I for one have been very pleased about a lot of the changes going on at GW. Kevin Rowntree has really turned the boat around since Captain Titanic himself, Tom Kirby relegated himself to back seat driver.

This latest trading update really highlights how much the company was being held back by absolutely bonkers decisions (Visions anyone?).

The operating profit for the half year is on course to be more than double the previous year (£13 million compared to £6.2 million). A remarkable turn around.

Probably about 10 percent due to the drop in the pound and maybe less (pound is down roughly 15 percent) . Operating profit is up about 110 percent!

http://investor.games-workshop.com/2016/12/01/trading-update-5/

That is a substantial increase. Noticeably more profit in this 6month period than the entirety of last year. I hope that start collecting sets and boxed games sold very well. If Gw can take the message that people want more of that sort of thing then gwvand it's customers can both have a very good future.

Funny how listening to customers and making them happy works out...

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Funny how listening to customers and making them happy works out...

Absolutely, I've been loving so much of what GW has done this year from the bundles to reviving old factions. AoS even got me to start a fantasy miniatures game which I never would have even considered back during the WHFB days.

Yet I'm sure as soon as tomorrow we will see the same crowd of vocal individuals on Dakka show up to insist these results are either a fluke or misrepresentation by GW. Clearly AoS, over-designed minis, Kharn being too expensive, and non-tournament worthy rules are only days away from killing GW...

Jack Flask wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Funny how listening to customers and making them happy works out...

Absolutely, and yet I'm sure as soon as tomorrow we will see the same crowd of vocal individuals on Dakka show up to insist these results are either a fluke or misrepresentation by GW. Clearly AoS, over-designed minis, Kharn being too expensive, and non-tournament worthy rules are only days away from killing GW...

Would you prefer a return to the same crowd who used to defend the old Kirby business practices?

To paraphrase what I said in another thread:

When looking at constant currency both profit and sales is up from last year. We won't know by how much until the more detailed report is out in January. My guess is it won't be by as much as their profit suggests.

I imagine that the weak pound makes up for a lot more than a 10% increase in their profit (maybe 10% of their turnover, though we don't know by how much that is up) Most of GW's sales are abroad so the exchange rate will be a big boost to them.

Now to just make some decent rules for 40k and that profit can be even larger...

Joyboozer wrote:

Jack Flask wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Funny how listening to customers and making them happy works out...

Absolutely, and yet I'm sure as soon as tomorrow we will see the same crowd of vocal individuals on Dakka show up to insist these results are either a fluke or misrepresentation by GW. Clearly AoS, over-designed minis, Kharn being too expensive, and non-tournament worthy rules are only days away from killing GW...

Would you prefer a return to the same crowd who used to defend the old Kirby business practices?

I just edited my post to expand my thoughts in a way more relevant to the topic, so my bad for making your quote of me look off.

Honestly though your question a clear example of "false dilemma". The alternative to rubbing the mindless haters' noses in it doesn't have to also involve accepting delusional fanboys.

But really, I can't think of many examples of actual delusional fanboys on Dakka (I know there were some), but honestly in the last couple of years there have been a lot of instances of people being called "rabid fanboys" simply for saying they didn't outright hate whatever GW was at the time releasing.

The launch of AoS was a perfect example where if you didn't vocally denounce the game you were called a shill and insinuated to be some form of mentally stunted (I remember that quite personally). Even now you can still see certain posters make slights about the intelligence level of AoS players.

Tell me, when were the actual delusional fanboys ever that bad?

El Torro wrote:
To paraphrase what I said in another thread:

When looking at constant currency both profit and sales is up from last year. We won't know by how much until the more detailed report is out in January. My guess is it won't be by as much as their profit suggests.

I imagine that the weak pound makes up for a lot more than a 10% increase in their profit (maybe 10% of their turnover, though we don't know by how much that is up) Most of GW's sales are abroad so the exchange rate will be a big boost to them.

UK sales were roughly 50 percent of total operating profit when the financial report was split into regions (2013 financial report).

Jack Flask wrote:
But really, I can't think of many examples of actual delusional fanboys on Dakka (I know there were some), but honestly in the last couple of years there have been a lot of instances of people being called "rabid fanboys" simply for saying they didn't outright hate whatever GW was at the time releasing.

Go read Talis' posts during the Kirby years.

I'm actually happy to hear that. I've been really impressed with the Turn around with GW, and started to show it by using my wallet. I've made a pretty big purchase with the Thousand Sons release, and if they keep up the good work I will become a full fledged customer again.

 Sasori wrote:
I'm actually happy to hear that. I've been really impressed with the Turn around with GW, and started to show it by using my wallet. I've made a pretty big purchase with the Thousand Sons release, and if they keep up the good work I will become a full fledged customer again.

Exactly. I gladly returned to buy GW's products since their change of attitude. Voting with my wallet works in both ways, and it's good to support something that feels really nice.

More money for GW means more projects in the future. And that is a good thing for the miniature market as a whole.

Yeah, I've liked a lot of the changes at GW lately, and it's great that these positive changes are met with success - sends GW a good message.

Khârn's price IS bonkers, though, as are many new-ish clampack chars. Sadly. Seeing people ready to buy all bundles that are roughly 50% off, in some cases after years of not buying, seema to indicate that price IS a detractor to many potential sales. It is for me.


Can't say that I don't like GW getting positive feedback where it counts dor a company after the releases this year. The course change was a good start, so keep walking that path and maybe good things happen for both company and cuatomers.

 Binabik15 wrote:
Khârn's price IS bonkers, though, as are many new-ish clampack chars. Sadly. Seeing people ready to buy all bundles that are roughly 50% off, in some cases after years of not buying, seema to indicate that price IS a detractor to many potential sales. It is for me.


Can't say that I don't like GW getting positive feedback where it counts dor a company after the releases this year. The course change was a good start, so keep walking that path and maybe good things happen for both company and cuatomers.

They appear to be aware of the fact price is a factor, which is why the Start Collecting and Battleforces even exist. Which is actually kind of genius. They are tricking someone who thinks $40 is too much into spending $85 or $170.

Other than killing off Warhammer Fantasy they have done a great job recently. Age of Crapmar is nothing compared to the power house of 40k.

 pities2004 wrote:
Other than killing off Warhammer Fantasy they have done a great job recently. Age of Crapmar is nothing compared to the power house of 40k.

Yeah, watch out. You're about to be swarmed by people proclaiming literally one person in the world played WHFB and that without AoS they'd never have played it, when really it was because of Sigmarines.

Hopefully they learn from this and realise that, gasp, listening to your damn fanbase is going to endear them to buy your products. Hopefully they don't get too overconfident but keep on the path. More balanced 40k rules? Maybe even an olive branch to WHFB players? In one way, it's nice to see the turn around. In another, I'm still so bitter over WHFB that I cannot in good conscience still buy a Games Workshop product. Traitor Legions sounds like a good start, but if they actually make 8th something half-decent I'll consider forking over some money and I doubt that I'm the only one.

I really hope that no one bought Kharn. In a time when GW does seem to be paying attention it is more important than ever to vote with your wallet.

I certainly hope their new way gets rewarded with better profits. They have done a huge amount over the last year to get back to engaging with the customer in a fun way as well as releasing some real crowd pleasers with updated factions of yesteryear.

Chikout wrote:
I really hope that no one bought Kharn. In a time when GW does seem to be paying attention it is more important than ever to vote with your wallet.

the problem is that if no one buys the new Khârn, GW will be disinclined to make new models of characters. And I wouldn't mind seeing new versions of some of the old Finecast characters.

Is your problem with Khârn the price or the model itself?

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
They appear to be aware of the fact price is a factor, which is why the Start Collecting and Battleforces even exist.

If that were true then the this sort of crap wouldn't be the case:

UK
Deathwing Terminators - £35
Scarab Occult Terminators - £35 (+0% over DW Terminators)
Cataphractii Terminators - £40 (114% over DW Terminators)

Oz
Deathwing Terminators - $90 (equivalent to £52, which is 142% of the UK price)
Scarab Occult Terminators - $115 (127% over Oz DW Terminator price, equivalent to £67, or 191% the cost of the UK price)
Cataphractii Terminators - $135 (150% over DW Terminators, equivalent to £79, or 197% the cost of the UK price)

How does this make any sense? Putting out a box with a discount does -not- make up for this. How can they be 'aware' that price is a factor when they don't even see the difference between local markets don't make sense. How can Cataphractii's be 14% more expensive than a Deathwing Terminator box in the UK (£35 vs £40) and 50% more expensive than the same product in Oz ($90 vs $135), and that's ignoring the fact that Oz price is already nearly 150-200% the cost of the UK price.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

Chikout wrote:
I really hope that no one bought Kharn. In a time when GW does seem to be paying attention it is more important than ever to vote with your wallet.

the problem is that if no one buys the new Khârn, GW will be disinclined to make new models of characters. And I wouldn't mind seeing new versions of some of the old Finecast characters.

Is your problem with Khârn the price or the model itself?

The model is fine but nothing special. It is a similar size to all the other hero minis. You are paying an extra £4 over the already expensive hero minis just for the name. Ahriman is only £3 more for two sprues each of which is bigger than the Kharn sprue. High prices is one thing but the pricing logic makes no sense as H.B.M.C pointed out. Kharn is a human sized hero so price him the same as all the other human sized heroes.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
They appear to be aware of the fact price is a factor, which is why the Start Collecting and Battleforces even exist.

If that were true then the this sort of crap wouldn't be the case:

UK
Deathwing Terminators - £35
Scarab Occult Terminators - £35 (+0% over DW Terminators)
Cataphractii Terminators - £40 (114% over DW Terminators)

Oz
Deathwing Terminators - $90 (equivalent to £52, which is 142% of the UK price)
Scarab Occult Terminators - $115 (127% over Oz DW Terminator price, equivalent to £67, or 191% the cost of the UK price)
Cataphractii Terminators - $135 (150% over DW Terminators, equivalent to £79, or 197% the cost of the UK price)

How does this make any sense? Putting out a box with a discount does -not- make up for this. How can they be 'aware' that price is a factor when they don't even see the difference between local markets don't make sense. How can Cataphractii's be 14% more expensive than a Deathwing Terminator box in the UK (£35 vs £40) and 50% more expensive than the same product in Oz ($90 vs $135), and that's ignoring the fact that Oz price is already nearly 150-200% the cost of the UK price.

Their conversion rates are whack admittedly but it has nothing to do with his post. If they offer discounts people will more likely buy them.

Oz prices have always been a little nutty but that's not the point.

As with all things the devil is in the detail. This comment

However, the Board is aware that it is still early in the 2017 financial year and that there are a number of challenging trading periods ahead.

makes me think things aren't quite as rosy as the profit figures might initially suggest as they are setting up the market for weaker growth later on.

I could postulate that it is the bulk box sets (and getting started) might be doing well, but there could still be issues pushing out the new individual boxes of models. That's an issue as it could effectively be cannibalising sales of the higher, newer, capital cost models. It might look in the short term; but medium to long term it could cause issues.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Funny how listening to customers and making them happy works out...

I know right . I've actually started buying GW again (30K) and hadn't in forever!

 Whirlwind wrote:
As with all things the devil is in the detail. This comment

However, the Board is aware that it is still early in the 2017 financial year and that there are a number of challenging trading periods ahead.

makes me think things aren't quite as rosy as the profit figures might initially suggest as they are setting up the market for weaker growth later on.

I could postulate that it is the bulk box sets (and getting started) might be doing well, but there could still be issues pushing out the new individual boxes of models. That's an issue as it could effectively be cannibalising sales of the higher, newer, capital cost models. It might look in the short term; but medium to long term it could cause issues.

My feeling is that is more related to who knows where Brexit is going in the next year, rather than any other indicator.

Honestly they needed to make the cash this period. In the second half of the year youve got your worst months outside of december for GW. The good thing is that with this kind of movement they can shift 40k 8th into q1 of next year and won't need it to bolster numbers this year.

We'll see how it all looks with the final financials but without massive operation changes to point to for maintaining profitability and doubling last year's profit to this point they might actually have move more product this time around.

Speaking of Brexit, the pound taking a beating could account for a chunk of the profit, if the majority of the sales came from outside the UK, at non adjusted prices.

 His Master's Voice wrote:
Speaking of Brexit, the pound taking a beating could account for a chunk of the profit, if the majority of the sales came from outside the UK, at non adjusted prices.

They say directly that they have seen strong growth in sales in constant currency terms, I.e. before the benefits of the weak pound are calculated.

To me, the concern is how sustainable this is. GW has released a lot of stuff in the past year or so. While we know that more is to come (specialist games, maybe more 40K primarchs, 8th edition, etc.), how much longer before the train starts to lose steam?

Just so long as it runs out after Exodites are done!

But in all seriousness they have a tonne of room left to explore, I wouldn't worry.

Well deserved. Now they just need to keep this up.

To me, the concern is how sustainable this is.

Precisely. I see this as going one of two ways now. 8th Edition is a hit, revitalizes the community and we see success the likes of which have never been seen since peak LOTR, or 8th edition is actually 6.5.1, more people start to tire of it, GW start to run out of "never" releases so they start redesigning the same old stuff over again, and we have just essentially reset the clock on the decline.

Good to see solid business practices and no brainer initiatives rewarded where it counts though, it can only encourage GW Corporate to keep on the more positive track they've been going down.

This is good news the question is can they keep it up? I am hopeful though. Kevin is correcting the ship their take on social media and the community engagement helped a lot I think.

Can someone please explain something to me. Since it's a lot of numbers that I don't understand, what was the 4 million pounds (how do you do the pound symbol on a US Keyboard?) was? What that the total profit for 2016 when it was released in January or was that released in June?

So how does the 13 million pound compare to the 4 million pound from the last report? Is it the same total profits after expenses or different meanings one is total profit the 4 million while the 13 million means something else.

To me it seems GW quadrupled their profits but then reading them talking about lessening and what not sure what the 13 million is total profit or total profit after expenses or what not.

Davor wrote:
Can someone please explain something to me. Since it's a lot of numbers that I don't understand, what was the 4 million pounds (how do you do the pound symbol on a US Keyboard?) was? What that the total profit for 2016 when it was released in January or was that released in June?

So how does the 13 million pound compare to the 4 million pound from the last report? Is it the same total profits after expenses or different meanings one is total profit the 4 million while the 13 million means something else.

To me it seems GW quadrupled their profits but then reading them talking about lessening and what not sure what the 13 million is total profit or total profit after expenses or what not.

£13 million is the expected operating profit for the company for the six months from June 2016 to November 2016.

£6.2 million (not sure where you got 4 from) was the operating profit for Games Workshop between June 2015 and November 2015.

So you can see that they have more than doubled their profit compared to the same period last year.

Operating profit is what the company makes after all costs (rent, wages etc) and tax is deducted.

They haven't really said anything that you can use to draw conclusions about anything.

We have profit but not revenue and the number we have isn't at constant currency. Brexit happened pretty close to the start of this financial year and even before brexit the pound was a lot weaker than it was in 2015, so the exchange rate is going to be a biggy and because we have profits instead of revenue we can't say much about it.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
They haven't really said anything that you can use to draw conclusions about anything.

We have profit but not revenue and the number we have isn't at constant currency. Brexit happened pretty close to the start of this financial year and even before brexit the pound was a lot weaker than it was in 2015, so the exchange rate is going to be a biggy and because we have profits instead of revenue we can't say much about it.

"Over the first half we have seen strong sales and profit growth in constant currency terms."

I would agree though that the value of the pound has probably had a bigger impact than I initially thought. However 50 percent of GW sales are in the UK (or were in the last financial report where they broke the numbers up into regions). Whatever caveats you add, these are great results.

animal310 wrote:

Davor wrote:
Can someone please explain something to me. Since it's a lot of numbers that I don't understand, what was the 4 million pounds (how do you do the pound symbol on a US Keyboard?) was? What that the total profit for 2016 when it was released in January or was that released in June?

So how does the 13 million pound compare to the 4 million pound from the last report? Is it the same total profits after expenses or different meanings one is total profit the 4 million while the 13 million means something else.

To me it seems GW quadrupled their profits but then reading them talking about lessening and what not sure what the 13 million is total profit or total profit after expenses or what not.

£13 million is the expected operating profit for the company for the six months from June 2016 to November 2016.

£6.2 million (not sure where you got 4 from) was the operating profit for Games Workshop between June 2015 and November 2015.

So you can see that they have more than doubled their profit compared to the same period last year.

Operating profit is what the company makes after all costs (rent, wages etc) and tax is deducted.

Thank you very much. The 4 million is sticking in my head. I don't recall a 6.2 million anywhere. But you explained it well to me and again, thank you.

They never got a penny from me this year, or the last 5 years.

They burnt too many bridges with me to ever go back, plus, there is so much good stuff, cheaper, from rival companies. I need no GW.

I will always cherish my GW memories from years ago, but the GW ship sailed a long time ago for me...

Have you posted that in a GW financial thread for the last 5 years?

animal310 wrote:
Operating profit is what the company makes after all costs (rent, wages etc) and tax is deducted.

Actually, operating profit is after costs, but before tax.

 Azreal13 wrote:

animal310 wrote:
Operating profit is what the company makes after all costs (rent, wages etc) and tax is deducted.

Actually, operating profit is after costs, but before tax.

There may be different definitions of operating profit in the US and UK. I'm no expert but pre-tax profit or profit before taxation is listed on the attached reports

http://19485-presscdn-0-14.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Combined-document-with-front-page.pdf

http://19485-presscdn-0-14.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2015-16-Press-Statement.pdf

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
They never got a penny from me this year, or the last 5 years.

They burnt too many bridges with me to ever go back, plus, there is so much good stuff, cheaper, from rival companies. I need no GW.

I will always cherish my GW memories from years ago, but the GW ship sailed a long time ago for me...

I buy £100 more stuff off them every time you post tha sentiment from my special DINLT account, as far as GW know you still love them so you can go back into anytime you want, the Nu-BB set is delicious.

You can thank me later mate.

All jokes aside good luck to GW they have weathered a storm (much of their own making) and are doing allot of stuff we have been asking for for years.

It still seems like a big profits spike, so unless there is a significant (10%+) increase in turnover and unit sales then allot if the profit could be license related. As ever the full 12 month report makes for more informative reading.

animal310 wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
They haven't really said anything that you can use to draw conclusions about anything.

We have profit but not revenue and the number we have isn't at constant currency. Brexit happened pretty close to the start of this financial year and even before brexit the pound was a lot weaker than it was in 2015, so the exchange rate is going to be a biggy and because we have profits instead of revenue we can't say much about it.

"Over the first half we have seen strong sales and profit growth in constant currency terms."

I would agree though that the value of the pound has probably had a bigger impact than I initially thought. However 50 percent of GW sales are in the UK (or were in the last financial report where they broke the numbers up into regions). Whatever caveats you add, these are great results.

That line still doesn't say much. What are they defining as "strong" sales? And profit growth could mean either increase in revenue and/or decrease in costs.

I don't think they're anywhere near 50% sales in the UK, They still have some breakdowns in more recent reports and Retail UK only makes up 33% of total retail while trade for UK AND Continental Europe only make up 34% of all trade. So the only way they'd be near 50% is if UKites made up almost all of the mail order sales and I don't think there's any reason to believe that.

EDIT: I'm not actually sure where you're going 50% from, even in 2014 when they still had a region by region breakdown it was more like 20-25% of revenue came from sales in the UK. 2013 was only 23%.

animal310 wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

animal310 wrote:
Operating profit is what the company makes after all costs (rent, wages etc) and tax is deducted.

Actually, operating profit is after costs, but before tax.

There may be different definitions of operating profit in the US and UK. I'm no expert but pre-tax profit or profit before taxation is listed on the attached reports

There may be, but I'm British, so are you, and so are GW. Also while anyone who self proclaims themselves an expert is generally a douche, I do hold relevant qualifications and have relevant experience in the field.

Operating profit and pre tax profit are usually broadly synonymous in the case of a retail company, the only small distinction is operating profit includes profit from whatever the company ostensibly does for a living but not any interest it may have accrued on investments etc, hence the small difference in the reported figures.

In either case, it is a pre tax figure.

 Azreal13 wrote:

animal310 wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

animal310 wrote:
Operating profit is what the company makes after all costs (rent, wages etc) and tax is deducted.

Actually, operating profit is after costs, but before tax.

There may be different definitions of operating profit in the US and UK. I'm no expert but pre-tax profit or profit before taxation is listed on the attached reports

There may be, but I'm British, so are you, and so are GW. Also while anyone who self proclaims themselves an expert is generally a douche, I do hold relevant qualifications and have relevant experience in the field.

Operating profit and pre tax profit are usually broadly synonymous in the case of a retail company, the only small distinction is operating profit includes profit from whatever the company ostensibly does for a living but not any interest it may have accrued on investments etc, hence the small difference in the reported figures.

In either case, it is a pre tax figure.

I stand corrected. Learn something every day!

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
To me, the concern is how sustainable this is. GW has released a lot of stuff in the past year or so. While we know that more is to come (specialist games, maybe more 40K primarchs, 8th edition, etc.), how much longer before the train starts to lose steam?

I think you might be surprised. Alan Merrett was more responsible for a lot of the issues people had with gw than Kirby was. His rigid view of what 40k should be caused a number of internal problems (his "imperial vehicles can only have tracks" is a prime example, hence the tracked taurox that originally had wheels). Him gone and Jes in place means that a huge amount of previously withheld creativity is now able to be explored, so we could be in for a lot of new stuff over the next couple of years.

We can only hope.

While it will take a 40K that I'm excited to play to get me back, I'd much rather be gazing wistfully at the new releases while others get excited than just seeing some new nonsense being roundly derided by everyone and thanking my lucky stars I'm playing other games.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

animal310 wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
They haven't really said anything that you can use to draw conclusions about anything.

We have profit but not revenue and the number we have isn't at constant currency. Brexit happened pretty close to the start of this financial year and even before brexit the pound was a lot weaker than it was in 2015, so the exchange rate is going to be a biggy and because we have profits instead of revenue we can't say much about it.

"Over the first half we have seen strong sales and profit growth in constant currency terms."

I would agree though that the value of the pound has probably had a bigger impact than I initially thought. However 50 percent of GW sales are in the UK (or were in the last financial report where they broke the numbers up into regions). Whatever caveats you add, these are great results.

That line still doesn't say much. What are they defining as "strong" sales? And profit growth could mean either increase in revenue and/or decrease in costs.

I don't think they're anywhere near 50% sales in the UK, They still have some breakdowns in more recent reports and Retail UK only makes up 33% of total retail while trade for UK AND Continental Europe only make up 34% of all trade. So the only way they'd be near 50% is if UKites made up almost all of the mail order sales and I don't think there's any reason to believe that.

EDIT: I'm not actually sure where you're going 50% from, even in 2014 when they still had a region by region breakdown it was more like 20-25% of revenue came from sales in the UK. 2013 was only 23%.

Actually they do still have a breakdown even in the 2016 report....


UK 33,021
Continental Europe 32,391
North America 40,788
Asia Pacific 10,981
Rest of the world 888
Total 118,069

So 28% of revenue came from the UK last financial year.

 BrotherGecko wrote:
Have you posted that in a GW financial thread for the last 5 years?

No.

I could feel the change in them and the community. If they want money from me for years release kroot army, demiurge army, elder exodites, a completely new xenon race, update the dark elder with a cool big release, and keep the tau stuff coming. Also deathwatch models techmarine needed and a cool stealth ground transport.

 notprop wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
They never got a penny from me this year, or the last 5 years.

They burnt too many bridges with me to ever go back, plus, there is so much good stuff, cheaper, from rival companies. I need no GW.

I will always cherish my GW memories from years ago, but the GW ship sailed a long time ago for me...

I buy £100 more stuff off them every time you post tha sentiment from my special DINLT account, as far as GW know you still love them so you can go back into anytime you want, the Nu-BB set is delicious.

You can thank me later mate.

All jokes aside good luck to GW they have weathered a storm (much of their own making) and are doing allot of stuff we have been asking for for years.

It still seems like a big profits spike, so unless there is a significant (10%+) increase in turnover and unit sales then allot if the profit could be license related. As ever the full 12 month report makes for more informative reading.

I looked at BB and although the heart said yes, the head said NO!
I opted for Guildball instead. Hadn't had a game yet, but I'm impressed with what I got in terms of rules and minis.

 JamesY wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
To me, the concern is how sustainable this is. GW has released a lot of stuff in the past year or so. While we know that more is to come (specialist games, maybe more 40K primarchs, 8th edition, etc.), how much longer before the train starts to lose steam?

I think you might be surprised. Alan Merrett was more responsible for a lot of the issues people had with gw than Kirby was. His rigid view of what 40k should be caused a number of internal problems (his "imperial vehicles can only have tracks" is a prime example, hence the tracked taurox that originally had wheels). Him gone and Jes in place means that a huge amount of previously withheld creativity is now able to be explored, so we could be in for a lot of new stuff over the next couple of years.

I'm not disbelieving that this is the case and if true then its great that he has gone, but where has this information come from? Was he also responsible for the Facebook shutdown, crazy cease and desist orders against community websites, the destruction of White Dwarf (much improved now), the drive to centralise Black Library and remove all non bolter action stories from the line up, stupid re-naming of things like Orcs and Imperial Guard?

Lot of appalling decisions. I can't work out how any of them were supposed to help the company.

 JamesY wrote:
I think you might be surprised. Alan Merrett was more responsible for a lot of the issues people had with gw than Kirby was. His rigid view of what 40k should be caused a number of internal problems (his "imperial vehicles can only have tracks" is a prime example, hence the tracked taurox that originally had wheels). Him gone and Jes in place means that a huge amount of previously withheld creativity is now able to be explored, so we could be in for a lot of new stuff over the next couple of years.

Really? Bet he just loooves FW's Custodes hover tank
RE the profits though, haven't GW been investing heavily in new tech in recent years? I'd imagine finally getting all that in place would free up a lot of money on the balance sheets.

Let's see... gw lowered their prices (a little), have released many boxed sets that are steals (BAC, BOP, etc), released a points system for AOS, released boxed games again (blood bowl, space hulk, deathwatch overkill, etc). They are listening to the community, making better products, lowering prices, and making what folks want.

Makes sense to me, doesn't take a business major to see why their profit is up.

haven't GW been investing heavily in new tech in recent years?

Not so you'd notice. One would assume investment in new tech is a normal cost of running a business like theirs, but it hasn't been a headline number over the last three or four years I can recall.

They did give Kirby's wife £4m for the new website though.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
To me, the concern is how sustainable this is. GW has released a lot of stuff in the past year or so. While we know that more is to come (specialist games, maybe more 40K primarchs, 8th edition, etc.), how much longer before the train starts to lose steam?

A good question, but they could just update what they have until the end of time, and the possibilities for supplements and events are endless.

 Gamgee wrote:
I could feel the change in them and the community. If they want money from me for years release kroot army, demiurge army, elder exodites, a completely new xenon race, update the dark elder with a cool big release, and keep the tau stuff coming. Also deathwatch models techmarine needed and a cool stealth ground transport.

Sorry can't resist, it's an OCD but it's Demiurg, no 'e' on the end. http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Demiurg

Do people think GW are somehow scraping the barrel already? Even if they burn out on all the 40k support they're currently doing, there are so many classic games I'd like them to bring back! I don't get it. /shrug

 Bull0 wrote:
Do people think GW are somehow scraping the barrel already? Even if they burn out on all the 40k support they're currently doing, there are so many classic games I'd like them to bring back! I don't get it. /shrug

Already? No, not even close.

But look at the number of "never thought we'd see that" releases we've had in the last year. Every single one of those can only have the impact they've had the first time, beyond that it's diminishing returns. GW have played heavily on the "long awaited" concepts and the nostalgia gene this year, and credit to them it has worked and got a lot of people excited.

There's a lot more they can exploit, years worth at least, but if they want to keep going forever (which is their corporate statement) then I think their core products need a lot more attention (the games systems, the drivers of the model sales.) Otherwise, all they're doing is arresting the decline, even if that decline is now much gentler and stretching a lot further into the future.

 Bull0 wrote:
Do people think GW are somehow scraping the barrel already? Even if they burn out on all the 40k support they're currently doing, there are so many classic games I'd like them to bring back! I don't get it. /shrug

Oh, no, they're not scraping the barrel. The potential problem is that they've been doing some of the "break glass in case of emergency" kind of things, like plastic Knights, plastic Horus Heresy (and Custodes and Sisters of Silence!) and now a Primarch (a demon one, anyway) in 40K. We're soon to be getting back an army that has long languished (Sisters of Battle). We've got Specialist Games returning. But, the weird thing about all of that, is that most of it still basically reinforces GW's old Kirby-mentality of "model company first". They're throwing all the cool toys at us, which is certainly making them money, but what's left after the toys? 8th Edition is supposedly around the corner, and I think that will answer a lot of questions about where GW is going.

EDIT: lol, was typing my post just before Az posted his, and we're saying almost the same exact thing.

I'm very interested to see what direction 8th will bring. I hear talk of a new kind of space marine (new armour pattern and rapid growth, similar to corax's supermarines in deliverance lost) coming out with it. If that is true, and they are messing with space marines (I haven't heard it from enough people I trust to fully believe it yet), then anything could be on the cards.

Now that I think about it, GW isn't going to run out of things to do with 40k for at least a decade, probably 2, if even that.

Consider this: Chaos Space Marines have been around since the inception of Warhammer 40k nearly 30 years ago. And people are still saying that the current state of the Chaos Space Marine line is unsatisfactory. If there's one thing Games Workshop has proven to us, it's that they can drag their feet until the end of time. They could just as easily go another 30 years without satisfying consumer demand.

 JamesY wrote:
I'm very interested to see what direction 8th will bring. I hear talk of a new kind of space marine (new armour pattern and rapid growth, similar to corax's supermarines in deliverance lost) coming out with it. If that is true, and they are messing with space marines (I haven't heard it from enough people I trust to fully believe it yet), then anything could be on the cards.

Subverting humanity's last, best hope into barely stable, rabid animals because the attrition rate has gotten so great that their losses cannot be sustained in the traditional sense could be very, very grimdark.

But I'd doubt they'd take that big a risk with the poster boys.

Although the Wolves may be looking for a new direction...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

EDIT: lol, was typing my post just before Az posted his, and we're saying almost the same exact thing.

Great minds!

 JamesY wrote:
I'm very interested to see what direction 8th will bring. I hear talk of a new kind of space marine (new armour pattern and rapid growth, similar to corax's supermarines in deliverance lost) coming out with it. If that is true, and they are messing with space marines (I haven't heard it from enough people I trust to fully believe it yet), then anything could be on the cards.

Sincerly doubt it. this would be too big of a gamble and their situation is not dire enough to make it worthwhile (in fact, they seem to be in a pretty good place right now). As for the profit, I would bet a tenner that it's mostly due to the weak pound.


The fact that that they used the phrase 'strong sale' and not sale growth is probably an indication that their sale didn't moved too much compared to last year.

 455_PWR wrote:
Let's see... gw lowered their prices (a little)

No they didn't.

People need to stop saying that.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 455_PWR wrote:
Let's see... gw lowered their prices (a little)

No they didn't.

People need to stop saying that.

yeah, it's weird that they managed to convince so many that they did so, while it's clearly not the case.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
To me, the concern is how sustainable this is. GW has released a lot of stuff in the past year or so. While we know that more is to come (specialist games, maybe more 40K primarchs, 8th edition, etc.), how much longer before the train starts to lose steam?

Dunno but I would be relieved if they would slack off their pace, at least with the self-contained board games.
They're the only thing I buy, apart from my starter box investment in AoS/Generals Handbook, and it seems like every two months there's something in the board game category.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
They haven't really said anything that you can use to draw conclusions about anything.

We have profit but not revenue and the number we have isn't at constant currency. Brexit happened pretty close to the start of this financial year and even before brexit the pound was a lot weaker than it was in 2015, so the exchange rate is going to be a biggy and because we have profits instead of revenue we can't say much about it.

Do you...do you not know what profit is?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
No they didn't.

People need to stop saying that.

Australians should be banned from any and all discussions regarding GW pricing policy, for the sake of everyone else's sanity.

 streetsamurai wrote:
yeah, it's weird that they managed to convince so many that they did so, while it's clearly not the case.

If a hundred units of your chosen currency buys you more stuff this year than it did last year, the difference between "lowering prices" and "competitively priced bundles" becomes semantic.

People notice they get more bang for their buck from GW as of late. No hypnosis required.

 streetsamurai wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 455_PWR wrote:
Let's see... gw lowered their prices (a little)

No they didn't.

People need to stop saying that.

yeah, it's weird that they managed to convince so many that they did so, while it's clearly not the case.

Except they have. AoS releases are cheaper on a per model bas is than before. Outside of an outlier character model or two the clam packs have actually gotten cheaper. Start Collecting has provided cheaper entry into the game than we had a year ago. Overall prices have stabilized or gotten better.

Outside of Australia/NZ that is. I get that the pricing is crapshoot for you guys and that they are handling you guys differently for whatever reason but to the majority of the market what I said above is true.

ERJAK wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
They haven't really said anything that you can use to draw conclusions about anything.

We have profit but not revenue and the number we have isn't at constant currency. Brexit happened pretty close to the start of this financial year and even before brexit the pound was a lot weaker than it was in 2015, so the exchange rate is going to be a biggy and because we have profits instead of revenue we can't say much about it.

Do you...do you not know what profit is?

That you ask this shows you don't understand the subject sufficiently to get what Skink is driving at.

 His Master's Voice wrote:
If a hundred units of your chosen currency buys you more stuff this year than it did last year, the difference between "lowering prices" and "competitively priced bundles" becomes semantic.

People notice they get more bang for their buck from GW as of late. No hypnosis required.

There's a significant difference because the bundle discounts only apply if you're buying those exact items. If you just want, say, a single tactical squad box you're paying the same ridiculous prices you've been paying.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azreal13 wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
They haven't really said anything that you can use to draw conclusions about anything.

We have profit but not revenue and the number we have isn't at constant currency. Brexit happened pretty close to the start of this financial year and even before brexit the pound was a lot weaker than it was in 2015, so the exchange rate is going to be a biggy and because we have profits instead of revenue we can't say much about it.

Do you...do you not know what profit is?

That you ask this shows you don't understand the subject sufficiently to get what Skink is driving at.

To give a little help here: GW reports their profits in GBP, but gets income in a variety of currencies, including a huge amount of revenue in USD from the US market. If the pound crashes relative to the dollar then the profits GW makes on all of their US-market sales will increase. To put some (completely made up) numbers on it: let's say GW sells a box for $50 in the US. Before the pound crashes that box provides $10 profit, which translates to £5 profit in the financial report. Now let's say the pound crashes to half its value. Now the $50 box in the US market is still making the same $10 profit, but that $10 now translates to £10 in the financial report. GW has "doubled" their profit without improving their business at all, they just happened to benefit from a favorable exchange rate. And it works both ways, if the pound doubles in value that US sale would only provide £2.50 in profit.

This is why looking at GW's numbers at constant currency and considering revenue in addition to profit is important. It removes the exchange rate factor and removes things like "we closed a store and made more profit by not paying rent this year" from the profit numbers. Constant-currency revenue is the best indicator of how many boxes GW's customers are buying, and therefore how healthy the company is.

It's isn't even that complicated. It's very easy to defer payments or take other very short term actions in order to inflate profits. Accounts are based on figures at a very specific point in time, if you don't pay that massive invoice until after that point, your figures look that much better in the short term.

Nobody's suggesting that the extra profit is bad, but that without context, there's all sorts of conclusions that cannot be drawn.

- Has volume increased (higher revenue)
- Have cuts been made
- Have efficiencies been employed

For example. The only one of those that's genuinely positive for the GW gamer is volume, as it most likely means more people are buying more stuff. The other two are good for the long term health of the company (depth of cuts notwithstanding) but have little impact on the state of the game as it would be most important to an AoS or 40K player.

 Hulksmash wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 455_PWR wrote:
Let's see... gw lowered their prices (a little)

No they didn't.

People need to stop saying that.

yeah, it's weird that they managed to convince so many that they did so, while it's clearly not the case.

Except they have. AoS releases are cheaper on a per model bas is than before. Outside of an outlier character model or two the clam packs have actually gotten cheaper. Start Collecting has provided cheaper entry into the game than we had a year ago. Overall prices have stabilized or gotten better.

Outside of Australia/NZ that is. I get that the pricing is crapshoot for you guys and that they are handling you guys differently for whatever reason but to the majority of the market what I said above is true.

Really?

AOS recent release are only cheaper than the fyreslayers, who were themselves even more absurdly priced than the other AOS release. I won't give GW credit simply for returning their price to a less insane level, after the fail experimentation of the fyreslayers. And AOS has it's share of absurdely priced boxed recently (the cavalry boxes are around 100 CAD for 3 models, and the Dracoth is 80 for 2 models :0). The average price per model has in no way decreased. They did repackage a few boxes which resulted in a drop in the price per model of these, but we can't really claim it's an actual price decrease since it force you to buy more models.

Clampack character are cheaper than before? That's new to me. I see the ironjaws clampack and they are all around the 40 CAD pricepoint, and the warboss is almost 50. I don't see a trend of them getting cheaper. Hell the last that was release IIRC, is the GSC icon guy, and he cost 30 CAD for a guy that look like a minor kitbash

Bundle boxes existed before the start collecting boxes. I did the math before and the battalion were giving a bit less of a discount, but you have to consider that the price of the SC are inflated because of the inclusion of a clampack character (which also make them a lot less interesting for multiple buys compared to the battalion boxes)

A few items where priced relatively cheap compared to a similar product (the DW veteran box for example), but this is offset by the increase on some other boxes (for example, the TS marines are 10$ more than a regular marine box, and the GSC acolytes hybris is 50 CAd for 5, which is insanely overpriced for some average sized, troop models)


GW have done some pretty great move recently, but decreasing price is not one of them

 Azreal13 wrote:
It's isn't even that complicated. It's very easy to defer payments or take other very short term actions in order to inflate profits. Accounts are based on figures at a very specific point in time, if you don't pay that massive invoice until after that point, your figures look that much better in the short term.

Nobody's suggesting that the extra profit is bad, but that without context, there's all sorts of conclusions that cannot be drawn.

- Has volume increased (higher revenue)
- Have cuts been made
- Have efficiencies been employed

For example. The only one of those that's genuinely positive for the GW gamer is volume, as it most likely means more people are buying more stuff. The other two are good for the long term health of the company (depth of cuts notwithstanding) but have little impact on the state of the game as it would be most important to an AoS or 40K player.

I don't know what strong sales are if not an increase in volume. They seperate this and profit out. They also make it clear that this is before the beneficial effects of Brexit. Another point is that GW had a terrible December last year. With the thousand sons, bloodbowl and the bundles there is unlikely to be a repeat of that this year. They also say this exceeds the estimates of the board so it is highly unlikely there has been much massaging of numbers going on. We will get a more detailed breakdown in January so it would look pretty stupid to paint a rosy picture now only for it to be reversed in a month.

The issue is that it's all vague PR speech and no hard facts. There is no definition of "strong" in accounting, nor is there any fixed point for what "expectations" were.

There is no reason to expect the Jan report not to be positive, but there is no reason to respond to someone raising the valid point that profit in isolation doesn't tell the whole story with "do you even know what profit is" either. Unless you don't understand the topic.

Chikout wrote:
I don't know what strong sales are if not an increase in volume.

Strong sales are whatever GW decides to call "strong". Sales volume could drop by 99% and GW could still legally call that "strong sales". Even in the worst possible situations the verbal descriptions in the financial report will find a way to be positive. This is why you assume that everything except hard numbers (which are legally required to be accurate) is spin by the company's PR people.

They also say this exceeds the estimates of the board so it is highly unlikely there has been much massaging of numbers going on

And this is the same kind of thing. Did GW exceed the estimates of the board because the company performed well, or because the board expected "stock prices will crash by 99% and the company will go bankrupt"? There is no legal obligation to tell the truth about this, so the information is worthless.

In terms of burnout how's this for a future release list.
40k: sisters, greatcoat guard, Ork speedfreaks, eldar Exodites, world eaters, death guard, emperors children, custodes, inquisition, chaos guard, dark mechanicum, eldar book with plastic aspect warriors and plastic avatar, dark eldar with vect, and new plastic kits, the fallen, black legion with new core chaos plastics.
AOS, Tzeentch, slaanesh, nurgle, shadow elves, light elves, humans, grot pirates, etc, etc,
Specialist, Necromunda, mordheim, bfg, warmaster, epic expansion to Adeptus titanicus, warhammer war of the beard, (with modified 8th edition rules)
40k 8th edition with an annual living rule book, with point balancing each year.
Inq 28 official skirmish game.
All these things would sell like hot cakes.

There's a real possibility that, given the contraction of recent years, that the customer base is what could be at risk of burnout, not the release schedule. Pacing will be critical.

 Azreal13 wrote:
There is no reason to expect the Jan report not to be positive, but there is no reason to respond to someone raising the valid point that profit in isolation doesn't tell the whole story with "do you even know what profit is" either. Unless you don't understand the topic.

Yeah, the way I see it, each number has a story behind it... actually it has a tree of possible stories that might get you to that number. Profit which hasn't been adjusted to constant currency is obviously important for the company, it's the amount of money they have in their bank account more or less than the previous year to reinvest, grow or pay shareholders.

BUT, it's also the number that has the most possible paths to get to it, without knowing things like revenue and constant currency numbers it doesn't tell us much about the health of the company.

For example we know last year they spent over 2 million pounds on tooling upgrades, if they didn't this year, that 2 million pounds comes through as a profit increase.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azreal13 wrote:
There's a real possibility that, given the contraction of recent years, that the customer base is what could be at risk of burnout, not the release schedule. Pacing will be critical.

Yeah that's my thought. GW could keep releasing things for years for 40k, the question isn't when they run out of things to release, it's when they run out of things the customers are willing to pay more money to buy.

Customers are reacting to getting a whole heap of cool stuff they've been asking to get for years by buying heaps of it, when they realise they have a stack of unpainted models and the rules still suck I think sales will start to peter out. When GW releasing some new shiny each month becomes the norm, existing players are going to start spending less and they go back to relying on new customers to step up and spend big.

It's also a question of how much 40k can actually bear. You can keep releasing new stuff but then using GW's current rules-creep method you just end up with more rules upon rules with supplements upon supplements and you need more inventory space and the more new-release driven your revenue is the more of a ball and chain the existing stock will become.

Chikout wrote:
In terms of burnout how's this for a future release list.

You mean fan wishlisting, not a product schedule from GW? And I think it really says something that half your new releases for 40k are "every space marine chapter gets its own codex", a textbook recipe for burnout.

I'll make a more sane fan boy wish listing of real viable armies.

Imperium: Arbities, Sisters of Silence 40k, Sisters of Battle, Scum and Villainy Gangers

Imperial Guard: I would like to see a cool new and very unique regiment created for the end times and makes them really stand out enough to get new models and would use some of the basic gear of the IG but would utilize a lot of their own ingenious designs kind of like how GSC need to improvise a lot a very heavy survival theme to their gear.

Rogue Trader list mostly drawing from the Imperial Guard lists but wealth has its benefits and they can afford to arm elite squads of soldiers with human power armor for the lulz. has lots of "acquired" and "totally legally" purchased gear from pieces of living saints to dark eldar weaponry and tau drones.

Orks: ??? I honestly can't say. Just new models and some updates. Maybe some cleansing of the range to open up some new ideas? Or perhaps we can see Freebootas or some unique spin on orks. Maybe a Rogue Trader vs Freeboota release? I like orks, but I struggle to think of where to take them creatively. Do we see an intelligent off shot of orks similar to Thrall (Warcraft) versus the regular orcs we usually see?

Chaos: Dark Mechanicus (I would be really excited to see warp priests and tech priests cooking up some cool designs. FFG's rpg book for chaos had so much cool weapons.

A Chaos Xenos faction would also be interesting.

A games workshop Chaos Renegades/Lost and the Damned basically chaos IG.

Renegades: Thunder Warrior Survivors. I say renegades because 40k Imperium is usually just depicted as Law vs Chaos and there are very rarely neutral factions shown that are just out for themselves but are not chaos influenced.

Eldar: Exodites, a big Dark Eldar update, and an Eldar update.

New Xenos Factions: Demirg. it's time GW. The fan reaction to them in the battlefleet gothic video game is very positive. You have a solid design do it.Kroot Mercenaries/Empire/hunters, Vespid, Hrud, I can't remember the name but there is a faction to rival the Tau in the lore that operates similarly by working with the Demiurg, and finally a new alien race that has never been mentioned in the game and is wholly new and surprising.

Necrons: I would love to see an offshoot book/small army release of Necrons who are like the old fluff. More sinister and single minded for those of us who liked them better that way give us the Old-Crons and call them something cool like the Phyrax Dynasty who believe in corrupting all Necrons back to a single purpose to wipe out and harvest all live int he galaxy. They definitely hate their new nerdy necron goodie two shoes brothers. The big center piece is a massive harvesting and grinding machine they use to literally grind kill and harvest the biomass or whatever it is for the C'tan. Bonus points for having human slaves held captive in cells above the massive grinder waiting to be released inside.

Tau: Lots of mechs and titans, but seriously an auxiliary codex if they don't make any new full alien factions. I would also like the Farsight Enclaves to get a few unique models or something like melee crisis suits or a dedicated melee class battlesuit the size of a riptide. Something cool since so much time has passed.

Tyranids: A cool offshoot Tyranid faction led by an actual sentient Tyranid Queen that acts as a face for this very unusual sub faction. Yes it's a queen of blades ripoff but they ripped of 40k so who cares. These unusual hive fleets are brought in when typical hive mind tactics don't suffice since the hive mind is not spontaneous enough to be truly creative or sneaky something that is only found in more independent thought. So it created this weird offshoot for specific tasks but keeps a tight leash on them and it isn't uncommon for uppity Brood Mothers and their fleets to get devoured by regular Tyranids.

Also this would just be a cool fun release and small. A cool mercenary band of unique characters. The best and most badass mercenaies in the galaxy.

Humans, Tau, Kroot, Demiurg, Vespid, a big ogryn, a dark eldar sniper, an eldar, a rogue space marine (not chaos) and a rattling make up this elite squad of mercenaries and commandos. Lead by a Rogue Trader. Caaam aaan it would totally be awesome to see them all fighting and intereacitng in stories.

Edit
An actual robot faction that started as robots and are happy to kill all life. The Necrons started as organics and want to go back to them currently and this sucks.

Edit 2
An offshoot Tau Drone army with their next generation artifical intelligence network. Basically friendly skynet that helps the Tau. We would see more advanced Tau drones appear such as bipedal walking ones, hover tank drones, air drones, hover drones (like a helicopter). Later on down the line like in real life a decade down the line they can get corrupted or want to go independent.

GW managed to get some of my money this year with the bundles and boxed games.

However, if they really want to turn the ship around, they need to fix the gaping wound to the flagship game of 40K.

And, with what they've been putting out with late between rulebooks and board game rules and the FAQ's, I ***REALLY*** don't have confidence they are up to the task.

I came back to 40K when Newcrons were released and bought quite a good bit since then, but with the state of the rules since 7th I've not only slowed on buying new 40K books and models, but have been looking at other companies for games and models. For example, I didn't buy a Taurox for my IG, this Black Friday I bought the DF Eisenkern transport to use it as a proxy.

@Azreal13 & Streetsamurai I don't think I was clear in what I meant, I haven't heard that they are replacing the traditional marines with a new kind, rather than adding to them with some created by a different process. Same stats and rules, different armour mark and fluff. Could be bs, but I have heard it from a couple of different people now.

 Peregrine wrote:

Chikout wrote:
In terms of burnout how's this for a future release list.

You mean fan wishlisting, not a product schedule from GW? And I think it really says something that half your new releases for 40k are "every space marine chapter gets its own codex", a textbook recipe for burnout.

You kind of missed my point. An earlier user pointed out that the recent 40k release list has been a selection of wish listed armies, but they were in danger of running out of ideas.. That list was just pointing out that there is a LOT more fan wished armies that they could still release. Also that list does not contain a single loyalist chapter in it.
I will agree that 40k users are in danger of burnout as that user base does not seem to be growing particularly ( maybe Vedros will help with this) and the are relying on existing users to buy additional armies.
In regards to AOS, every new release will help increase the user base as they are all 'new' armies.
The criticism I have, is that the balance of releases recently have been very poor. If the rumours of another 40k month in January are true, that will mean 7 months at least between AOS battletomes. That is the longest wait for a new fantasy book I can remember in the last 30 years.

I've not been a fan of GW for quite a while. However, today I ordered the kill team box. Am I hopping back into 40k? Nah, they need to consolidate and streamline or bring the model count back down before I will start taking 40k seriously again.
GW fantasy.. sorry but AoS won't be a game I'll play. If they revisit Mordheim.. hey, cool, I'm all over that. Skirmish? Sure.. maybe. WHFB though, as flawed as it was, is the fantasy game I have burned into my mind as GW. Age of Spacemarine is not that.

Okay.. now.. from the above, it would sound like I'm not someone who would really give them a lot of time or money.. right? Well, the boardgames get me.. and I think that's really smart of the old Geedub.

 MLaw wrote:
I've not been a fan of GW for quite a while. However, today I ordered the kill team box. Am I hopping back into 40k? Nah, they need to consolidate and streamline or bring the model count back down before I will start taking 40k seriously again.
GW fantasy.. sorry but AoS won't be a game I'll play. If they revisit Mordheim.. hey, cool, I'm all over that. Skirmish? Sure.. maybe. WHFB though, as flawed as it was, is the fantasy game I have burned into my mind as GW. Age of Spacemarine is not that.

Okay.. now.. from the above, it would sound like I'm not someone who would really give them a lot of time or money.. right? Well, the boardgames get me.. and I think that's really smart of the old Geedub.

Yup. Diversifying the portfolio is very important if GW wants to continue to grow. I am sure there are some people who for whom bloodbowl was their first purchase in years.

 JamesY wrote:
@Azreal13 & Streetsamurai I don't think I was clear in what I meant, I haven't heard that they are replacing the traditional marines with a new kind, rather than adding to them with some created by a different process. Same stats and rules, different armour mark and fluff. Could be bs, but I have heard it from a couple of different people now.

I was pretty sure that was what you meant (or at least was a new unit type for the next codex update) but I liked my idea better!

Chikout wrote:
You kind of missed my point. An earlier user pointed out that the recent 40k release list has been a selection of wish listed armies, but they were in danger of running out of ideas.. That list was just pointing out that there is a LOT more fan wished armies that they could still release. Also that list does not contain a single loyalist chapter in it.

There are still ideas, but they aren't good ideas. SoB are the only thing on the 40k list that is really a new concept and something with long-term demand built up, the rest of it is just milking the cash cow of their existing armies by giving a whole new codex to every minor sub-faction. There's nothing like plastic 30k marines left, the kind of game-changing product idea that gets mass sales and people rushing to buy new armies. With something like codices for CSM sub-factions the CSM players will buy it, but the end result is going to be much more like another Codex: CSM update in sales numbers.

The only things GW have left to boost sales numbers are:

1) 40k 8th edition, a high-stakes product that they get exactly one chance to get right. An AoS-level screwup in the rules would be a disaster for GW. The community would hate it, sales would drop, and they would have completely blown their big opportunity. To be successful 8th edition 40k needs to be a major improvement over 7th, and it seems doubtful that GW has anyone competent enough to write a good game.

2) Relaunching the specialist games range. This could be big, but we need to have a sense of reality about it. Necromunda/Mordheim may have some demand built up, but model-wise they're skirmish scale games that use GW's existing 40k/WHFB model lines. So they may draw a lot of interest, but it remains to be seen how that would translate into sales. Epic and BFG have a lot more potential for model sales, but let's not forget that these games already died from lack of interest. How much is nostalgia for the good old days going to translate into sales for a whole new game that isn't compatible with 40k/AoS? Success depends on convincing people who already declined to buy Epic/BFG to change their minds about the games, and that's an uphill battle before the games are even announced.

In regards to AOS, every new release will help increase the user base as they are all 'new' armies.

Sure, it might increase the customer base, but AoS is largely perceived as a failure and their models are competing with every other fantasy miniatures company in the market. Obviously GW wants to continue to get what money they can out of AoS, but I don't think there's any release for AoS that is an equivalent "our financial report is looking bad, release the plastic 30k marines and fix it!" emergency option.

 Peregrine wrote:


To give a little help here: GW reports their profits in GBP, but gets income in a variety of currencies, including a huge amount of revenue in USD from the US market. If the pound crashes relative to the dollar then the profits GW makes on all of their US-market sales will increase. To put some (completely made up) numbers on it: let's say GW sells a box for $50 in the US. Before the pound crashes that box provides $10 profit, which translates to £5 profit in the financial report. Now let's say the pound crashes to half its value. Now the $50 box in the US market is still making the same $10 profit, but that $10 now translates to £10 in the financial report. GW has "doubled" their profit without improving their business at all, they just happened to benefit from a favorable exchange rate. And it works both ways, if the pound doubles in value that US sale would only provide £2.50 in profit.

This is why looking at GW's numbers at constant currency and considering revenue in addition to profit is important. It removes the exchange rate factor and removes things like "we closed a store and made more profit by not paying rent this year" from the profit numbers. Constant-currency revenue is the best indicator of how many boxes GW's customers are buying, and therefore how healthy the company is.

There might be one exception this though - Forgeworld. IIRC this is not split by US/UK/EU/RoW sales so with tanking £ it would be interesting to see just whether a lot of the profit increase might be associated with this and hence not being extracted from the 'constant currency' argument?

 Whirlwind wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:


To give a little help here: GW reports their profits in GBP, but gets income in a variety of currencies, including a huge amount of revenue in USD from the US market. If the pound crashes relative to the dollar then the profits GW makes on all of their US-market sales will increase. To put some (completely made up) numbers on it: let's say GW sells a box for $50 in the US. Before the pound crashes that box provides $10 profit, which translates to £5 profit in the financial report. Now let's say the pound crashes to half its value. Now the $50 box in the US market is still making the same $10 profit, but that $10 now translates to £10 in the financial report. GW has "doubled" their profit without improving their business at all, they just happened to benefit from a favorable exchange rate. And it works both ways, if the pound doubles in value that US sale would only provide £2.50 in profit.

This is why looking at GW's numbers at constant currency and considering revenue in addition to profit is important. It removes the exchange rate factor and removes things like "we closed a store and made more profit by not paying rent this year" from the profit numbers. Constant-currency revenue is the best indicator of how many boxes GW's customers are buying, and therefore how healthy the company is.

There might be one exception this though - Forgeworld. IIRC this is not split by US/UK/EU/RoW sales so with tanking £ it would be interesting to see just whether a lot of the profit increase might be associated with this and hence not being extracted from the 'constant currency' argument?

FW probably benefited from brexit as much if not more than citadel sales because as soon as brexit came out there were threads clamouring to buy FW stuff at reduced prices. They were reduced prices for customers but still go through at the same value on GW's balance sheet.

So brexit had a two sided improvement...
1. Sales overseas at constant USD/EUR/AUD/NZD/etc made GW more GBP per product sold.

2. Sales from FW in GBP likely increased due to a reduced price for people paying with bank accounts in USD/EUR/AUD/NZD/etc, but they go through at the same GBP per product sold.

A weak GBP favours UK companies that relies on exports and hurts a UK company that imports regardless of whether the sales themselves are made in GBP or USD or whatever.

Forgeworld is reported as part of their "online" revenue stream, alongside GW.com and BL.

That, in total, contributed ~20% of total revenue across the last few reports.

A division offering a share of 20% of the total as its contribution, and with it uncertain how much of that share is already to the U.K., is unlikely to have grown so dramatically as to have made a significant impact on the bottom line. Certainly I'd think we'd have heard about that sort of growth, officially or otherwise.

 JamesY wrote:
I'm very interested to see what direction 8th will bring. I hear talk of a new kind of space marine (new armour pattern and rapid growth, similar to corax's supermarines in deliverance lost) coming out with it. If that is true, and they are messing with space marines (I haven't heard it from enough people I trust to fully believe it yet), then anything could be on the cards.

Don't know about "rapid growth" Marines. While I feel that all the forces in 40k and Marines in particular are hugely undermanned for what there supposed to be capable of, having tons of em running about would make it feel to much like great crusade/HH mk2. That said I would like to see MK8 make an appearance outside the Death watch.

 Peregrine wrote:

Chikout wrote:
You kind of missed my point. An earlier user pointed out that the recent 40k release list has been a selection of wish listed armies, but they were in danger of running out of ideas.. That list was just pointing out that there is a LOT more fan wished armies that they could still release. Also that list does not contain a single loyalist chapter in it.

There are still ideas, but they aren't good ideas. SoB are the only thing on the 40k list that is really a new concept and something with long-term demand built up, the rest of it is just milking the cash cow of their existing armies by giving a whole new codex to every minor sub-faction. There's nothing like plastic 30k marines left, the kind of game-changing product idea that gets mass sales and people rushing to buy new armies. With something like codices for CSM sub-factions the CSM players will buy it, but the end result is going to be much more like another Codex: CSM update in sales numbers.

The only things GW have left to boost sales numbers are:

1) 40k 8th edition, a high-stakes product that they get exactly one chance to get right. An AoS-level screwup in the rules would be a disaster for GW. The community would hate it, sales would drop, and they would have completely blown their big opportunity. To be successful 8th edition 40k needs to be a major improvement over 7th, and it seems doubtful that GW has anyone competent enough to write a good game.

2) Relaunching the specialist games range. This could be big, but we need to have a sense of reality about it. Necromunda/Mordheim may have some demand built up, but model-wise they're skirmish scale games that use GW's existing 40k/WHFB model lines. So they may draw a lot of interest, but it remains to be seen how that would translate into sales. Epic and BFG have a lot more potential for model sales, but let's not forget that these games already died from lack of interest. How much is nostalgia for the good old days going to translate into sales for a whole new game that isn't compatible with 40k/AoS? Success depends on convincing people who already declined to buy Epic/BFG to change their minds about the games, and that's an uphill battle before the games are even announced.

In regards to AOS, every new release will help increase the user base as they are all 'new' armies.

Sure, it might increase the customer base, but AoS is largely perceived as a failure and their models are competing with every other fantasy miniatures company in the market. Obviously GW wants to continue to get what money they can out of AoS, but I don't think there's any release for AoS that is an equivalent "our financial report is looking bad, release the plastic 30k marines and fix it!" emergency option.

Epic didn't die due to lack of interest, nor did bfg, they died due to lack of support, long wait times for people's armies, bad models or non existent ones, the dropping from stores for no legitimate reason.

All these reasons and more, but this is 2016, all of these issues are very easy for gw to overcome now, mainly due to the internet existing, look at the amount of 6mm "small scale" games around now, the space combat games, that's not lack of interest, these companies have filled the void that fw has left.

 Formosa wrote:
Epic didn't die due to lack of interest, nor did bfg, they died due to lack of support, long wait times for people's armies, bad models or non existent ones, the dropping from stores for no legitimate reason.

I think Peregrine was talking about the late 90's when Epic 3rd edition came out and sold poorly so was axed.

All these reasons and more, but this is 2016, all of these issues are very easy for gw to overcome now, mainly due to the internet existing, look at the amount of 6mm "small scale" games around now, the space combat games, that's not lack of interest, these companies have filled the void that fw has left.

It's always hard to say, GW doesn't really operate in the small quantities that might be sufficient for a smaller company to survive. Their dropping of metal/resin has made it impractical to make miniatures that only serve a small audience.

I have no idea how big the Epic audience might be, I quite liked the game and bought the 3rd ed boxed set and a bunch of other stuff, but it seems people generally like bigger models that they can spend more time on each model.

That seems to be the thinking behind both the move to 8mm and concentrating on knights and above

There are not only two options to keep them going, 100% disagree, Peregrine. The trend for small, nostalgic factions must be a huge cash cow, with plenty of milking left. Even if they just re-iterate every faction and RT model they could do it for decades. They may have largely shot their plastic HH marines bolt, but plenty of other stuff to do.

Poor poor doomsayers who cried GW is dead a year ago...

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
To me, the concern is how sustainable this is. GW has released a lot of stuff in the past year or so. While we know that more is to come (specialist games, maybe more 40K primarchs, 8th edition, etc.), how much longer before the train starts to lose steam?

The train already lost steam.

It's a mature product line. This will always happen.

Look at X-Wing. Its sales have been declining too, but that's because the line is maturing. Everyone already has all the TIE Fighters they'll ever need. Now FFG is trying to find new shinies to sell customers, but the interest is lower unless the model is OP (or FFG packages it with some must-have upgrade card)


That said, didn't GW invest a bunch in site infrastructure last year? It looks like sales are up, but not having that cost on the books for this year would definitely help profitability.

When was GW paid the royalties for Warhammer:Total war? It was released at the end of May and it has just under 1 million owners on Steam so its quite possible that a good chunk of this profit originates from Sega.

There was a hefty dose of royalties in the last report. Frankly, it was the only thing that kept the numbers steady. A breakdown of what they were for may be buried somewhere deep in the report notes, but I've not seen it nor seen it referenced.

 Runic wrote:
Poor poor doomsayers who cried GW is dead a year ago...

Haha, I don't know about the GW doomsayers but I do recall the AoS doomsayers..

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1084111664996993&id=865488760192619

It's great to hear GW's is getting it's reward for such a outstanding year of popular releases but I, like others, worry abit about them keeping this rate up.

AoS is solid because it's a new thing that can only go from strength to strength as the setting, lore and armies are expanded upon which have limitless possibilities.

40k however...that's going to turn into more and more of a treacherous pitfall as they stop looking back and begin moving forward. It really looks like a "damned If they do and damned if they don't" situation as there's little chance of GW living up to the fandom's expectations which seems to differ with every player.

Edit: removed insane as being too harsh. Really meant that for the more "devoted" player-base.

How is being able to put down a force of approximately equal power to the opposition's for the same points and not needing to remortgage one's Grandmother to do so an "insane expectation?"

Haha, okay, "insane" was a harsh term. Should've specified that for some of the players I've seen that are rather fanatical about it rather than a broad accusation.

Can't say on the rules and prices. Pretty sure those are going to be complained about no matter what GW do. Best hope is future changes lose them as few fans as possible since it's impossible to please them all, the arguments of "keep it complex" and "streamline it" attest to that.

Oh, is it the time of year where I roll out my traditional complex =\= complicated post?

I'm still a bit priced out. I'd like to get into the hobby again, but right now I'm more content with my commission work. It's still just so durned expensive.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Oh, is it the time of year where I roll out my traditional complex =\= complicated post?

Haha, maybe.

I'll admit I haven't gotten into 40k gaming and have remained staunchly on the fantasy/AoS side so I may be a little blind to the real issues. I do believe I have seen some players say they enjoy the "bloat" and definitely saw people prefering unbalanced rules so it's still a mixed bag either way.

Either way, best of luck to GW with the rules and especially with writing new lore.

Baron Klatz wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Oh, is it the time of year where I roll out my traditional complex =\= complicated post?

Haha, maybe.

I'll admit I haven't gotten into 40k gaming and have remained staunchly on the fantasy/AoS side so I may be a little blind to the real issues. I do believe I have seen some players say they enjoy the "bloat" and definitely saw people prefering unbalanced rules so it's still a mixed bag either way.

Either way, best of luck to GW with the rules and especially with writing new lore.

In my area people stopped using fliers at this point because of the clunky rules. People just don't find them fun to use, and dog fight rules adds a bunch of new stuff to the game to keep track of.

"Bloat" describes current 40k pretty well. a lot of groups bassicly doing what ever they can to try and manage the complexity.

Since that last 6 months, I made my comeback in the 40k universe and I plan to start playing AoS soon.
With all the last update they did, I have never been soo happy about GW.

I think people are putting a little too much stock in 'plastic horus heresy'. Yes, those boxes helped expand the number of Horus Heresy players out there and yes, pretty much everyone who is really interested in playing HH got at least 2 of each box because of just how insanely good of a deal they are, but you have to remember that those boxes, especially Calth, were just as insane for dedicated 40k players as HH players. I mean, the Contemptor is easily the best dread outside of blood angels, the Cataphractii captain is brokenly good, the SoS are basically auto-include in any army that wants to shut down psychic and on top of all that you got dirt cheap bricks of marines that are incredibly cool looking, the prospero ones are fantastic. I would say probably only 60ish% of those boxes will ever see a game of HH with the majority splitting time between the two.

The plastic HH box sets were a fantastic idea and great sellers but I don't think they bring so much to the table that a non-HH box game that was good value and had cool stuff in it couldn't do pretty close to the same level of sales. The boxes helped, adn I doubt what comes next will match them exactly, but they're not totally impossible to keep up with.

As for the idea that GW could 'run out' of exciting, get people up and spending releases soon, I say; go check ANY comment section for ANY of the wrath of Magnus stuff. Wishlisting for JUST CSM is New plastic Khorne Berzerkers, Plastic Noise Marines, New plastic Plague Marines, Blastic Khorne Termies, Plastic Nurgle Termies, Plastic Slaanesh Termies, Plastic Oblits/Mutas, New Havocs, New basic CSM kits, New Abbadon, New Typhus, New Lucius, New Warpsmith, New Chosen, New Character kits, Etc. Sisters of Battle and Inquisition need their entire range rebuilt from the ground up, then you still have things like Exodites and Arbites that you can build an entire faction around. That's a Solid Year of releases right there! With 4 factions! out of what 22-24?

And that's only 40k! AoS has 10x the amount of ground to cover. All of Death, 20% of Chaos, 60% of Order and 40% of destruction need to be entirely rebuilt from the ground up, leaving a HUGE amount of room for amazing new models. And if the rumors from a while back that Sigmar is 35% of GWs total sales and climbing are even in the ballpark, what Sigmar does will influence a lot of things as time goes on.

GW has made some good solid strides in the past year that has allowed them to build a framework for them to build off of in the future. If they keep going in a positive direction in terms of customer relations, high quality releases, and improving their rule sets(whatever you think of AoS it's hard to argue that the GHB isn't awesome within the context of the game), we could be looking at some very good years for GW.

Not as much as you think, though.

Unless you count "rules getting worse" as change, which case yes perhaps a lot has changed.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Not as much as you think, though.

Unless you count "rules getting worse" as change, which case yes perhaps a lot has changed.

And "how much" do I think, exactly?

ERJAK wrote:
As for the idea that GW could 'run out' of exciting, get people up and spending releases soon, I say; go check ANY comment section for ANY of the wrath of Magnus stuff. Wishlisting for JUST CSM is New plastic Khorne Berzerkers, Plastic Noise Marines, New plastic Plague Marines, Blastic Khorne Termies, Plastic Nurgle Termies, Plastic Slaanesh Termies, Plastic Oblits/Mutas, New Havocs, New basic CSM kits, New Abbadon, New Typhus, New Lucius, New Warpsmith, New Chosen, New Character kits, Etc. Sisters of Battle and Inquisition need their entire range rebuilt from the ground up, then you still have things like Exodites and Arbites that you can build an entire faction around. That's a Solid Year of releases right there! With 4 factions! out of what 22-24?

And that's only 40k! AoS has 10x the amount of ground to cover. All of Death, 20% of Chaos, 60% of Order and 40% of destruction need to be entirely rebuilt from the ground up, leaving a HUGE amount of room for amazing new models. And if the rumors from a while back that Sigmar is 35% of GWs total sales and climbing are even in the ballpark, what Sigmar does will influence a lot of things as time goes on.

It's not GW running out of ideas that is the problem, it's customer burnout. Pacing is important. Back when I played (going on 3 years ago now) major releases were about every 6 months. Pacing was awful. You'd wait and wait and wait and if you were lucky enough to be the target of the release, it's quality was a crapshoot. Quality is still a crapshoot, but just about every month GW seem to release something they, or internal sources that spoke through 'rumour' people, said that GW would never, ever release. Plastic Horus heresy stuff. Knights. Plastic Mechanicus. Plastic Genestealer Cult. Etc.

The idea of GW blowing its load isn't about releasing all of their pent up ideas at once, it's about the customer base having the money to buy it and the enthusiasm to do anything with it. Month after month there's releases that customer base has been screaming for, but it's mostly getting thrown in the to-do pile while the next months set of shiny stuff is released. What used to take 3-4 months of spaced out releases is just thrown out there all at once. They might have lots left to release, but if they keep up this pace, they're in danger of just burning people out. That's bad for the hobby as a whole, because when someone is burned out like that, they might not go to another game and then come back to 40k, they might just sell everything and find something else to do.

 Runic wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Not as much as you think, though.

Unless you count "rules getting worse" as change, which case yes perhaps a lot has changed.

And "how much" do I think, exactly?

I'm not sure that's the question you want answered.

Not every fan buys every release though. Typically in a year I might see two major release perios I like that are far apart, but that's me. I have no data or way to know how spaced out the average purchaser spaces things out. This includes FW products. If I exclude that then only one release period a year has had me so interested I had to buy.

For the serious fans who have to buy it all then yeah I could see burn out happening.

Joyboozer wrote:

I'm not sure that's the question you want answered.

It seems he knows "how much" I think has changed, would be interesting to hear, seeing as I haven't really touched on the subject.

But anyway, anyone with an internet connection is capable of perceiving the many changes that have taken place within the last year for themselves.

An aspect not changing for the better doesn't reduce the amount of other changes, it's simply something that has stayed the same, as a sidenote. Seeing as there are these unlogical "rules are the same, ergo nothing has changed" arguments which ofcourse, simply aren't true when looked at objectively. One can claim anything with bias, the factual matter can still differ.

 Gamgee wrote:
Not every fan buys every release though. Typically in a year I might see two major release perios I like that are far apart, but that's me. I have no data or way to know how spaced out the average purchaser spaces things out. This includes FW products. If I exclude that then only one release period a year has had me so interested I had to buy.

For the serious fans who have to buy it all then yeah I could see burn out happening.

That's a fair point, but even for people who only buy the odd release for their one army, they still face this new stuff more regularly.Every month there's more units, formations and rules you'll face and likely want to know about before you face it, which is more stuff to keep track of, which may be broken to the point you don't enjoy playing it. It's just more and more and more and more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Runic wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:

I'm not sure that's the question you want answered.

It seems he knows "how much" I think has changed, would be interesting to hear, seeing as I haven't really touched on the subject.

But anyway, anyone with an internet connection is capable of perceiving the many changes that have taken place within the last year for themselves.

An aspect not changing for the better doesn't reduce the amount of other changes, it's simply something that has stayed the same, as a sidenote. Seeing as there are these unlogical "rules are the same, ergo nothing has changed" arguments which ofcourse, simply aren't true when looked at objectively. One can claim anything with bias, the factual matter can still differ.

The problem is what changes can also affect the possibility of what you want to see change diminish. What I'm personally seeing is more and more and more stuff that means the chances of 8th edition being the complete overhaul 40k needs less and less and less likely. Every new army, every new formation, every new unit is something that will need to be rewritten in an overhaul edition. 3rd could do it because 2nd didn't have a huge wealth of stuff to mvoe over. it had so little they could get away with 'get you by' lists in the rulebook itself. There's just so much stuff in 40k now, made worse with the last year of releases, that fixing 40k, to me, just isn't possible anymore.

And yet the Deathwatch release was extremely balanced. The genestealers were strong but not overpowered. So far it seems they are making small strides to try keep the power levels in check.

Only with some of this new chaos stuff does it come to approaching OP, but they need at least a little to compete with the other stuff at this level. Other than that the only really truly OP thing released this year that boggled my mind was the space marine legions supplement which was stupidly powerful and then followed by death from the skies. DFTS was panned for being OP and generally unweidly and ditched by the community and it's no longer official core rules according to GW.

Also your average 40k casual fan usually doesn't keep up to date on every release and doesn't follow them. And unless they are in a huge game store where every players has 3+ armies and then one or two of all the new ones coming out then I doubt it's much of a barrage for new people. They are limited to what appears in their meta. Only the hyper competitive people who want to game everything and look and buy every last super op thing to make super cheesy not fluffy lists is being overwhelmed (which is a good thing since people don't have as much time to sit and make cheese lists).

Your vastly overselling how bad this is.

 -Loki- wrote:
The problem is what changes can also affect the possibility of what you want to see change diminish. What I'm personally seeing is more and more and more stuff that means the chances of 8th edition being the complete overhaul 40k needs less and less and less likely. Every new army, every new formation, every new unit is something that will need to be rewritten in an overhaul edition. 3rd could do it because 2nd didn't have a huge wealth of stuff to mvoe over. it had so little they could get away with 'get you by' lists in the rulebook itself. There's just so much stuff in 40k now, made worse with the last year of releases, that fixing 40k, to me, just isn't possible anymore.

Mostly that was about some dismissing the existence/amount of factual changes from GW because a certain aspect they would like changed hasn't done so. But for this:

It's being said that 8th most likely won't be a complete overhaul, but it will include the game being streamlined quite a bit. "War Scrolls" in some form are rumoured to be in it, which would make overhauling each and every unit possible. Personally I see only good things about an online "war scroll" approach, you could get rules with the models/from the web, and GW could easily update them into the online files should an "oops" get into a units rules. Also, wouldn't need to buy that many books and GW wouldn't need to print them and make erratas a week after. All in all, would save a lot of the hassle.

Mostly I worry about the new players. Even some experienced people struggle with how Formations, Battle Forged, Detachments, and Detachments Of Formations work. (The last is a term I wish they named differently, that is certain to confuse a lot of people.)

I expect some rules will be completely removed and the game in general streamlined. I expect the way units rules are published, updated and released will change. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if balance will improve a lot. There is just so much material that has to be accounted for.

Army building is said not to change, atleast a lot. You can sort of tell from the new Traitor Legions book that it has been made with the new edition in mind, and perhaps even a new future CSM Codex/whatever it will be called in 8th. It's written in a way that basically the whole contents of the CSM Codex could change and the Traitor Legions book would still function just fine.

Bough more from GW in the last year than the last 5 years combined, Battle of calth and prospero were good "value", but now i wanted to buy Bloodbowl and 15000 yen (roughly 150$) for 24minis and slightly updated rules is somewhat steep IMHO

As long as GW stays afloat long enough to get some Specialist Games back into circulation, I'll remain content. Haven't been tempted once by any actual models they've put out since the 40k Chaos Cultists (I think, cultists? Renegade guard?) from that 40k box a while back (Dark Angels vs Chaos).

That said, a new scale Epic 40k and Necromunda would get me back on board. Maybe even revamped Mordheim.

~iPaint

Oh, a GW profits thread?

[insert generic complaint]

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Bough more from GW in the last year than the last 5 years combined, Battle of calth and prospero were good "value", but now i wanted to buy Bloodbowl and 15000 yen (roughly 150$) for 24minis and slightly updated rules is somewhat steep IMHO

See, that doesn't bother me, because you don't need to buy more. It's priced pretty well for a standalone game. Sure, Star Players are tokens rather than miniatures with the very clear intention of selling the Star Player models later, but I forgive FFG for doing that in Imperial Assault, so it would be hypocritcal to fault GW for doing it in Blood Bowl. The price point, even in Australia, seems fairly reasonable especially for the typically high production values of a GW product (that's one thing I can't, and won't, fault them on - a new GW game unboxing is a great feeling).

The difference to AoS and 40k is that while they're generally cheaper per model (depending on what box you buy), that box is one of adozen or two more you need to buy. A slightly higher cost per model for a one off purchase is pretty normal. I pay about the same for Malifaux models.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Runic wrote:
It's being said that 8th most likely won't be a complete overhaul, but it will include the game being streamlined quite a bit. "War Scrolls" in some form are rumoured to be in it, which would make overhauling each and every unit possible. Personally I see only good things about an online "war scroll" approach, you could get rules with the models/from the web, and GW could easily update them into the online files should an "oops" get into a units rules. Also, wouldn't need to buy that many books and GW wouldn't need to print them and make erratas a week after. All in all, would save a lot of the hassle.

Mostly I worry about the new players. Even some experienced people struggle with how Formations, Battle Forged, Detachments, and Detachments Of Formations work. (The last is a term I wish they named differently, that is certain to confuse a lot of people.)

I expect some rules will be completely removed and the game in general streamlined. I expect the way units rules are published, updated and released will change. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if balance will improve a lot. There is just so much material that has to be accounted for.

Army building is said not to change, atleast a lot. You can sort of tell from the new Traitor Legions book that it has been made with the new edition in mind, and perhaps even a new future CSM Codex/whatever it will be called in 8th. It's written in a way that basically the whole contents of the CSM Codex could change and the Traitor Legions book would still function just fine.

Yeah, this is what I expected. But, to me, an overhaul is what the game needs. 3rd edition wasn't the best system in the first place, and 8th edition will be the 5th iteration of it. It's bursting at the seams.

It's a shame as well, because I'd be perfectly happy to get back into 40k if that, and balance in general, is what was fixed. Almost everything else about the company has been an about face.

GW has been changing for the better, I can only hope it remains like this.

All I need now isthe "Sigmarisation" of the 8th edition so 40k stops being the bloated mess it is right now. Maybe, just maybe, I'll stop buying 40k models only for painting and instead actually start playing with them too.

 -Loki- wrote:
It's not GW running out of ideas that is the problem, it's customer burnout.

As a Tyranid and Dark Angel player, how am I burnt out? As was said before unless you buy EVERYTHING, while it's a fast pace, it's a good pace. Like you said before was a very slow pace and unless it was your army you are still waiting. So I can't understand how this would be any different? Like I said, I play Tyranids and Dark Angels. How is this fast pace burning me out? I got what Genestealer Cult and that was it. For a lot of people Genesteler Cult is not even Tyranid so they got nothing. Even if people collect 4 armies or more, the pace is still good.

I HATE the slow pace GW had before, just like you said. This pace is great because I don't buy everything. So unless you collect a lot or just plain buy everything GW puts out, this is the great pace GW is doing. It's keeping everything fresh where before it seemed GW was stale.

I buy all their dice and try to get most of the books (for the fluff, art, and to know my enemies).

Where it get pricey is the fact I play multiple armies (and I buy into cool stuff like deathwatch), age of sigmar, lotr, and I buy all their specialist games (I've become more of a boardgamer and aos guy these days with kids and limited time).

Davor wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
It's not GW running out of ideas that is the problem, it's customer burnout.

As a Tyranid and Dark Angel player, how am I burnt out? As was said before unless you buy EVERYTHING, while it's a fast pace, it's a good pace. Like you said before was a very slow pace and unless it was your army you are still waiting. So I can't understand how this would be any different? Like I said, I play Tyranids and Dark Angels. How is this fast pace burning me out? I got what Genestealer Cult and that was it. For a lot of people Genesteler Cult is not even Tyranid so they got nothing. Even if people collect 4 armies or more, the pace is still good.

I HATE the slow pace GW had before, just like you said. This pace is great because I don't buy everything. So unless you collect a lot or just plain buy everything GW puts out, this is the great pace GW is doing. It's keeping everything fresh where before it seemed GW was stale.

I suspect a large portion of GW's revenue lies with people who own many armies for 40k and WHFB/AoS and those are the people who are going to get burnt out.

If you only collect 1 or 2 armies then probably less so, but even then it's easy to get burned out especially if there's poor rules sapping peoples' enjoyment.

Then get burned out on rules bloat, where every new unit needs it's own set of special rules and some players get sick of it after a while.

Ruin wrote:
Now to just make some decent rules for 40k and that profit can be even larger...

It would be ground breaking because 40K has never had decent rules, but in light of these news we can hope.

 Therion wrote:

Ruin wrote:
Now to just make some decent rules for 40k and that profit can be even larger...

It would be ground breaking because 40K has never had decent rules, but in light of these news we can hope.

If 40K had decent rules or even better excellent rules then the high prices we complain about at least would have worth to them then. Because of the crappy rules in my opinion, is why the prices GW asks for are not worth it.

I agree we can only hope for the best but expect the worst.

Davor wrote:

 Therion wrote:

Ruin wrote:
Now to just make some decent rules for 40k and that profit can be even larger...

It would be ground breaking because 40K has never had decent rules, but in light of these news we can hope.

If 40K had decent rules or even better excellent rules then the high prices we complain about at least would have worth to them then. Because of the crappy rules in my opinion, is why the prices GW asks for are not worth it.

I agree we can only hope for the best but expect the worst.

GW has finally realized that communicating with customers is good for business. They have also finally acknowledged the existence of the internet. Now if they would only realize that a deep and competitive rule set with tournament support is good for business, and we'd truly be entering a new era. X-Wing? Competitive. Very popular. MTG? Competitive. Very popular. Dota 2 / League of Legends / CS:GO? Competitive. Very popular.

I was on the verge of selling all my 40K, I repurposed my old Skaven for kings of war I hadn't been in an actual GW store in around 2 years. I have picked up far more other company systems in that time I have jumped into KOW, dropfleet & dropzone, Konflikt 47 and got back into 2nd edition Deadzone, I really lost touch and interest in GW altogether. Then slowly but surely there was a change, little snippets of news of things to come, like most people I just thought "heard this rumour before" and then they did come. No matter what, you can't please all the people all the time, it is utterly impossible but in the past year they have made a LOT of people happy with a varied, interesting and high quality release schedule. I am 100% surprised I am saying this but I am back on board with GW, will this trend continue, I really do hope so.

Davor wrote:

If 40K had decent rules or even better excellent rules then the high prices we complain about at least would have worth to them then. Because of the crappy rules in my opinion, is why the prices GW asks for are not worth it.

I broadly agree with this but for me personally the unwitting vandalism of the fluff over the years (and the sheer tragedy is that was the Old World) means that I doubt that I will be returning even if 40K finally gets a good ruleset (although I thought that 2nd ed was at least decent).

Quite simply I no longer need GW, there are more than enough companies today that produce high quality wargames and miniatures which are sufficiently popular that you can easily find a game.

Heh, somewhere, deep inside my soul, a voice is shouting 'See! See! I told you that getting rid of Kirby and Merrett would help! '

I still hate AoS, and it still isn't being much played in my area of Maine*, but I have seen some very positive changes - the bundles, in particular.

Knowing that GW is in the hands of somebody that is at least starting to realize that it is the market that determines what sells, not what the CEO claims is what sells.

The Auld Grump

* The local Warhammer store claims that Space Marines outsell all of AoS put together - but that Silver Tower is also doing much better than AoS, much, much better sales than I might have expected. (They still have most of their initial order of Aos - but have had to reorder Silver Tower.)

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Heh, somewhere, deep inside my soul, a voice is shouting 'See! See! I told you that getting rid of Kirby and Merrett would help! '

I still hate AoS, and it still isn't being much played in my area of Maine*, but I have seen some very positive changes - the bundles, in particular.

Knowing that GW is in the hands of somebody that is at least starting to realize that it is the market that determines what sells, not what the CEO claims is what sells.

The Auld Grump

* The local Warhammer store claims that Space Marines outsell all of AoS put together - but that Silver Tower is also doing much better than AoS, much, much better sales than I might have expected. (They still have most of their initial order of Aos - but have had to reorder Silver Tower.)

Are you near Portland? Because we have over a dozen going across the Warhammer and Crossroads store right now. With a little more steam we'll be back into tournaments and such.

 -Loki- wrote:

The idea of GW blowing its load isn't about releasing all of their pent up ideas at once, it's about the customer base having the money to buy it and the enthusiasm to do anything with it. Month after month there's releases that customer base has been screaming for, but it's mostly getting thrown in the to-do pile while the next months set of shiny stuff is released. What used to take 3-4 months of spaced out releases is just thrown out there all at once. They might have lots left to release, but if they keep up this pace, they're in danger of just burning people out. That's bad for the hobby as a whole, because when someone is burned out like that, they might not go to another game and then come back to 40k, they might just sell everything and find something else to do.

Release burnout isn't really a thing though. Very few people are buying one of everything. Warhammer 40K is a fairly broad product line. If they can sustain new product releases, and they spread them out across their model ranges, it provides a good source of steady income. And it also means those products are available for new players too. As a player, new Genestealer Cult gets me excited. New Thousand Sons don't. Thus Thousand Sons aren't in danger of burning me out. But they might excite somebody else.

GW's strategy is actually pretty sound right now, assuming they can carry the inventory (I have to assume they believe they can). If you're a "Buy one of everything!" player, you're in the minority as far as GW customers go.

Daedalus81 wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Heh, somewhere, deep inside my soul, a voice is shouting 'See! See! I told you that getting rid of Kirby and Merrett would help! '

I still hate AoS, and it still isn't being much played in my area of Maine*, but I have seen some very positive changes - the bundles, in particular.

Knowing that GW is in the hands of somebody that is at least starting to realize that it is the market that determines what sells, not what the CEO claims is what sells.

The Auld Grump

* The local Warhammer store claims that Space Marines outsell all of AoS put together - but that Silver Tower is also doing much better than AoS, much, much better sales than I might have expected. (They still have most of their initial order of Aos - but have had to reorder Silver Tower.)

Are you near Portland? Because we have over a dozen going across the Warhammer and Crossroads store right now. With a little more steam we'll be back into tournaments and such.

Yep - and I work about a block away from the Warhammer store.

I am not all that surprised that it is doing better at Crossroads - they are good people, with a staff that actually enjoys the games.

Sadly, Crossroads is a bit too distant for me to walk to.

It has also been more than a month since I have last been to the Warhammer store - while I don't think that the ratio between 40K and AoS is likely to have changed all that much, there is always the Christmas push.

On the plus side for AoS - I gather that Island of Blood is being repackaged for AoS - and will include both types of bases. (I honestly think that AoS and Warhammer are different enough that each would have an audience - and that part of the local disdain for AoS stems from the way GW handled the transition - blowing up the Olde World was just plain a bad move.)

I had avoided Island of Blood - I disliked 8th edition only slightly less than I hate Aos - but was hired to paint the models for Kings of War... I was very much impressed by the High Elves, less so by the Skaven (Rat Ogres excepted) - but the High Elves alone were enough that I would not have felt scammed if I had bought the box.

If the price is reasonable, I may break my moratorium on AoS - though the figures would be repurposed for KoW and RPGs.

I do not know enough about Silver Tower to have any idea why it would be outselling AoS by a significant ratio - my own reaction was to llok at the price and look no further.

I actually have a GW item on my Christmas wish list this year - the Deff Kopters from AoBR, which have made a comeback, separately packaged. (I am playing GorkaMorka - and getting my arse handed to me by a woman that is not even a gamer.... I am having a blast.)

*EDIT* Just to be clear - I think that GW is doing a better job this last while than in quite a long time previously - they are at lest responding to customers. That said - I think that their next step needs to be mending fences with independent retailers, such as the above mentioned Crossroad Games & Hobbies - it is where a huge portion of GW's money comes from - they need to start treating the independents as allies, not competition. This is much more important than whether I, personally, like or despise AoS. The independent retailers are where GW has the most room for expansion.

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Heh, somewhere, deep inside my soul, a voice is shouting 'See! See! I told you that getting rid of Kirby and Merrett would help! '

Ain't that the truth!