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Well, people are complaining that the Space Wolves are overusing the word "wolf", so now we can overuse "murder" instead! Genius!

I'm all for wordplay. I mean, Ultramarines are literally marines with an ultramarine color. Murderfang is just... that's not wordplay. It's putting two words together.

WayneTheGame wrote:

Come on, pretend you're 12 years old. Wouldn't you want MURDERFANG, from OMNICIDE, and murder things with MURDERCLAWS and MURDERLUST?

Clearly I'm just taking my man dollies too seriously.

Its why I'm glad the Salamanders didn't get their own codex. Otherwise we'd be stuck with a Drake Lord riding a MagmaDrake wielding a Dragonhammer, while wearing a Drakescale cloak and Belt of Draconic. Drake.

To tie this tangent back to the topic, the fluff certainly isn't getting any better. While the rules have had a previous decline in quality, the fluff has often not been met with as much criticism in recent books. The latest Guard dex read like a catalogue than a primer into the history of the Guard.

Well, and then the tragedy of the Space Wolves now. I'm still baffled why they got a new flyer when giving them the stormraven/talon would make so much more sense.

Oh wait, I do know.

Money.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
From the planet Omnicide.

Murderface Murderface Murderface.

Come on, pretend you're 12 years old. Wouldn't you want MURDERFANG, from OMNICIDE, and murder things with MURDERCLAWS and MURDERLUST?

I think even at 12 I'd be finding that a bit childish, whilst trying to pretend I'm mega mature. But then I turned 12 nearly 20 years ago.

sand.zzz wrote:Does 40k really need GW to survive? It seems to me that 40k is bigger than Games Workshop. Perhaps GW going under would be the best thing to happen to 40k in a long time. It would certainly continue to exist, and chances are it would be under more competent management. I cant speak for everyone here, but I feel the same way about GW as they do all of us: couldnt care less. The game will live on, let GW burn.

The problem is that 40K players, on the whole, need (and want) to be spoon-fed their gaming experience. ("Here comes the flying viking bathtub into the fortress-monastery! Neeaaaooooww!") I've seen too many utterly abandon the game and completely sell up their sizeable collections, as if it were the most natural thing to do, because they take a dislike to one ultimately ignorable aspect of the game. Similarly, they dismiss other games as 'dead' because they're unsupported. Read: the rules are more complete and balanced than 40K has a hope to ever be, but gamers, particularly GW fans, ignore them because there's no churn of new editions and new models with the intent to rifle through a gamer's pockets. It actually disturbs me, a wee bit, to see many of those fans claim their games of choice are vibrant and alive because of this, and to see them say they'd leave wargaming altogether if GW went under. It makes me think that they're not really in it for the gaming (as opposed to... pushing action figures of their favourite saturday morning cartoon around), and that Alan Merrett wasn't entirely inaccurate about the GW hobby.

Point being, if you thought the exodus from 6th and 7th was bad... hoo boy. If GW goes under I think 40K won't be long in following it. I'd predict that most current 40K players will drop it like a hot potato, because of the sudden lack of churn and the perceived... stigma, almost... of a dead game. By the time some buyer fishes out the body and gives it the kiss of life, most will have moved on. If they (necessarily, I think) create what amounts to a new edition of the game, a lot of those who look back will be turned off by new edition syndrome. (Along with a dollop of scepticism about how well the new guys can even do compared to beloved GW) Especially if they actually turn it into a good, balanced, tactical game, because the necessary scale of those changes will frighten off even more of GW's old devotees. See the demise of Space Marine/Epic when the Epic 40,000 edition came about, to a degree that - IMO - Epic: Armageddon (a quite good game if I say so meself) couldn't draw enough of them back. (Among other factors that affected that last edition)

There will be players of a revamped 40K, just like there are still players of Epic 40K and E:A, in one form or another. But I think that, initially at least, the numbers will be so low that it'll be right back at square one, and will have to compete more directly with all those games and gaming companies that've sprung up lately, and any others that will inevitably appear to fill their corner of the void left by the collapse of GW's original version of 40K. If the new owners try to continue on as GW did, and don't take enough steps to tighten the rules or improve the pricing structure, it'll be an uphill battle and likely kill 40K as a commercial venture altogether.

heartserenade wrote:

 Vermis wrote:
They'd be the best compromise or balance between quality+style and cheap production

Slightly off topic, but Shieldwolf miniatures has a range of good plastic Mountain Orcs.

Well, they have a range of some kind of anthropomorphic crocodile-men.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not white-knighting GW orcs. Looking at fantasy as a whole, I actually prefer more Tolkien-esque orcs, like those produced by Wargames Factory. I just don't think the WF orcs are as good as they could be. ('Specially with those lego-hands) So I'm not impressed that Shieldwolf to the green, bucket-jawed gorilla trope and ran with it, adding even more grimdark fangs and a strange mouth-head-split to accommodate them, arguably making them less generic, and looking like Warhammer's version of South Park canadians.

Herzlos wrote:None of the new systems written by the old guard have the same problems as GW books. Hail Caesar is a bit Narrativey

Only in that it initially eschewed points costs and listbuilding in favour of scenarios and historical orders of battle, IMO! (That lasted long in a post-GW gaming environment)

(being that it's actually designed as a beer and pretsel game - with appropriate complexity)

Well, it's written in a friendlier style, open to houseruling, and a bit simpler and more intuitive, but...

...but it's still much better written than WHFB. So the problem isn't with the designers themselves.

... this. It's more balanced and deeper, IMO. It might depend on what exactly your definition of 'beer 'n' pretzels' is, but while I agree HC is uncluttered enough for the most casual, line-up-n-charge gaming, it's also capable of handling larger, more involved battles thanks to that, + less skewed and more tactical mechanics.

So... er... let's make that somewhat on-topic: I agree! Some of the old guys coming back could streamline and mature GW's games a lot, if that's what they wanted to do. (Kids have a lot of pester power these days)

 liquidjoshi wrote:
I won't shed a tear for GW, as long as someone picks up the 40K IP and uses it properly.

Bring the prices down to reasonable levels, invest in earning back the community's goodwill - and hang Kirby out to dry, if necessary.

Bringing prices down is not really realistic.
We can only hope for moderate price increases in the near future.

I think you can hope for no price increases for a year or two and some bundle deals that effectively give you a discount but
are expensive in themselves.

New models will continue to be the focus for high pricing.

To expand and clarify, I think we are seeing this already.

Well that's fair. I actually fancy Tolkien-esque orcs as well and would've bought a bunch from GWs LotR line if they weren't so damn expensive for freaking monopose plastics (and not to mention being slightly smaller because of the 25mm scale). I also like the wild look of Shieldwolf orcs, and my point is that they are more or less comparable to GW orcs (indeed they can even blend in with a GW orc army). Other companies will be more or less tapping to fantasy models and they'll produce them in customizable plastics, and GW will lose an advantage.


I agree with WGF, though: I would like to like their work (especially the Viking/Saxon line), but quality-wise it's a slight miss for me.

 heartserenade wrote:
my point is that they are more or less comparable to GW orcs (indeed they can even blend in with a GW orc army). Other companies will be more or less tapping to fantasy models and they'll produce them in customizable plastics, and GW will lose an advantage.

Oh yes! Forgot to say that I agree with you there. My own dislike of Shieldwolf orcs is like someone saying GW is perfectly fine because their one local GW store is packed. Far from the full story, and not very relevant to it. Shieldwolf orcs are still a viable alternative to GW's style and especially prices.

Murderfang reminds me of this:
edit: spoilered for minor swearing
[Spoiled or not, that's a no-go here. - Alpharius]

Well, I just saw this and figured "Hey, replace EA with TK and you're there".

Well, EA did say that the problem with dungeon keeper mobile was that "they innovated too much" which is something I could easily imagine Kirby saying wrt Dreadfleet.

edit: Alphanazi!

Nice to see that the white knights have not completely given up hope.

Though that cavalry charge was lookin' mighty thin on the ground.... I think even most of the paladins have realized the GW is having problems.

The Auld Grump

I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".

Personally I feel the release pace has hurt the game. Someone pointed out earlier but I'll reiterate as a tournament player primarily. Books releasing every 2 months isn't good for 40k. Release them all together or release them 6 months apart. The reasoning is that most people don't have the time to build the new hotness or are reticent to do so because it could be invalidated before they take the shrink wrap off their boxes. The "meta" doesn't have time to settle between codexes and leads a feel of rock/paper/scissor.

The release schedule combined with the book price hike severly curtailed my spending. I think I spent more on the Wrath of Kings kickstarter to get everything so I could start to build a local community than I did on GW in the last year.

I don't want 40k to go away. I'm not as confident as some others that being bought out would be best either for a variety of reasons. I don't want awesome GW kits to go away. There is currently 1 set of models that compare in plastic to GW 40k kits and that is Dream Forge's stuff (though mantic's space zombies look pretty good and I haven't dug into mine to check yet).

Anywho fingers crossed they can right the ship. It's happened before so maybe it can happen again. Locally 7th re-ignited 40k pretty heavily so hopefully off the internet it's done the same and we'll start to see some of those results in the next 6 months.

 Hulksmash wrote:
I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".

In general though it's only blatant dismissal of criticism as "haters" or the like that gets met with "white knighting". Just very few of the pro-GW people offer any real evidence or insight beyond "40k is booming in my area, so everything is fine" or "I think the price is fair" and then it tends to degenerate into attacks on the people who don't think GW is fine. That's always the case; the anti-GW crowd actually reference reasons, the pro-GW crowd just says "Looks fine to me!" without backing anything up...

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".

In general though it's only blatant dismissal of criticism as "haters" or the like that gets met with "white knighting". Just very few of the pro-GW people offer any real evidence or insight beyond "40k is booming in my area, so everything is fine" or "I think the price is fair" and then it tends to degenerate into attacks on the people who don't think GW is fine. That's always the case; the anti-GW crowd actually reference reasons, the pro-GW crowd just says "Looks fine to me!" without backing anything up...

My experience in this thread is pretty much exact opposite...

On the basis that a picture is worth a thousand words, I submit the following.


This is the same chart rolled forward that I have been posting for, ooh 7 or 8 years now, probably longer, basically every time this topic comes up when GW publishes their results. I would have done this much earlier, but I was out the country with lousy internet access, so didn't have the chance and now pretty much everything I would have said already (which basically aligns with Rheinholt, although from a slightly different perspective - he has far greater investment analysis and business turnaround experience than me, my own experience comes more from being in business management). In my opinion, this year's results continue to vindicate what has been a long term trend, evident since the mid 'noughties" to those of us with any basic accounting or business understanding, that GW have a big problem in terms of volume sales decline. White Knights have naysayed it, but the maths simply do not lie. All I have done is discount their published turnover and retained profit figures with the official UK inflation rate to give a "current cost" (or rather 1997 cost as it is easier to calculate ) I picked 1997 as that is as far back as I have records for. Basically the dark blue line shows their turnover in 1997 pounds, and the dark red line shows the same for profit. The trends are obvious, and need no explanation surely.

Again, I will also add my usual caveat that I am not worried or bothered about GW making a profit. That is what they should and rightly should do. What I *am* worried about is GW driving the WFB, 40k and LotR hobbies into the ground and harming the gamers' experience and therefore their long term customer base in pursuit of (non-existent?) short term excessive profits. To that end GW collapsing in some way as a viable company is a potential problem because that event may take the game with it. The longer and further their downward trend in "real" turnover continues, the more and more likely this point comes. As others who have crunched the numbers above have demonstrated, this may come in the next 2 years.

I will say that back in 2004 I originally predicted GW's demise in some form in 2008. Clearly they are still around, so am I simply a doom monger? My response is, I didn't forsee the drastic cost cutting they were able to undertake in 2007, I had expected them to be less successful than they were in that year, although they still made a loss, but it dug them out of a hole, and they were rescued also by some really fortuitous and massive exchange rate changes following the financial crisis of 2008, so I claim this was because of "unknown unknowns", and I was right about the underlying picture. It is clear though that unless something similarly fortuitous and unexpected occurs (and I have no idea and will not speculate about what those may be - heck, who knows, they may crack that secret formula!), there will be "Bad Things" happening at Lenton over the next 18 to 24 months. And also it has to be said that GW *has* died in many ways already - certainly WD, SG, metal models, community interaction,and lots of other things have all died because GW could no longer afford them. To me now, GW is a zombie gaming company - it makes toys for brand addicts, not games for gamers.

The point for me is to see and understand what is going on at GW, and make you you and your mates make informed judgements accordingly, particularly with your hard earned cash! What those judgements are are down to you - and will depend on your take on life and gaming.

Personally I feel the release pace has hurt the game. Someone pointed out earlier but I'll reiterate as a tournament player primarily. Books releasing every 2 months isn't good for 40k. Release them all together or release them 6 months apart. The reasoning is that most people don't have the time to build the new hotness or are reticent to do so because it could be invalidated before they take the shrink wrap off their boxes. The "meta" doesn't have time to settle between codexes and leads a feel of rock/paper/scissor.

For the tournament player, this seems to be the hell. The meta is shifting too fast and the players cannot keep up with the pace. List building as a major part of gaming has too many parameters to take into account at the moment.

Backfire wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".

In general though it's only blatant dismissal of criticism as "haters" or the like that gets met with "white knighting". Just very few of the pro-GW people offer any real evidence or insight beyond "40k is booming in my area, so everything is fine" or "I think the price is fair" and then it tends to degenerate into attacks on the people who don't think GW is fine. That's always the case; the anti-GW crowd actually reference reasons, the pro-GW crowd just says "Looks fine to me!" without backing anything up...

My experience in this thread is pretty much exact opposite...

Can you cite an example of this opposite experience, where a pro-GW member references a reason and an anti-GW member claims we're doomed with no basis?

 Osbad wrote:
On the basis that a picture is worth a thousand words, I submit the following.


GW is a zombie gaming company - it makes toys for brand addicts, not games for gamers.

Exalted.

Okay, guess it was time to elaborate on why I keep saying what I am saying. Most of the time these trends can be tracked overall based on changes of sales growth once the downward trend starts. Assuming GW maintains a similar change ratio YoY from this point forward (YoY growth change plus acceleration rate of 7.9%) this chart shows the picture.

Year Revenues Growth Change
2011 £123.1 N/A
2012 £131.0 +6.4
2013 £134.6 +2.7
2014 £123.5 -11.6
2015 £ 99.4 -19.5 Cost target to profit: £86.8m - cut from previous year £21.2m
2016 £ 72.2 -27.4 Cost target to profit: £63.1m - cut from previous year £23.7m (total from present £44.9m)
2017 £ 46.7 -35.3 Cost target to profit: £40.8m - cut from previous year £22.3m (total from present £67.2m)

The problem with viewing longer term trends is founded in the assumptions that the factors that comprise those trends maintain themselves going forward. What is important to try and identify is when those underlying factors have begun to crumble, and once that happens, the previous trends no longer apply and the factors of collapse are taken into account. We probably could have done a ten year analysis on TSR and said things are going to always be the same, right up until the last two years of there collapse. Same with Wang Computer, Digital Equipment, and other similar companies at this point in existence.

Given that GW is really down to their two core product lines, released their "heavy hitter" products over the last year and still experienced a sizable decline against a market that is growing, and do not have an unusual circumstance, such as the LOTR bubble popping, I think it is safe to say the crux has been crossed.

The numbers above reflect a consistent decline based on change in sales growth and the current 7.9% change acceleration rate. However, history has shown this is rarely going to be the case and the acceleration rate should increase year over year. The numbers above are only if GW doesn't continue to screw things up any worse than they are, but the last few months have already shown they are "doubling down" on the strategy that got them to this point - so I do not expect this to change. The cost cutting required to keep their heads above water should this turn out to be true, will be impossible to keep ahead off (the cuts are just too deep) and, even if they do, they will be cutting into necessary costs to obtain the revenue in the first place so will only accelerate the decline.

Anyway, take this for what it is worth. Just my predictions based on my experience and nothing more. This is why I say, however, that if they end up this coming year around the £100m mark (slightly higher or lower) they are in full out collapse and nothing is going to stop it at that point.

 Wayshuba wrote:
I think it is safe to say the crux has been crossed.

agree with everything you say, just found that to be a tad awkward. "The Rubicon has been crossed" is in line with your intentions. (although who knows if they will get away with it, like caesar did!)

Sorry to be nit-picky on the internet, i mean it only to add further weight to your statement.

 Vermis wrote:

sand.zzz wrote:Does 40k really need GW to survive? It seems to me that 40k is bigger than Games Workshop. Perhaps GW going under would be the best thing to happen to 40k in a long time. It would certainly continue to exist, and chances are it would be under more competent management. I cant speak for everyone here, but I feel the same way about GW as they do all of us: couldnt care less. The game will live on, let GW burn.

The problem is that 40K players, on the whole, need (and want) to be spoon-fed their gaming experience. ("Here comes the flying viking bathtub into the fortress-monastery! Neeaaaooooww!") I've seen too many utterly abandon the game and completely sell up their sizeable collections, as if it were the most natural thing to do, because they take a dislike to one ultimately ignorable aspect of the game. Similarly, they dismiss other games as 'dead' because they're unsupported. Read: the rules are more complete and balanced than 40K has a hope to ever be, but gamers, particularly GW fans, ignore them because there's no churn of new editions and new models with the intent to rifle through a gamer's pockets. It actually disturbs me, a wee bit, to see many of those fans claim their games of choice are vibrant and alive because of this, and to see them say they'd leave wargaming altogether if GW went under. It makes me think that they're not really in it for the gaming (as opposed to... pushing action figures of their favourite saturday morning cartoon around), and that Alan Merrett wasn't entirely inaccurate about the GW hobby.

Point being, if you thought the exodus from 6th and 7th was bad... hoo boy. If GW goes under I think 40K won't be long in following it. I'd predict that most current 40K players will drop it like a hot potato, because of the sudden lack of churn and the perceived... stigma, almost... of a dead game. By the time some buyer fishes out the body and gives it the kiss of life, most will have moved on. If they (necessarily, I think) create what amounts to a new edition of the game, a lot of those who look back will be turned off by new edition syndrome. (Along with a dollop of scepticism about how well the new guys can even do compared to beloved GW) Especially if they actually turn it into a good, balanced, tactical game, because the necessary scale of those changes will frighten off even more of GW's old devotees. See the demise of Space Marine/Epic when the Epic 40,000 edition came about, to a degree that - IMO - Epic: Armageddon (a quite good game if I say so meself) couldn't draw enough of them back. (Among other factors that affected that last edition)

There will be players of a revamped 40K, just like there are still players of Epic 40K and E:A, in one form or another. But I think that, initially at least, the numbers will be so low that it'll be right back at square one, and will have to compete more directly with all those games and gaming companies that've sprung up lately, and any others that will inevitably appear to fill their corner of the void left by the collapse of GW's original version of 40K. If the new owners try to continue on as GW did, and don't take enough steps to tighten the rules or improve the pricing structure, it'll be an uphill battle and likely kill 40K as a commercial venture altogether.

Just take a look at Warhammer Historicals, arguably the "largest" historicals ruleset for some time, with a huge tournament presence. Once that went under (or was unsupported), the scene died, quickly,. And none of the other systems: Hail Caesar, War and Conquest, etc. could pick up the slack. WABforum? Tumbleweeds. Same would happen if GW went under.

If nothing else, GW is the glue that keeps people coming to forums like this one - love it, hate it, ignore it, whatever.

I'll just keep playing the game, collecting models, and enjoy myself while it lasts (and its been 20+ years for me so far, so good).

 Cruentus wrote:

 Vermis wrote:

sand.zzz wrote:Does 40k really need GW to survive? It seems to me that 40k is bigger than Games Workshop. Perhaps GW going under would be the best thing to happen to 40k in a long time. It would certainly continue to exist, and chances are it would be under more competent management. I cant speak for everyone here, but I feel the same way about GW as they do all of us: couldnt care less. The game will live on, let GW burn.

The problem is that 40K players, on the whole, need (and want) to be spoon-fed their gaming experience. ("Here comes the flying viking bathtub into the fortress-monastery! Neeaaaooooww!") I've seen too many utterly abandon the game and completely sell up their sizeable collections, as if it were the most natural thing to do, because they take a dislike to one ultimately ignorable aspect of the game. Similarly, they dismiss other games as 'dead' because they're unsupported. Read: the rules are more complete and balanced than 40K has a hope to ever be, but gamers, particularly GW fans, ignore them because there's no churn of new editions and new models with the intent to rifle through a gamer's pockets. It actually disturbs me, a wee bit, to see many of those fans claim their games of choice are vibrant and alive because of this, and to see them say they'd leave wargaming altogether if GW went under. It makes me think that they're not really in it for the gaming (as opposed to... pushing action figures of their favourite saturday morning cartoon around), and that Alan Merrett wasn't entirely inaccurate about the GW hobby.

Point being, if you thought the exodus from 6th and 7th was bad... hoo boy. If GW goes under I think 40K won't be long in following it. I'd predict that most current 40K players will drop it like a hot potato, because of the sudden lack of churn and the perceived... stigma, almost... of a dead game. By the time some buyer fishes out the body and gives it the kiss of life, most will have moved on. If they (necessarily, I think) create what amounts to a new edition of the game, a lot of those who look back will be turned off by new edition syndrome. (Along with a dollop of scepticism about how well the new guys can even do compared to beloved GW) Especially if they actually turn it into a good, balanced, tactical game, because the necessary scale of those changes will frighten off even more of GW's old devotees. See the demise of Space Marine/Epic when the Epic 40,000 edition came about, to a degree that - IMO - Epic: Armageddon (a quite good game if I say so meself) couldn't draw enough of them back. (Among other factors that affected that last edition)

There will be players of a revamped 40K, just like there are still players of Epic 40K and E:A, in one form or another. But I think that, initially at least, the numbers will be so low that it'll be right back at square one, and will have to compete more directly with all those games and gaming companies that've sprung up lately, and any others that will inevitably appear to fill their corner of the void left by the collapse of GW's original version of 40K. If the new owners try to continue on as GW did, and don't take enough steps to tighten the rules or improve the pricing structure, it'll be an uphill battle and likely kill 40K as a commercial venture altogether.

Just take a look at Warhammer Historicals, arguably the "largest" historicals ruleset for some time, with a huge tournament presence. Once that went under (or was unsupported), the scene died, quickly,. And none of the other systems: Hail Caesar, War and Conquest, etc. could pick up the slack. WABforum? Tumbleweeds. Same would happen if GW went under.

If nothing else, GW is the glue that keeps people coming to forums like this one - love it, hate it, ignore it, whatever.

I'll just keep playing the game, collecting models, and enjoy myself while it lasts (and its been 20+ years for me so far, so good).

No it was the other way around Historical gamers, never changed over to GW Historial in the first place. As we already had better rules for historical and cheaper better models form other companies. What should say is "when GW Historical was drop the GW players never changed over to the the other Historical games".

 Hulksmash wrote:
I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".

Personally I feel the release pace has hurt the game. Someone pointed out earlier but I'll reiterate as a tournament player primarily. Books releasing every 2 months isn't good for 40k. Release them all together or release them 6 months apart. The reasoning is that most people don't have the time to build the new hotness or are reticent to do so because it could be invalidated before they take the shrink wrap off their boxes. The "meta" doesn't have time to settle between codexes and leads a feel of rock/paper/scissor.

GW have dismissed tournaments and their players for the last 15 years. Their disdain for anything other than the narrative and shifting the latest shiny should have sent warning signs to the competitive community long ago.

Hate to be harsh but hanging your hats on a company that doesn't like you isn't really the best way forwards.

Well, that is a bit of an exaggeration. It has been the past five years really that the tournament support has been scaled down by GW.

Back to Warhammer Historicals, as someone said above it never took off widely because Historicals players already had access to better rules and cheaper models that were based and ready to go. WHAB required you to rebase your entire army to a different standard that was incompatible with anything except WHAB. There was also an established tournament scene going back 40 years or more.

The rules only really got much milage among people coming in through Warhammer F/40K, who had little or no prior exposure to historical wargaming.

That said, the collapse of WHAB once GW stopped supporting it does say something about the propensity of a GW game to collapse. The same thing could happen to Fantasy and 40K.

 Mr. Burning wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".

Personally I feel the release pace has hurt the game. Someone pointed out earlier but I'll reiterate as a tournament player primarily. Books releasing every 2 months isn't good for 40k. Release them all together or release them 6 months apart. The reasoning is that most people don't have the time to build the new hotness or are reticent to do so because it could be invalidated before they take the shrink wrap off their boxes. The "meta" doesn't have time to settle between codexes and leads a feel of rock/paper/scissor.

GW have dismissed tournaments and their players for the last 15 years. Their disdain for anything other than the narrative and shifting the latest shiny should have sent warning signs to the competitive community long ago.

Hate to be harsh but hanging your hats on a company that doesn't like you isn't really the best way forwards.

Yeah, if you're a tournament player, look for another game.

 Mr. Burning wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".

Personally I feel the release pace has hurt the game. Someone pointed out earlier but I'll reiterate as a tournament player primarily. Books releasing every 2 months isn't good for 40k. Release them all together or release them 6 months apart. The reasoning is that most people don't have the time to build the new hotness or are reticent to do so because it could be invalidated before they take the shrink wrap off their boxes. The "meta" doesn't have time to settle between codexes and leads a feel of rock/paper/scissor.

GW have dismissed tournaments and their players for the last 15 years. Their disdain for anything other than the narrative and shifting the latest shiny should have sent warning signs to the competitive community long ago.

Hate to be harsh but hanging your hats on a company that doesn't like you isn't really the best way forwards.

Hate to be harsh but you don't really seem to know what' you're talking about. I've been playing for almost 20 years and I disagree with "dismissing" tournaments and players for 15 years.

In the US they hosted 4-5 GT's across the country yearly as little as 6 years ago (I wanna say 2008 was their last year with a ton of GW run events). They provided the support for the beginning of the Indy Circuit here in the US. They provided regular stores with significant prize support for hosting instore tournaments. They recently started testing supporting smaller GT's again by providing around 2k in prize support for a 64-man 40k GT and a 50-man Fantasy GT.

5th edition was easily the most tournament ready edition they ever produced. One person has been vocal about the game not being about tournament play and it's not. But that's not the same as saying they don't like tournament players.

6th changed the dynamic (as it wasn't as tournament friendly) but that's also when they started supporting events again. And now we're 7th. The least tournament friendly edition due to the number of adjustments but I feel 7th is more indicative of a fast buck than not liking tournament players.

And as much as people say to shift the newest "shiny" is what GW has done for a long time I disagree. Let's really look at it just from 6th on since going back it's only worse than it is now (as in it's less accurate to state they buffed new unit).

Nothing in the DA book was overpowered or screamed buy me. New daemon book was the same with the new models. Eldar boosted sales for units that already sold (wave serpents) and created a pretty usable new unit but horrible flyer. Chaos had 1 kit of 3 that was produced for it that wasn't trash. IG got the Wyvern but no other must-haves out of their 3 kits. Space Marines got Centurions but they aren't a must have though good. Tau are the closest but really only created a single new unit (Riptide) that was good. Instead boosting up a previous unit owned by lots of people. Tyranid new units were pretty poop. Ork new units were meh at best (arty is good but already owned). Point to me these latest shinies that are the bestest.

And, by far the most important, there are upwards of 20 2-day events run on a yearly basis here in the US. GW has nothing to do with this outside of it being their game but it's important in how people allocate for games they play if tournaments are important to them. The only one that might compete is WH/Hordes but I don't know how many large scale US events are put on yearly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MWHistorian wrote:


Yeah, if you're a tournament player, look for another game.

Point out another game supported on the local and national level across the entire US and I'll consider it. I live in a gaming mecha in terms of sheer number of stores and players. FFG is located here in the cities and even then X-wing is the only game that competes with 40k locally at a tournament level. And it's probably the closest thing nationally as far as tournaments go thanks to FFG pushing events like their worlds and such. It's completely different from normal miniature gaming though and to me is a seperate entity from things like 40k, Warmahordes, KoW, Infinity, Spartan Games and such where you collect and paint armies.

Herzlos wrote:

Backfire wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".

In general though it's only blatant dismissal of criticism as "haters" or the like that gets met with "white knighting". Just very few of the pro-GW people offer any real evidence or insight beyond "40k is booming in my area, so everything is fine" or "I think the price is fair" and then it tends to degenerate into attacks on the people who don't think GW is fine. That's always the case; the anti-GW crowd actually reference reasons, the pro-GW crowd just says "Looks fine to me!" without backing anything up...

My experience in this thread is pretty much exact opposite...

Can you cite an example of this opposite experience, where a pro-GW member references a reason and an anti-GW member claims we're doomed with no basis?

Yes. For example, my first post in the thread in page 5:



Immediately, WayneTheGame (oh the irony given his statement here) runs up a response:

And the cavalry has arrived!

Even though my post was actually quite negative, but on this site, that's not good enough! If you do not commit yourself 100% to GW hating, you're White Knighted.

That you describe the describe your own post as "quite negative" tells it's own story, as it pretty much is exactly "sure x is bad, BUT!" All the way through.


The post you quote has no substance to it, merely your own observations and opinions, and in no way constructs a compelling argument that GW are anything other than headed in a bad direction.

 Hulksmash wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".

Personally I feel the release pace has hurt the game. Someone pointed out earlier but I'll reiterate as a tournament player primarily. Books releasing every 2 months isn't good for 40k. Release them all together or release them 6 months apart. The reasoning is that most people don't have the time to build the new hotness or are reticent to do so because it could be invalidated before they take the shrink wrap off their boxes. The "meta" doesn't have time to settle between codexes and leads a feel of rock/paper/scissor.

GW have dismissed tournaments and their players for the last 15 years. Their disdain for anything other than the narrative and shifting the latest shiny should have sent warning signs to the competitive community long ago.

Hate to be harsh but hanging your hats on a company that doesn't like you isn't really the best way forwards.

Hate to be harsh but you don't really seem to know what' you're talking about. I've been playing for almost 20 years and I disagree with "dismissing" tournaments and players for 15 years.

In the US they hosted 4-5 GT's across the country yearly as little as 6 years ago (I wanna say 2008 was their last year with a ton of GW run events). They provided the support for the beginning of the Indy Circuit here in the US. They provided regular stores with significant prize support for hosting instore tournaments. They recently started testing supporting smaller GT's again by providing around 2k in prize support for a 64-man 40k GT and a 50-man Fantasy GT.

5th edition was easily the most tournament ready edition they ever produced. One person has been vocal about the game not being about tournament play and it's not. But that's not the same as saying they don't like tournament players.

6th changed the dynamic (as it wasn't as tournament friendly) but that's also when they started supporting events again. And now we're 7th. The least tournament friendly edition due to the number of adjustments but I feel 7th is more indicative of a fast buck than not liking tournament players.

And as much as people say to shift the newest "shiny" is what GW has done for a long time I disagree. Let's really look at it just from 6th on since going back it's only worse than it is now (as in it's less accurate to state they buffed new unit).

Nothing in the DA book was overpowered or screamed buy me. New daemon book was the same with the new models. Eldar boosted sales for units that already sold (wave serpents) and created a pretty usable new unit but horrible flyer. Chaos had 1 kit of 3 that was produced for it that wasn't trash. IG got the Wyvern but no other must-haves out of their 3 kits. Space Marines got Centurions but they aren't a must have though good. Tau are the closest but really only created a single new unit (Riptide) that was good. Instead boosting up a previous unit owned by lots of people. Tyranid new units were pretty poop. Ork new units were meh at best (arty is good but already owned). Point to me these latest shinies that are the bestest.

And, by far the most important, there are upwards of 20 2-day events run on a yearly basis here in the US. GW has nothing to do with this outside of it being their game but it's important in how people allocate for games they play if tournaments are important to them. The only one that might compete is WH/Hordes but I don't know how many large scale US events are put on yearly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MWHistorian wrote:


Yeah, if you're a tournament player, look for another game.

Point out another game supported on the local and national level across the entire US and I'll consider it. I live in a gaming mecha in terms of sheer number of stores and players. FFG is located here in the cities and even then X-wing is the only game that competes with 40k locally at a tournament level. And it's probably the closest thing nationally as far as tournaments go thanks to FFG pushing events like their worlds and such. It's completely different from normal miniature gaming though and to me is a seperate entity from things like 40k, Warmahordes, KoW, Infinity, Spartan Games and such where you collect and paint armies.

I have been in the hobby for ages as well for most of that it was GW all the way. They may have supported tourneys but since inception their rules have never been formulated with regards to competitive game play. Either way, I was possibly a bit harsh.

But the recent trends towards multiple releases compressed into a short span of time would lead me to think of other options.

Namely some kind of living rulebook - especially 5th edition based with tweaks for flyers and new race/unit additions. Since GW do not sponsor anything, organizers should feel no compunction to tow the line. Many players would probably feel freer and would actively participate in the development of a revised rule-set..

The argument against is that getting a consensus iis nigh on impossible. However maybe a concensous is not needed. all it needs a tournament or two willing to take the step to create something that will allow tournament play for years,

maybe just a pipe dream. But I believe that tournaments do not need constant creep and tourney players want some structure and - for want of a better word, ground rules - that do not shift too much from year to year.

There are those that will say play by the rules as given - but the creators themselves want their rules pulled apart (the narrative) - so why not do just that?

Apologies for the ramble