Sons of Malice?

Weren't they just offhandedly mentioned in the Index Astartes and a short story in one of the space marine anthologies? Did I miss something ridiculous?

edit1: I only vaguely remember both of those appearences, so can't remember if they were ridiculous.

edit2: Man, with all of this hate on Mat Ward, C.S. Goto must be looking at him as a gift from the gods of Geekdom, because Ward has become the go to guy for bad fluff examples. And nothing Ward has done is as egregious as Goto's many blasphemies. IMO

In terms of making high quality models, GW is probably at it's peak right now. So many of the models are amazing now, where in years past only about half of things released were even worth looking at unless you needed them in your army.

For the hobby/game side, they have to be near the bottom as others have said. The fluff is a bit strange, but in this universe that isn't completely off kilter.

For making their games good, that ha to be near the bottom. The rules are rubbish, poorly written, and poorly executed.

The prices are also well beyond ridiculous by this point as well.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

NELS1031 wrote:

Melissia wrote:There's worse things out there than Draigo to be sure. Sons of Malice comes to mind.

Whats wrong with the Sons of Malice?

Weren't they just offhandedly mentioned in the Index Astartes and a short story in one of the space marine anthologies? Did I miss something ridiculous?

edit1: I only vaguely remember both of those appearences, so can't remember if they were ridiculous.

edit2: Man, with all of this hate on Mat Ward, C.S. Goto must be looking at him as a gift from the gods of Geekdom, because Ward has become the go to guy for bad fluff examples. And nothing Ward has done is as egregious as Goto's many blasphemies. IMO

I think what Melissa means is that the Sons of Malice actually ate an Inquisitor because she didn't like their native custom of cannibalization. Some SoB may have been involved.

NELS1031 wrote:

Melissia wrote:There's worse things out there than Draigo to be sure. Sons of Malice comes to mind.

Whats wrong with the Sons of Malice?

"hurr, let's have a renegade chapter piss off the inquisition, utterly wipe out without any casualties a force of elite veteran Sisters [a force of CELESTIANS, imagine if they had done this with a force made entirely of all of a chapter's Sternguard?], then brutally sacrifice the (female) Inquisitor that went there, and escape into the warp!"

It reads like it was written by a misogynistic ten year old year old boy wanting to write a villain version of a mary sue "OMG THE BETS REGENAED CAHTPER EVAR!" and kill a bunch of them icky girls while he's at it.

Best - the models. I don't think anyone else does as well for less money. Mantic come close in quality, and they're my one to watch. The nicer staff are great. The paints are pretty good quality as well.

Worst - Cynical marketing. Almost pathological avoidance of customer focus (I mean, how much damage would an occasional sale or special offer really do?) The overly sales-focused staff.

The fluff is take it or leave it for me. Some stuff is really derivative, but not all.

Melissia wrote:"hurr, let's have a renegade chapter piss off the inquisition, utterly wipe out without any casualties a force of elite veteran Sisters [a force of CELESTIANS, imagine if they had done this with a force made entirely of all of a chapter's Sternguard?], then brutally sacrifice the (female) Inquisitor that went there, and escape into the warp!" .

You do realise that according to most of the fluff at least, Sisters are just female Imperial Guard in better armour?

Again, according to the fluff, a SM chapter would have absolutely no problem wiping them out without any casualties.

PhantomViper wrote:You do realise that according to most of the fluff at least, Sisters are just female Imperial Guard in better armour?

No, because I actually read the lore.

Ah, fair enough.

I actually remember it now. It was a couple paragraph story in the Index Astartes article on renegades.

Whatever happened to the time when Games Workshop was a parody of Fantasy and SciFi tropes? Orks were soccer hooligans, Chaos was grimdark evil badguys, and Ultramarines/BloodAngels were the heroes of heroes?

People started taking Games Workshop fluff too seriously. When that happened, apologetics popped up to fabricate fluff to Zap-a-Gap the plot holes.


At it's best, GW understands that its fluff is nonsensical yet still awesome. They have Skaven with giant rats and mouse wheels. They have Space Wolves riding Wolves from Space while wearing Wolf Talismans of Wolfy Wolf Wolf Claws. Blood Angels deep strike Land Raiders and have Bloodstrike Missiles of Sanguinary Blood Blood Blood Priestblood. It's funny and it's goofy. Wazdakka takes out a Titan. Eldar Spaceclowns dance against the Chaos God(dess) of Excess(ive dance).
Even when the fluff plays itself straight, it's still fantastic. Hive Fleet Leviathan's rerouting is great. The Emperor's Golden Throne is shutting down. Draco raided the Black Library. Flight of the Eisenstein.

Take it lightheartedly. 40k is supposed to be lighthearted grimdark taken to the 11th degree. Overanalyzing the fluff is a waste.

At it's worst, GW doesn't care much about the game aspect. It is indeed a hobby first and foremost, but there are some people that would like to enjoy a game sometimes. The competitive scene is laughably supported by the company and the rules are vague. GWAR is doing a great job with unofficial FAQs. However, people seem to see 40k as a "magic the gathering" in miniature form and pretend it is just as competitive. No. It's a casual game with loose rules for the sake of fun... according to GW. With vague rules, 1-year-late FAQs, no regard to internal balance, codex creep, 'Ard Boyz, and other factors, GW is sending mixed messages on how competitive the game should be.

We need this:

Melissia wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:You do realise that according to most of the fluff at least, Sisters are just female Imperial Guard in better armour?

No, because I actually read the lore.

What lore? Sisters are recruited from the same place as Commissars and Storm Troopers, The Schola Proge-watsitnot..... they have an almighty faith in the Emp, but really, so what? that's not going to stop a mass reactive round.

Delephont wrote:What lore? Sisters are recruited from the same place as Commissars and Storm Troopers, The Schola Proge-watsitnot..... they have an almighty faith in the Emp, but really, so what? that's not going to stop a mass reactive round.

Commissars, stormtroopers, etc are quite a bit above Guardsmen in skill. Even the basic, least experienced Sister is as good as Imperial Guard veterans and stormtroopers as far as raw skill goes.

And they only go up from there.

Sisters have training which produces results second only to Space Marines amongst the various Imperial agencies-- and that's only because their bodies are unaugmented so they have to sleep and eat more than Marines do, and don't have strength, toughness, and endurance enhancements. As for stopping a mass reactive round? That's what power armor is for. But even Space Marines can be easily killed by a bolter shell.

Melissia wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:You do realise that according to most of the fluff at least, Sisters are just female Imperial Guard in better armour?

No, because I actually read the lore.

And what lore would that be, and I'm not being sarcastic or anything, I'm genuinely interested in any piece of fiction that depicts Sisters as anything other than glorified female IG...

PhantomViper wrote:

Melissia wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:You do realise that according to most of the fluff at least, Sisters are just female Imperial Guard in better armour?

No, because I actually read the lore.

And what lore would that be, and I'm not being sarcastic or anything, I'm genuinely interested in any piece of fiction that depicts Sisters as anything other than glorified female IG...

Try actually reading Sisters lore to begin with?

Heck, even C:WH puts them well above the common Guardsman.

Melissia wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

Melissia wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:You do realise that according to most of the fluff at least, Sisters are just female Imperial Guard in better armour?

No, because I actually read the lore.

And what lore would that be, and I'm not being sarcastic or anything, I'm genuinely interested in any piece of fiction that depicts Sisters as anything other than glorified female IG...

Try actually reading Sisters lore to begin with?

Heck, even C:WH puts them well above the common Guardsman.

And what lore is that? What specific books apart from their own codex say something like that?

They are just ordinary human females without any sort of augmentation, what specific works of fiction portray them as anything remotely equal to space marines?

If you are so knowledgeable on SoB lore, you can surely point me in the right direction so that I can inform myself.

Are you seriously going to argue that there's only two levels of skill, human and astartes?

If so, I'm going to ignore you.

And I did give you a source. C:WH is a source that puts Sisters above common guardsmen.

Melissia wrote:Are you seriously going to argue that there's only two levels of skill, human and astartes?

If so, I'm going to ignore you.

And I did give you a source. C:WH is a source that puts Sisters above common guardsmen.

If their own damn codex didn't do that then they would be really bad.

Anything other than that? Any novel? Short story? No? Didn't think so...

The GK omnibus had them fighting Grey Knights and doing a good job at it..

But Sisters don't HAVE many novels.

hahhaha Brook, that pic totally caught me off guard!

Mods...can I +1 that?

There was a SoB book called Blood and Faith or somthing like that, and they pretty much got their asses handed to them by standard human cultists.....

@Melissia
You need to take "lore" with a pinch of salt, because, with GW, depending on whose writing the story, will depend on how "awesome" certain factions appear. Taking all the known fluff and even the game mechanics into consideration, there is nothing to say that a SoB is anything more than equal to a Stormtrooper! Certainly better trained than a standard IG trooper, but nothing more.

It's even strange that given the fact that they have Powered Armour, they don't get a strength or toughness increase...but hey.

All that said, given the uncertainties of war, I would expect some SM to die if they took on the SoB, I would expect them to win, but, they would realistically take some KIA.

Delephont wrote:You need to take "lore" with a pinch of salt

I do. The fact remains that Sisters are better trained than Guardsman. I don't know why this is controversy, because it's pretty much universally true due to their Schola Progenium training. Really, only Kasrkin training matches the Progenium.

However, Delephont, in blood drinker it has SOBs taking on renegades and winning, let alone in the short story deus Tuum in Let the galaxy burn in which an ultramarine falls to chaos, but the sister does not, survives and then at the end takes down the fallen nurgle marine.

Melissia wrote:

Delephont wrote:You need to take "lore" with a pinch of salt

I do. The fact remains that Sisters are better trained than Guardsman. I don't know why this is controversy, because it's pretty much universally true due to their Schola Progenium training.

Ehhhhhhhhhhh. We don't actually know what Progenium training the Sisters receive. For all we know they could get Underwater Basket Weaving training.

Really, only Kasrkin training matches the Progenium.

The basic training given to a unit of White Shields destined for the standard Cadian Shock matched and exceeded his Progenium training, by a Commissar who was a former Stormtrooper's own admission.

Kanluwen: I know you love to spank off Cadians and all, but remember that brutal training isn't the same as GOOD training.

Melissia wrote:Kanluwen: I know you love to spank off Cadians and all, but remember that brutal training isn't the same as GOOD training.

Cadia's record says otherwise Mel.

They had help. Not saying Cadians are bad, no, they're some of the best-- an example that many other worlds try to follow because it works.

But Sisters are, barring specific notable and rare examples, the best that humanity has to offer that isn't a Space Marine (it's almost explicitly stated that this is so). Their martial prowess is quite excellent.

Literally the second reply in the thread and he had his shields up at maximum. No chance for even anyone to get a word in.


EDIT: Sisters are not just Guardsmen with better armour. Sisters are the other side of the Scholar Progenium. The first side produces Storm Troopers, the other side Sisters of Battle (and somewhere in the middle, Commissars). Neither of these three things are 'just' Guardsmen.

Melissia wrote:The GK omnibus had them fighting Grey Knights and doing a good job at it..

But Sisters don't HAVE many novels.

I think I remember that fight. That was in the first GK book right? I thought the sisters were going to tear up the GKs.

Faith and Fire (or Fire and Faith?) was a great sisters book.


RE: Topic

I've only been involved with wargaming for 4 years now and only with gw for 3. Of what I've experienced, GW at its best would be maybe release of Codex: Space Marines or 5th in general. At its worst would be the lack of wave releases for different armies (poor poor nids).

H.B.M.C. wrote:Literally the second reply in the thread and he had his shields up at maximum. No chance for even anyone to get a word in.

It's a pet peeve subject and it gets brought up a lot, generally with incorrect information to support it. Sorry HBMC.

EDIT: Sisters are not just Guardsmen with better armour. Sisters are the other side of the Schola Progenium. The first side produces Storm Troopers, the other side Sisters of Battle (and somewhere in the middle, Commissars). Neither of these three things are 'just' Guardsmen.

Agreed.

Although I will say that it seems the authors are starting to realize that it works far better if a stint within the Guard is a major part of the Progenium training regimen.

GW at it's best is the staff introductions to the games. I still remember going in the store when I was 10 yrs old and having an introductory game of both warhammer and wh40k. The staff took it slowly with me so i could understand whats going on and never brought in heavy special rules that would confuse me :-) it's still done this way to this day and they're still helpful if you have a question on rules.

GW at it's worse is the fluff is all over the place :-( when I entered the hobby the Fluff entigued me and I was following it but after so long and so many changes It's hard to keep track of sometimes.

Also I do agree with Melissia in that the SoB's are more than guardsmen. I'm not sprouting a bias view (chaos player) all i'm saying is anyone seeing them as guardsmen in power armour is sorely mistaken.

I've read the codex's that mention them and Daemonifuge (i think thats the one with Ephrael Stern in) and aside from there training, there wargear and their origins it's their faith which makes them strong.

Religion can be blamed for most of the worlds problems but a person fighting for their beliefs is a hard fight. The sisters are the army of the echlesiarchy and are defenders of the faith armed with the holy trinity of bolter, flamer and melta. that more then makes them better then even kasrkin and storm troopers in my book.

Absolutionis wrote:Whatever happened to the time when Games Workshop was a parody of Fantasy and SciFi tropes? Orks were soccer hooligans, Chaos was grimdark evil badguys, and Ultramarines/BloodAngels were the heroes of heroes?

People started taking Games Workshop fluff too seriously. When that happened, apologetics popped up to fabricate fluff to Zap-a-Gap the plot holes.


At it's best, GW understands that its fluff is nonsensical yet still awesome. They have Skaven with giant rats and mouse wheels. They have Space Wolves riding Wolves from Space while wearing Wolf Talismans of Wolfy Wolf Wolf Claws. Blood Angels deep strike Land Raiders and have Bloodstrike Missiles of Sanguinary Blood Blood Blood Priestblood. It's funny and it's goofy. Wazdakka takes out a Titan. Eldar Spaceclowns dance against the Chaos God(dess) of Excess(ive dance).
Even when the fluff plays itself straight, it's still fantastic. Hive Fleet Leviathan's rerouting is great. The Emperor's Golden Throne is shutting down. Draco raided the Black Library. Flight of the Eisenstein.

Take it lightheartedly. 40k is supposed to be lighthearted grimdark taken to the 11th degree. Overanalyzing the fluff is a waste.

At it's worst, GW doesn't care much about the game aspect. It is indeed a hobby first and foremost, but there are some people that would like to enjoy a game sometimes. The competitive scene is laughably supported by the company and the rules are vague. GWAR is doing a great job with unofficial FAQs. However, people seem to see 40k as a "magic the gathering" in miniature form and pretend it is just as competitive. No. It's a casual game with loose rules for the sake of fun... according to GW. With vague rules, 1-year-late FAQs, no regard to internal balance, codex creep, 'Ard Boyz, and other factors, GW is sending mixed messages on how competitive the game should be.

What this guy said. This game was never meant to be taken seriously both in content and competitiveness the way it is today.

edit - I read that completely wrong.

GW at its best- back in 3rd ed 40k for me, the game was fun, the fluff didn't seem to take itself so seriously. It really seemed like they wanted you to have a fun read and remember old 80s movies and what not. As a kid going into it I was reminded of many movies and such I loved and everything was very creative. Terrain was 99% hand made, armies had a lot of alternate lists, often made in white dwarfs for people to just try and mess around with.
Now, creativity seems lost, the fluff takes itself way to seriously and I can't stand reading anything 40k (fantasy is okay, but is quickly becoming 40k with swords, its boring, everyone is always evil, I don't want anyone to win, they're all terrible people) I donno what GW's hatred against the clear good is, but it hardly makes for good reading to me (to me, other people might disagree but these are my thoughts).
Fantasy seems like WoW in model form, its bizarre, 40k is space marines of many types and their sub par friends who, will probably be phased out one day, I can't stand playing against or with marines, so I finally quit 40k.
I hardly recognize this hobby anymore (I wouldn't even call it that, it has more in common with video games then it does with a hobby).

Best: the models, They are such good quality, kind of expensive, but still good quality. The paints, I love the paints, though I think they should be less than 5 dollars for the small amount you get.

Worst: Their infinite love for space marines. Very little love for xenos makes bombboy sad

ON A serious note:
In regard to the SOB.
It is clear to me from the lore that Blooddrinkers like to fight the S.O.B once a month and blood angels have their red wings.

Melissia wrote:They had help. Not saying Cadians are bad, no, they're some of the best-- an example that many other worlds try to follow because it works.

But Sisters are, barring specific notable and rare examples, the best that humanity has to offer that isn't a Space Marine (it's almost explicitly stated that this is so). Their martial prowess is quite excellent.

Arn't you forgetting Imperial Assassins, and Inquisitors in that line up? Seriously though, what is this need to peg SoB on a ladder of excellence? What I mean by that, if you were to read every codex back to back, you'd see that in every case each army / race is the baddest bad ass ever to stalk the galaxy....blah blah blah, it's almost as if each codex is a self contained piece of propaganda written by that faction for recruitment purposes......and has already been discussed, we know the glaring holes and contradiction in the fluff, that makes it almost impossible to follow and even more insane to argue over.

The bottom line, there is no ultimate fighting force, every army that roles out ontot he gaming table / fluff battlefield will get it's ass handed to it, either due to bad dice rolling or because (in the fluff) it makes a "good" story.

GW at its best: They (very nearly) always produce good models which only seem to get better. For me it was back in 2nd to 3rd Ed 40k when White Dwarf had a lot of words and less of a glossy catalogue type-feel. Back when it wasn't driven by sales people demanding big monsters, large units & Terminators for all armies *shudders* - in short back when it was more human and less corporate.

GW at its worst: As it is at the moment.

Delephont wrote:Arn't you forgetting Imperial Assassins, and Inquisitors in that line up?

No, because they aren't a military force.

That's like trying to compare the military capabilities of a Mossad assassin versus a USMC rifleman.

PhantomViper wrote:

Melissia wrote:Are you seriously going to argue that there's only two levels of skill, human and astartes?

If so, I'm going to ignore you.

And I did give you a source. C:WH is a source that puts Sisters above common guardsmen.

If their own damn codex didn't do that then they would be really bad.

Anything other than that? Any novel? Short story? No? Didn't think so...

Novels and short stories are usually written by idiots/outsiders who are given cheat sheets so they can get the lore right, and yet many of the novels have glaring errors and holes.


I would suggest taking anything in them with a grain of salt. Not to mention i have never seen GW proclaim them a valid/official source of lore/info.

How about relaxing your dissmissive tone just a tad...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Delephont wrote:

Melissia wrote:They had help. Not saying Cadians are bad, no, they're some of the best-- an example that many other worlds try to follow because it works.

But Sisters are, barring specific notable and rare examples, the best that humanity has to offer that isn't a Space Marine (it's almost explicitly stated that this is so). Their martial prowess is quite excellent.

Arn't you forgetting Imperial Assassins, and Inquisitors in that line up? Seriously though, what is this need to peg SoB on a ladder of excellence? What I mean by that, if you were to read every codex back to back, you'd see that in every case each army / race is the baddest bad ass ever to stalk the galaxy....blah blah blah, it's almost as if each codex is a self contained piece of propaganda written by that faction for recruitment purposes......and has already been discussed, we know the glaring holes and contradiction in the fluff, that makes it almost impossible to follow and even more insane to argue over.

The bottom line, there is no ultimate fighting force, every army that roles out ontot he gaming table / fluff battlefield will get it's ass handed to it, either due to bad dice rolling or because (in the fluff) it makes a "good" story.

You can't seem to decide if you are talking about the game or the fluff/lore?

Most things on the tabletop are NOT direct representations of their status/power in the fluff/lore.

Sisters have excellent military training that is on par with Storm troopers and other elite Imperials along with some of the most powerful armor and weaponry given to infantry in the Imperium.

On top of that they can willingly perform miracles with the power of their religious fervor, which combned with their weaponry and training makes them easily one of the most powerful individual warriors in the Imperium,.

I would put them second behind Space marines, though the gap between them is substantial as in the fluff even a standard marine is a god of war far more powerful then what we see on the tabletop.


This thread demonstrates the standard dissmissive level of disrespect that the SOB army has felt since day one of their creation. Not surprising in a game populated mostly by nerdy pre-pubescent boys, and heavy metal devotees etc. Why play "the girl army" when you can play angry faced super soldiers. Besides female models shouldn't be "nuns with guns" they should show more skin and have bigger tits...

Disdain for SOB is second only tp the forced disdain for Ultramarines that so many "internet cool guys" love to spout in threads like this...

Lord Poison wrote:Now, creativity seems lost, the fluff takes itself way to seriously and I can't stand reading anything 40k (fantasy is okay, but is quickly becoming 40k with swords, its boring, everyone is always evil, I don't want anyone to win, they're all terrible people) I donno what GW's hatred against the clear good is, but it hardly makes for good reading to me (to me, other people might disagree but these are my thoughts).

That's the problem, the fluff tries to appear serious while being ridiculously dumb. The fluff has always been daft, with goofy characters and silly stuff. But it used to be more humorous. Now it's as far detached from reality as it always was, but it's just so grim and faux-adult. Oh yes, how can we make these guys appear mega tough, oh they can slaughter a million people on their own and not miss with a single bolt shell and then hack them to bits and put their heads on spikes. And then for the next 10 years each marine can take it in turns to pee on the severed heads of their enemies stopping to say a prayer between each one.

The stuff in the GK codex is childish and moronic. It's dumb and not in a fun way. It's so painfully obviously written for what some young teens would think is cool, is has the literary level of top trumps cards. Kanluwen makes a good go at a defence but it still doesn't convince.

__________

Anyway, as for Sisters of battle, yes they are a cut above Guardsmen. They wear power armour, use bolters and are trained to a higher level of umm... purity or whatever. They aren't superhuman like Space Marines but they are a cut above your casual infantry.

But there's another thing that annoys. They way they continually big up the Space Marines. Remember when they were just elite humans. They were superhuman yes, but in the true sense, they were still clearly human but with extra abilities - they were elite humans, but not ridiculously so. They were the 'Marines' of the future. They still did stuff like drink in bars when off duty. Not now when they spend all their time praying and reciting litanies or whatever GW thinks sounds kewl or 'well hard' to the kids buying the models.

Over the years they have been bigged up until they are all like Superman himself. They don't fly though. They can always take on ridiculous odds, they hardly die, they are stupidly huge and physically bloated as the art grows ever more exaggerated. Why can't they just be elite-human, instead of ludicrous comic book supermen. With massive bloated bodies and atrophied heads, who now nothing by kill stuff and pray to the emperor, they are hardly human at all, which is a bit sad really. The fluff is dumb, it's departed from the game so much that the stat lines just don't do Space Marines justice.

In theory you should hardly take any Marine casualties and every one you lose is one of only 1000 men. So frankly, if someone loses a huge Ork hoard to kill 50 Marines in a game, the real losers are the Marines. The Marines that are suppose to live for hundreds of years and are recruited so very slowly. They've just lost half a company of which they only have ten total, that's 5% of the chapter gone to kill some orks. And the Marines 'win'?? Perhaps if the fluff didn't big up how tough, unique and irreplaceable they are and how they all live for hundreds of years and spend most of their time praying to the emperor and polishing their bolt shells it wouldn't seem so stupid.

Lets see Marines having time off praying and killing and going down the pub like in the RT book. Scale back the so-called 'impressive' tough-guy fluff that constantly gets written and make the guardians of humanity actually seem human. People with actual lives outside killing orks and polishing bolt shells.

Howard A Treesong wrote:And then for the next 10 years each marine can take it in turns to pee on the severed heads of their enemies stopping to say a prayer between each one.

That sounds like a night out in Hinckley on a saturday night lol

Best - Customer service behind the scenes. I won the bitzbox raffle and won £50 worth of forgeworld goods. I got things I'd never normally purchase and that included flying rippers, which came with lots of broken legs. I phoned up and they took the batch code, didn't need an order number or the like and asked ME how many more legs I'd need. No pictures, no proof, just awesome service.

Worst - White Dwarf. It used to be so much more than the rag it is now. It's gone from gamer written to... well nothing.

marines are just, well idiotic nowadays
I used to think they were kind of cool, plain yes but still pretty cool-now they're just laughably absurd
40k is in a slump to me, literally half its races are marines of some kind (sisters are in the middle)
fantasy, as I said is just boring in fluff-i certainly hope they make bretonnia good again, instead of the dicks they are (like the empire) with 40k they can get away without a good, but fantasy...it doesn't work

I'm confused, why does the Marine codex need to talk about what they do on their downtime? That's what the Black Library is for (and that's what they've done in several novels).

I think the only Codex that does that is the one for the Eldar, and even then it's in passing.

CT GAMER wrote: This thread demonstrates the standard dissmissive level of disrespect that the SOB army has felt since day one of their creation. Not surprising in a game populated mostly by nerdy pre-pubescent boys, and heavy metal devotees etc. Why play "the girl army" when you can play angry faced super soldiers. Besides female models shouldn't be "nuns with guns" they should show more skin and have bigger tits...

Disdain for SOB is second only tp the forced disdain for Ultramarines that so many "internet cool guys" love to spout in threads like this...

WTF....where has this bile sprung from? Especially after your statement about me confusing the "lore" with the game. Think about your statement, the "disrespect" you groan about probably comes from the SoB effectivness on the gaming board rather than some masculine need to "keep the gals" down. Not to mention the owners of the I.P., how many stories are dedicated to SoB? How much effort has been put into advertising them, or promoting there greatness within the game or the lore?

I'd suggest the negativity you hurl at the gaming community is nothing more than a projection of your own inner thoughts on the "nuns with guns".

Personally I'd love to see females represented in my games as more than a sexual object, however, at the same time I find women sexually attractive, and have nothing against having a well balanced troup of warrior women who fire my imagination beyond the confines of the killing field.

Half this thread is about SoB lol..

GW at its best: Im putting a vote on their model quality, keeps improving and there are some pretty awesome models coming out.

GW at its worst: (edit, was going to say pricing but) The amount of time it takes to get an updated codex. Took how long for a new DE dex lol?

Xeriapt wrote:Half this thread is about SoB lol..

GW at its best: Im putting a vote on their model quality, keeps improving and there are some pretty awesome models coming out.

GW at its worst: Probably their pricing, tis getting rediculous. Also making it alot more difficult to buy their products from overseas, that plastic crack will cost you an arm and a leg in Aus.

QFT. Also everyone chill out on the SoB, or go make your own thread about it. Getting a bit ridiculous.

I like the sisters, though felt their models were quite static

So from reading this thread I have come up with a list of factions discussed in terms of power:

1. Orks
2. Space Marines
3. SoB

That look good?

Back on topic, GW at its best - The models, by a long shot. Gorgeous.
GW at its worst - I suppose exorbitant price gouging. The models are great, but maybe not thaaat good.

CT GAMER wrote:
Sisters have excellent military training that is on par with Storm troopers and other elite Imperials along with some of the most powerful armor and weaponry given to infantry in the Imperium.

This is an assumption. We do not know what the Sororitas receive in the way of actual military training, outside of it's done at the Schola Progenium and includes a lot of indoctrination in the Ecclesiarchal Cult with some crosstraining in the Stormtrooper's regimen.

Best guess, on my part, is the Stormtroopers and Commissars receive similar training while the Sisters get very different training as its foundations. We have a few mentions of Commissars and Stormtrooper cadets being put in with veteran regiments before they're fully inducted into their respective service, but nothing of the sort is really put out there for the Sisters.

I've got my own theory as to what we'll see the Sisters becoming, namely them becoming symbols of the Imperium much like the Astartes are.
The worth of the Astartes isn't simply their superb performance in most forms of warfare.
It's their worth as a symbol of the Imperium triumphant, of Mankind at its purest(Yes Melissia, I recognize the irony of that statement) beating back the beasts of the void.
While the Astartes operating in an area or showing up can turn the tide of a war by a simple morale boost("The Astartes are here! Push them back!" is one of the lines you first hear in Space Marine when you encounter the Guard for the first time), the Sororitas turn the tide by reminding the populace and its defenders that the Emperor protects, and that He's always watching.

On top of that they can willingly perform miracles with the power of their religious fervor, which combined with their weaponry and training makes them easily one of the most powerful individual warriors in the Imperium.

Again, this is an assumption. Miracles do occur for them, and whether they're willingly manifesting them or they're simply superhuman feats of arms and discipline is not explained.
I'm not saying you're right or wrong, but I think a Guardsman bayoneting an Ork while his arm is severed is pretty miraculous. It doesn't mean he did it through simple religious fervor.

I would put them second behind Space marines, though the gap between them is substantial as in the fluff even a standard marine is a god of war far more powerful then what we see on the tabletop.

I don't think I would.
Call me biased if you want, but the Sisters are constantly touted as being a force which is best deployed after the wars are done.
They're essential in the aftermath, rooting out heretics, traitors, or devotees of the Ruinous Power but them being there during a war makes no real discernible difference.
We don't have any real lore that shows the Sisters swooping in to grab victory for the Imperium out of the jaws of defeat like the Astartes or Guard do. Does that necessarily mean they're not skilled fighters or that they're useless in a fight? Of course not. It simply means it's not what they're (presumably) trained for. You wouldn't use Stormtroopers to hold the line, so why would you use Sisters of Battle to launch a siege?

Will we see the big issue of "what the hell are the Sisters there for?" resolved in the upcoming Sisters of Battle codex? Hopefully. If anyone can do it, I'd think that Phil Kelly could.

Like I said though, I've always seen the Sisters as being more of a "morale booster". And not in a dirty way.

Disdain for SOB is second only t the forced disdain for Ultramarines that so many "internet cool guys" love to spout in threads like this...

I have disdain for the fact that Sisters have no defined role. They're subpar "Jacks of All Trades", with mastery in only the skill of "Dying as the Plot Demands".

Clamiing Sisters are a jack of all trades faction is a bit off the mark.

At the moment, they have no MBT, no artillery, no sane walkers, etc. They're essentially a mechanized infantry force with a tank hunter as support and a bunch of wacky Ecclesiarchy junk tossed in for the lulz.

I did say they were a "subpar Jacks of all Trades", Mel.

Like I said though, I've always seen the Sisters as being more of a "morale booster". And not in a dirty way.

Lol, SoB, the morale boosters of 40k.

Xeriapt wrote:

Like I said though, I've always seen the Sisters as being more of a "morale booster". And not in a dirty way.

Lol, SoB, the morale boosters of 40k.

Do cheerleaders count as dirty?

KilroyKiljoy wrote:

Xeriapt wrote:

Like I said though, I've always seen the Sisters as being more of a "morale booster". And not in a dirty way.

Lol, SoB, the morale boosters of 40k.

Do cheerleaders count as dirty?

are you two saying SoB are the 40k cheerleaders of the imperium?

Guess I should clarify a bit more.

Think of the "Elites" from the Halo universe as being similar to the role the Sororitas occupy.

They're Warrior-Priestesses, who inspire everyone around them to greater feats of valor knowing that the eyes of their God-Emperor is upon them.

Height of GW



Everything afterwords is in decline.

What I like: Some of the models are great, as is some of the fluff.

What I dislike: Pricing, keeping everything secret to the point of insanity, the "GW is the Hobby", fanboy/hater flame wars

Kanluwen wrote:I'm confused, why does the Marine codex need to talk about what they do on their downtime? That's what the Black Library is for (and that's what they've done in several novels).

I think the only Codex that does that is the one for the Eldar, and even then it's in passing.

I think you are rather missing the wider point to nitpick.

DrownedRat117 wrote:@Kanluwen

LOL.

Are you seriously backing Matt Ward????

Once you get over the internet groupthink zombie mentality, you might realize that now all Ward's fluff is as bad as people assume from internet raging.

Howard A Treesong wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:I'm confused, why does the Marine codex need to talk about what they do on their downtime? That's what the Black Library is for (and that's what they've done in several novels).

I think the only Codex that does that is the one for the Eldar, and even then it's in passing.

I think you are rather missing the wider point to nitpick.

I'm really not. You were talking about how you want it to be like RT. Marines haven't been like RT Marines since 2nd edition.

As for your statement about "they are hardly human at all"...well, they haven't been that since they became Astartes either.

Best: Planetstrike and Cities of Death products

Worst: Finecast (Thai customers called this product 'Failcast')

Kanluwen wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Literally the second reply in the thread and he had his shields up at maximum. No chance for even anyone to get a word in.

It's a pet peeve subject and it gets brought up a lot, generally with incorrect information to support it. Sorry HBMC..

He's right. The name of the thread was "GW at it's best /GW at it's worst" and by literally then second post, you turned it into "GW at it's best / Kan attacks everyone else who disagrees". You said "sorry" and then immediately continued to engage in the same behavior.

Nothing else to say, don't feel like having my opinion immediately belittled by the guys who have a "PEOPLE SAID SOMETHING BAD ABOUT GWS" RSS feed running.

Ouze wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Literally the second reply in the thread and he had his shields up at maximum. No chance for even anyone to get a word in.

It's a pet peeve subject and it gets brought up a lot, generally with incorrect information to support it. Sorry HBMC..

He's right. The name of the thread was "GW at it's best /GW at it's worst" and by literally then second post, you turned it into "GW at it's best / Kan attacks everyone else who disagrees". You said "sorry" and then immediately continued to engage in the same behavior.

No, I really didn't turn it into that. If you choose to believe that, it's fine. I "attacked" someone who hasn't even read the bloody fluff he's holding up as an example of GW being "terrible". This is not an isolated incident where these particular pieces are complained about, and in almost any case you see them being bandied about you'll find that the people are going off what they've read or heard second-hand from other people.

Nothing else to say, don't feel like having my opinion immediately belittled by the guys who have a "PEOPLE SAID SOMETHING BAD ABOUT GWS" RSS feed running.

Then I'll say something bad about GW, just for you Ouze.
The Bad
-Finecast has been an unacceptable failure, so far. It has a lot of potential but is being plagued with absurd amounts of problems. From things like just shoddy QA(My Vlad Von Carstein should not have been missing a hand) to the recent separation of Creed and Kell to being two models on their own, it's bothersome and worrying. I'm trying my best to be a proponent of it but it's being far too hit or miss and is illustrating the fact that resin and metal casting are not the same by any means.
-White Dwarf's printing quality has been steadily slipping. The two issues with the SoB codex within have the ink actually running along the spine of the WD. That's not good, and is quite ridiculous to boot.
-The staggering of some of these waves is completely illogical. As an example: If we are in fact seeing a new Guard wave within the next year, it's two years too late for many of us. The Hydra is stupid easy to convert, and it's not like you can't go to FW if you don't like the result of the ADL Hydra kits. As another example: the Tyranid big beasties want to say what's up, but we can't reach them for comment.
-The glaring differences in writing styles of the codex authors is unacceptable. Ward, while not Shakespeare by any means when it comes to writing fluff, at least understands the concept of "versatility" and "balance" when it comes to the game. Kelly has a grasp of it, as we saw evidenced in Dark Eldar, but is inconsistent with how he does it. Cruddace wouldn't know what the terms meant if you beat him upside the head with the terms painted on 2x4s.
The "Meh"
-The "secrecy" that everyone likes to point at is a kind of wash for me. I'm kind of undecided on this point. I personally dislike the week or so "preview" time, but I do understand that no matter what GW did(whether they instituted month advance sneak peeks, published a release schedule with guesstimated timeframes or whatnot) there'd be complaints because someone felt it was the "Wrong Way" to do it.
-Storm of Chaos. It's nice and all that they did a "campaign", but it was so bloody useless in terms of a "campaign" that they might as well have just used it as the basis of an online leaderboard for WHFB leagues. There was no overarching story, there was nothing at all that makes up a "campaign". To use the term "campaign" there was about as useful as a movie about alien abductees putting the tagline "Based on a True Story" on it. We all know it's not, so you might as well can the razzle dazzle and make it worthwhile.

Happy?

Kanluwen wrote:

Ouze wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Literally the second reply in the thread and he had his shields up at maximum. No chance for even anyone to get a word in.

It's a pet peeve subject and it gets brought up a lot, generally with incorrect information to support it. Sorry HBMC..

He's right. The name of the thread was "GW at it's best /GW at it's worst" and by literally then second post, you turned it into "GW at it's best / Kan attacks everyone else who disagrees". You said "sorry" and then immediately continued to engage in the same behavior.

No, I really didn't turn it into that. If you choose to believe that, it's fine. I "attacked" someone who hasn't even read the bloody fluff he's holding up as an example of GW being "terrible". This is not an isolated incident where these particular pieces are complained about, and in almost any case you see them being bandied about you'll find that the people are going off what they've read or heard second-hand from other people.

No, you really did. Every thread I see you in, all you do is attack and ridicule people for their opinions. Maybe you should take a break, and come back when you can handle differing opinions.

Back on topic, I'm still pretty new, so I don't have any real insight on GW as a whole, but I can say I don't think they've made any real faux pas in recent years; "Even bad press is good press" is something to consider.

Kanluwen wrote:Happy?

No.

The worst you can say about White Dwarf is that the ink comes off? Seriously?

Howard A Treesong wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Happy?

No.

The worst you can say about White Dwarf is that the ink comes off? Seriously?

Spoiler:

Oh I see, it's rubs off on your arse, right? I can see how that's a problem.

How would the ink rub off on your arse?.....unless, of course, you were using it for toilet paper......of course, if you were going to do that, can I suggest the Tau Codex would be longer lasting and much softer on that delicate crease of release.

Howard A Treesong wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Happy?

No.

The worst you can say about White Dwarf is that the ink comes off? Seriously?

Spoiler:

Oh I see, it's rubs off on your arse, right? I can see how that's a problem.

Clever.

I've been under no illusions what White Dwarf is since I started getting into GW stuff, but I've still got issues from when I first started that are in almost pristine condition.

It's an advertising medium. It's no different than No Quarter or Wargaming Illustrated, the only difference is that people cut Privateer Press slack because they put in what they deem to be "better painting articles"(although many of the ones that I saw when the company first started with NQ #1-4 are on par with the WD articles of the time. Eh.) and because it's not GW.

If you want actual hobby content, painting improving tips and the like--I'd suggest Fine Scale Modeler, but wait even that is full of ads(the first 10 or so pages are ads, as are the last 10) and reviews of upcoming kits take center stage.
Magazines are a dying medium when it comes to a lot of this hobby related stuff, and it's evident anywhere you look. Books like Osprey's Masterclass and the web getting insight from others are the way to go if you want to genuinely up your game.

Why do you keep writing off people who don't like the fluff by presuming they haven't read it? Do you know for sure that Howard Treesong has not read it in a FLGS or whatever? Do you know this, for sure? Or was it just a way of invalidating his opinion?

Ouze wrote:Why do you keep writing off people who don't like the fluff by presuming they haven't read it?
Do you know for sure that Howard Treesong has not read it in a FLGS or whatever? Do you know this, for sure? Or was it just a way of invalidating his opinion?

I can write those people off Ouze because in a great many cases, they haven't read it. If people don't like the way Draigo has been written or think that Ward has a bit of a case of the "Supermanitis" in that the whole book comes off as over the top--that's perfectly acceptable.

But when people continually cite what I consider "The Ward Talking Points"(Sisters of Battle butchered and the Bloodtide meaning Grey Knights are worshiping Khorne, Draigo carving name into heart of Mortarion, Draigo burning down Nurgle's Garden, Crowe wielding a Daemon Sword) with no mention of things like the Jokaero or Mordrak and his "Ghost Knights"--I can get a fair picture of where they got their information, and it is not from having even glanced at the book.

You leave the Jokaero alone.

Somehow Draigo striding through the Warp, as a plaything of the Dark Gods, is unacceptable but the return of Space Chimps is fantastic?

Do you see the problem I have with Wardhate?

Best - The miniatures are a given, but the development of 40K and Fantasy races over the years is what has kept me interested.

Worst - Pretty much their whole approach to interacting with the gaming community. "Buy this, it's amazing!" is about all they're capable of these days. It amuses me that the guys in charge of the web page claim that they have to buy every new release, "because it's soooo cool."

Best: the minis. Between the number, diversity, quality and price, GW is far and away the best in the world. In fact, they're so good I'm willing to put up with the...

Worst: rules maintenance. The core rules are just fine, though I think it's sad so much of the crazy humour has been lost. But saying GW are fething awful at maintaining the rules, is the understatement of the year. Why don't they publish an annual, fluff-free compendium of all the lists and rules? Why don't they make that same book available as a pdf? Why do they disorganise the - beyond shoddy - rule books they actually do publish, so severely that the only people capable of looking up information in them in a reasonable amount of time, are people who can recite the books, catechism-style? And why do they have that insane aversion to publishing quality hardbacks?

Ack...

I realise rules devs probably play with with a couple of ring binders & laptops, and spend 90% of their games talking, testing & writing down new rules variants, and thus never or hardly ever simply play the game by the rules-as-they-are. But break out of that fething bubble already, sweet devs. The rest of us do not play the game like that. To us it's a massive fething inconvenience to have the rules scattered across half a dozen (if not more) books, each of which is organised in such a way that it takes forever just to find what you're looking for in them, and almost all of which are of a quality that you don't want to be throwing them around the gaming table, for fear of them falling apart.

*Deep breath*

OK, I'm done ranting now. But really... For a company that makes rules heavy games, they suck so badly at it that I'd refuse to believe it if I hadn't experienced it first hand. And uhm... Sorry about the swearing & stuffs. It's just... Their ineptitude just really pisses me off.

Kanluwen wrote: But when people continually cite what I consider "The Ward Talking Points"(Sisters of Battle butchered and the Bloodtide meaning Grey Knights are worshiping Khorne, Draigo carving name into heart of Mortarion, Draigo burning down Nurgle's Garden, Crowe wielding a Daemon Sword) with no mention of things like the Jokaero or Mordrak and his "Ghost Knights"--I can get a fair picture of where they got their information, and it is not from having even glanced at the book.

But.....could it also be the case that those points are the points that people like the least, and therefore talk about the most?

Delephont wrote:

Kanluwen wrote: But when people continually cite what I consider "The Ward Talking Points"(Sisters of Battle butchered and the Bloodtide meaning Grey Knights are worshiping Khorne, Draigo carving name into heart of Mortarion, Draigo burning down Nurgle's Garden, Crowe wielding a Daemon Sword) with no mention of things like the Jokaero or Mordrak and his "Ghost Knights"--I can get a fair picture of where they got their information, and it is not from having even glanced at the book.

But.....could it also be the case that those points are the points that people like the least, and therefore talk about the most?

I've thought about that before, yes.

But you can tell a difference in the way people raise the points based on who has read the book.

Kanluwen wrote:Somehow Draigo striding through the Warp, as a plaything of the Dark Gods, is unacceptable but the return of Space Chimps is fantastic?

The difference is that one is silly and fun. The other stuff is also silly but is just depressing with all the grimdark they are piling on.

Do you see the problem I have with Wardhate?

It's not Ward-hate. Who wrote it is irrelevant. It's adolescent, borderline misogynistic tosh is the problem.

Delephont wrote:

Kanluwen wrote: But when people continually cite what I consider "The Ward Talking Points"(Sisters of Battle butchered and the Bloodtide meaning Grey Knights are worshiping Khorne, Draigo carving name into heart of Mortarion, Draigo burning down Nurgle's Garden, Crowe wielding a Daemon Sword) with no mention of things like the Jokaero or Mordrak and his "Ghost Knights"--I can get a fair picture of where they got their information, and it is not from having even glanced at the book.

But.....could it also be the case that those points are the points that people like the least, and therefore talk about the most?

Don't feed the Kan... It won't do any good.

Kanluwen is not a troll.

Let's keep the argument away from the personal level.

Simsum wrote:Best: the minis. Between the number, diversity, quality and price, GW is far and away the best in the world. In fact, they're so good I'm willing to put up with the...

Worst: rules maintenance. The core rules are just fine, though I think it's sad so much of the crazy humour has been lost. But saying GW are fething awful at maintaining the rules, is the understatement of the year. Why don't they publish an annual, fluff-free compendium of all the lists and rules? Why don't they make that same book available as a pdf? Why do they disorganise the - beyond shoddy - rule books they actually do publish, so severely that the only people capable of looking up information in them in a reasonable amount of time, are people who can recite the books, catechism-style? And why do they have that insane aversion to publishing quality hardbacks?

Ack...

I realise rules devs probably play with with a couple of ring binders & laptops, and spend 90% of their games talking, testing & writing down new rules variants, and thus never or hardly ever simply play the game by the rules-as-they-are. But break out of that bubble already, sweet devs. The rest of us do not play the game like that. To us it's a massive fething inconvenience to have the rules scattered across half a dozen (if not more) books, each of which is organised in such a way that it takes forever just to find what you're looking for in them, and almost all of which are of a quality that you don't want to be throwing them around the gaming table, for fear of them falling apart.

*Deep breath*

OK, I'm done ranting now. But really... For a company that makes rules heavy games, they suck so badly at it that I'd refuse to believe it if I hadn't experienced it first hand. And uhm... Sorry about the swearing & stuffs. It's just... Their ineptitude just really pisses me off.

Mod: Watch the language. Cleaner rants, please.

As a poster: While I agree with your two choices, for me the models are NOT
enough to get me to keep up with the games. I paint some units because the
models intrigue me. Lately I've been working on Grey Knights, Imperial
Guardsmen/Kasrkin, Ogre Kingdoms. However, whenever I look at the rules
or watch a game or plan my army, I'm not all that enthusiastic, so I prep
for the next Warmachine event.

It's okay, though. GW loves me because I still buy models.

Games Workshop at their best, is, in my opinion, as a mini company. They do make a great deal of terrific quality miniatures with a lot of character, their customer support is excellent, and the game is fun. Ruleswise, Some of the codexes really remember it's a game and not grimdark srs bsnss; I'm looking at you, Ork Codex. I feel Orks have a legitimate army for almost any sort of build you'd like to do, and still have a lot of fun like with the Shokk Attack Gun.

Games Workshop at it's worst is with the new finecast debacle, where they endlessly hyped it as the best thing evar! (which was OK) and then did not deliver at all (which was not). Writing-wise, I also don't like the direction some of the current codexes are going in, specifically the Grey Knight codex. I had planned to buy it until I read it, I found it be amateurishly written. It was a turn-off. I don't know how great they are mechanic wise, I'm not a tournament player. But reading about hiding Titan in the warp, the fact that all the secret sauce they slather on their armor isn't apparently enough to protect them from corruption but sister's blood is, the carving the name on the heart thing; these are all stupid at best. It also makes you wonder if these guys are so much the balls, why are they losing? It kinda screws up their whole mythos. Also was not too fond of the Nemesis Dreadknight, which is imo the worst model they have come up with in recent memory.

Kanluwen wrote:
If you want to start with that "bathed in blood" trash I'm fine with that too. Especially because the wording is that they "anointed" their wargear, and it describes how the blood was used alongside sacred unguents and oils commonly used to repel Daemonic influences in a ritual to allow them to go through what y'know...corrupted an entire Shrineworld.

Sad are the days that this adolescent twaddle was professionally published.

Sad are the days that people whine about things without having read them.

Well, considering anointing involves pouring and smearing I would say the "bathed in blood" isn't too much of a hyperbole after all.

Kanluwen wrote:

Howard A Treesong wrote:GW is well past it's best. Sorry, it's not all nostalgia, it was better years ago.

Some of the recent fluff has to be the real nadir. The Blood Angels teaming up with Necrons,

They didn't "team up with Necrons". They fought the same enemy and the words "impromptu alliance" were used. That doesn't mean they fistbumped or whatever stupid tripe gets used to describe it. They had been beating the pants off each other until the Tyranids showed up, after which they focused on the real threat.

That sounds like greek city states... always bickering, and then when the persians come out to play, they team up.

I feel like such a geek.

Scipio Africanus wrote:That sounds like greek city states... always bickering, and then when the persians come out to play, they team up.

I feel like such a geek.

It's ok. I feel your pain, bro.

It also makes you wonder if these guys are so much the balls, why are they losing?

Id say on this point that in a war of attrition against the daemons, sure the GK might kill a bucketload of them but they (the daemons) dont die, they are basically banished back to the realm of chaos when their material form is destroyed only to make a glorious return how ever many thousand years later. It seems like the ultimate war in futility.

Personally I think GW was at their best (by comparison) during third edition. Third edition had new releases for factions other than Space Marines (including Chaos) and WD actually had content.

I think GW now is currently at its worst. I think between the high prices the dodgy business decisions (secrecy, finecast, embargo etc), lack of non space marine releases, lack of meaningful content in White Dwarf and (in my opinion) the lack of quality in 5th edition codices, today is a bad time to collect GW. Another dakka user has said summed it up best with the saying “the best time to collect GW was yesterday”.

Also I’ve noticed there have been a few people attempting to rebuttal other people’s opinions (posted in an opinionated feedback thread) which shows poor form in my opinion. If I had the time, I repost the “someone on the internet is wrong” comic.

Good: In the past GW offered fine support for competitions. They have created some great games and game universes.

Bad: Finecast bubble failures with ridiculous price rises. Exclusion of the southern hemisphere re. their mail ordering embargo. End result GW gone downhill and losing a lot of support. The 2nd hand market is doing better than ever however!

Back in the day humans and eldar made the beast with two backs. And everyone had mowhawks.

Cheesecat wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
If you want to start with that "bathed in blood" trash I'm fine with that too. Especially because the wording is that they "anointed" their wargear, and it describes how the blood was used alongside sacred unguents and oils commonly used to repel Daemonic influences in a ritual to allow them to go through what y'know...corrupted an entire Shrineworld.

Sad are the days that this adolescent twaddle was professionally published.

Sad are the days that people whine about things without having read them.

Well, considering anointing involves pouring and smearing I would say the "bathed in blood" isn't too much of a hyperbole after all.

"Bathing" or "bathed" in the context implies more than just the action. It also implies a pleasurable side, like the Grey Knights enjoyed the killing and mutilation.

Well, this is fantastic!

I no longer bathe myself to be cleanly. I have 'anointed' myself, thus making me cleanly and presentable to everyone, even as I kick at their heads from my high horse.

GW at their Best: As they are now. After all, without GW, I would have never discovered Catalyst Games, or Battlefront, or Wyrd, or Corvus Belli, or Spartan Games, or TooFatLardies, etc., etc.

GW at their Worst: As they are now (bet you didn't see that coming, yeah?). Overpriced miniatures via the 'Warhammer-name Tax', poor rules, kicked-in-the-crotch PR moves, you've heard all of this before, plenty of times.

Kilkrazy wrote:Kanluwen is not a troll.

*holds up shield between The Kan and The Crowd*

Damn straight. Kan may be a lot of things, and this thread has highlighted pretty well the near-automatic manner in which he leaps to GW's defence and how utterly intolerant he is of differing viewpoints, but he is not and has never been a troll (not matter how angry I may get at him from time to time).

Kanluwen's not a troll, he's just a dork.

I chat with him quite frequently, and I can confirm that he is, in fact, quite dorky.

Kilkrazy wrote:Kanluwen is not a troll.

Also, I'm pretty sure that no one actually called him a troll.

Best: GW makes some decent miniatures, particularly the Dark Eldar Scourges.

Worst: Fanbois aside, GW also makes some terrible miniatures, particularly the new Ogre Tusking Tusker with Extra Tusks.

Pros:
- The years of enjoyment their games have given me, especially when younger - Epic, BB, BFG, the MB Boardgames, 40k and WFB, even LoTR at times. Aside from everything else, they have provided me with many happy times. They were also a gateway to have a good time with other people, and to get involved in modelling and painting (which I would liken to being almost meditative in how relaxing it can be after a hard day's work).
- The stories and background, specifically 40k - dark-dystopian future was such a brave direction to take in amongst popular culture being addled with the sickly sweet of Hollywood, yet they pulled it off. This is mitigated somewhat by it losing a little of it's sense of humour, and people taking it far too seriously. I once saw an entirely serious thread entitled "Is the Emperor left or right handed?" which made me immediately close the browser and take a look at myself in the mirror.
- I still believe a GW store is a unique and somewhat charming addition to the highstreet. Yes, they have lost some of their 'soul' but I still think it's pretty nice that you can enjoy moping around, providing the staff aren't too aggressive. And again, many happy hours of my childhood were spent in one, replaced by cold and hard cynicism in later years but you still see that look of wonder and excitement on kids faces when they come into the store so it is obviously still there in some form.
-As much as I despise some of the newer kits (the Stormraven for example) when they get it right, they can get it very very right. The Dark Eldar being the case in point.

Cons
*clicks knuckles together*
- How long do you have ? Seriously I've spent so much time writing things in other threads that I can't be bothered again, here is an abbreviated form done with minimum effort:
Prices/finecast/trade embargo/secrecy/white dwarf/staff layoffs/Tom Kirby/Playmobil Stormraven/specialist games/power of the sales department/marketing (or lack of)/use of technology (or lack of)/arrogance/'rot at the top'/cut in R&D/one man stores/lack of vision.
I could go on, but I don't think anyone would have got that far anyway!

GW at its best: In the "Good Old Days" when GW was a company made by gamers for gamers, those where the days of the scratchbuilt 40k vehicle rules, the days of Town Cryer and Citadel Journal and Inferno! When they made things just for fun and when White Dwarf was actually much more than just a giant add.

GW at its worst: 90% of the stuff that came after they aquired the LoTR rights, I swear that that was the exact day that GW turned from its roots and became an "Evil Empire!"...

Kanluwen wrote:
They didn't "team up with Necrons". They fought the same enemy and the words "impromptu alliance" were used. That doesn't mean they fistbumped or whatever stupid tripe gets used to describe it. They had been beating the pants off each other until the Tyranids showed up, after which they focused on the real threat.

It was definitely worse than that. I read the exact words somewhere and it even said something about how the "the Blood Angels at least" would have felt bad about fighting those they recently teamed up with.

Im forever defending GW because much of the criticism the nerds direct at them is ridiculous, but that was some seriously stupid gak right there.

Best times of GW ?

When i started the game when 3rd was released and was new to me.
New model releases, the new platic kits are very nice.
Pre Matt Ward rules.

Worst ? Every year since then..

Broken Rules across the game, very very poor writing/balance.

Terrible army updates.. pick an army to play, then re-pick due to they are outdated and fail on the table compared to the new stuff.

Your army will get updated once every 4-6 years, then you have a 50/50 chance youll hate the rules, then a good chance you need to rebuy the army as the rules are made to sell models.

Constant increasing prices and lower quality with finecast.

I'm always suprised about the Matt Ward concerns. 2 sentances? Really? That much angst over 2 sentances? The rules he writes seem pretty solid to me but then again I'm not a hard core player or hard core fluff bandit.

GW at its best? Bringing the hobby, cheaply, to a number of people world wide. Their penetration of the space has allowed a cottage industry of gaming and miniature design to rise up. Are there cheaper figs? Yep. Are there better figures? Yep. However, rarely do you find that you get the quality of a GW kit at the price point it is available at, even given a variety of price increases. I can get a lot of enjoyment out of little dollar layout between painting and gaming.

GW at its worst? Delievering the hobby in a consumable manner to newer generations. By this I mean that GW struggles to make its products availalble in a style/format that is more mainstream. Painting models and sitting across from your buddies to play a game is light years away from mainstream gaming today. In the 1980's, WHFB arose from D&D. It Provided the player a new way to envision a game and battle of a fantastical nature (not knock on historicals)

oday, people are surrounded by these environments (video games and movies). And..most are more attractive visually and more exciting to play. So while core gaming becomes more mainstream (in the US anyways) GWs core games and hobbies continue to stagnate. I'm not sure that the core (WHFB/WH40K) can change in a meaningful way to drive the GW universes into the future. They have married themselves to the codex and rulebook. I'd love to know how many people worldwide play Space Marine vs. a tabletop game of 40K. It will be a huge tell that those numbers are tipped toward the video game.

IMO, the GW of the future is strictly an IP company, delivering core products in a niche fashion to its miniature gamers and deriving its income from selling its IP and delivering Black Library content (which drives more video games/movies etc). Hobbiests and face to face gamers are just not that popular considering the time committment. The 40K and WHFB product in 10 years will be a small(er) part of what the company does when you consider the changing customer, the competition for engaged consumer and the overhead it takes to generate those dollars in sales.

I hate that this became another Mat Ward hate thread. I agree with Kan on a lot of points, and I really like some of Ward's work. Some of it I find pretty silly or over the top, but 40k has always been silly and over the top. If anyone takes this game and universe 100% seriously they're doing it wrong, since not even the creators do all the time.

GW is at its best in terms of models right now. The plastic kits these days are mind blowing compared to the plastics of the late 90s or even the mid 2000s. Finecast stuff looks really good when there aren't any miscasts (which has been ironed out a bit) and the washes and foundation paints mean that GW is actually a pretty solid paint distributor as well. It's also a great time for the 40k IP, with fresh new writers putting their own spin on the universe (Aaron Dembski-Bowden <3) and some great games with the Dawn of War series and Space Marine.

Unfortunately, this is a low point for GW's corporate side. Prices are too high, marketing is non-existent, and GW is treating its customer base horribly. At best it's pandering. White Dwarf is better than it was a year ago but that's not saying much at all.

As for rules writing, I think this is a midpoint. Things aren't as varied as 4th edition, but not as homogenized as 3rd edition. They're overall pretty well balanced though, so I can't complain.

Without applying timelines currently GW is:
At it's best: digital sculpting and thier new injection molding machines has taken GW to the next level. Latest releases are PACKED with parts and Those parts are fantastically detailed. The new codexes DWARF the older ones, sure some really stupid gak has slipped into some but they are expansive in both fluff and substance.
At it's worse: The constant price increases, a scheduled annual increase is not due to any real business pressure it's to indoctrinate the customers to accept more in the future.
Failcast. If they were going to roll out a replacement to metal models it should have been tested and properly QAed before hyped and foisted upon us. That completely ignores the fact that metal model FEEL like they are worth more in the hand it's a tactile thing. They are not easy to convert because they are supposed to have permenance.

And now this:

Melissia wrote:
Are you seriously going to argue that there's only two levels of skill, human and astartes?

If so, I'm going to ignore you.

Yes I am in fact going to argue that there are only two skill levels between unaugmented humans and superhuman Astartes. There is a LIMIT to the level a human being can be trained to. That limit is so far below what an Astartes is minimally capable of that there is a gap between the two. SoB are more skilled than Guardsmen, but the Schola Progenium does not enable unaugmented humans to approach the level of training and ability given by pycho hypnosis, genetic augmentation, and centuries of experience. Sorry your SoB are still just ladies in power armor, not IG but not approaching SM at all.

AustonT wrote:Yes I am in fact going to argue that there are only two skill levels between unaugmented humans and superhuman Astartes. There is a LIMIT to the level a human being can be trained to. That limit is so far below what an Astartes is minimally capable of that there is a gap between the two. SoB are more skilled than Guardsmen, but the Schola Progenium does not enable unaugmented humans to approach the level of training and ability given by pycho hypnosis, genetic augmentation, and centuries of experience. Sorry your SoB are still just ladies in power armor, not IG but not approaching SM at all.

The fluff is full of regular humans going toe to toe with chaos marines and through a combination of skill and fortune beating them. Cain is a great example of this as he comes up against renegade marines on a number of occasions, and he is from the SP.

And there is a significant difference between a regular human who is in the regular armed forces and someone from the SP. Just as there is a significant difference between soldiers in the majority of PDF's and the IG proper.

Ciaphus Cain is a great example of entertainment fiction licensed by GW. It sits right next to the Ultramarines movie for operability in the abilities of the heroes vs villains in 40k.

AustonT wrote:Ciaphus Cain is a great example of entertainment fiction licensed by GW. It sits right next to the Ultramarines movie for operability in the abilities of the heroes vs villains in 40k.

And yet it is official 40K fiction. I'm not going to comment on how it fits in with the tabletop game, codex fluff, etc because it is a different medium, written for a different purpose and yet it exists side by side with the codexes, rule books, other BL books, other GW fiction etc, etc.

You can say that you will only accept codexes and the rule book as "canon", but even there you have massively differing power levels between the fiction, the rules, and the fiction within other codexes.

One thing that I will say is that a D6 system like that used in 40K is not subtle enough to accurately underpin the variety of stats that you would encounter in the 40K universe. You have to range from a greater daemon who eats planets for breakfast, and a grot to barely manages to make it through the day without getting sat on and/or eaten.

Entertainment fiction. As are all BL, you may apply them as canon at your own discretion. I do not. Here is a short list of reasons why:

backflipping Terminators
Space Marines carrying multilasers as their default wargear
average Marine height switching between 7 and 11 feet every other week
Sisters of Battle drinking alcohol, playing cards and taking lovers because of boredom
D-cannons suddenly firing projectiles
PDF troopers carrying sniper boltguns
lasguns capable of killing a Dreadnought
Eldar falling in love with Space Marines
Terminator Sergeants walking into battle with a missile launcher strapped to their back

Please continue to convince me that standard humans are equitable to purpose built killing machines.

AustonT wrote:Entertainment fiction. As are all BL, you may apply them as canon at your own discretion. I do not. Here is a short list of reasons why:

backflipping Terminators
Space Marines carrying multilasers as their default wargear
average Marine height switching between 7 and 11 feet every other week
Sisters of Battle drinking alcohol, playing cards and taking lovers because of boredom
D-cannons suddenly firing projectiles
PDF troopers carrying sniper boltguns
lasguns capable of killing a Dreadnought
Eldar falling in love with Space Marines
Terminator Sergeants walking into battle with a missile launcher strapped to their back

Please continue to convince me that standard humans are equitable to purpose built killing machines.

He's got a point.

AustonT wrote:Entertainment fiction. As are all BL, you may apply them as canon at your own discretion. I do not. Here is a short list of reasons why:

backflipping Terminators
Space Marines carrying multilasers as their default wargear
average Marine height switching between 7 and 11 feet every other week
Sisters of Battle drinking alcohol, playing cards and taking lovers because of boredom
D-cannons suddenly firing projectiles
PDF troopers carrying sniper boltguns
lasguns capable of killing a Dreadnought
Eldar falling in love with Space Marines
Terminator Sergeants walking into battle with a missile launcher strapped to their back

Please continue to convince me that standard humans are equitable to purpose built killing machines.

You kind of missed the point. However you try to define canon - only using table top rules, codex/rule book fluff, general fluff, BL books, etc, you will get contradictions and absurdities. Hell, contrasting the tabletop rules from different editions throws up all sorts of weird things that don't fit in with the "current" rules/fluff (however you choose to define canon fluff).

The point isn't "you should accept all these sources", the point is that GW have not produced an airtight universe - any set of sources you want to choose, even your most favorite source which you love the bestest can be contradicted by other, equally valid sources. Your codex says that a single Space Marine can wade through entire armies? My codex shows how a small force of my race ambushed and killed a large SM force. Your book says that the IG are sent to die on the wire by the millions, while mine says that an IG team took on an entire death world and won.

In a universe as large and diverse as that of 40K there is bound to be huge variation, even excepting various fluff boners that certain authors seem to have.

Brother SRM wrote:I hate that this became another Mat Ward hate thread.

Perhaps a lot of what some people dislike about GW right now has to do with the fluff and rules written by Mr. Ward. In a thread asking for one's opinion about what is best/worst about GW, why question what it is that some people dislike. It seems that there are a large number of posters here that don't like Mr. Ward's work. So be it.

Personally, I can get past some of the silly fluff he wrote into the GK codex, and the BA/Necrons incident. I find GW was at their absolute worst during the short span of time that they released all the Finecast fanfare, complete with price gouging, and took actions to try and force their Southern Hemisphere customers to buy locally, at stupidly jacked up prices.

didn't he write fantasy's rules? I mean a lot of people hate that game now
and he does a crappy job at any codex he seems not to like (eg orcs and goblins, I donno if he wrote tomb kings)
he's just a terrible writer rules and fluff

It's kind of ironic that GW are currently at their best in terms of miniature production (aside from the odd stinker that keeps slipping out), but at their worst in terms of being an evil corporate monster.

AustonT wrote:
Terminator Sergeants walking into battle with a missile launcher strapped to their back

Isn't that what a CML is?

The man pack shoulder launched version, in addition to the storm bolter.

AustonT wrote:The man pack shoulder launched version, in addition to the storm bolter.

So...not a CML? Just the generic, missile launcher?
That's not right...

Also, srsly? Termy acrobats? How is that even possible?

Oh the infamous C S Goto books, fortunately those are things I definitely haven't read.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

AustonT wrote:The man pack shoulder launched version, in addition to the storm bolter.

So...not a CML? Just the generic, missile launcher?
That's not right...

Also, srsly? Termy acrobats? How is that even possible?

The relevant information is contained, albeit a little offensively, here.
http://1d4chan.org/wiki/C.S.Goto
CS Goto is only the most rampant offender in the BLs litany of licensed fan fiction. James Swallow pulling up a close second,

I have to agree with msot of the posters here:
GW's fluff (wierd inconsistencies aside) is some of the best and most in-depth/immersive I've read in a long, long time. It dwarfs (squats?) fluff from the likes of competing wargames in many cases imo, and is almost always a fun and entertaining read.

In addition, GW's recent models have a far better good-model-to-crap ratio than in the past, and their models usually look on par with stuff like Reaper minis and PP. The degree of detail and customisability is awesome, and hard to find elsewhere.

However, I also agree with the bad:
The pricing of GW models, along with their avalanche of marketing trainwrecks (Really hyped specialist game? Limited Edition. Amazing IP? Very few games, especially for Fantasy and the specialist games. Completely untested model-casting technique? It's the second coming of Christ himself!), is probably my biggest peeve. Add into this the various shenanigans like the oversea embargo and pulling of support from tournaments, and this is a major issue for me.

Next most annoying is the frankenstein's monster of a ruleset both fantasy and 40K are lumbering along as. Again, I suspect this is heavily influenced by GW marketing, to release one at a time instead of doing a nice clean rehaul of the rules/models. However, while I could stand a bit of power creep, the degree of codex power disparaity, especially comparing new to old codexes (Space Wolves and Necrons, anyone?), is completely unnacceptable. If one codex has nearly a dozen models that are rarely/never used, while another codex could take any model in the list and be competitive, something is terribly wrong.

I could stand craptastic rules if the models were cheap, or expensive models if they were for a very well executed ruleset, but as is two wrongs don't make a right for me....

Flashman wrote:It's kind of ironic that GW are currently at their best in terms of miniature production (aside from the odd stinker that keeps slipping out), but at their worst in terms of being an evil corporate monster.

They've been "at their worst in terms of being an evil corporate monster" for 20 years

GW bashing and off topic SOB fluff flames aside.

Best: Progression of model design

Worst: Ending the Bits and Historic Model archives.

Now I return you to your regular GW hate fest and Mat Ward flame fight.

+1 to ending the bits ordering system.

A pretty entertaining (although lengthy) blog post regarding this kind of discussion, is well worth a read:

http://thefrontlinegamer.blogspot.com/2011/09/is-imperium-metaphor-for-games-workshop.html?showComment=1316486593299#c4827929326097010747

Pacific wrote:A pretty entertaining (although lengthy) blog post regarding this kind of discussion, is well worth a read:

http://thefrontlinegamer.blogspot.com/2011/09/is-imperium-metaphor-for-games-workshop.html?showComment=1316486593299#c4827929326097010747

Excellent article.

things i like about GW, the mini's are still my favorites of any around, and i still love the fluff, i know alot of people point out things like the Draigo stuff but i've always looked at those sorts of things as we're reading the history as you would be taught it say in school, so his exploits have more become legends and like most legends they're blown out of proportion. Everyone can like or dislike things for their own reason of course.

Things i dont like about GW, well the prices, especially in aus they're just stupid, and i dont really like the in your face way of selling they have in their stores, but thats something i dont like about alot of places and rememdy that by buying over the interwebernets or at a local gaming store instead

That’s a well written article. I loved the parallel of the Internet being Chaos. All of the analogies used in the article are extremely clever.

I agree. The ironic similarities are both entertaining and fairly accurate. I especially like the different aspects of the Chaos Gods and their influences on GW's success.

Worglock wrote:
Worst: Ending the Bits and Historic Model archives.

This was actually sensible for GW to do. It's a lot easier to categorize things into "bitz packs" (which are too infrequently released) than it is to have a bunch of dudes in a backroom categorizing the millions of bits GW has. It sucks, but it sounds like a good way to trim some fat, financially. It does reek of the typical "GW evil empire" stuff that's been happening more over the last 5 years or so, but I can see why they did it, unlike some of their other decisions.

As for the CS Goto stuff, he doesn't write for Black Library anymore. He was at least capable of making fun of himself a bit: http://www.csgoto.com/csgotopositions.html but I don't think he'll be writing anything else for Black Library again. The last book he wrote was in 2007, and one of his short stories appears in a 2010 compilation but I think that's about it. I'd consider the actual Dawn of War games canon rather than the very silly novels based on them.

that article was a fantastic read

Brother SRM wrote:This was actually sensible for GW to do.

To a point.

When people decry the lack of bitz service, I'm often very quick to point out that the old bitz service was both inefficient and a liability. Inventory = space, space = money. More than that, offering every metal component separately is a money drain, as spin-casting involves casting everything on that particular mould. So if, for example, there is one part of a full kit that is very popular, but no one ever orders the other parts, you end up with tons of spare parts laying around in inventory, and again, inventory = space, space = money.

But, when I point that out, I also point out that GW's replacement bitz service is about as useless as it can be. Rather than finding the healthy middle ground they instead opted to throw the baby out with the bath water and start a clunky and counter-intuitive system that clearly has no basis in market research. The lack of plastic sprues for sale is abominable, and their 'bitz packs' are often quite bad.

The old bitz service was unwieldy, inefficient and costly. The new bitz service is incomplete, rigid and useless.

H.B.M.C. wrote:
The old bitz service was unwieldy, inefficient and costly. The new bitz service is incomplete, rigid and useless.

Oh, I'm completely in agreement with you here. They haven't done enough to bridge the gap between old and new and find a comfortable middleground. They started doing things right with the battlewagon deffrolla sprue then just abandoned that idea outright, which is a huge bummer. Selling individual sprues would be lovely, as would a more robust bitz range like what they've been trying to do.

At its best - GW has created a mythos all its own. With every author contributing, for good or bad, to a living, breathing world that has lasted over decades of growth. Also, DoW. Some great models that really set the standard of what great models should look like.

At its worse - Settings that can not be taken in bite size chunks for us in anything other then mini wargaming. A property that, without extensive research of the background, has a hard time appealing to different demographics outside of wargamers.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Brother SRM wrote:This was actually sensible for GW to do.

To a point.

When people decry the lack of bitz service, I'm often very quick to point out that the old bitz service was both inefficient and a liability. Inventory = space, space = money. More than that, offering every metal component separately is a money drain, as spin-casting involves casting everything on that particular mould. So if, for example, there is one part of a full kit that is very popular, but no one ever orders the other parts, you end up with tons of spare parts laying around in inventory, and again, inventory = space, space = money.

But, when I point that out, I also point out that GW's replacement bitz service is about as useless as it can be. Rather than finding the healthy middle ground they instead opted to throw the baby out with the bath water and start a clunky and counter-intuitive system that clearly has no basis in market research. The lack of plastic sprues for sale is abominable, and their 'bitz packs' are often quite bad.

The old bitz service was unwieldy, inefficient and costly. The new bitz service is incomplete, rigid and useless.

Indeed. In theory the new system *should* be good if GW actually bothered to keep it up to date and have bitz people actually want. It started off well, with a lot of things (e.g. the Sonic Weapons pack) remarkably cheaper than if bought individually from the previous system. But being GW, they stick rigidly to the STC (Pacific, that article was awesome BTW) and it just goes nowhere.

Grimtuff wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Brother SRM wrote:This was actually sensible for GW to do.

To a point.

When people decry the lack of bitz service, I'm often very quick to point out that the old bitz service was both inefficient and a liability. Inventory = space, space = money. More than that, offering every metal component separately is a money drain, as spin-casting involves casting everything on that particular mould. So if, for example, there is one part of a full kit that is very popular, but no one ever orders the other parts, you end up with tons of spare parts laying around in inventory, and again, inventory = space, space = money.

But, when I point that out, I also point out that GW's replacement bitz service is about as useless as it can be. Rather than finding the healthy middle ground they instead opted to throw the baby out with the bath water and start a clunky and counter-intuitive system that clearly has no basis in market research. The lack of plastic sprues for sale is abominable, and their 'bitz packs' are often quite bad.

The old bitz service was unwieldy, inefficient and costly. The new bitz service is incomplete, rigid and useless.

Indeed. In theory the new system *should* be good if GW actually bothered to keep it up to date and have bitz people actually want. It started off well, with a lot of things (e.g. the Sonic Weapons pack) remarkably cheaper than if bought individually from the previous system. But being GW, they stick rigidly to the STC (Pacific, that article was awesome BTW) and it just goes nowhere.

I'm perplexed as to why people moan about a bitz service. There are numerous avenues available. That's enterprise.

I get bitz off 3 different websites and ebay. What is the big problem? GW don't have to feth about with bitz, and enterprising fellows make money selling bitz.

Brother SRM wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:
The old bitz service was unwieldy, inefficient and costly. The new bitz service is incomplete, rigid and useless.

Oh, I'm completely in agreement with you here. They haven't done enough to bridge the gap between old and new and find a comfortable middleground. They started doing things right with the battlewagon deffrolla sprue then just abandoned that idea outright, which is a huge bummer. Selling individual sprues would be lovely, as would a more robust bitz range like what they've been trying to do.

I'd be happy if they opened their old catalogues to selling complete figures. At the moment you can order almost nothing, they throw us the very occasional bone like some chaas warriors and they charge insane prices for these vintage collectors figures.

I don't expect the old bits service. The fact you could order 20 copies of Nagash's left arm is just stupid. But if they offered complete figures, that would be okay. But they don't, they offer almost nothing.

Of course, with the way that they have done away with metal and only cast in finecost requires they retrofit the moulds. And they are never going to do that for all those old moulds and as they don't buy in the metal, well I guess any possibility of the older figuers being available has just died.

Unless of course they come up with some nonsense that having the older figure in metal is part of the 'vintage feel'. No doubt for this privilege they would charge even MORE than finecost. Yeah that sounds about right, get rid of metal, price increase. Bring back metal, another price increase.

mattyrm wrote:

Grimtuff wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Brother SRM wrote:This was actually sensible for GW to do.

To a point.

When people decry the lack of bitz service, I'm often very quick to point out that the old bitz service was both inefficient and a liability. Inventory = space, space = money. More than that, offering every metal component separately is a money drain, as spin-casting involves casting everything on that particular mould. So if, for example, there is one part of a full kit that is very popular, but no one ever orders the other parts, you end up with tons of spare parts laying around in inventory, and again, inventory = space, space = money.

But, when I point that out, I also point out that GW's replacement bitz service is about as useless as it can be. Rather than finding the healthy middle ground they instead opted to throw the baby out with the bath water and start a clunky and counter-intuitive system that clearly has no basis in market research. The lack of plastic sprues for sale is abominable, and their 'bitz packs' are often quite bad.

The old bitz service was unwieldy, inefficient and costly. The new bitz service is incomplete, rigid and useless.

Indeed. In theory the new system *should* be good if GW actually bothered to keep it up to date and have bitz people actually want. It started off well, with a lot of things (e.g. the Sonic Weapons pack) remarkably cheaper than if bought individually from the previous system. But being GW, they stick rigidly to the STC (Pacific, that article was awesome BTW) and it just goes nowhere.

I'm perplexed as to why people moan about a bitz service. There are numerous avenues available. That's enterprise.

I get bitz off 3 different websites and ebay. What is the big problem? GW don't have to feth about with bitz, and enterprising fellows make money selling bitz.

We're talking about metal bits, not random bits from sprues, which were not present under the old system either. To take a somewhat personal example, if they separated this piss poor excuse for a box by each god, say like as individuals or 5 each, I would do a TS army in a heartbeat. In. A. Heartbeat. As that Rubric marine is gorgeous.

Plastic bits separate from the sprues are not what is being talked about. That was an untapped resource that GW will not (or cannot?) capitalize on.

Ah ok, yeah that makes sense.. I like the TS marines too.

Ill go back to shutting the feth up.

mattyrm wrote:

Grimtuff wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Brother SRM wrote:This was actually sensible for GW to do.

To a point.

When people decry the lack of bitz service, I'm often very quick to point out that the old bitz service was both inefficient and a liability. Inventory = space, space = money. More than that, offering every metal component separately is a money drain, as spin-casting involves casting everything on that particular mould. So if, for example, there is one part of a full kit that is very popular, but no one ever orders the other parts, you end up with tons of spare parts laying around in inventory, and again, inventory = space, space = money.

But, when I point that out, I also point out that GW's replacement bitz service is about as useless as it can be. Rather than finding the healthy middle ground they instead opted to throw the baby out with the bath water and start a clunky and counter-intuitive system that clearly has no basis in market research. The lack of plastic sprues for sale is abominable, and their 'bitz packs' are often quite bad.

The old bitz service was unwieldy, inefficient and costly. The new bitz service is incomplete, rigid and useless.

Indeed. In theory the new system *should* be good if GW actually bothered to keep it up to date and have bitz people actually want. It started off well, with a lot of things (e.g. the Sonic Weapons pack) remarkably cheaper than if bought individually from the previous system. But being GW, they stick rigidly to the STC (Pacific, that article was awesome BTW) and it just goes nowhere.

I'm perplexed as to why people moan about a bitz service. There are numerous avenues available. That's enterprise.

I get bitz off 3 different websites and ebay. What is the big problem? GW don't have to feth about with bitz, and enterprising fellows make money selling bitz.

You know what? You're right point me to the bits site where I can order 10 of Dantes jump pack.

Brother SRM wrote:

Worglock wrote:
Worst: Ending the Bits and Historic Model archives.

This was actually sensible for GW to do. It's a lot easier to categorize things into "bitz packs" (which are too infrequently released) than it is to have a bunch of dudes in a backroom categorizing the millions of bits GW has. It sucks, but it sounds like a good way to trim some fat, financially. It does reek of the typical "GW evil empire" stuff that's been happening more over the last 5 years or so, but I can see why they did it, unlike some of their other decisions.

Not really. The fact that they couldn't make a buck off of it shows how poorly managed it was. So they threw the whole thing out instead of fixing it. Also, just as a point of note, ending the system that was the Bitz Service also ended the system that allowed them to be able to replace an individual part instead of sending out an entire kit.

I will also point out that they could still be making pretty ludicrous sums of money off of things like the old Diaznettes and the Realm of Chaos era things that lots of people would happily order directly from GW (and even wait for it to be cast on demand) but instead, they're forced to trawl eBay and the second hand market constantly or resort to Chinese recasters who have no qualms about continuing a model archive.

The Bitz and Historic Archive could have been fixed/rescued.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Howard A Treesong wrote:

Brother SRM wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:
The old bitz service was unwieldy, inefficient and costly. The new bitz service is incomplete, rigid and useless.

Oh, I'm completely in agreement with you here. They haven't done enough to bridge the gap between old and new and find a comfortable middleground. They started doing things right with the battlewagon deffrolla sprue then just abandoned that idea outright, which is a huge bummer. Selling individual sprues would be lovely, as would a more robust bitz range like what they've been trying to do.

I'd be happy if they opened their old catalogues to selling complete figures. At the moment you can order almost nothing, they throw us the very occasional bone like some chaas warriors and they charge insane prices for these vintage collectors figures.

I don't expect the old bits service. The fact you could order 20 copies of Nagash's left arm is just stupid. But if they offered complete figures, that would be okay. But they don't, they offer almost nothing.

Of course, with the way that they have done away with metal and only cast in finecost requires they retrofit the moulds. And they are never going to do that for all those old moulds and as they don't buy in the metal, well I guess any possibility of the older figuers being available has just died.

Unless of course they come up with some nonsense that having the older figure in metal is part of the 'vintage feel'. No doubt for this privilege they would charge even MORE than finecost. Yeah that sounds about right, get rid of metal, price increase. Bring back metal, another price increase.

You know what? I don't care about the price if they brought back the old http://solegends.com/citcat912/c20268rcchaoswarr.htm Chaos Warriors. Even if it was under a system of "There are X packs of Y different guys because that's how the mold is set up." Because I'd still buy 3 or 4 packs of each and it would still be cheaper than trying to get them off of eBay.

Worglock wrote:

Brother SRM wrote:

Worglock wrote:
Worst: Ending the Bits and Historic Model archives.

This was actually sensible for GW to do. It's a lot easier to categorize things into "bitz packs" (which are too infrequently released) than it is to have a bunch of dudes in a backroom categorizing the millions of bits GW has. It sucks, but it sounds like a good way to trim some fat, financially. It does reek of the typical "GW evil empire" stuff that's been happening more over the last 5 years or so, but I can see why they did it, unlike some of their other decisions.

Not really. The fact that they couldn't make a buck off of it shows how poorly managed it was. So they threw the whole thing out instead of fixing it. Also, just as a point of note, ending the system that was the Bitz Service also ended the system that allowed them to be able to replace an individual part instead of sending out an entire kit.

I will also point out that they could still be making pretty ludicrous sums of money off of things like the old Diaznettes and the Realm of Chaos era things that lots of people would happily order directly from GW (and even wait for it to be cast on demand) but instead, they're forced to trawl eBay and the second hand market constantly or resort to Chinese recasters who have no qualms about continuing a model archive.

The Bitz and Historic Archive could have been fixed/rescued.

Since I'm a hobbyist that loves to convert things I could go to GW and get anything I want at a reasonable price with the old method. With their recent method, it is not possible for me to bitz orders at a reasonable price. This flawed bitz order system started a cottage industry of people selling bitz though other channels such as Ebay.. The price of bitz has gone up over the years and will continue to go up to what the market will bare.


I agree with what Worglock stated. GW could have revamped their Bitz department, but the company IMHO chose the cheapest way out of the situation.

The Best...hmmm...

1. The model of the Stompa.
2. 1st edition Epic
3. Space Hulk
4. Tyranid Attack
5. The playstation edition of Space Hulk Vengence of the Blood Angels.
6. The RT era Boxed sets of vehicles, figures, and rulebooks and suppliments. (Relms of Chaos/ Lost and the Damned was my favorite, hands down. Freebooterz was my second favorite.)
7. Gorkamorka
8. 1st edition Necromunda
9. a number of thier figures are great.( Across all of thier ranges, and at different times, and different game systems.)
10. The new RPG books give the indepth information that you wouldn't expect in other such games. HAnds down FF has done the whole 40K mythos justice not equal to how GW is taking the piss out of it.


I want to leave it with GW's NO Crap-Number 1, "Best."

The Spacehulk game, and the Dark Angel supplimental material in "Deathwing" The story alone is friggin epic, and will never be equalled, no matter if the emperor himself took a crap, wiped the droppings with the Codex Astartes, and put it on E bay.


The Worst...

I don't want to discuss this. Lets leave it on a positive.

As to the discussion of the Sisters- The FF suppliment goes into the discussion on the subject. Thats fine with me.
The old 2d edition codex was great for putting bones on the sceleton. The coinciding ones per edition of game didn't do much to flesh it out for them.

Not a big fan of Ward. It isn't because he is generally just a gak. Its because of how he has been given free riegn to literally just piss all over the material, irrigardless of the already extensive material out there, before anyone even knew who he was. I don't know who's wife he banged for that job, but I can think of 1000 writers clearly more up to the task then he is to be even be taken seriously as a so called "writer".

Take it to heart, though- If this clown can write, get published, and make real live coin, ANYBODY can.

Grot 6 wrote:Not a big fan of Ward. It isn't because he is generally just a gak. Its because of how he has been given free riegn to literally just piss all over the material, irrigardless of the already extensive material out there, before anyone even knew who he was. I don't know who's wife he banged for that job, but I can think of 1000 writers clearly more up to the task then he is to be even be taken seriously as a so called "writer".

I don't believe for a second that he does have free reign. I suspect that everything he has written was signed off by several other somebodies at GWS. When I complain about Ward, it's the vehicle through which they are delivering the mythos, not the man himself. But clearly some people like this generation of fluff, so another man's trash and all.

It just means that at some point Alan Merrit has read it and gone "Yep, that's fine. Just roll with the whole carve-a-name-into-a-primarch's-heart thing, it'll fly! and given everything I've heard of the man... I just can't see him doing that.

The best:
Miniatures keep getting better every year, in terms of complexity and variance. I'm putting together an Arachnorak spider and am blown away by its options. (I don't play O+G, I just love the miniature.) The spider's even a decent value for your gaming buck -- 60 USD is competitive for a detailed model of that size, plastic or not.

The worst:
Corporate's not exactly organized. Example: Hardcover fantasy books went up in price almost immediately. A retailer friend of mine was dumbfounded; did GW not do a proper price evaluation? Did circumstances change so drastically in three months that it had to re-evaluate the price point for the Army Books? It's mystifying, and suggests that the company's not planning very effectively for the future / is ignorant of consumer perception. (This isn't a rant about prices, before anyone suggests otherwise.) Other inconsistencies with price points, the timing of waves and such also suggest that the company doesn't have a clear-cut idea of what it's about, or what its gameplan should be. I honestly don't think GW's an evil empire; I think it's a clumsy corporation that still manages to produce some of the finest mass-produced miniatures on the market.

H.B.M.C. wrote:It just means that at some point Alan Merrit has read it and gone "Yep, that's fine. Just roll with the whole carve-a-name-into-a-primarch's-heart thing, it'll fly! and given everything I've heard of the man... I just can't see him doing that.

IIRC he only does Black Library fluff now.

Mewens wrote:The best:
Miniatures keep getting better every year, in terms of complexity and variance. I'm putting together an Arachnorak spider and am blown away by its options. (I don't play O+G, I just love the miniature.) The spider's even a decent value for your gaming buck -- 60 USD is competitive for a detailed model of that size, plastic or not.

The worst:
Corporate's not exactly organized. Example: Hardcover fantasy books went up in price almost immediately. A retailer friend of mine was dumbfounded; did GW not do a proper price evaluation? Did circumstances change so drastically in three months that it had to re-evaluate the price point for the Army Books? It's mystifying, and suggests that the company's not planning very effectively for the future / is ignorant of consumer perception. (This isn't a rant about prices, before anyone suggests otherwise.) Other inconsistencies with price points, the timing of waves and such also suggest that the company doesn't have a clear-cut idea of what it's about, or what its gameplan should be. I honestly don't think GW's an evil empire; I think it's a clumsy corporation that still manages to produce some of the finest mass-produced miniatures on the market.

yeah I always thought they were just out of touch and rather dumb, I don't think they're really trying to be dicks, I think they honestly believe they're still the best and only one


Automatically Appended Next Post:

-Loki- wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:It just means that at some point Alan Merrit has read it and gone "Yep, that's fine. Just roll with the whole carve-a-name-into-a-primarch's-heart thing, it'll fly! and given everything I've heard of the man... I just can't see him doing that.

IIRC he only does Black Library fluff now.

oh good lord...well at least I can avoid his novels

Isn't Jervis in charge of the studio as a whole? So wouldn't that mean that everything has to go through him?

who knows, things could have to be run past a tank of manatee's for all we know
point is...its not very good and people don't like it, but in the ashes of GW, many other companies are really starting to get a good foothold

The Good: Ogre Kingdoms, Finecast models without flaws, Night Lords novels

The Bad: Failcasts, Tyranids Codex, missing models

The Ugly: Embargo, 'Ard Boyz Scenarios

-Loki- wrote:IIRC he only does Black Library fluff now.

Ward or Merrit?

H.B.M.C. wrote:

-Loki- wrote:IIRC he only does Black Library fluff now.

Ward or Merrit?

Merrit.

He's... he's their head of IP. He's to 40K lore what George Lucas is to Star Wars lore. Doesn't he do everything 40K related?

Pacific wrote:A pretty entertaining (although lengthy) blog post regarding this kind of discussion, is well worth a read:

http://thefrontlinegamer.blogspot.com/2011/09/is-imperium-metaphor-for-games-workshop.html?showComment=1316486593299#c4827929326097010747

That was very well done.

Phobos wrote:

Pacific wrote:A pretty entertaining (although lengthy) blog post regarding this kind of discussion, is well worth a read:

http://thefrontlinegamer.blogspot.com/2011/09/is-imperium-metaphor-for-games-workshop.html?showComment=1316486593299#c4827929326097010747

That was very well done.

Wow, just started reading this. I'm happy that I'm not the only person who has seen the similarities between those two entities!

The best .... Inventing orks, THE ONLY faction in 40k with any humour attached
The worst.... aborting my unborn chil...no hang on, getting rid of blood bowl, that was THE worst!

It's still there, under specialist games. It wasn't gotten rid of.

Yes you are correct, but perhaps 'pushed to one side' would be a better metaphor.

For those of us who remember it being sold in store along with the teams and accessories, GW tournaments and leagues in store, and actively supported in both store and WD, the coverage it receives now is shameful. Not to mention the fact that many stores expressly forbid it being played during games nights.

It's as though GW thinks of it like some shameful uncle, the one who gets drunk at every family meeting and ends up causing a scene and is therefore castigated as a result, rather than it being the golden child - which it should be, many people think it's quite possibly one of the best games the company has ever made. But, you don't have to spend $600 to make a team, so it's accessible only through a tiny button on one corner of the website.

Sorry, that turned into quite a rant, I didn't mean it to!

I remember a time when Epic (2nd Ed Space Marine) was a core game, and sat in store all the time with WFB (4th Ed?) and 40K (2nd Ed). Even when other second tier games came around, Epic never went away until one day it just vanished.

Years later Epic 40,000 showed up, and we all know how well that turned out...

Pacific wrote:Sorry, that turned into quite a rant, I didn't mean it to!

It's a legitimate beef. With a little effort and virtually no new development, they could make Blood Bowl into a pretty hot item. I don't understand why they'd have all those assets and not hype and milk them. BFG as well - several people have posted that BFG probably has the tightest and best written of all GW games.

Ouze wrote:

Pacific wrote:Sorry, that turned into quite a rant, I didn't mean it to!

It's a legitimate beef. With a little effort and virtually no new development, they could make Blood Bowl into a pretty hot item. I don't understand why they'd have all those assets and not hype and milk them. BFG as well - several people have posted that BFG probably has the tightest and best written of all GW games.

Not to mention some of the best miniatures. I still think that the Imperial cruiser is one of the best miniatures GW have ever produced.

H.B.M.C. wrote:I remember a time when Epic (2nd Ed Space Marine) was a core game, and sat in store all the time with 40K (4th Ed?) and 40K (2nd Ed). Even when other second tier games came around, Epic never went away until one day it just vanished.

Years later Epic 40,000 showed up, and we all know how well that turned out...

This is THE most confusing post I have ever seen on Dakka. It's so befuddled I don't Even know how to translate it back to English.

I edited the first bit. That should've been WFB (4th Ed).

Ok I think I finally sorted it. You were referring to Epic with attachments like space marines titan legions Orks and squats etc.
I seem to remember JJ once saying despite it's failure Epic:40000 was the best game he had ever written.

Although it's true the way it was suddenly just withdrawn from stores.

I always seem to remember it was quite popular in store, especially towards the end of RT's lifespan and before 2nd edition came out. A lot of places were really encouraging the Space Marine 2nd edition boxset as it had everything you needed to play in it and was a great entry level system.

Although GW are essentially trying to recreate the same sized battles but in 28mm, I think nothing can ever recreate the feeling of mass battle like having 20,000 points a side of Epic, with a dozen titans and Gargants and massed armoured companies and infantry facing each other

best: new DE releases. they look much better than the previous ones.

worst: i think finecast wasn't really a great thing.
here at dakka, i've seen many pics and heard many stories about bad casted models. many of them have bubbles and stuff. not really good,now is it?

you do GW for a good year... Just like me

I have to agree that the standard of GW's models gets better and better, although there is somthing special about having metal models to represent characters etc. For me GW was at its best from 90-96 with the likes of Rick Priestly and Andy Chambers driving the 40k bus. Im sure alot of you will put it down to Vet nostalgia (Ive been playing 40k for over 20 years) but GW felt like the driving force of table top gaming back then rather than a waning super power.
On the plus side the Black Library is a real triumph, Forge World models get better every year and hey 40k is still going! The thing is all the positive stuff about GW is driven by the community, excellent sites like this, the rise of Internet TV channels dedicated to table top gaming and our FLGS, its all external to GW itself. Back in the day the community was in the stores, now it kind of feels like we are proping the games up from the outside.

GW at their best has got to be the fluff. I am not a fluff person at all really but it never fails to impress me when you see the level of detail in army books or a shelf of black library novels. Most companies do a good bit of fluff but I think this is where GW are unmatched by anyone out there. They have admitedly had a long long time to get build this fluff.

GW and its complete disregard for the customer. I think we all understand that GW is a company and its out there to make a profit. I would hate to see GW go under as I love their products more than really anyone other company out there, but as we all have discussed over the years, their disregard for the voice of the customer has gotten stronger and strong to the point of people seriously losing their minds with frustration.

GW at their best - Making prominent factions with amazingly detailed background and history, with good models and fun balance.

GW at their worst - Customer pitch and hobby pitch at the moment. Probably one of the worst times to be a hobbiest in Games Workshop, as more of GW's profits are turned to the shareholders rather than making minis and expanding the game.

Pacific wrote:Although it's true the way it was suddenly just withdrawn from stores.

I always seem to remember it was quite popular in store, especially towards the end of RT's lifespan and before 2nd edition came out. A lot of places were really encouraging the Space Marine 2nd edition boxset as it had everything you needed to play in it and was a great entry level system.

Although GW are essentially trying to recreate the same sized battles but in 28mm, I think nothing can ever recreate the feeling of mass battle like having 20,000 points a side of Epic, with a dozen titans and Gargants and massed armoured companies and infantry facing each other

I can't imagine how long it must have taken to play through a 20k point game. My friends and I used to play 10k regularly and those games were all night affairs. The most fun I've ever really had wargaming were those massive battles back in the day.

Hmm we used to have games lasting most of a Sunday (or over a weekend on a couple of occasions) with 2 or 3 players a side. And the two biggest armies were IG and Orks, so masses and masses of units to move!

But you are right, I'm pretty sure that most of the time we didn't finish those games You are right though, there was definitely something.. hmm, 'epic' about that game played on that kind of scale!

At it's best? Modeling, Costumer service, and its great gameplay.

Worst? Cost, sale's pitch (but that doesn't really bother me)

Really I don't have many problems with GW, except for having a hard time buying their stuff sometimes, but for the fun of painting and modeling, the great fun I have during gameplay, and the rich back stories and fluff. I just love 40k and GW gives me what I love so I
ll put up with the prices and have a good time.

Kanluwen wrote:It's an advertising medium. It's no different than No Quarter or Wargaming Illustrated, the only difference is that people cut Privateer Press slack because they put in what they deem to be "better painting articles"(although many of the ones that I saw when the company first started with NQ #1-4 are on par with the WD articles of the time. Eh.) and because it's not GW.

This is a quote from a ways back in the thread, page 2-3 ish, but I couldn't help but call it out.

White Dwarf is really nothing like No Quarter.

Every issue of No Quarter:

Advances the backstory
Gives tactical 'how would you play this' puzzler scenarios
Has detailed painting and terrain building guides
Has a battle report or tournament recap (TOURNAMENT RECAP WUT??)
Showcases hobbyist modeling/contest achievements

In short, it's clear that the goal of No Quarter is to further immerse the reader into PP's universe and hobby, whether through project ideas, backstory, fleshing out the campaign world, recognizing competitive and model/paint achievements of the hobbyists, or by challenging hobbyists with tactical/model and painting puzzles and contests.

White Dwarf is only like No Quarter if you have never actually seen a copy of No Quarter.

You missed the point I was making, but okay.

Privateer Press is just as much "company propaganda" as White Dwarf. They have their material tailored to fit the way their company is done.

I should also note that advancing the backstory is not necessarily a good thing.

Nah I'm pretty sure you missed what Sourclams was saying in your dogged need to defend GW against any criticism whatsoever.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Nah I'm pretty sure you missed what Sourclams was saying in your dogged need to defend GW against any criticism whatsoever.

I'm with HBMC over here. PP makes a magazine that says, "Hey! We're the best!", sure. But it does it in such a way that it doesn't come off as a 9 dollar advert that's other function is to wipe Jervis' ass.

No Quarter! actually has good info, painting tips, fluff, and (Shock, Gasp!) relevant news and other stories pertaining to Warmahordes.

I've never read No Quarter, so I can't hold a valid opinion over its content or quality, but do they post previews of upcoming products more than 2 weeks in advance? Do they make sure you can't get a copy until it's in stores so that no one sees anything before anyone else?

Well, of course not. That would be silly. I wouldn't think any company that wants to keep a customer base would do that kind of misbehavior.

Chowderhead wrote:Well, of course not. That would be silly. I wouldn't think any company that wants to keep a customer base would do that kind of misbehavior.

ah ha haa its funny because Games Workshop does... ahhhh

H.B.M.C. wrote:I've never read No Quarter, so I can't hold a valid opinion over its content or quality, but do they post previews of upcoming products more than 2 weeks in advance? Do they make sure you can't get a copy until it's in stores so that no one sees anything before anyone else?

Now, you might not believe this, just hear me out, Privateer Press puts full-page previews of new, upcoming unit model/artwork/stats in No Quarter as much as 3 months before the model will even be out. Not only that, but they will display the hi-rez model image on the internet at the same time.

Not only that but they release teasers and preview stuff to build hype in the whole lead-up period to any release! Like, we know what all of the epic warlocks in domination will be, but still have no idea of their stats or abilities yet! This gets us into the mindset of both eagerly discovering and already accepting and speculating upon how they will change the factions' playstyle and how the story progression for each individual character will go! It's like we're being included, not just as covetous meatsacks from whom the company must demand currency, but as customers and participants in some sort of overall common interest!

And that basically sums up my 'worst of' for GW. The cynical, patronizing treatment of what should be its core consumer base.

'Best of' would be the Horus Heresy. Even though a few of the novels are steaming piles of garbage (Ben Counter, looking at Battle for the Abysmal here) I can clearly see numerous authors in a grand thematic framework... struggling to be as good as Dan Abnett.

GW best: Some of the absolute best miniatures, vehicles and terrain in the industry. The style isn't for everyone, but it's consistent, well done, and offers an unprecedented level of customizability. Great customer service in terms of product replacement and sales.

GW worst: Rediculous prices. Mediocre rulesets that are functional and can be fun, but are far outclassed by other rulesets. Standardization of terrain and terrain bases. WD, a catalog with a few painting guides pretending to be a gaming magazine.

Kanluwen wrote:You missed the point I was making, but okay.

Privateer Press is just as much "company propaganda" as White Dwarf. They have their material tailored to fit the way their company is done.

I should also note that advancing the backstory is not necessarily a good thing.

I wanna throw in my hat for Wargames Illustrated. Actual product reviews from multiple manufacturers, real battle reports, historical guidelines, campaign guides etc. It really is far and above of WD. Cant speak for No Quarter, havent taken a look at it.

I don't really care that WD only covers GW stuff. I don't play the other games, and have zero interest in historical wargaming. Besides it has been decades since WD covered anything but GW stuff. I liked WD when I got it back in 2000. It was only $5 an issue, and if you subscribed, you got a little bonus too. There was lots of content as well.

The last issue of WD that I got, I finished in like 15 minutes. It is just terrible, and the price of $9 an issue is adding insult to injury.

its 11 dollars here :S

GW at its best. AOBR box set. The perfect customer friendly box. Complete Rules, dice, study thick plastic templates two factions (even if the models were somewhat simplified) and a great over all deal. Perfect.

GW at its worse - The pricing of everything but AOBR box set. I just do not see the value of what is in the box (no matter what it is) vs the price tag on the front.

Las wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:You missed the point I was making, but okay.

Privateer Press is just as much "company propaganda" as White Dwarf. They have their material tailored to fit the way their company is done.

I should also note that advancing the backstory is not necessarily a good thing.

I wanna throw in my hat for Wargames Illustrated. Actual product reviews from multiple manufacturers, real battle reports, historical guidelines, campaign guides etc. It really is far and above of WD. Cant speak for No Quarter, havent taken a look at it.

I'll toss my hat in for WGI as well. Then I'll go out, purchase several more hats, and throw them in for Battlegames and Wargames, Soldiers and Strategies.

Then I'll wear the last hat.

AustonT wrote:Entertainment fiction. As are all BL, you may apply them as canon at your own discretion. I do not. Here is a short list of reasons why:

Canon = canon whether you like it or not. That would be like me saying Loctus of Borg never really happened because I think the episode "Best of Both Worlds" was silly and denounce it from occuring. Yes that's Star Trek.
You do not simply get to choose what is and what is not canon.


The Guard win their wars on numbers, throw enough bodies at the enemy and it eventually stops. SO many regiments have been lost finding out this does not work well against Tyranids in fluff, and that Nid's are often best dealth with artillery, LOTS and LOTS of artillery; or orbital bombardment. Cain's novels actually represent a quite clearer picture than most into the 40k Universe and that's highly amusing. IE. fighting against the Orks on an iceworld that he discovers a Necron tomb on. F&^% the planet, F&^% the Orks, and get the hell off that rock; Nid's are unstoppable in the fluff. It is even illustrated that the Necrons waking to attack the Orks while the Guard retreats into orbit and marks the planet for the Navy to deal with. Would any of you say the Guard sided with Necrons there? No. But you change out Orks for Nids and Guard for Blood Angels and suddenly its like they're banging 8balls off hookers together like they were twin Charlie Sheens!


GW at best: The community it created

GW at worst: The community it created.


^ No joke, often you run into so many instances where it boils down to personal attacks because people disagree. Kan showed his opinion and people start trouncing him for it? In a thread that asks for opinions? The same goes the opposite way for Kan, people didn't like the book, sod em; you can't teach EVERYONE to read . The community can be SO often very volatile and for what? I remember quiting 40k because the local GW store said my army was illegal because I used non-GW paints. I still say Model Masters ((yes testors)) is better quality paint, for less cost than GW. The reality was I just wanted cheaper paint at the time, being much younger.


As for the SoB; they ARE greater individually over your "average" Guardsmen. Rules wise they compete evenly if not with an edge against Storm Troopers, no one here will say Guardsmen are better than Troopers. Also what's this nonsense of there being NO augmentation to humans? No, it is not as far as the Marines, but it is the seed of the Emperor that makes a Marine what a Marine is; not just a few pistons there, an injection of antimantium there.


And this noise that "Codex scribbles" don't count for anything? Codex fluff outweighs any other fluff, this is the scripture that explains EXACTLY what a unit in this Universe of Make-Believe is.

GW are producing some of the best minis in the world right now, at least in terms of comparably priced products..

GW at their worst for me is characterised by removing scratch built scenery and boards from the stores. Almost everything is now kit bashed from plastic products, even down to the plastic game boards & it means a whole generation of customers are missing out a part of the hobby many of us love doing. Don't get me wrong, the plastic scenery is fantastic but the stores used to showcase real creativity. If it's not made from GW kits it must be denied & I find that sad.