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 Blackie wrote:


Still, I think 9th is superior in any possible way except a couple things: there weren't massive models in those old editions (I despise massive models, lol)

Really? Cause this is a 2nd Ed era model.

 Blackie wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Don't confuse popularity with goodness!

I don't. But I know that good is subjective. What's good for you might not be good for others, maybe the majority. And vice versa.

But who's to say the majority knows what's best?

If something was created, marketed to a specific group for a specific reason, then suddenly charged to appeal to the majority. To that original group, those changes will not be seen as good.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah, but it could be. As you point out... It was.

Why should we celebrate the game being crap when it was once a good game?

It was never really a good game in my opinion, just the only kid on the block with attractive lore and setting and good friends to play with. I have been playing since 2nd edition with a break in 4th, and the game has always been a mess. If anything I would say that GW is only more structured now although it doesn't necessarily show in the end product.

I personally enjoy 9th a lot(especially Crusade) even if it is covered in warts and I couldn't imagine going back. If I'll go back for anything it would be with old Epic instead of the puddle of mud many of the older editions were. I think the only edition I might revisit for the lulz is second edition, but only because I love my second edition era of Warhammer, Shadowrun, and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Don't confuse popularity with goodness!

I don't. But I know that good is subjective. What's good for you might not be good for others, maybe the majority. And vice versa.

But who's to say the majority knows what's best?

If something was created, marketed to a specific group for a specific reason, then suddenly charged to appeal to the majority. To that original group, those changes will not be seen as good.

Still entirely subjective. You can't claim that your feelings towards a product are somehow immutable universal facts. In the end it is just you enjoying a certain product.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Don't confuse popularity with goodness!

I don't. But I know that good is subjective. What's good for you might not be good for others, maybe the majority. And vice versa.

But who's to say the majority knows what's best?

If something was created, marketed to a specific group for a specific reason, then suddenly charged to appeal to the majority. To that original group, those changes will not be seen as good.

Who's to say the minority knows what's best either?

Yes it's subjective but who's less in the wrong
If you had a group of people who where the big fans of the big red block and it drew other fans of the big red block life is good in the big red block group.

Now if all of a sudden other people are coming in and saying well let's have the block be blue, and let's make it a ball, that's great for the people who like the big blue ball. But not for the people that were the fans of the big red block. The problem is they are still saying they are ether big red block group, then everyone who's for the blue balls starts to tell everyone who likes the big red block they are the problem, that the big red block was never good, you just think the big red block was good and are only looking through your big red block goggles. If you don't like the big blue ball then you were never really a fan of the big red block to begin with. And if you bring up that the big blue ball is not that great and we should go back to the big red block, your just a grumpy old gamer who does not like change.

We see this all the time.

So who is really in the wrong here, the fans of the big red block that started the group because they like the big red block? Or the people in the big red block group that are all about the big blue ball.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Blackie wrote:


Still, I think 9th is superior in any possible way except a couple things: there weren't massive models in those old editions (I despise massive models, lol)

Really? Cause this is a 2nd Ed era model.

An incredibly limited edition gargant release, barely seen outside of inquisitor magazine is hardly a representation of what 2nd edition was about.

 auticus wrote:

I don't think most people realize how many people just buy the models to paint or collect and not really play the games.

Or play the game as an excuse to hang out with their friends and not care about balance or the end state of the game, just as long as they are socializing that is the end goal.

Yes that also, but there are a TON of people out there who don't play the game at all. They just like cool looking models to collect and paint. A lot of customers aren't in the GW eco system to play the game, they just like the models.

Dude I was a redshirt, I saw all kinds of different people come into the store to buy stuff. People who where there every Wed when the new stock came in, people who I would see once a month and make a 1000-1500 purchase and be back next month for new stuff to paint, little timmy and his moms creditcard, the turney guy who had to have the 'most competitive' army and all his games where 'for turney practice against the new guys', the normal guy who would buy a few things or just one or two things, people who just liked the novels and videogames and wanted nothing to do with the mini game.... GW has tons of different customers and not all of them are interested in the game.

GamesWorkshop is a model producer first and a 'game system' a distant second. The fact that they shill the game at every chance they get is just good business...imagine if people figured out that you could play GW games with non GW models or the other way around? That was the greatest trick GW ever pulled, you can only play GW games with GW models...

 Shuma-Gorath wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Blackie wrote:


Still, I think 9th is superior in any possible way except a couple things: there weren't massive models in those old editions (I despise massive models, lol)

Really? Cause this is a 2nd Ed era model.

An incredibly limited edition gargant release, barely seen outside of inquisitor magazine is hardly a representation of what 2nd edition was about.

The point was contradicting the specific statement made and you know it. That specific model could be swapped for any of the 2nd Ed Titans, BioTitans, or Baneblade chassis. Armorcast/Forgeworld US/Mike Biasi models were pretty common in 2nd Ed.

That's being woefully generous to people who just paint models.

"GW is a model company and a gaming company second" is a bygone notion. They are absolutely a gaming company that makes models for their game. The game is what drive that sales. You might have seen a lot of customers that bought models just to buy them, but that is just a fraction of the customer base. The primary audience now is hands down 100% the tournament player and GW is leaning hard I to making the game. They just also know for good practice and to make money it's best to make the game with rules that favor the newest hottest thing. Which that's not an issue if GW was decent at making rules. With some how since 5th, they have only managed to make things worse and worse with each editon.


Saying GW is a model company first and a gaming company second, would be like saying Tesla is a battery company first and a car company second.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Shuma-Gorath wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Blackie wrote:


Still, I think 9th is superior in any possible way except a couple things: there weren't massive models in those old editions (I despise massive models, lol)

Really? Cause this is a 2nd Ed era model.

An incredibly limited edition gargant release, barely seen outside of inquisitor magazine is hardly a representation of what 2nd edition was about.

The point was contradicting the specific statement made and you know it. Armorcast/Forgeworld US/Mike Biasi models were pretty common in 2nd Ed.

No they where not. I played from RT until the end of 98 when they switched over to 3rd, I NEVER saw a armourcast/Forgeword USA model. The community in Vancouver was pretty big at the time. This was when Mark Dance was placing in Golden Demon's era. The only time I even heard about 40k scale titans was a game they did at a UK games day where they did epic in 40k scale, with titans and marines/infantry on 5 man bases. The GW manager told me about it and showed me his pics he took of the game.
Owning Armourcast/Mike Basi/ Forgeworld USA was a pipe dream for most people because of the price and availability. That is VERY disingenuous to say those models where 'common' during second edition era.

To be fair both of you are using anicdotoal evidence.

I could say "well I have never seen titans before so they are not common in 40k and I live in an area with 3 golden daemon painters" yet just the town over they literally play Titanicus with full scale titans.

When I started I never saw FW models, now FW is common as Marines in my area.

Just because you do or do not see them does not mean they are or are not prevelent.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
That's being woefully generous to people who just paint models.

"GW is a model company and a gaming company second" is a bygone notion. They are absolutely a gaming company that makes models for their game. The game is what drive that sales. You might have seen a lot of customers that bought models just to buy them, but that is just a fraction of the customer base. The primary audience now is hands down 100% the tournament player and GW is leaning hard I to making the game. They just also know for good practice and to make money it's best to make the game with rules that favor the newest hottest thing. Which that's not an issue if GW was decent at making rules. With some how since 5th, they have only managed to make things worse and worse with each editon.


Saying GW is a model company first and a gaming company second, would be like saying Tesla is a battery company first and a car company second.

On the other hand, maybe you are also being woefully generous to people who play the game.

The large majority of the players do not really care about the quality of the rules. They may complain about it, but still will continue buying miniatures when the new hottest thing favors them.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
To be fair both of you are using anicdotoal evidence.

I could say "well I have never seen titans before so they are not common in 40k and I live in an area with 3 golden daemon painters" yet just the town over they literally play Titanicus with full scale titans.

When I started I never saw FW models, now FW is common as Marines in my area.

Just because you do or do not see them does not mean they are or are not prevelent.

I think this is what they are doing so im right.... We are both coming off of anecdotal evidence. This has been GW's modus operandi since day one. PUSH models. Do you really think GW cares what you do with the models once you walk out of the store? Do you really think they care if you come back and buy more? Do you think they care if you show up to the weekend tournament? Not in the least. They made their money, if you bought a 2000 point army every week and walked out of the store and binned it GW wouldn't care in the least, the only thing they would of wished for is if you bought some h-h-hobby supplies, paint, glue and "Do you have a WD sub?:.

They can target a specific demographic in their target audience like they used to do with 'little timmy' one birthday, one christmas then push them out of the store was the model back then. It might be now 'target the tournament player' with CCG style churn and burn rules, that doesn't mean that the collectors have stopped buying new stuff. That doesn't mean 'the little timmys' have stopped buying stuff. They might want to target and court the churn and burn players who will buy a new 2000 point turney army ever 6 months ( and that kind of person does exist now) but that's not their backbone of sales. Look how well the hardcore turney approach worked for PP ( then again it did for a while until PP thought they where the next GW with 3.0 rules LOL).

Do I think they care if you buy more....yes in fact that's 100% provable by the furvor at which they go after recasters or 3rd party modelers, I'd they did not care if you bought more why the hell would they go to all that effort lol.

Like I don't like to argue but you are 100% wrong in this GW absolutely care about all of those things because all those things transfer into money and profit.

If they only cares about someone buying a few models and dipping out they would go outta business fast. This is why the game and the rules are important it's what gives people a reason to buy the models and the kits, to play the game, which is why they should car eid the rules are not good. I'd the rules are not good, then no one will want to play, if people don't wanna play, no one will want to buy models for a game they won't play save for that very small group or peoe who just like to paint and model.

And yes the tournament players absolutely are their backbone currently. The tournament plays are the ones that drop 300+ USD at a time to get the new army, it's the same thing with magic, and gw is captilizing in that same competitive crowd.
The game is 100% shifting toward mostly competitive play now, that's the market, little Timmy and the hobby painter are just icing on the cake.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The churn and burn army is definitely the big dog in the room now, that's the driver behind the sales because GW has just blatantly shifted to power creep and the competitive crowd is all about playing what wins.

GW knows this, and is leaning into it hard, buffing the underselling/unpopular armies to boost them. Watch you are gonna see so many people now are gonna be rocking Tau and eldar again.

I wish they catored toward more hobby and narrative aspect but, gw is all about the dollar dollar bills and the comeptsrive scene is where it is at.


This is why I say GW absolutely cares about the rules because the rules are the tools and method on which they sell their models, to the competitive crowd. They care if these rules are good or bad, it's why we got the revamp of 8th in the first place. If they did not care about the rules they would have just kepts the 7th Ed rule set and called it good

I disagree on the terms, they care if the rules are strong or weak, because people buy models with strong rules. But they do not really care if the rules are good or bad.

Quality =/= power.

 Ordana wrote:
really? so why did they give normal marines 2 wounds then? If the objective was purely to sell new Primaris kits they wouldn't have had reason to change old-marines.

In a 2 damage meta having 1 wound is actually good.

Given that they never changed csm it was definitely about pushing loyalist marines overall.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyran wrote:
I disagree on the terms, they care if the rules are strong or weak, because people buy models with strong rules. But they do not really care if the rules are good or bad.

Quality =/= power.

Sure, but that just meand those customers have objectively bad opinions.

 Tyran wrote:
I disagree on the terms, they care if the rules are strong or weak, because people buy models with strong rules. But they do not really care if the rules are good or bad.

Quality =/= power.

This is more accurate. They want to make units powerful to sell them, that does not mean good as in enjoyable

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Yes it's subjective but who's less in the wrong
If you had a group of people who where the big fans of the big red block and it drew other fans of the big red block life is good in the big red block group.

Now if all of a sudden other people are coming in and saying well let's have the block be blue, and let's make it a ball, that's great for the people who like the big blue ball. But not for the people that were the fans of the big red block. The problem is they are still saying they are ether big red block group, then everyone who's for the blue balls starts to tell everyone who likes the big red block they are the problem, that the big red block was never good, you just think the big red block was good and are only looking through your big red block goggles. If you don't like the big blue ball then you were never really a fan of the big red block to begin with. And if you bring up that the big blue ball is not that great and we should go back to the big red block, your just a grumpy old gamer who does not like change.

We see this all the time.

So who is really in the wrong here, the fans of the big red block that started the group because they like the big red block? Or the people in the big red block group that are all about the big blue ball.

This is a very convoluted way of putting up who likes what edition. Neither group - or rather no group as this is a layered issue with no binary option - is wrong or right. I might like current edition but I still miss 24" range on Shuriken Catapults. I still miss the old edition art even if I don't miss most of the old edition rules, and every edition has something I liked about it even if I have no interest in revisiting it, so I guess I belong to a rainbow Unicorn group as I have enjoyed every single edition except 4th(the one I took a vacation on). In the end nobody is right. None of us can claim ownership over GW property and therefore have no say or vote in what happens except by either spending money or not.

Now, the issue I think is more prevalent is that there are people who want to enjoy the current game while a group wants to do nothing but complain(or so it would appear to passerbys). The thing is, if the same group of people complain in every single thread it can poisons the well. People are excited about models and new rules and whatnot, but then negative voices start rearing their head and you suddenly just can't be bothered with people. It's why TGA forums have policies on excessive naysaying as it just drives people away and creates a toxic environment. Reddit is different because of the upvote and downvote system which then gives you an idea of the general consensus. Dakkadakka has nothing of those which is why many threads on certain sub-forums do devolve into miserable grognard naysaying. Personally I cut out a lot of the negative talk just by blocking people and it made Dakkadakka a much better experience.

Who knows, maybe Dakkadakka can create sub-forums for older editions so everyone can be happy. I think that would be ideal and would perhaps even reinvigorate interest in older editions better than the perpetual "No your edition sucks" back and forth a lot of talk seems to become. A lot of people enjoy 9th and that won't change no matter how people complain and say that edition X was better.

However, rose-tinted glasses are a thing. There is nothing wrong with wearing those glasses and if you do just own it and enjoy what you want. I have rose-tinted glasses towards Epic 40k and will die on that hill with those glasses on. Best game ever.

And yes the tournament players absolutely are their backbone currently. The tournament plays are the ones that drop 300+ USD at a time to get the new army, it's the same thing with magic, and gw is captilizing in that same competitive crowd.

Although I agree that GW is eyeing that tourney money I do think that they are just not doing enough to seal the deal in regards to it. Their app is atrocious, their point adjustments are several months out of date, and their rules are very much divided complicating things. If they want to go for true tournament money they really need to fix the basics.

Its not just "no your edition sucks" its that for a giant swathe of gamers, once the new edition drops, thats the ONLY edition. So its more than "no your edition sucks" its "this is now the only thing that exists for most people, like it or gtfo"

The big red block and blue ball analogy are totally apt to me. If you fell in love with the concepts of a game, and then suddenly it gets yanked and replaced with something else, it sucks.

Nothing stops anyone from keeping on with the older edition, the big red block. Except that in many places you'll be playing with yourself.

Not because the blue ball or new edition or whatever is better, but because to many (i'll say most) its the only viable living option.

People like living editions, they like getting new rules.

And it doesn't help that GW always has sucked at codex balance so even older editions with better core rules were still a mess when it cames to Codexes. E.g I know many loved the 5th edition, but I'm not playing 5th edition Tyranids even if you paid me.

 Eldarsif wrote:
Although I agree that GW is eyeing that tourney money I do think that they are just not doing enough to seal the deal in regards to it. Their app is atrocious, their point adjustments are several months out of date, and their rules are very much divided complicating things. If they want to go for true tournament money they really need to fix the basics.

Because they are *drumroll* incompetent.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Spoiler:

Do I think they care if you buy more....yes in fact that's 100% provable by the furvor at which they go after recasters or 3rd party modelers, I'd they did not care if you bought more why the hell would they go to all that effort lol.

Like I don't like to argue but you are 100% wrong in this GW absolutely care about all of those things because all those things transfer into money and profit.

If they only cares about someone buying a few models and dipping out they would go outta business fast. This is why the game and the rules are important it's what gives people a reason to buy the models and the kits, to play the game, which is why they should car eid the rules are not good. I'd the rules are not good, then no one will want to play, if people don't wanna play, no one will want to buy models for a game they won't play save for that very small group or peoe who just like to paint and model.

And yes the tournament players absolutely are their backbone currently. The tournament plays are the ones that drop 300+ USD at a time to get the new army, it's the same thing with magic, and gw is captilizing in that same competitive crowd.
The game is 100% shifting toward mostly competitive play now, that's the market, little Timmy and the hobby painter are just icing on the cake.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The churn and burn army is definitely the big dog in the room now, that's the driver behind the sales because GW has just blatantly shifted to power creep and the competitive crowd is all about playing what wins.

GW knows this, and is leaning into it hard, buffing the underselling/unpopular armies to boost them. Watch you are gonna see so many people now are gonna be rocking Tau and eldar again.

I wish they catored toward more hobby and narrative aspect but, gw is all about the dollar dollar bills and the comeptsrive scene is where it is at.


This is why I say GW absolutely cares about the rules because the rules are the tools and method on which they sell their models, to the competitive crowd. They care if these rules are good or bad, it's why we got the revamp of 8th in the first place. If they did not care about the rules they would have just kepts the 7th Ed rule set and called it good

Please don't post while drunk, you're making yourself look worse than normal.

This is also why I think there needs to be more people that do things like pro hammer.

I really really hope, like really hope, that GW approaches HH this way. Preserves the rules as they are, does not change the core of them, but slightly alters them to simply streamline them and cut back on duplicate rules.
Because it really does suck when you got into 40k for the older style rules. Because you can look back and largely the rules did not change between 3rd and 7th. The core wya the game was played was maintained, new things got added, but there was little "over haul, like we saw in 8th.
I and a lot of people like that older version of Warhammer it's just a lot more fun imo, and it sucks basically investing literally $1000s into this hobby, having an entire room of my house devoted to it, and now having one of the major aspects of it, the game, turned completly around on me, and the only supported version of the game is HH, not that I hate HH by any means. It just sucks investing in the hobby only to be shoved into a shoe box and put aside.

and it sucks basically investing literally $1000s into this hobby, having an entire room of my house devoted to it, and now having one of the major aspects of it, the game, turned completly around on me,

Indeed. I moved last year after owning my house nearly 20 years and I had three full rooms dedicated to my wargaming hobby. All of it a testament to burn and churn and having to keep up with the hotness to keep enjoying the game.

I was able to sell some of it, donate some of it, but some I had to trash because I couldn't even give it away because the rules for those models were currently horrible.

I had 18 fully painted armies of 3000-5000 points (or in case of my chaos collection, about 20,000 points lol).

It was both painful and a massive relief when that last gw army hit the dumpster because while it can be argued i got my money out of it through years of playing... what i had fallen in love with is not represented in even the tiniest form today in either of their games.

But thats also ok. Letting go of the physical product and now just perusing these forums to watch it continue moving along without costing me is where I prefer to be today

One day I may after I finish releasing my fantasy ruleset on steam do something where I can collect 40k models and play around with them again, but Battletech has my sci fi attention right now.

I think this is the hardest part, if people are not even taking a painted army for free because the collection does not fit the current meta

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I really really hope, like really hope, that GW approaches HH this way.

for this I hope GW leaves HH untouched as whenever they try to improve it just gets worse

 Tyran wrote:
People like living editions, they like getting new rules.

people like living editions as in "improvements over the previous ones with new models/units added" and not "reset the game to a new version with the same name whenever we have messed it up"

Oh yeah I don't want them to mess with HH much if at all.

If anything I really would love it if they did what they were doing in 8th and putting out beta rules for people to try like that was amazing.

Like maybe hey, unit x feels kinda bad I'm HH, here is a beta rule, go out and play it, send feed back and we will see how it works if it's good, official rules, If not, remove it.

 Tyran wrote:
I disagree on the terms, they care if the rules are strong or weak, because people buy models with strong rules. But they do not really care if the rules are good or bad.

Quality =/= power.

Why did they fix most of my issues with 8th or clean up the flaws BCB found? RAW being wacky, unchargable units, FNP taking forever to resolve...

 Ordana wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:
Although I agree that GW is eyeing that tourney money I do think that they are just not doing enough to seal the deal in regards to it. Their app is atrocious, their point adjustments are several months out of date, and their rules are very much divided complicating things. If they want to go for true tournament money they really need to fix the basics.

Because they are *drumroll* incompetent.

In short, yes, but I think the problem is more ingrained than anything else. GW could actually listen to playtesters, hire game developers who want a competitive game, and more, but they choose not to. A part of me wonders if GW kind of suffers from "Old Guard" syndrome, ie. veteran workers who are just stuck in an old mindset that resists change and the current times. I have some experiences with that mindset in my career and it is an interesting thing to witness.

Now, I do think that GW is trying to evolve and with the promise of more frequent FAQ and CA two times a year it is evident that they want to change to meet a demanding environment. The problem is that the steps they are taking would have been relevant 5-7 years ago. Also, much like many book publishers, they appear often simply afraid of how fast the world is moving and are holding with crooked hand at the last vestige of what they think they can control. I think this is mostly evident in the fact that they seem unwilling to hire or properly finance proper app developers which should be a straightforward thing in today's fast evolving world.

Third problem is that we have no clear indication of how meddlesome the money people are in the entire pipeline, which is evident in some of the discourse here. I am actually curious that no one that has worked within GW walls has actually opened up about the practices within except that one AT developer and HR person a few months(year?) back. Although I can understand it as hobby industries like these are a close knit community and you don't want to alienate future work.

The fourth issue, and one I have experiences in the videogame industry is simply that the release schedules are such highly sacrosanct events that even if the developers wanted to listen properly to playtesters and change ruling they simply couldn't do to the pressure of meeting deadlines. In the game industry, with digital releases, this is more often than not circumvented with day one hot-fixes and robust release systems, but with paper releases that is nigh impossible. Which is why GW really needs to embrace the digital sooner rather than later.

None of this is meant to excuse shoddy work, but as a thought experiment on why GW is how GW is. I have no doubt that the people making the rules and models are hardworking people who want to do their best, but somewhere in the pipeline things seem to derail rather quickly as GW releases something like Drukhari. I can only imagine that the money people or some cult of personalities are interfering. Who knows, certainly not me.

 Eldarsif wrote:

 Ordana wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:
Although I agree that GW is eyeing that tourney money I do think that they are just not doing enough to seal the deal in regards to it. Their app is atrocious, their point adjustments are several months out of date, and their rules are very much divided complicating things. If they want to go for true tournament money they really need to fix the basics.

Because they are *drumroll* incompetent.

In short, yes, but I think the problem is more ingrained than anything else. GW could actually listen to playtesters, hire game developers who want a competitive game, and more, but they choose not to. A part of me wonders if GW kind of suffers from "Old Guard" syndrome, ie. veteran workers who are just stuck in an old mindset that resists change and the current times. I have some experiences with that mindset in my career and it is an interesting thing to witness.

Now, I do think that GW is trying to evolve and with the promise of more frequent FAQ and CA two times a year it is evident that they want to change to meet a demanding environment. The problem is that the steps they are taking would have been relevant 5-7 years ago. Also, much like many book publishers, they appear often simply afraid of how fast the world is moving and are holding with crooked hand at the last vestige of what they think they can control. I think this is mostly evident in the fact that they seem unwilling to hire or properly finance proper app developers which should be a straightforward thing in today's fast evolving world.

Third problem is that we have no clear indication of how meddlesome the money people are in the entire pipeline, which is evident in some of the discourse here. I am actually curious that no one that has worked within GW walls has actually opened up about the practices within except that one AT developer and HR person a few months(year?) back. Although I can understand it as hobby industries like these are a close knit community and you don't want to alienate future work.

The fourth issue, and one I have experiences in the videogame industry is simply that the release schedules are such highly sacrosanct events that even if the developers wanted to listen properly to playtesters and change ruling they simply couldn't do to the pressure of meeting deadlines. In the game industry, with digital releases, this is more often than not circumvented with day one hot-fixes and robust release systems, but with paper releases that is nigh impossible. Which is why GW really needs to embrace the digital sooner rather than later.

None of this is meant to excuse shoddy work, but as a thought experiment on why GW is how GW is. I have no doubt that the people making the rules and models are hardworking people who want to do their best, but somewhere in the pipeline things seem to derail rather quickly as GW releases something like Drukhari. I can only imagine that the money people or some cult of personalities are interfering. Who knows, certainly not me.

Yeah, Agree with basically all of this, there is without a doubt a giant Old Guard problem within GW.

But at the same time there also appears to be a lack of oversight and management in the studio. Big differences in codex quality and balance based on seemingly nothing more then whoever happened to write the codex.

GW is damn lucky they are in a business with such monstrous inertia behind it due to needing to play against other people in person with expensive physical armies because if the miniature wargaming market was actually competitive they would have been buried years ago.

 FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:


No they where not. I played from RT until the end of 98 when they switched over to 3rd, I NEVER saw a armourcast/Forgeword USA model. The community in Vancouver was pretty big at the time. This was when Mark Dance was placing in Golden Demon's era. The only time I even heard about 40k scale titans was a game they did at a UK games day where they did epic in 40k scale, with titans and marines/infantry on 5 man bases. The GW manager told me about it and showed me his pics he took of the game.
Owning Armourcast/Mike Basi/ Forgeworld USA was a pipe dream for most people because of the price and availability. That is VERY disingenuous to say those models where 'common' during second edition era.

OK, so they weren't common in Vancouver & you were all poor/unwilling to pay the asking price.


Meanwhile, here in Ohio USA? Especially on the tables of shops near universities?
They weren't all that uncommon. Though, just as with today's stupid expensive FW stuff, there were "tiers". The smaller pieces - the Wave Serpents, the Falcons, the drop pods, the tyranid things, the ork Spleen-bustas or whatever they were called, etc? Those were pretty normal sights on tables. Wouldn't break your budget either.
Then you had the superheavy guard tanks & the Warhounds. And finally in the "rare" catagory we had the Reiver titans, Phantoms, & the Mega-Gargant.
But they were all present & being played.....