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Heavens no, not as in "everyone should be like them", but as in "only making models".

GW has intimated for a few years now that they primarily are about making models. What if they were to completely embrace that aspect - dump making rulesets, let Black Library make some fiction novels and just concentrate on making "high-quality" model kits, ala Tamiya, Revel, Monogram, Testors and the other makers of plastic models?

Would you still buy GW's models if they weren't involved in making the rules for a game to play them in?

Well, they'd make a lot less money... I'm interested in updating my Tyranid army to the current edition with a few pods, but only because it's decently playable in-game. You see this all the time with amazing kits not selling well due to their in-game performance, such as the Haruspex / Exocrine kit.

If they made generic enough fantasy and sci-fi figures I could use in my other games, then yes. GW make far crisper sculpts than most other manufacturers.
As we know though, their figures are becoming more and more specialised and mostly only suitable for their own universe, so no.

I just like my fantasy figures to look like generic fantasy figures rather than greek mask wearing robots that look like bad aliens from 1970's Dr Who episodes.

Company Name: Games Workshop.

Makes Models, not Games.

Should rename itself-

Model Workshop

The idea is a weak one.

They put out TONS of very cool models. And I set there and look at them and say, "That's really beautiful/awesome/whatever."

I do not push the buy button for "cool" things. I have limited income so I buy things I can use. Currently I buy some of the fantasy stuff to use in my D&D game. It has to have a function.

Sitting pretty on my self isn't reason enough to buy it.

So, "Not being a game company" is bad for business.

MY buying dropped like a stone when I stopped playing. Yes I still pick up something here and there to paint, but even that is getting less and less.

If they fixed their rules however I would start spending a lot of money again through and slap an army or two together.

There is no 'still' there - I quit buying GW three years ago.

So, I would have to say 'no, no I would not'.

The Auld Grump

-

Lots of ifs, buts and maybes with this question.

As it currently stands, I don't play GW games anymore and their models (while generally excellent) are specifically designed for the Warhammer universe, so I have no use for them.

no ifs, ands, or buts from me...
i only collect the minis, because gaming doesn't attract me as a way to spend my time...
i would rather paint, chase girls, and surf...

the models, fiction, and art all go hand in hand, to me, but the games are the least important bit...
this goes for every company in the mini wargaming industry, not just GW...
GW does produce my favorite minis, though...

cheers
jah

Well, it appears that we have agreed here at Dakka that 40k only playable in a closed group but not on the basis of a pickup game like chess.
Look at the GW homepage, the button "Gaming" has been replaced by "Modeling and Painting". This says it all.

GW will crash and burn if they become a modelling company due to the fact that their sales are directly linked to their IP and their IP is, first and foremost, used to provide background to a tabletop wargame. Which means the moment they keep making miniatures only for that specific IP and do not provide it with a (decent) game to use the miniatures on, they're done for.

jah-joshua wrote:i would rather paint, chase girls, and surf...

Ah yes, the obligatory underlying insult to gamers. How quaint.

I'm kind of torn on this one.

Logic says i would still buy cool models but wouldn't buy as many as i do now.

After all, for gaming I have to buy a minimum of 2 troops choices for every race which are essentially the same more often than not. As a painter and collector I wouldn't need 2.

I would say i am a painter / collector and gamer so both go hand in hand so if you remove the gaming aspect they essentially just become collectibles which I stopped buying years ago.

However having said that in 2009 I started building up a full Ultramarines Secend Company.

There was no reason for it back then, I would only rarely get to play with if at all as we don't play Apocalypse, and even now with 7th Edition I would rarely use it all.

So I guess I do collect things which serve no gaming purpose.

Then again on the flip side there are models I have bought and painted that I really don't like but I "need" for gaming.

The two obvious examples would be the Storm Raven and Storm Talon - hate the models, still do but you need flyers in the current game so needed them really.

I guess look at Forge World. They have sold a lot of Warlord Titans, but how many people will actually game with them?

It's a tougher question to answer than i thought but GW get a fair bit of money out of me now as I can collect, paint and game with my man dollies.

If I didn't game with them I don't know what I would do with them....

StraightSilver wrote:
I'm kind of torn on this one.

Logic says i would still buy cool models but wouldn't buy as many as i do now.

After all, for gaming I have to buy a minimum of 2 troops choices for every race which are essentially the same more often than not. As a painter and collector I wouldn't need 2.

I would say i am a painter / collector and gamer so both go hand in hand so if you remove the gaming aspect they essentially just become collectibles which I stopped buying years ago.

However having said that in 2009 I started building up a full Ultramarines Secend Company.

There was no reason for it back then, I would only rarely get to play with if at all as we don't play Apocalypse, and even now with 7th Edition I would rarely use it all.

So I guess I do collect things which serve no gaming purpose.

Then again on the flip side there are models I have bought and painted that I really don't like but I "need" for gaming.

The two obvious examples would be the Storm Raven and Storm Talon - hate the models, still do but you need flyers in the current game so needed them really.

I guess look at Forge World. They have sold a lot of Warlord Titans, but how many people will actually game with them?

It's a tougher question to answer than i thought but GW get a fair bit of money out of me now as I can collect, paint and game with my man dollies.

If I didn't game with them I don't know what I would do with them....

A quick question for you, out of honest curiosity: what if you were introduced to the hobby without the tabletop game? As in here are these cool looking miniatures from a sci-fi universe. You can buy and paint and collect them, but that's it. There are also books about the universe that you can buy and read. There's no game, no way to use the miniatures apart from being displayed in your glass cabinet.

I don't buy any GW models now (last things I bought were some Epic fighters in the Forgeworld fire sale) so whether there's a game not makes no odds to me.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
GW will crash and burn if they become a modelling company due to the fact that their sales are directly linked to their IP and their IP is, first and foremost, used to provide background to a tabletop wargame. Which means the moment they keep making miniatures only for that specific IP and do not provide it with a (decent) game to use the miniatures on, they're done for.

jah-joshua wrote:i would rather paint, chase girls, and surf...

Ah yes, the obligatory underlying insult to gamers. How quaint.

how did i insult anyone???
i simply stated what my priorities are...
what anyone else chooses to do with their free time is their prerogative...
i'm no less of a hobbyist than any gamer, and i have no beef with gamers...
are we not allowed to say that girls are awesome here???
am i not allowed to say that i'm a surfer???

please don't put words in my mouth, especially when i am such a dedicated member of this community...
i have never intended to insult anyone who is passionate about this hobby when i talk about my personal perspective...

cheers
jah

I haven't bought direct from GW in a long while. I've been getting stocked up on stuff I want through eBay and Element Games, but I've recently obtained the final thing I give a gak about.

If GW ceases making rulesets, I can be reasonably certain that my units won't become invalidated in the future. It would benefit me.
Unless they stop before updating the IG codex to 7E. Then I'll rage.

I'm moving over to GW's long-abandoned ruleset, Epic Armageddon, and I'm using the Net Epic version. Which means I can stop caring and continue hobbying

Personally I do own a lot of early SMs (late 80s) that I did buy at the time for general SF use, because back then the choice of 28mm SF figures on the market was minute.

Out of the current range of models, only Tau and Eldar IMO are useable as 'aliens' in non-40K settings. The rest are too identifiable as GW creations.

Secondly, there are now many good ranges of SF figures in 28mm.

As for the idea of buying GW figures without a game at all, it seems rather unlikely, but of course in actuality GW do publish a game and it is good enough to give people an excuse for buying the model kits. A high proportion of GW players are newcomers to wargaming and (1) don't have anything to compare against GW, (2) don't necessarily play a lot of games, so are easily satisfied with playing the occasional game and buying the models.

To be fair, I have a lot of non-GW figures and armies bought over the years that hardly ever get an outing, partly because like most wargamers I am a hoarder.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As to whether GW is no longer a games publisher, it should be noted that in the past 15 years they have published three new games: Dread Fleet (a flop) Age of Sigmar (more of a deep revision of an existing game than a totally new product) and some other game I can't remember the name of because no-one is interested in it. I think it's some kind of skirmish spin off from 40K.

So from that angle, can anyone argue that GW is a games publishing company?

GW can. Its entirely possible to start your company as one thing, change it to do two things, and then only support the second. GW may have been a games publisher in the past, and a board-game inventor currently, but in the future they may cease.

And I say good riddance. If I want a skirmish game, I'll play OnePage40k. If I want a sort of RPG/Company-scale battle, I'll use 7E.

If I want properly big games, I'll use E:A.

Stormonu wrote:
GW has intimated for a few years now that they primarily are about making models. What if they were to completely embrace that aspect...
Would you still buy GW's models if they weren't involved in making the rules for a game to play them in?

I do. I've held onto a few old orks, tyranids and SMs for use in Victory Decision: Future Combat, and scraped a few more bits off ebay to that end. I only started to buy my burgeoning high and dark elf armies after WHFB died, for Dragon Rampant!

I think that if GW stopped with the rules framework for buying, sales would drop off a bit. Towards the level of other companies who manage to sell generic minis, or minis without rules, maybe. On the other hand, 40K players who stick around in the hobby, and look for some way to use their existing minis rather than move wholesale to another 'YOU MUST USE OUR MINIS WITH OUR RULES' game, might find a number of pleasant surprises: independent rulesets where the 'rules framework' is more about balance, tactics, gameplay, and including any ranges, than on selling certain specific minis. By extension it'd smooth out RiTides' complaint about underperforming units leading to underperforming sales, to some degree.

Think about it like... the ending of Total Recall (the Arnie version), or Logan's Run, or Demolition Man, or...

And what's more, it'd be an implicit admission on GW's part about their charades of games, which would earn a crumb or two of respect. Maybe not as much as if they actually put in a bit of effort on good rules; but from my own, personal PoV, I wouldn't be too sore if GW made that decision.

Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
Ah yes, the obligatory underlying insult to gamers. How quaint.

Lithlandis, meet Jah.

@Vermis: again, when have i ever insulted gamers, or said i had a problem with gamers???
i am very passionate about wargaming miniatures, art, fiction, and painting, just not the actual wargaming...

what is so wrong about saying where my priorities lie???
just read the two things that have been posted under "interests" on my profile since day one, for 9 years now...

cheers
jah

 jah-joshua wrote:
@Vermis: again, when have i ever insulted gamers, or said i had a problem with gamers???
i am very passionate about wargaming miniatures, art, fiction, and painting, just not the actual wargaming...

what is so wrong about saying where my priorities lie???
just read the two things that have been posted under "interests" on my profile since day one, for 9 years now...

cheers
jah

I think you must have hit a sore spot with the girls comment

If they were to hand over rules development to FFG and focus solely on making models and all the gubbinz like paint etc I wouldn't mind.

For me it's a bit of an AoS issue. I loved the rules and fluff of whfb, I spent quite a bit of money in the last year of 8th edition.


I don't like the rules and fluff of AoS, I haven't bought a damn thing since, the models are cool. But that isn't enough for me to buy it. If I wanted an ornament, I'd buy a China llama.

 Selym wrote:

 jah-joshua wrote:
@Vermis: again, when have i ever insulted gamers, or said i had a problem with gamers???
i am very passionate about wargaming miniatures, art, fiction, and painting, just not the actual wargaming...

what is so wrong about saying where my priorities lie???
just read the two things that have been posted under "interests" on my profile since day one, for 9 years now...

cheers
jah

I think you must have hit a sore spot with the girls comment

Not personally a sore spot of mine, but I just find it curious that this specific... "priority" is repeatedly brought about in the typical dismissive "shut up and deal with it nub, this is just a game" post.

Like I said, it's quaint


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 angelofvengeance wrote:
If they were to hand over rules development to FFG and focus solely on making models and all the gubbinz like paint etc I wouldn't mind.

That would be something I'd heartily applaud - this partnership that would bring immense profit to both companies and exponentially increase the quality of the games themselves, thus becoming a major benefit for the community.

I would but that's because Tyranids are amazing and I don't really play 40k so much as imagine I might one day.

I'd be interested to see how well they do with actual pure modellers. From my anecdotal experience I've seen the ones I know occasionally buy GW models, mostly LotR and few of the more impressive 40k and Fantasy kits. They mostly stick to doing historical and modern vehicles especially Spitfires. The last model show I went to was like 25% Spitfires.

Wanna see spitfires with lazers and jet power?
http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/did-novan-spitefire.htm

I would still buy, I have not played 40k for ages but I have still been buying stuff.
The fluff will always be there and if they stopped making rules I suspect we would just use the one rules or adapt them from a another game.

I would not see it as a problem.

I'm with Vermis here (Hi V!). I use GW as another model company, to buy the figures and vehicles I like for a variety of games. Final decision is a combination of utility, price and aesthetic. Or pure minis lust, depending... :-)

Not a player of current 40k, so I'm not on the codex- and unit-upgrade treadmill. Taken like this, a lot of their core models are actually decent value. A squad of 40k troops is often a great skirmish force, with a lot of weapon choices.

What I'm not going to do is buy five of something just because it's good in-game. On the other hand, I do want a gaming model out of my efforts, so I won't buy, say, the new Tau suit just because it looks amazing

I do buy models that I never intend to play with, just because I want to build and paint them. Sometimes I'll invest in whole armies just for the fun of building and painting, and then sell em on ebay because I need the cash to start a new one

That being said, if it wasn't for the game I probably wouldn't buy any at all. I don't really get to play that often, but it's nice to have that option.