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I thought about the pumbaagor, but as a highly unique l33t badazz over-nine-thousand action man leader (i.e. what 40K is really about) of one of the most popular colours of the most popular army of the more popular game, I figured Logan Claus was a better single representation of the overall aesthetic of 40K.*

Some of the details are nice. For example the aesthetic of those metal plaques round the side looks quite good, from what I can see in photos. But then you zoom out and the aesthetic is an elite sci-fi soldier in a giant bulky metal space suit being pulled around in a wee sled by a pair of big huskies.

*Thinking about it, I should've just linked to a pile of skulls. Covered in blood. And murder.

And Rick Priestly something something something. Did I mention his magazine column is one of the biggest reasons I buy Wargames: Soldiers and Strategy? He casts a few game design pearls in that, including his attempts to inject a bit more scenario play into modern gaming.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Flashman wrote:

I wondered whether the fact that I lost interest in GW was because of my age (38), but I rediscovered my passion for gaming with X Wing which is a fantastic rule set.

Speaking personally, I don't think it's entirely uncorrelated. I'm a card-carrying subscriber to the notion that 40K's reliance on stats, tables, special rules, field-leveling randomness and listbuilding strategy appeals to data-soaking young minds (the big spiky asskickers who look so grimdark and 'adult' do the initial hooking) while elegant rulesets and on-the-fly tactical decision making start looking better later on.

All of the articles in the White Dwarfs I've read penned by JJ make it fairly simple to see he's one the leading problems as the downfall of the game. With all the other writers slowly bailing and him gaining control simply by seniority, perhaps a twinge of nepotism, you can see his affects grow on the game.

If people like Random-Table-Hammer, then so be it, but I'd not call it much of an actual game. And regardless of affinity for Priestly, it doesn't much change the validity of the statements; turn your back on what built you (gamers) and you'll reap what you sow.

I actually sat and watched a league game of Blood Bowl being played for the first time last week.

It seemed to take nearly 20 minutes (I'm exaggerating, but I don't know quite how much), of random table and chart rolling before they could actually start the game.

I hope it was just all optional rules added in or something (A bit like how Dreadball has a bunch of optional rules that you can throw in to spice things up), but flipping heck it seemed to take ages. Fan Factors, fame, cheerleaders, weather and more. It just seemed to go on and on and on.

Then someone started dancing because the other player nudged a model and forfeited his turn. Blergh.

Rick Priestly has been saying these things in various places, forums, magazines, podcasts for a number of years now. Sometimes he is more outspoken than not. Nottingham wargaming is a small community and being careful about what you say just might be sensible when the folks involved are mates. This time he is being a bit more clear.
I think there are way too many people here who do not know the foggiest about the wider wargaming hobby outside GW, making too many accusations.

BB is a "league" game, and those always have some random stuff to adjudicate. Newer league games (i.e. Necromunda & Mordheim) have that stuff as part of the postmortem, and it takes quite a while (but is frequently hilarious).

But then, throwing a pass takes what, two, three rolls? That's assuming it's completed, if it isn't, then you then have to roll for random direction for where the ball ends up, and, it's been a while, but I think there's even more rolling to do if it bounces onto another player?

Blocking, running, etc, etc all require rolls at multiple stages to determine success or failure, and frequently has further random effects if failed.

I'm by no means criticising BB as a bad game, I have many happy memories of it, but if you were looking for an indicator that the designer has a hard-on for random, then you'd have to hold it up as exhibit A.

Pretty much all minis games are random success/failure - go look at HTH in something in 40k / WMH / whatever - you've got a series of (opposed) randoms you need to pass there, too. It's a silly game, not too complicated, lots of fun. Making it deterministic changes the feel of the game completely.

Yes, but there's a line between rolling dice to see how effective your shooting is, and needing to roll a dice to see if you can shoot at all.

The first is a mathematical curve, where a player can use skill and judgment to maximise the odds of as successful an outcome as possible, the second is just arbitrary chance, and that is the thing people seem to object to.

That's actually really interesting, it sounds like Dreadball has a very similar passing mechanic to Blood Bowl, which I often found was probably the clunkiest part of Dreadball. Of course, I suppose the big difference is, in Dreadball, you might see a pass happen once every 5 games, there's usually a far easier way to go about it.

Anyhow, even I admit (I mentioned I'm not a Priestley fan). The Bolt Action dice bag mechanic really is a clever and elegant idea for the scale of game Bolt Action is designed for.

 Vermis wrote:

Mymearan wrote:
They may be a thing, opinions apparently aren't, and wrong ones deserve to be mocked. Drop the attitude and name-calling.

Differing opinions occur all the time, especially with nerdy pursuits, but the examples I listed rely a special blend of tunnel vision, rationalisation, prickly defensiveness and a hazy grasp of facts, and it's far from the first time I've seen this kind of attitude among obsessive GW gamers. "Who is this Rick Priestly person to say nasty sue-able things about GW?" "Yeah, Alan Merrett sounds like he's saying blatantly daft things, but if you really think about them and squint just so, this is what he actually meant." "No other range of minis comes close to the beauty of this." These are certainly opinions, but do you honestly think they're coming from a position of clarity, and deserving of equal acceptance? Like Migoo said:

migooo wrote:Its kinda cult like behavior.

I watched this documentary a couple of years ago. When the section about Apple's cultlike practises and following came up, I couldn't help but mentally insert GW and GW gamers into the situation.

'GWombie' is cruel, but not entirely inaccurate given the (sometimes aggressive) single-minded focus, and to be honest a sharp needle can be useful to pierce through that obfuscating GW fug.

Insulting Rick Priestley without realizing his huge contribution to wargaming history is indeed pretty stupid and worthy of mockery. Simply liking GW models and games is not. And I can't say that I've seen much of this "cult-like" behavior on dakka. In fact. I see way more insults, group-think and snide comments from the anti-GW people than I do from GW fans (who seem to be in the minority on here). To me it seems both unnecessary and counterproductive. It's fine to point out GWs (many) faults and mistakes, another to deride people who use and enjoy their products.

 theHandofGork wrote:
Rick Priestley posted a few comments on Facebook today that I thought the dakka community would find interesting. If this is inappropriate for the Dakka Discussions page I'm sure a Mod will let me know.

It started with following being posted on his wall:

You sir are a legend! Its a shame that gw have lost their way a bit and moved away from the humorous, dark, irrelevant and very British state of Warhammer and 40k that you pretty much invented

After a number of replies from others with similar sentiments, Rick posted the following:

Blimey you turn your back for a day or two! I worked for GW (Citadel in Newark and then GW at Eastwood and Nottingham) for 28 years, and the company changed a great deal over that time, but we always aimed at making money. I can just about remember the days when making money was about having enough in the bank at the end of the month to cover our wages - I don't know if that was ever literally true - but it certainly came across that way! We also enjoyed what we were doing! We enjoyed games and gaming and - of course - the models that went with that. The big recent change is that GW has actually stated - both during the Chapter House court hearing and subsequently to its shareholders - that it considers its market to be collectors of models and not gamers. The games are very much played down internally, and you can see with the latest (very nicely done!) models that they are conceived as collectors pieces that have very little practicality in terms of a wargame. It's perfec tly fine for GW to turn its backs upon wargaming in favour of modelling and collecting if that is the vision of the current management. But the result is that many customers who are or have been passionate about GW's games do feel marginalized.

I should add that we always used to maintain a games design department that was fairly heavy weight - smart guys, some of them rebarbative, bloody-minded and mildly dangerous types (dangerous to themselves on occasion). I won't say who it was... but one of our staff once ran back into the burning building he'd just been rescued from by the fire brigade to recover his 'stash' from the flames! The design team has been run down over the years - the guys who work there now are just not doing the same sort of work and they're not the same sort of people. Probably for the best

...betting the company on the assumption that the market is primarily collectors and not gamers is a big gamble isn't it! In the short term it will work because so many gamers are loyal to the backgrounds and to what is left of the games range (that'll be 40K then). The large, very nicely done, collectors style pieces generate good sales at high margins. I would expect to see an improvement in full year performance under their new CEO - and maybe even a dividend! Long term though... if GW is sincere about changing its market stance (and does not lose its bottle and start to back track - which is still possible) it opens up the market to any number of new companies that are interested in games, gaming and gamers! That won't do GW any harm so long as they are determined to abandon that market - and it would leave them to concentrate on a mixture of high price highly profitable collectibles and licensing its IP out into other media - always something I felt was under exploited due to fear of losing control at the top of the business. But what do I know

Well I'm touched by all the thank yous! So let me add my own. Thank you for making it possible for me and so many of my comrades to earn a living doing something we love - there's not many people get that chance - and I remain eternally grateful.

I hope someone else found this to be interesting as well.

1. And he DID see the emerging third party miniature SMEs that fills in the gap of what the current management of GW had ignored for years.
2. And... Citadel did NOT stick to what they does best! entering 'finecast' collectors edition products is a wrong step because it's NOT what they used to.... it creates a redundancy with FW.. a very unneccessary redundancy!

@Mymearan.
Well I find many threads , that are discussing the poor business decisions or poor rules writing of GW OFTEN get locked by such single mined individuals that will not debate or discuss anything.
But just spout blind faith in GW in all things,and then turn to name calling and/or dragging the thread so far off topic to get it locked.(As they have no factual evidence or objective reasoning to fall back on.)

Liking the look and sound of 40k is normal.Playing games with GW minatures is normal.(For gamers anyway.)
I think the term 'GWombie ' is reserved for posters who willfully ignore facts , objective reasoning and civil discussion on GW business practice and game development threads .In other word TFGs of these forums.

If you could show me a thread where a so called 'GW hater' has posted a comment that they can not back up with some objective reasoning or factual evidence. And refused to discuss things further ?

Pointing out that companies that appeal to gamers and collectors , have a bigger market share than companies that just appeal to collectors,Is not really stating any thing but fact.
Pointing out that a shrinking customers base has to progressively pay more to support the company , if the company want to maintain turn over is another fact.

In summary , GW plc decided to reduce its active customer base by more than half, and ask its remaining customers to pay over double the price for its products.
And the positive word of mouth marketing GW plc are supposed to depend on, that they used to get from positive gaming experiences.
Walked right out the door and into their competitors.

How can this be seen as good for any one caring about GW or GW games long term?

"Fanboy" is a more fitting epithet, and it rolls off the tongue easier.

Blind faith in anything is pretty dumb as far as I can tell.

Mymearan wrote:

 Vermis wrote:

Mymearan wrote:
They may be a thing, opinions apparently aren't, and wrong ones deserve to be mocked. Drop the attitude and name-calling.

Differing opinions occur all the time, especially with nerdy pursuits, but the examples I listed rely a special blend of tunnel vision, rationalisation, prickly defensiveness and a hazy grasp of facts, and it's far from the first time I've seen this kind of attitude among obsessive GW gamers. "Who is this Rick Priestly person to say nasty sue-able things about GW?" "Yeah, Alan Merrett sounds like he's saying blatantly daft things, but if you really think about them and squint just so, this is what he actually meant." "No other range of minis comes close to the beauty of this." These are certainly opinions, but do you honestly think they're coming from a position of clarity, and deserving of equal acceptance? Like Migoo said:

migooo wrote:Its kinda cult like behavior.

I watched this documentary a couple of years ago. When the section about Apple's cultlike practises and following came up, I couldn't help but mentally insert GW and GW gamers into the situation.

'GWombie' is cruel, but not entirely inaccurate given the (sometimes aggressive) single-minded focus, and to be honest a sharp needle can be useful to pierce through that obfuscating GW fug.

Insulting Rick Priestley without realizing his huge contribution to wargaming history is indeed pretty stupid and worthy of mockery. Simply liking GW models and games is not. And I can't say that I've seen much of this "cult-like" behavior on dakka. In fact. I see way more insults, group-think and snide comments from the anti-GW people than I do from GW fans (who seem to be in the minority on here). To me it seems both unnecessary and counterproductive. It's fine to point out GWs (many) faults and mistakes, another to deride people who use and enjoy their products.

Look a person can like GW figures and not like the company. I like that Bloodthirster ( well one build of it anyway) but I don't like how they've nuked fantasy to oblivion. And considering I'm only doing Carnival of Chaos at the moment, and not sure how it would fit in, even if I can get 25 percent off. Regardless. I've witnessed the behavior of GW apologists who still claim that Finecast was the best thing since sliced bread. That their allowed to make money ( yeah they were making money when they had sales and staff didn't try to push a useless LOTR box under my nose the moment I mention Mordhiem) they had 3 staff members and the shop was always full, now its a fliping ghost town.

maybe I am old and bitter, but Kirby was just brought in to do the books before his slimy take over, the fact that the staff are always right is also another irritant.

while I may never ever agree with everything RP did, he did give me some happy moments gaming in my rather unpleasant childhood and he deserves my respect for this. GW has lost this with their Attitude.

What annoys me is how we can barely have a discussion without it descending in to a vitriolic exchange. I don't care which side you're on, there's no benefit to making insulting comments. And yes, it is insulting to suggest people are fanboys, haters, ignorant, possessing a blind faith, are clueless, etc etc.

I'm firmly in the anti-GW mindset, but for feth sake, it's a hobby, if someone can enjoy GW products without stressing over the ins and outs of GW I don't see why they should be attacked for it.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:What annoys me is how we can barely have a discussion without it descending in to a vitriolic exchange. I don't care which side you're on, there's no benefit to making insulting comments. And yes, it is insulting to suggest people are fanboys, haters, ignorant, possessing a blind faith, are clueless, etc etc.

Well if the shoe fits...

In seriousness, though, are you suggesting the outrage against Rick P, for example, was borne out of a full knowledge of the facts and a reasonably balanced view of what Games Workshop does? When people react with aggression caused by - to be blunt - ignorance and an overdeveloped sense of loyalty to an uncaring, fault-ridden company, what would you do?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
What annoys me is how we can barely have a discussion without it descending in to a vitriolic exchange. I don't care which side you're on, there's no benefit to making insulting comments. And yes, it is insulting to suggest people are fanboys, haters, ignorant, possessing a blind faith, are clueless, etc etc.

I'm firmly in the anti-GW mindset, but for feth sake, it's a hobby, if someone can enjoy GW products without stressing over the ins and outs of GW I don't see why they should be attacked for it.

Your right we should be able to talk without name calling, it doesn't matter who started it I apologise if I said something out of order.

I loved GW, sad to say I truly did.. when I was thinking of giving up the thought of a new figure kept me hanging on.

i just wish 40k and most games workshop products for that matter would be cheaper, if lets say a pack of termies were only 15-20 pounds than i would me so inclined to buy them and i probably would they would make more money in the longer run. agian if a tactical squad were 15-20 pounds i would buy a lot more than i have done

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
What annoys me is how we can barely have a discussion without it descending in to a vitriolic exchange. I don't care which side you're on, there's no benefit to making insulting comments. And yes, it is insulting to suggest people are fanboys, haters, ignorant, possessing a blind faith, are clueless, etc etc.

I'm firmly in the anti-GW mindset, but for feth sake, it's a hobby, if someone can enjoy GW products without stressing over the ins and outs of GW I don't see why they should be attacked for it.

I agree with this. No need for name calling.
Save the insults for Games Workshop.

 the clone wrote:
i just wish 40k and most games workshop products for that matter would be cheaper, if lets say a pack of termies were only 15-20 pounds than i would me so inclined to buy them and i probably would they would make more money in the longer run. agian if a tactical squad were 15-20 pounds i would buy a lot more than i have done

We all do, remember most stuff is done via CAD now and injection molded, mostly I believe in China, It used to be the UK in Nottingham and I think Memphis had one too, but Not sure on that one.

Its not cheap sure but Digital Sculpting in some ways is far easier no need for materials just a decent z brush like program. And you can tell, you really can, While the kits are getting better I'm not to fond of the angular way some kits / models are now. RH is nice but you can still tell if you look.

Now lets be really clear on this, there was a manager who had to say a certain kit was better than the old figures, it wasn't. ( he confessed to me later that on company time he has to tow the line) But it made me annoyed, that he had to be dishonest in order to try to sell me the kit which I didn't purchase anyway.

If i could ask Rick any question it would be this did the design team know people in the stores were being dishonest like this , just because something was replaced by plastic? could they have done anything about it?

But yeah the pricing is another niggle, yes they have to pay bills but really i think they are pushing limits on certain prices.

I left GW games when it became apparent that there were other, and in my opinion, better game systems out there with great models. All I had to do was break from my "I've spent so much on GW that I can't switch" mentality.

I love the time that I've had painting and playing my Eldar and my bretonnians, and I still have my multiple war bands for Mordheim. I hold on to them, I suppose for sentimentality's sake, but I've moved on to spending money and time elsewhere. And now I'm much happier, since my chosen game has spectacular models, a great rules system that just came out with its much improved third edition, and a company that actively engages its customers.

I would suggest that perhaps it is time to start showing any disapproval you might have with GW's practices by voting with your wallet. Try a new game. There are plenty of games out there that have lasted long enough to be considered "established." There are games that cater to heavy tournament play style, and ones that cater to more casual styles of play. There are models of many different styles, although if you are obsessed with skulls, skulls, and more skulls, you might be stuck with GW.

GW will do what it thinks is right. You should too. I bear GW much less ill-will now that their marketing strategies have very little effect on my hobby. I pull out the Eldar three or four times a year to play with friends, but really my hobbying is spent elsewhere.

I feel like Rick from Casa Blanca. "We'll always have the Eye Of Terror."

Fascinating discussion ! - add me to the list of "collectors" GW and other companies sell to - I buy LE Codexes for both WFB & WH40K , dice , cards , Forgeworld in bulk , a large amount of plastic on a regular basis for over the top sized armies which I have no intention of ever playing . I like the fluff , I like the imagery and I like a fair amount of models - I love building , painting and ranking my collections . I also collect Kingdom Death , Red Box Games , Anvil industries , Scibor Minis , Victoria Miniatures , Dragon/Tamiya/Trumpeter WW2 Armor and Aircraft and very a little amount of Airfix amongst other things .
The GW gaming piece has always seemed overly cluttered to me ( especially with vehicles on board ) and has removed any strong urge to play ( it disturbs my suspension of disbelief ) . If was to ever decide to play with friends it would probably be on an enormous table with apocalypse-like rules in my attic . I have no desire to step foot in a Games Shop and interact with Strangers .... different courses for different horses and all that .

one thing I don't get is that scouts (who are rubbish compared to regular and veteran marines) cost 17.5 pounds for 5 but a pack of ten regular marines costs 25 pounds so that means 10 scouts would cost 35 pounds which is 10 pounds more than marines who are better. anyone see any logic there apart from 'production costs' (which i dont belive would cost that much) or the fact that gw are ripping us of once more again?

Had a long chat with Rick today at Hammerhead where he had Gates of Antares on the go.
One topic covered was the idea that many of his factions are based on the politics of the 70s and 80s, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes not (Ghazukul im looking at you)

I reiterate, nice guy.

I still think they are over priced

 the clone wrote:
I still think they are over priced

I think the same about 40k and a lot of other things. However, today i spent £10 on 3 Otherworld orcs just to paint, they will then sit and never hit the table in anger in all likelihood. Sometimes cost is subjective.

i see your point, most of my minis will never see the table ang just gather dust on my shelf

 Pete Melvin wrote:

 the clone wrote:
I still think they are over priced

I think the same about 40k and a lot of other things. However, today i spent £10 on 3 Otherworld orcs just to paint, they will then sit and never hit the table in anger in all likelihood. Sometimes cost is subjective.

Otherworld Miniatures? I use some of their minis them for D&D and LOTR SBG.

i have a few otherworld miniatures

I've got the human male thief and human female ranger. Lovely models but a pain in the arse to assemble.