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Howard A Treesong wrote:I made something like this when I was younger. It was smaller than theirs, and I cut up a free catalogue to get their logos and stuff to go on the walls. I had two broken windows on the walls of the building and a games table inside with epic figures on and a few dead skeletons.

Yes it didn't fit with the aesthetic of Games Day but my guess is that someone had a sense of humour failure when they saw GW staff being depicted as locked in chains working in the store.

Because without context, there's room for misinterpretation. But you should know that.

It doesn't surprise me that you Kan should leap in with such defence. "Meant to shock people", it's not shocking it'll just get a laugh. GW used to be fine with people having a laugh, perhaps not so blatantly at their expense but breaking the 4th wall didn't used to be an issue.

This was 2004. Not recently. There hasn't been a Games Day in LA for quite some time. They were still fairly laid back and had quite a few joke pieces that would crop up now and again.

To give an example: if you looked at the massive Lustria table that Games Day France did, the shop responsible for painting up and building a specific section had modeled the entirety of the store staff as Empire soldiers who 'got lost' and ended up in an Amazonian village completely away from the massive High Elf, Lizardman, and Skaven battle and surrounded by scantily clad women.

That got a mention in White Dwarf, mind you. Why? Because while it's a joke, it's still keeping with the aesthetic and the assignment that they had to do was still completed.

They could have just quietly put it in the bin or offered it back to the staff first. Time and effort did go into making it after all. But no, they stamped it to pieces and then gave a verbal warning to staff for "not fostering the proper creativity in the hobby" which is a load of ass.

And as usual, we're getting one bloody side of the story. But hey. It's fun to take everything at face value, right?


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MrDrumMachine wrote:@ Kanluwen

If you're whole point is to simply say "don't assume this actually happened they way detailed based on a single blog post" then why not just say that?

You also seem to be making the assumption that they didn't find some loophole to exploit in the terrain building policies, unless you have the actual policies then this may have fit just fine and then got deemed inappropriate anyway.

I can guarantee you that a "Burnt out Games Workshop with the corpses of staff chained inside" was not an acceptable piece.

They generally had, for 40k at least, a restriction on 'no real world structures'. They wanted things that would fit, not look shoehorned in.

Dang, its stuff like this that makes me glad there isn't an actual GW shop within a couple hundred miles, I'll just stick with my FLGSs. That piece was pretty cool, and it looks like a ton of work went into it, I'd be livid if some buraucrat destroyed it. Maybe it shouldn't have been sent to a Games Day, but it deffinately shouldn't have been stomped in a tantrum.

Creeping Dementia wrote:Dang, its stuff like this that makes me glad there isn't an actual GW shop within a couple hundred miles, I'll just stick with my FLGSs. That piece was pretty cool, and it looks like a ton of work went into it, I'd be livid if some buraucrat destroyed it. Maybe it shouldn't have been sent to a Games Day, but it definately shouldn't have been stomped in a tantrum.

Once again.
This? This piece was built by a GW shop. Not a FLGS.

Kanluwen wrote:

Creeping Dementia wrote:Dang, its stuff like this that makes me glad there isn't an actual GW shop within a couple hundred miles, I'll just stick with my FLGSs. That piece was pretty cool, and it looks like a ton of work went into it, I'd be livid if some buraucrat destroyed it. Maybe it shouldn't have been sent to a Games Day, but it definately shouldn't have been stomped in a tantrum.

Once again.
This? This piece was built by a GW shop. Not a FLGS.

I don't give a damn who built it, I just care about how it was treated afterward.

Creeping Dementia wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Creeping Dementia wrote:Dang, its stuff like this that makes me glad there isn't an actual GW shop within a couple hundred miles, I'll just stick with my FLGSs. That piece was pretty cool, and it looks like a ton of work went into it, I'd be livid if some buraucrat destroyed it. Maybe it shouldn't have been sent to a Games Day, but it definately shouldn't have been stomped in a tantrum.

Once again.
This? This piece was built by a GW shop. Not a FLGS.

I don't give a damn who built it, I just care about how it was treated afterward.

And once again, he have nothing definite about how it was treated. All we have is hearsay from someone who heard it from someone who heard it from someone else. You're all in a rage over something that may not have actually happened(it was most likely just tossed whole into a bin somewhere). As well, once it was received by the GW heads, it stopped belonging to the store and the owners were able to do whatever they wanted to it.

As is, we have a piece created as a joke that was inappropriate FOR THE SETTING IT WAS TO BE USED IN(an all ages convention) that they most likely knew wasn't going to be used once received.

Yes, because clearly we know exactly how it was treated afterwards.

And the blog clearly doesn't take an antagonistic view towards the "soCal" goons.

I'm calling bull on the story. Throwing the flag here and now, bull. The guys were likely too fething lazy to drive down and pick it up or pay for their little in-joke to get shipped back--because there's no way GW or any employer for that matter would pay for your little poke at corporate policy to be shipped back to you.

People doing scenery of their shops burnt out isn't new.

All due respect, show me. Maybe I'm not as much into the scene as you, but I don't recall ever seeing a representation like this on dakka. I am prepared to stand corrected.

And that's like if I were to create a piece of scenery of the college where I and several fellow players go to. We would find it absolutely fantastic, but would you?

To be fair, if your terrain piece included a skeletal Kanluwen in a burnt-out lecture hall with a skeletal Mark Wells at a podium...then yes, I would think it would be absolutely fantastic because that would be you laughing at yourself. It would also be a creative expression of self deprecating humor.

It's crummily built

Nice cheap shot, sir. Can I play on your table?

Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Doing something like that was dumb.

That said, it was a well done and pretty clever piece. But there's not much GW could do other than dispose of it.

AesSedai wrote:

People doing scenery of their shops burnt out isn't new.

All due respect, show me. Maybe I'm not as much into the scene as you, but I don't recall ever seeing a representation like this on dakka. I am prepared to stand corrected.

You don't usually see them on Dakka for the same reason the OP didn't actually post the photos on here I'd assume.

They tend to be inside jokes, and not make very much sense to anyone else.

And that's like if I were to create a piece of scenery of the college where I and several fellow players go to. We would find it absolutely fantastic, but would you?

To be fair, if your terrain piece included a skeletal Kanluwen in a burnt-out lecture hall with a skeletal Mark Wells at a podium...then yes, I would think it would be absolutely fantastic because that would be you laughing at yourself. It would also be a creative expression of self deprecating humor.

See, but again. The point of the work wasn't to make some form of self-deprecating, humorous piece.

The point of the work is to make something to fits with a specific aesthetic. You can understand this, yes?

It's crummily built

Nice cheap shot, sir. Can I play on your table?

When it's finally built? Sure. Well. You'll have to surrender the nice fortifications to my Cadians, but you'll be okay with that yeah?
Right now it's still in the 'concept' process though.

Biggest issue has been to figure out how best to make the walls so that they can be scored and pitted.

For an inside joke, I think a lot of people seem to be getting it.

Polonius wrote:Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Doing something like that was dumb.

That said, it was a well done and pretty clever piece. But there's not much GW could do other than dispose of it.

And dispose the staff that was involved in this is also a possibility... I mean you just dont fool around on your day job and mail the proof to your boss... thats silly.

Because it clubs you over the head, likely.

I didn't say it was a good inside joke.

Polonius wrote:For an inside joke, I think a lot of people seem to be getting it.

I think a lot of people would have gotten that they were employees of the GW store, but wouldn't know it was a specific store and specific employees unless told so(like in the blog post) or if they were regular attendees at said store.

If this is so bad and lacks artistic quality, what do you think of the McDonalds Orks that were on here some time ago? In my mind, it's a very similar lighthearted spoof.

Also, look closer at those pictures, there actually is a large amount of fine detail on that piece. They have fake fantasy boxes up on the wall and little red/blue space marines (another clever dig) on the table. There's even a Tau poster on the wall in the back, not to mention the tiny tiny dice that the guy is rolling.

Like it or not, there looks to be a large amount of effort that went into this. I'd probably never be able to achieve something of that level of detail, which is what makes me sad that it's no more. I really doubt that this was such a trivial thing to create that the builders were too lazy to pay for their "little in-joke" to get it back. I mean, they were from that store, they made a skeleton for each person. They had vested interest in it. I'm guessing they never heard anything more of it, and having seen the amount of sheer self-righteous zeal that can surround GW, I wouldn't blink if someone did actually prove it was aggressively destroyed.

I don't know. Maybe it's just me. To say the thing is in bad taste is one thing. I can't argue that. To say it's not clever or that they did a bad job on it though, that's just not being fair to it.

See, but again. The point of the work wasn't to make some form of self-deprecating, humorous piece.

The point of the work is to make something to fits with a specific aesthetic. You can understand this, yes?

Oh, I get it. Do you feel that self-deprecating humor and the specific aesthetic need be in conflict? I see a piece of post apocalyptic terrain (blown out windows, strewn rubble) with a wink. It would be at home on any urban tabletop battlefield. I find it so ironic that a games company can't laugh at itself and responds to a playful jibe with wanton destruction.

2:30 am in Tokyo, catch the thread on the morning commute--nothing personal Kan, I kind of like you.

I laughed, pretty creative and nice attention to detail. Black humor does it for some people---others not so much.

I'm shocked they stomped it (I hope they recited the 3rd zone of banishment and fired the ashes into the sun to make sure it's dead *eyeroll*). Given that I've made a great deal of terrain and painted a model or two----I would find it very difficult to destroy another person's labor of love---even if I found it offensive.

AesSedai wrote:

See, but again. The point of the work wasn't to make some form of self-deprecating, humorous piece.

The point of the work is to make something to fits with a specific aesthetic. You can understand this, yes?

Oh, I get it. Do you feel that self-deprecating humor and the specific aesthetic need be in conflict? I see a piece of post apocalyptic terrain (blown out windows, strewn rubble) with a wink. It would be at home on any urban tabletop battlefield. I find it so ironic that a games company can't laugh at itself and responds to a playful jibe with wanton destruction.

2:30 am in Tokyo, catch the thread on the morning commute--nothing personal Kan, I kind of like you.

I know it's nothing personal, so no biggie.

I don't think there would have been an issue if they hadn't slapped the great big "GAMES WORKSHOP" logo on it.

If they'd called it something like "WRATH OF THE EMPEROR TOYSHOP", and the staffers had been wearing red robes with fake augmetic implants on there to make them look like tech-priests--I don't think there'd have been an issue.

Let me bring some clarity to the situation. I was there when it was "blown up" not smashed. The stores were given specific directions of what to build as well as pictures of what was expected. They manager was being defiant and thumbed his nose at the Regional management. The manager had been written up multiple times for insubordination and poor performance. The manager and most of the staff were later terminated. A new manager and staff came in and turn that store around.

The shame is if they spent the same amount of time in promotion of events and hobby classes the store would have not been a giant failure. Hulksmash knows that the Regional manager at the time was no non-sense and the staff/manager knew that was unacceptable.

Now you have both sides.

The guidelines we got every year were quite specific. I think I left GW in 2003...though I'm not totally sure so it could have been 2004. So this might have been for my last games day. Which would make sense since I remember seeing it and I doubt it was out on the floor. I was a manager for one of the southern stores in California. You guys have to remember this was built on company time, sent into the regional HQ, and did not follow the guidelines for what they wanted.

What did the store that built it think would happen? As for sending it back, it's company property. The local regional vice president at the time could do whatever he wanted with it. I doubt it was stomped to death as that wasn't the Bunker manager at the times style but I could be wrong.

Jesus, it's like if it has to do with GW people lose go off their meds. Imagine any job you have ever had. You're instructed to complete a project and given specific instructions. You then follow the guildelines in the most obscure way (failing to follow a few at least), present a product that makes a joke of what you were assigned to do, and best of all did it on company time. Lord knows I've fired people for less than wasting hours of time.


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dang, I got beat out.

What a great little GW-store satire. Not Heavy-metal quality, but nicely done with lots of fun details. I don't have the level of outrage that some do, but I am disapointed that it was destroyed.

Not at all suprised though. No matter how many folks saw it and liked it (proabably most who saw it) I have no doubt there were a few Kanluwen'esque employees who were up in arms and more than ready to destroy it and defend their actions just as been done here.

Too bad they were so ready to get in a huff that they weren't able to take the joke.

As to whether or not it was appropriate, it's worth pointing out that it was obviously deemd appropriate enough by GW to display at the event. Only afterwards did the boots, excuses, and chastisements come out.

If me and friends/coworkers put time and effort into something like that and then someone 'stomped it to death', that wouldn't be the only thing to get stomped that day.

Weather you like the piece or not. Destroying it was uncalled for. This just show that some GW employees are literally bullies.

kinghammer wrote:Let me bring some clarity to the situation. I was there when it was "blown up" not smashed. The stores were given specific directions of what to build as well as pictures of what was expected. They manager was being defiant and thumbed his nose at the Regional management. The manager had been written up multiple times for insubordination and poor performance. The manager and most of the staff were later terminated. A new manager and staff came in and turn that store around.

The shame is if they spent the same amount of time in promotion of events and hobby classes the store would have not been a giant failure. Hulksmash knows that the Regional manager at the time was no non-sense and the staff/manager knew that was unacceptable.

Now you have both sides.

Hulksmash wrote:The guidelines we got every year were quite specific. I think I left GW in 2003...though I'm not totally sure so it could have been 2004. So this might have been for my last games day. Which would make sense since I remember seeing it and I doubt it was out on the floor. I was a manager for one of the southern stores in California. You guys have to remember this was built on company time, sent into the regional HQ, and did not follow the guidelines for what they wanted.

What did the store that built it think would happen? As for sending it back, it's company property. The local regional vice president at the time could do whatever he wanted with it. I doubt it was stomped to death as that wasn't the Bunker manager at the times style but I could be wrong.

So, it looks like there's more to the story than "Oh noes, our store was bullieded!".

I'm not busting GW's balls on this, I'm just admiring it the same way I'd admire any prank that was very well done.

SickSix wrote:If me and friends/coworkers put time and effort into something like that and then someone 'stomped it to death', that wouldn't be the only thing to get stomped that day.

Weather you like the piece or not. Destroying it was uncalled for. This just show that some GW employees are literally bullies.

Have you ever had a job?
If you get assigned to do something, to a specific standard, and fail to do it. And you dont just fail to do it, you do it to mock the company you work for. Expect to be stomped out of the company ASAP.
To add to it, you also have the situational awareness of a refrigerator... well... stomping it is.

The one really cool store I used to play at had a running gag about re-creating the entire shopping center the store was in as a piece of terrain. Never happened, but would've been cool as it was one of the 'fake small town' shopping areas currently in vogue so there'd be a great T intersection to direct movement down with a few interesting back alleys.

pixelpusher wrote:

SickSix wrote:If me and friends/coworkers put time and effort into something like that and then someone 'stomped it to death', that wouldn't be the only thing to get stomped that day.

Weather you like the piece or not. Destroying it was uncalled for. This just show that some GW employees are literally bullies.

Have you ever had a job?
If you get assigned to do something, to a specific standard, and fail to do it. And you dont just fail to do it, you do it to mock the company you work for. Expect to be stomped out of the company ASAP.
To add to it, you also have the situational awareness of a refrigerator... well... stomping it is.

Have you ever had a job where people are expected to be professional?

Regardless of wether or not the piece was inappropriate or not, the proper reaction would have been to ask them to remove it from any public displays while at the event and tell them not to put it in their store either. And then reprimand them. Not stomp it like a bunch of 15 yr old bullies.

It wasn't displayed at the event. They had to ship the terrain they built to Games Days. The photos of the piece have a bit of spillover where you can pretty clearly see the interior of a small store.

SickSix wrote:

pixelpusher wrote:

SickSix wrote:If me and friends/coworkers put time and effort into something like that and then someone 'stomped it to death', that wouldn't be the only thing to get stomped that day.

Weather you like the piece or not. Destroying it was uncalled for. This just show that some GW employees are literally bullies.

Have you ever had a job?
If you get assigned to do something, to a specific standard, and fail to do it. And you dont just fail to do it, you do it to mock the company you work for. Expect to be stomped out of the company ASAP.
To add to it, you also have the situational awareness of a refrigerator... well... stomping it is.

Have you ever had a job where people are expected to be professional?

Regardless of wether or not the piece was inappropriate or not, the proper reaction would have been to ask them to remove it from any public displays while at the event and tell them not to put it in their store either. And then reprimand them. Not stomp it like a bunch of 15 yr old bullies.

Well thinking as a manager of employees, if this popped up: I'd 1) fire everyone involved as in escort out with security fired; and then 2) call the police, in case this isn't just some sort of "give em the finger before I quote move." We take any appearance of threat here extremely seriously.

Loved it! Especially the employee chained to the cash register. Having spent some time in retail many moons ago, I can relate to being chained to the till.

Very creative piece, love the use of Epic marines and the mini-dice, especially the rack space. Very detailed, kudos to the artist!

lol apparently so, Frazzled. Where do you work?