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... In relationship to GW?

At this point in time, they're the same thing. IIRC back in the late 70s, Citadel was strictly a miniature maker, while Games Workshop did RPG importing, the two merging at some point.

That evil looking tower in the distance that every now and then you swear you hear screams coming from.

A place of wickedness and horror in which reside the overminds that determine what codex gets updated and when.

A monument of horrible proportions so terrible that it with holds as many FAQ's as possible to feed on our suffering

I've always thought citadel's logo was a castle in the shape of a guitar

I think they're the same.

At one point they were separate companies with one guy (Brian Ansell) owning all of Citadel and part of GW. Eventually Ansell bought out the rest of GW (and even later a public buyout from him).

This is from my dim memory, and could be all wrong, so salt salt salt.

^^

That is the basics of it.

GW started as an importer of US role-playing games like D&D. They moved into licensed publishing and then started to design and publish their own titles too.

Citadel was effectively the "house miniatures" company for GW, and made figures for the games GW published.

Eventually Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone got tired of GW and moved on to other things.

To my knowledge they are the same...if not citadel is definately a subsidiary company

Citadel is now entirely part of GW, it's not even separate in terms of organisation (as forge world is).

Scott-S6 wrote:Citadel is now entirely part of GW, it's not even separate in terms of organisation (as forge world is).

But really it went the other way round- GW became part of citadel.

Citadel was created as a subsidiary of GW.

That Citadel's manager bought out GW's owners does not change that relationship between the two companies.

Brian Ansell went from being manager of Citadel to owner of GW (and hence also of citadel)

Ansell was owner of Citadel, not manager. Ansell started Citadel, left, then came back again and later bought out the rest of GW.

Rick Priestly & John Stallard describe the early days of GW here:
http://www.battlegames.co.uk/documents/BG_HH-RP-JS-interview_unabridged.pdf

Anyway, I think the important bit is that the guy who was on the miniature side of things is the one who bought everybody else out, as opposed to the guy importing rules. This explains a lot about GW's philosophy behind games.

From your link: "Citadel was originally founded by Bryan Ansell, and Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. So although it was always separate from Games Workshop, it was co-owned by the same people."

Citadel wasn't owned by bryan anymore than it was owned by steve and ian. Bryan was more connected to Citadel as he managed it.

Citadel was a subsidiary of GW, with GW paying all it's startup costs. Citadel and GW both went from being owned by three guys to being owned by one. Citadel is still the subsidiary.

Oh come on man, don't be obtuse. From the same paragraph you quoted:

"So in the end, it was Citadel that bought out Games Workshop."

Which is nonsense. Bryan had equal stakes in GW and Citadel. He bought out Ian and Steve's stakes in both.

An off-the-cuff comment from Rick does not change the business relationship between the two companies. Bryan went from managing Citadel to managing GW, which is probably the source of Rick's comment.


I'd really like you to explain this:

I own a 1/3 stake in company A.
Company A founds a subsidiary, company B, which I indirectly own a 1/3 stake in.
I manage company B.
I decide to buy the other 2/3 stake in company A so I now wholly own company A and, by extension, company B.

How does that make company B become the parent company?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

theHandofGork wrote:Anyway, I think the important bit is that the guy who was on the miniature side of things is the one who bought everybody else out, as opposed to the guy importing rules. This explains a lot about GW's philosophy behind games.

That I agree with. This is why the late '90s were such a state for the games - Bryan's attitude was always that GW is a model company and the rules are just a bonus.

Fortunately the current CEO understands that the models and games drive each other and both are essential.

It only took them how many years? lol

So how did marauder Miniatures fit in? I gather they were a separate company set up by Ally and Trish Morrison but still cast and distributed through Citadel. The miniatures in this line eventually were taken back into Citadel proper and later on they were released like standard GW miniatures and didn't carry the Marauder logo.

Kilkrazy wrote:Citadel was effectively the "house miniatures" company for GW, and made figures for the games GW published.

Actually, this is not quite true. The first miniature range which was run under the name Citadel were standard RPG miniatures without any GW game (but usable for D&D). At that time, they already had a higher standard than most other Fantasy miniature ranges.

And yes, GW made much money by becoming the sole distributor for D&D in Europe, by importing 5 boxes of the game.

Today, the brand name Citadel is used when a product is not limited to just one game like 40k or Warhammer Fantasy.
So paints and brushes and some terrain are marked Citadel rather than 40k.

Howard A Treesong wrote:So how did marauder Miniatures fit in? I gather they were a separate company set up by Ally and Trish Morrison but still cast and distributed through Citadel. The miniatures in this line eventually were taken back into Citadel proper and later on they were released like standard GW miniatures and didn't carry the Marauder logo.

That's exactly how it fits in. Ally and Trish set Marauder up for themselves and licensed their scuplts to GW.

I can only guess that it was favourable for tax reasons or they didn't get on with Bryan or something of that nature.

Scott-S6 wrote:Which is nonsense. Bryan had equal stakes in GW and Citadel. He bought out Ian and Steve's stakes in both.

An off-the-cuff comment from Rick does not change the business relationship between the two companies. Bryan went from managing Citadel to managing GW, which is probably the source of Rick's comment.


I'd really like you to explain this:

I own a 1/3 stake in company A.
Company A founds a subsidiary, company B, which I indirectly own a 1/3 stake in.
I manage company B.
I decide to buy the other 2/3 stake in company A so I now wholly own company A and, by extension, company B.

How does that make company B become the parent company?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

theHandofGork wrote:Anyway, I think the important bit is that the guy who was on the miniature side of things is the one who bought everybody else out, as opposed to the guy importing rules. This explains a lot about GW's philosophy behind games.

That I agree with. This is why the late '90s were such a state for the games - Bryan's attitude was always that GW is a model company and the rules are just a bonus.

Fortunately the current CEO understands that the models and games drive each other and both are essential.

You're analogy is wrong though, at least from what I've been told/read- Ansell owned all of Citadel and part of GW. I thought the GW owners sold out their stakes in Citadel to Ansell when he returned, and then later the rest of their business as well.

At any rate, the point was that the company was focused on miniatures first, games second (which seems strange for a company called GAMES Workshop). I think there's still a lot of that attitude left, but it has changed since the early days.

I'm satisfied with the answer. But you guys can keep arguing.

Yeah there's some good answers above. From what i made out citadel make the minatures and paints etc... And GW do the rules etc and decide what they want to be made and how it looks etc... Though because i've never seen citadel's work elsewhere then i presumed they merged. I guess from the above posts i presumed correctly

Hmm...time to get some popcorn, this thread is heating up.

Citadel make all GW products that are not printed or made by FW I believe.

They are the manufacturing part of the business effectively. It must be part of their legal status that they retain the Citadel name?

theHandofGork wrote:Anyway, I think the important bit is that the guy who was on the miniature side of things is the one who bought everybody else out, as opposed to the guy importing rules. This explains a lot about GW's philosophy behind games.

I think it shows us that the profits in this industry will always lie with the miniatures, not the rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Scott-S6 wrote:That's exactly how it fits in. Ally and Trish set Marauder up for themselves and licensed their scuplts to GW.

I can only guess that it was favourable for tax reasons or they didn't get on with Bryan or something of that nature.

More likely it was to retain control of the IP of their designs.

I would comment but its getting heated so I will not reiterate the argument again but in effect afaik citidel and GW are one company now and although it makes no difference who owns who GW has always been the driving force telling the sculptors what to design make since the late 80's

Company names tend to be a pretty weird subject. In general, mergers tend to result in the best known name being kept, no matter which company was bigger pre-merge.