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 Ascalam wrote:

Can't really say much on the GW store front for it being a standard, as there isn't a fething GW store in my state, and only two i know of within a days's drive.

I just got one of those ridiculous GW "update" emails last night, and they are taking job applications for Portland, OR so I'd suspect that we do have a store somewhere in Portland, or one's about to be opened somewhere round the city.


As for the worst thing... well, for starters they refer to it as "THE Hobby" as if they are the only miniatures wargame in existence. Most everything I've thought horrible, is almost a direct result, in my eyes, of this view... I mean, we can start with the thing that actually made me and some friends quit 40k (almost simultaneously), which is the prices... When I'm paying as much for a Rhino, as I used to pay for a Land Raider, there's something seriously wrong. If I can buy 3 different gaming systems' rule books for less than the cost of a single Warhammer 40k rule book.

I can see why some people don't like the skull thing, but it's kind of become who GW is... ya know, kinda like that Goth phase that some kids get in school?

 wowsmash wrote:
On a side note what kid has 300 dallors to blow. I used to sweat my guts out for 20 or 30 bucks. Guess that shows my age. I don't care what time of year it is if my kids ask for something that expensive the answer is flat out NO.

I have no idea, when I was a kid I didn't know anyone who was even remotely interested in miniatures or tabletop games like D&D, other than myself (and I didn't even properly learn about 40k until about the time Dawn of War came out). And all the lucky kids who had parents that could actually afford it were interested in other, more socially-acceptable hobbies.

I'm not sure exactly what market GW is after. They're all about the kids, obviously, but it just seems so damn strange to target kids when a lot of adults with full-time jobs can't even really justify buying the models, and most kids would rather play the video game or do something that won't get them a nasty label at school.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
I can see why some people don't like the skull thing, but it's kind of become who GW is... ya know, kinda like that Goth phase that some kids get in school?

Except most kids eventually grow up...

Mr Mugguffins wrote:
I primarily play in GW's due to them being more common about where I live than flgs. Here's the thing that drives me mad though.

Have you checked to see if theres any wargames clubs where you are?

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Ascalam wrote:

Can't really say much on the GW store front for it being a standard, as there isn't a fething GW store in my state, and only two i know of within a days's drive.

I just got one of those ridiculous GW "update" emails last night, and they are taking job applications for Portland, OR so I'd suspect that we do have a store somewhere in Portland, or one's about to be opened somewhere round the city.


As for the worst thing... well, for starters they refer to it as "THE Hobby" as if they are the only miniatures wargame in existence. Most everything I've thought horrible, is almost a direct result, in my eyes, of this view... I mean, we can start with the thing that actually made me and some friends quit 40k (almost simultaneously), which is the prices... When I'm paying as much for a Rhino, as I used to pay for a Land Raider, there's something seriously wrong. If I can buy 3 different gaming systems' rule books for less than the cost of a single Warhammer 40k rule book.

I can see why some people don't like the skull thing, but it's kind of become who GW is... ya know, kinda like that Goth phase that some kids get in school?

Hell for the price you pay for a GW book you can have the rules and a full force for other game systems >> But lets not turn this into a pricerage thread, isnt that time of year yet

doc1234 wrote:


Hell for the price you pay for a GW book you can have the rules and a full force for other game systems >> But lets not turn this into a pricerage thread, isnt that time of year yet

thats part of the problem with the "GW hobby" these days, is that the "bare essentials" to play the game are much steeper than the "bare essentials" for another game system out there. I'm not trying to turn this thread into one of those, but the topic at hand fits this as one of the many "worst things" about GW

The worst thing are the prices, followed by the prices. There are also prices, and lastly the prices.

Edit: Also the prices

15mm sci-fi is pretty awesome:
Dark Ages:

A desert town in Malifaux:

Paper terrain that can look better than Realm of Battle boards?

I think this terrain is made from inexpensive laser cut wood that you assemble and paint:

Simple & effective drop cloths and area terrain:

We simply don't need GW. With every price increase and removal of services offered from their hobby centres (like good terrain), the value proposition gets worse and worse. There's a huge world of wargaming out there.

Mr Mugguffins wrote:
When the hell did these god damned citadel gaming boards become standard?

When store owners discovered that it's really hard to break or damage them, that's when. Foam boards have superior qualities to the GW ones, namely more flexible terrain placement as well as decreased cost but they are also damaged and destroyed far more easily by nomal use than the hard plastic 2'x2' RoB boards. I don't know of too many store owners who want to spend a lot of time on board maintenance.

the huge unbalanced nature in favour of the space marines

every time i go to my flgs every single army there is space marine, i mean WTF is the point of the whole 40k universe if all anyone will play is f###ing space marines?!

there is little balance to the gaming anymore and factions arent represented as they should be, IG are still just cadians or catachan, not many people play smaller obscure chapters of space marines and if a new set of vehicles are released, it belongs to the armies that really dont need any more firepower.

@FrozenWastes: What line is that 15mm sci-fi system?

stormwell wrote:

Mr Mugguffins wrote:I primarily play in GW's due to them being more common about where I live than flgs. Here's the thing that drives me mad though.

Have you checked to see if theres any wargames clubs where you are?

Ironically enough GW will even help you in said search.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/storelocator/search.jsp

Just tick the gaming clubs box.

12thRonin wrote:
@FrozenWastes: What line is that 15mm sci-fi system?

The rules are Guntz15mm http://www.gruntz.biz - They're about to release their 1.1 revised version in both PDF and print. The current 1.0 version is PDF only. Take Warmachine, cut out the warcaster, the spells, the special abilities and focus on synergy and combos and then convert it for sci-fi and add a decent unit and vehicle builder system and you won't have the wrong idea. I believe it also has overwatch fire, alternating activations and a few other optional rules. Solid game.

The blue guys appear to be Khurasan 15mm High-Tech Humans in Assisted Power Armour TTC-1004 http://khurasanminiatures.tripod.com/15mmscifi-infantry.html <-- scroll down about a quarter of the way.

The yellow power lifter and the androids, I don't know. I'd recommend emailing the guy who publishes Gruntz and ask him as it was his demo gaming table at Salute 2012. I'm sure there's a contact info page somewhere on gruntz.biz.

Probably my favorite thing about getting outside of "The Games Workshop Hobby" is that you start running into companies that make miniatures and other companies that make rules. That way the miniatures have to sell on their own merit and the rules have to sell on their own merit. Though some of the historical manufacturers are starting to come out with their own rules and branding their miniatures with their rules name on the packages. Like Warlord Games selling ancients with "Hail Caesar" on the package while they also sell a set of rules called Hail Caesar. Generally that's as far as it goes in Historicals outside of Flames of War.

Awesome pics of terrain there Frozenwastes..

The funny thing is that none of those boards is particularly difficult to make. They just take a little imagination and I think with practice they can be achieved by anyone. I don't even think they take that much more effort, I've made some snow covered Eastern-front themed boards for Flames of War and it was perhaps 2-3 hours work in all. And like some of those photos above show, the results speak for themselves.

I don't think the plastic table top is the worst things. I think is indicative of GW today though. They make the tables and all the terrain as kits and fill their shops with it. They are ever more taking the hobbying out of the hobby and making tabletops homogeneous across their stores.

But that isn't the worst thing about GW today. Sorry to bring up the obvious, but the worst is Finecast. That was the day they took a perfectly good casting material off the shelves and replaced it with a poorer substitute just to save manufacturing costs and then still tried to feed us a line about how much better it was to raise the prices. For all their faults at least you have to say that GW have pushed quality, their plastic kits just keep getting better. But the Finecast, no, that's when they dispensed with quality for profit. That is a significant change for the worse IMO.

They kinda did it at least once before Finecast, though. Remember that "while stocks last" blastscape terrain, or whatever it was called? Came out around the time Planetstrike did I think. They posted pics on the website of what must have been painted resin masters that looked just cool as hell, but what you actually got was cheap-ass vac-formed crap that almost literally wasn't even the same product...the actual pieces were all blobby and had gak for detail in comparison, and the pieces were also really thin and easy to damage. $25 price tag IIRC. There was such a backlash over it they quickly took the old pics down and put up new ones to advertise the set on the website, to show you the actual product (maybe that was the one and only time GW was afraid of an actual lawsuit, lmao)...I remember it was a big deal back then.

I've also noticed a lack of quality in their printed products, too, like my fething $80 40k rulebook (which I really ought to have returned and gotten my money back for before even cracking the plastic, but oh well). There's at least a dozen pages in the thing that just look like garbage...it mainly affects the army showcases towards the back, all the same 'Eavy Metal models we've seen countless times before, but entire pages are just "fuzzy"...kinda like you're looking at them cross-eyed I'd say. I'm not sure what that particular defect is called or what causes it, but even though those pages are useless and I've seen it all before, I was still kinda mad that a book I paid that much for looked like that.

Sidstyler,

If your rulebook is as you describe then you can still exchange it for a good one. My rulebook (the basic edition) doesn't have the problem you describe at all. I know if I saw what you describe I'd exchange it. Repeat pictures are one thing but they should fix the quality problem.

For me the attraction of the RoBB is purely storage/durabillity/portabillity! I hate the price hate the hills and hate the skulls but even though I have plenty of storage space at home I live in a rural location and few of my friends (living in the city) drive/own a car so we usually play at there places where often storage is at a premium. MDF boards are all well and good but they are much heavier/awkward and bulkier than the RoBB!

 Pacific wrote:
Awesome pics of terrain there Frozenwastes..

The funny thing is that none of those boards is particularly difficult to make. They just take a little imagination and I think with practice they can be achieved by anyone. I don't even think they take that much more effort, I've made some snow covered Eastern-front themed boards for Flames of War and it was perhaps 2-3 hours work in all. And like some of those photos above show, the results speak for themselves.

Some of them do have some nice elements. many of them are made from commercial produts NOT scratch built and arent "cheap".

The cardboard stuff is not appealing at all really and doesnt look better than a ROBB imho. I wouldnt pay the money for a ROBB myself, but neither would I buy that snap fit printed cardoboard stuff...

My biggest issue is the lack of balance due to lack of codex updates. I was probably spoilt by starting just before 3e dropped. The massive change in rules meant a new codex was being released nearly every other month.

Can't understand why there are still 4e versions for some armies.....

I have no issue with GW. I have issue with the GW haters that make issue with me having no issue. Move along.

CT GAMER wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Awesome pics of terrain there Frozenwastes..

The funny thing is that none of those boards is particularly difficult to make. They just take a little imagination and I think with practice they can be achieved by anyone. I don't even think they take that much more effort, I've made some snow covered Eastern-front themed boards for Flames of War and it was perhaps 2-3 hours work in all. And like some of those photos above show, the results speak for themselves.

Some of them do have some nice elements. many of them are made from commercial produts NOT scratch built and arent "cheap".

The cardboard stuff is not appealing at all really and doesnt look better than a ROBB imho. I wouldnt pay the money for a ROBB myself, but neither would I buy that snap fit printed cardoboard stuff...

(above line is CT Gamer, couldn't get the quotes to work properly!)

Yes right. I suppose the cardboard terrain thing can be very varied in terms of quality. I've seen some pretty awesome examples, and for some games (such as D&D derivatives, where a constant update of new terrain is needed) it can work really well.

I'm not saying the Realm of Battle board is a complete waste of time. Found this good example of one being used here for instance:


But look closely at that board, and what really makes it? Essentially, it's a modular, textured playing surface. But, it still needs flock, painting and other terrain for it to be able to function effectively as a wargaming board. Alternatively you could go to any DIY store, and buy a piece of MDF for less than £20, and some plaster/foamboard to make the undulated surface and the results would be almost indistinguishable.

I guess in conclusion I'm saying that there is nothing at all with the ROB board being on sale (typing that, I see GW got clever with the acronym.. ) and having that as an option, but that it's presence, as well as pre-made terrain, seems to have acted to completely ostracised the rest of the terrain building hobby. It's definitely one of the things missing from WD these days I feel. No doubt a lot of the antagonism towards the Realm of Battle Board is because of that and what it represents, which is just the change to a complete focus on $, rather than a real criticism of the product itself.

Byte wrote:I have no issue with GW. I have issue with the GW haters that make issue with me having no issue. Move along.

I don't think that really adds anything to the discussion.. and you know it's going to get someone coming down it like a bag of spuds and cause an argument, so why write it?

Not sure I agree with all of that Pacific but I do agree the RoB board does work as a product. It is more robust than anything else I can think of, one of the reasons that GW has them for most of the tables at WW I would guess. The big custom tables they have set up for instance were well worn and damaged when I went there, foam/plaster/filler/MDF all chipped and gouged. A shame to see some iconic tables so abused but that's gaming I suppose. The RoB ones all seemed in good condition in-spite of heavy use.

I'm not fan of Rob but suspect that if they were half the price there would be no griping whatsoever.

The worst things;

For me it has to be the negativity that permeates throughout the hobby/Dakka. Allot of people want to piss on your chips because you like this or don't play that; it gets a bit boring after a while. I put this down to allot of young hobbiests (I was the same as a teen I'm sure ) though there's no shortage of adults that act the same. Peoples internet personalities don't help but I'm not sure that is hobby related? Curiously every Dakkanaut I have met hasn't been negative but that tends to be playing so it could just be a online/meatlife thing.

Just remembered another one; born again gamers. These are the chaps who advise that there is a life outside of GW as if it is a new revelation sent to them by God/Rick Priestley and they have opened their bleary eyes to a new dawn as if there hasn't been people other than GW making games for the last half a century or more. It's all terribly condescending and tends to speak more of their previous blinkered fanboyism that they now berate others for because they don't play WM/Infinity/KoW/whatever. These fellers should just let people get on with what they want to do and stop banging on about seeing the light like some half baked preacher.

 notprop wrote:

Just remembered another one; born again gamers. These are the chaps who advise that there is a life outside of GW as if it is a new revelation sent to them by God/Rick Priestley and they have opened their bleary eyes to a new dawn as if there hasn't been people other than GW making games for the last half a century or more. It's all terribly condescending and tends to speak more of their previous blinkered fanboyism that they now berate others for because they don't play WM/Infinity/KoW/whatever. These fellers should just let people get on with what they want to do and stop banging on about seeing the light like some half baked preacher.

People get excited about what they like, so they talk about it.

Also bear in mind, that GW has been aggressively recruiting customers through their demo sales process and through independant stockists for quite some time now. Many people really do only know of GW and don't know about any other miniature companies or games.

I think GW's current business plan is good for the industry and hobby as a whole. They know their customers generally quit within a couple of years, but thanks to them, some life long gamers get exposed to miniature gaming for the first time. They often go on to other games and miniatures after they move on from GW.

Part of this healthy diversification away from GW's near monopoly in the 1990s is people letting others know what's out there and that if they're unhappy about something, they really do have options. Then when the next 10%+ price increase comes next June, they can start considering whether or not they really are getting value for their money and whether or not they want to pay more for less miniatures when things like Imperial Guard plastics get reduced from 20 per box down to 10. Or when Ork Boys go from 16 down to 10. Or when the 16 and 20 soldier WFB regiment boxes get rereleased as 10 figure boxes.

The OP in this thread was largely about the decline of the hobby experience in the GW stores. Instead of having all sorts of great gaming space with custom quality terrain, they have RoB tables. Free painting has gone away and many stores have had their staff and operating hours slashed. So people who used to game there regularly now are getting worse value for their money in terms of services offered.

It's okay to be like the majority of GW's customers who stop buying their products. If you're a life long gamer, finding an alternative is okay too. Someone telling you that is not some hokey tent revival preacher talking about seeing the light. It's about making smart choices with your hobby budget. The Games Workshop Hobby™ might be on the decline, but miniature war gaming has never been better. More companies, more miniatures, more rules, more options. Those aren't bad things.

Speaking of condescending.....thanks for that but you appear to have missed the point.

Mine is that it has always been such, there are lots of options and has been for a long time (so before I started 20 odd years ago). Pretending that we are in some golden age of gaming is daft and that we all need to open our eyes is the proverbial cherry on top. There has always been dozens/hundreds of systems/miniature ranges available, it just it is only now that these fools realise it. So The born again hobbiests either show that they were blinkered/ignorant before and/or try to bully people to their way of thinking. It really sucks the fun out of an interesting hobby when in fact the only real difference between now and 20+ years ago is that GW is bigger and the ability to create professional looking products is within the reach of everyone thanks to the prevelence of computers and software.

Part of the RoBB deal is the portability.

The rest of our terrain (made of foam board, wood, etc..) usually have so much structural support that they aren't really as compact when folded.

That said, I don't like the RoBB because the slopes wreak havoc on me placing top-heavy metal miniatures on small bases.

 notprop wrote:
Speaking of condescending.....thanks for that but you appear to have missed the point.

No. Your point was just wrong. There are lots of GW customers who don't know other companies or products exist. My first miniatures might have been early Ral Parthas, but many, many people only know of GW in terms of miniature markers because it's all they've been exposed to.

Mine is that it has always been such, there are lots of options and has been for a long time (so before I started 20 odd years ago). Pretending that we are in some golden age of gaming is daft and that we all need to open our eyes is the proverbial cherry on top. There has always been dozens/hundreds of systems/miniature ranges available, it just it is only now that these fools realise it.

Being exposed to only one company's marketing and products doesn't make anyone a fool. It makes them a customer of that company. Then when they find out that there are options, they get really, really happy about it.

And yes, we really are in a golden age. Before you found out about games and miniatures through local shops and maybe some magazines. You'd often have to order things sight unseen or pay to have a catalogue with photographs sent to you in the mail. Now I can go on the website of a tiny producer in the former Soviet Union and get an amazing miniature mailed to me with a few mouse clicks. I hear about new products every day hear on Dakka Dakka, gaming news sights like TGN, wargaming blogs, and elsewhere.

The internet has done more to connect miniature makers with buyers than anything else. Even if the number of miniature producers hasn't increased, the availability of their lines has increased dramatically thanks to the internet.

... and the ability to create professional looking products is within the reach of everyone thanks to the prevelence of computers and software.

And this is the second game changer. No longer are small press rules sets type-written affairs printed on a home computer. No longer are miniature photographs low quality and hard to see. The barriers lowered by technology has done wonders for allowing people into the market.

try to bully people to their way of thinking.

You're the one who's come into this thread to take a shot at people who disagree with you. You carried out a blanket personal attack calling people blinkered, fools, ex-fanboys, etc., comparing them to annoying religious preachers (born again gamers).

Want to see the bullying, look in a mirror.

.

The Internet has changed things a lot for the better. I remember having to go to wargames shows just to see the latest releases from the small manufacturers. It was always great to see new stuff, but what a bind! If you wanted something between events you'd have to send an order through the post, a real hassle getting stuff from abroad. The Internet means manufacturers can show off their stuff far more easily to a wider number of people with lovely photos and make them dead easy to buy. This is great In the UK where the majority of gaming shops are actually GW stores.

 frozenwastes wrote:

 notprop wrote:
Speaking of condescending.....thanks for that but you appear to have missed the point.

No. Your point was just wrong. There are lots of GW customers who don't know other companies or products exist. My first miniatures might have been early Ral Parthas, but many, many people only know of GW in terms of miniature markers because it's all they've been exposed to.

Mine is that it has always been such, there are lots of options and has been for a long time (so before I started 20 odd years ago). Pretending that we are in some golden age of gaming is daft and that we all need to open our eyes is the proverbial cherry on top. There has always been dozens/hundreds of systems/miniature ranges available, it just it is only now that these fools realise it.

Being exposed to only one company's marketing and products doesn't make anyone a fool. It makes them a customer of that company. Then when they find out that there are options, they get really, really happy about it.

And yes, we really are in a golden age. Before you found out about games and miniatures through local shops and maybe some magazines. You'd often have to order things sight unseen or pay to have a catalogue with photographs sent to you in the mail. Now I can go on the website of a tiny producer in the former Soviet Union and get an amazing miniature mailed to me with a few mouse clicks. I hear about new products every day hear on Dakka Dakka, gaming news sights like TGN, wargaming blogs, and elsewhere.

The internet has done more to connect miniature makers with buyers than anything else. Even if the number of miniature producers hasn't increased, the availability of their lines has increased dramatically thanks to the internet.

... and the ability to create professional looking products is within the reach of everyone thanks to the prevelence of computers and software.

And this is the second game changer. No longer are small press rules sets type-written affairs printed on a home computer. No longer are miniature photographs low quality and hard to see. The barriers lowered by technology has done wonders for allowing people into the market.

try to bully people to their way of thinking.

You're the one who's come into this thread to take a shot at people who disagree with you. You carried out a blanket personal attack calling people blinkered, fools, ex-fanboys, etc., comparing them to annoying religious preachers (born again gamers).

Want to see the bullying, look in a mirror.

.

So was that a generalisation or a personal attack, surely it can't be both?

Sorry mate my intent was not to upset you. A bit near the mark clearly.

Nothing in my posts are telling anyone what to do, I merely pointed out that some people get a bit boring About something that is appearant to anyone that is exposed to the internet and of a mind to look i.e. everyone. So basically a comment on something I don't like about the hobby, sort of the point of the thread no?

Oh and put your toys back in the pram they're messing the place up.

 notprop wrote:
Not sure I agree with all of that Pacific but I do agree the RoB board does work as a product. It is more robust than anything else I can think of, one of the reasons that GW has them for most of the tables at WW I would guess. The big custom tables they have set up for instance were well worn and damaged when I went there, foam/plaster/filler/MDF all chipped and gouged. A shame to see some iconic tables so abused but that's gaming I suppose. The RoB ones all seemed in good condition in-spite of heavy use.

I'm not fan of Rob but suspect that if they were half the price there would be no griping whatsoever.

Yes I think you're probably right there!

The worst things;

For me it has to be the negativity that permeates throughout the hobby/Dakka. Allot of people want to piss on your chips because you like this or don't play that; it gets a bit boring after a while. I put this down to allot of young hobbiests (I was the same as a teen I'm sure ) though there's no shortage of adults that act the same. Peoples internet personalities don't help but I'm not sure that is hobby related? Curiously every Dakkanaut I have met hasn't been negative but that tends to be playing so it could just be a online/meatlife thing.

Just remembered another one; born again gamers. These are the chaps who advise that there is a life outside of GW as if it is a new revelation sent to them by God/Rick Priestley and they have opened their bleary eyes to a new dawn as if there hasn't been people other than GW making games for the last half a century or more. It's all terribly condescending and tends to speak more of their previous blinkered fanboyism that they now berate others for because they don't play WM/Infinity/KoW/whatever. These fellers should just let people get on with what they want to do and stop banging on about seeing the light like some half baked preacher.

I agree with you mate, it's not a nice thing at all, but to an extent I think you have to think that the ratio of these posts is related to the forum/public atmosphere surrounding that company and those releases. At present that seems to be centred mostly around the GW discussions, I think simply based on their larger demographic, although other companies are not immune (the bigger Mantic threads seem to end up with a lot of red moderator ink for instance)

I also think there is a massive difference between saying 'what rubbish lol, company X suck' or 'uz are all haterz', and actually trying to write something constructive, which is something I always try to do whatever my opinion might be. Of course it's a wonderful thing celebrating new releases, and talking about them with like minded individuals, but at the same time we are all (well, most ) intelligent human beings here - taking GW as an example, if something like the Razorgore is released, while some people might indeed like it (and express their opinion as such) the common consensus was that it did deserve to get a slating. On the other hand, something like the Dark Eldar range release got almost universal praise when it hit the shelves. I can't remember much negativity about it all, other than perhaps a very fringe minority, and even then it was more of a 'it's not my thing' comment, rather than the 'what rubbish lol'.

By their very nature some actions that a company might make will swing that 'atmosphere' of the community against them. I hope I'm not being unbiased or unreasonably subjective here by stating that GW's price rises and poor quality control of Finecast (to give possibly the two biggest 'anger inducers') were generally not popular with a majority of the user base. How much those issues bothered you would vary in each case, but that a summary of those cases would end with a net negative to customer perceptions is undeniable. That, combined with some other issues, meant that I think (last summer in particular) the forum became a pretty unpleasant place. The stuff that GW was getting right - the release of the new WFB, some of the new monster kits, which would normally have been abuzz with positive feedback, were instead polluted from the negative backwash of those other threads.
And I should note such a thing is not exclusive to GW - when Mantic released Warpath for instance, a big negative point for some people was its likeness to their fantasy line, and also the supposed lack of originality. Such a negative perception spread into threads which might otherwise have been positive, such as their kickstarter thread for instance.
So while I agree that the negativity can be tiresome, especially if it is something that doesn't concern you (I don't know.. perhaps you only buy Kings of War, only plastics, or buy 2nd hand from ebay for instance), at the same time there is no smoke without fire. Yes, some like to grumble about everything, but I think the vast majority of people are pretty reasonable, even with the internet effect on forums. And if something pisses you off, and its something you have spent a lot of time with, of course you are going to want to have a moan about it. I think even if you don't agree with that persons sentiments, at least its possible to see it from there point of view.

I also think that for whatever reason, some posters seem to polarize towards one extreme viewpoint, almost like some bizarre reflection of party politics. Whether it's an attempt to get a voice heard amongst the myriad of other posts, but viewpoints can range from the aggressively vitriolic, to the unashamedly apologetic. One person makes a post on one side of the spectrum, and then that seems to spark off a similarly polarized viewpoint - hence why I wasn't too keen on Byte making that post above

I know what you mean about the later point though, and while I may have a personal preference about what game system and models are better/worse, I would never presume to try and rain on someones parade if they are enjoying something. At the same time though, I think it's only fair to express disappointment with something if it doesn't quite hit the mark. If that makes sense?

Ultimately I think we are all on the same 'side' if that makes sense, and there is little to be gained by short-sighted comments and mindless praise of a product because of the company logo that it carries. In the same breath, each product I think should be judged on its own merits, and not hated because it carries the GW logo, the Mantic logo, Warmachine or anything else! Although I realise that is something in human nature, and hey football hooliganism would be pretty boring if it didn't exist

So anyway, what point was I trying to make?! Yes, human nature is a funny thing, we are all different, whatever floats your boat etc.

 notprop wrote:
About something that is appearant to anyone that is exposed to the internet and of a mind to look i.e. everyone.

This is where you've been consistently and persistently wrong. The reason people appear to have not known about other manufacturers and then are pleasantly surprised when they find out about them is because they did not know about other manufacturers and are pleasantly surprised when they find out about them. GW has been very, very careful from the moment they switched their stores from being general game stores (for example, they were the original importers of Dungeons & Dragons to the UK) to only selling their own products to stop mentioning any other players in the hobby. They even renamed the hobby in their publications from miniatures wargaming to The Games Workshop Hobby™.

Oh and put your toys back in the pram they're messing the place up.

I've spoiler tagged the images I've posted above, if that's what you're talking about. But again, what's with the personal attacks like implying I'm childish (pram)? Seriously, your whole approach to this thread has been to attack those participating in it. It's really not that clever to see a thread about negative things and then pop in to complain about complaining and attack those offering alternatives. Please stop doing that and actually try to discuss things.

Do you have anything substantive to say about my points. Here's a summary if it helps:

- People are happy about their new product choices after getting burned out with GW and want to share it. Understandable, even though some levels of enthusiasm can be annoying
- Those who were recruited by GW may indeed only know about GW until they start looking elsewhere. So naturally, they're going to come across as if the existence of other options is indeed a new thing.
- The internet has allowed greater levels of communication between miniature wargaming related sellers and their customers than ever before. It's a huge improvement over the old days of mail order, catalogues and the like. This connects with people who start out just knowing about GW finding out about new options.
- Combined with the barriers of entry into the market place being lowered by technology, there are now more hobby related retailers that can get in contact with a greater number of customers than ever before. These two facts combine to create was is a "golden age" in miniature wargaming, even while GW's customer base shrinks as price rises increase faster than their relatively flat revenue.
- Services offered by GW owned hobby centres have been cut. Hours of operation cut. Numbers of staff cut. Terrain available, standardized and minimized. Playing space minimized in areas where large stores are replaced by small one person operations. Painting tables for general hobby use have been cut.

No wonder more and more people are turning to alternatives. It's not out of religious fervor or zealotry. It's just logical. And it's also logical to be excited about the things one enjoys. If you're not (as some of those in this thread have expressed), maybe it is a smart move to widen one's options when it comes to the hobby of miniature wargaming. Seems like a pretty reasonable response to the increasing number of issues people have with GW.

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