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 BigWaaagh wrote:
Simply put, companies do not go out of their way and make announcements like that if their results are going to disappoint. It's a very big and positive statement to actually come out and say something like this rather than just wait and post up their year end results, as they normally do, with the "trading is in line with expectations" comment they've thrown out to the investment community for the last several years. They must be very happy with the results they're tabulating.

Actually it is common for press releases prior to the publication of result by publicly traded companies.

Take a look at the half year press release where there announces a expected drop in profits for the period.

It's really nothing out of the ordinary.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:


I am . The TW series are definitely in the AAA realm and a Warhammer TW game has been much sought after for years, it was obvious that this would have been GW's biggest licensing opportunity by far, even more so than Dawn of War.

This, they did not do it earlier because they were always worried that a game like this would have a negative effect on WFB sales !

 notprop wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Simply put, companies do not go out of their way and make announcements like that if their results are going to disappoint. It's a very big and positive statement to actually come out and say something like this rather than just wait and post up their year end results, as they normally do, with the "trading is in line with expectations" comment they've thrown out to the investment community for the last several years. They must be very happy with the results they're tabulating.

Actually it is common for press releases prior to the publication of result by publicly traded companies.

Take a look at the half year press release where there announces a expected drop in profits for the period.

It's really nothing out of the ordinary.

Actually, if you read the complete statement of what I said you'd see that what I've pointed out is the distinction of this blurb, not the blurb itself, vs. the normal "trading is in line with expectations" boilerplate that they've used repeatedly, on and off, for the last several years leading up to their mid- and year-end numbers. What is obviously extraordinary is the very positive spin that has been missing from their statements for some time and companies do not make announcements like that when results are bad, or even flat, for that matter.

They might when their interim report featured something as negative as "we don't expect to earn more than £16m."

This reports says "slightly above market expectations."

So it's reasonable to assume that the market (the tiny bit that's actually paying attention,) given the last reports would be expecting zero growth, more or less, as last year's profits were £15.8m.

So, an extra £2-300K in profit, given the releases we've seen this year, could be simultaneously both disappointing and yet still above market expectations.

How about the influence of a Brexit?

As with every other single issue: Nobody really knows.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Simply put, companies do not go out of their way and make announcements like that if their results are going to disappoint. It's a very big and positive statement to actually come out and say something like this rather than just wait and post up their year end results, as they normally do, with the "trading is in line with expectations" comment they've thrown out to the investment community for the last several years. They must be very happy with the results they're tabulating.

Well the report is written for investors not gamers.

When investors read 6 months ago "We don't have good expectations" now they can read "we beat those bad expectations because of licensing!" as a positive.

As a gamer however, rather than being excessively positive my thought is "hrm, so does that mean your own in house games are going bad and you're just lucky Total War did better than expected?"

In the short term Brexit will be good for GW because it will cause a sudden steep drop in the value of the GBP. This will make GW's exports much more affordable in the rest of the world, which comprises about 2/3rds or 3/4rs of the GW market.

In the medium term the UK will suffer reduced growth which is liable to reduce GW's sales in the UK. This is also likely to have a long term knock-on effect, unless somehow the UK's economic growth rate increases by not being part of the EU. This however will only reduce UK sales, which as noted above are the minority.

In the longer term, we don't know what the effects of renegotiating all the EU trade treaties will be on GW's sales overseas.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In the short term Brexit will be good for GW because it will cause a sudden steep drop in the value of the GBP. This will make GW's exports much more affordable in the rest of the world, which comprises about 2/3rds or 3/4rs of the GW market.

Except that for the most part, GW prices in the local currency (US$, A$, NZ$, €), so unless GW decides to cut their exchange rates, the fall in the market exchange rate won;t make GW stuff more affordable (it might make it more profitable for GW though, so the 'good for GW point stands)). IIRC GW tend to maintain their rates on existing products, but might make new releases cheaper.

That's what I meant, but expressed it badly. If the GBP falls in value, each Euro/Dollar/Yen spent on GW kits creates more £££ on GW's bottom line at the end of the year.

The way this works is that if GW's North American division want to buy £100,000 of kits to sell, they have to pay $150,000 for them. When the £ goes down 10%, the cost of those kits to the NA division suddenly drops to $135,000, but they still sell to customers in the NA market for the same total amount of dollars as before. The NA division's profit therefore goes up by $35,000.

There is a lot more to international business operations that this but that's the basics of how currency movements affect things.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Total War:Hammer is getting a lot of good press and seems to be genuinely a great game.
Given the pedigree of the Total War series that's not surprising.
It's all the more disappointing that GW canned WHFB the year before this potential big boost to recruitment came on stream.
I'll put that down to the tail end of the baleful Kirby era.

I have at least one friend who was asking me about WFB after buying total warhammer. when I mentioned Age of Sigmar literally the best explination I could give him for it was "yeah it's GW's 4th edition D&D"

So you really sold it to him then....not really surprising that he wasn't interested then?

 notprop wrote:
So you really sold it to him then....not really surprising that he wasn't interested then?

Was going to say the same thing. I certainly think Total War could introduce many gamers to Age of Sigmar, just as it would have to WHFB. I mean, the majority of WHFB races aren't even in Total War, so what does it matter to the prospective gamer if the unknown race he encounters in the tabletop game is called Dark Elves or Shadowkin? Most of the units in Total War still exist in Age of Sigmar as well. And as for the fluff, it, as I understand it, isn't that in-depth in Total War, and most gamers probably don't pay that much attention to it anyway. The game rules are whatever, Age of Sigmar can easily look similar to Total War on the tabletop. To them, as long as you don't introduce in the way BrianDavion did, it's still Warhammer and you would very likely still be interested in if you were tabletop-curious after playing the PC game.

 Mymearan wrote:

 notprop wrote:
So you really sold it to him then....not really surprising that he wasn't interested then?

Was going to say the same thing. I certainly think Total War could introduce many gamers to Age of Sigmar, just as it would have to WHFB. I mean, the majority of WHFB races aren't even in Total War, so what does it matter to the prospective gamer if the unknown race he encounters in the tabletop game is called Dark Elves or Shadowkin? Most of the units in Total War still exist in Age of Sigmar as well. And as for the fluff, it, as I understand it, isn't that in-depth in Total War, and most gamers probably don't pay that much attention to it anyway. The game rules are whatever, Age of Sigmar can easily look similar to Total War on the tabletop. To them, as long as you don't introduce in the way BrianDavion did, it's still Warhammer and you would very likely still be interested in if you were tabletop-curious after playing the PC game.

Yes, god forbid people respond to people asking "can I do this specific thing in those models you like?" with an honest answer rather than trying to shill a product you have a low opinion of to your mates, truly the man is a monster

Also, if you're going to comment on the game, I'd recommend you play it rather than relying on your "understanding", as it's evidently not particularly extensive - the game is practically a love letter to WHF as a setting, from the design of the units to the way the iconic equipment for the Legendary Lords are acquired through special mission scenarios drawn from that character's background material. Further, the game only includes a limited roster for now, they'll be adding at least Bretonnians to this iteration as DLC and they plan to realise all the races and the entire global Warhammer World map by the end of the planned trilogy of titles(which will be "expandalones" that can be played individually or combined into PC Warhammer Voltron and played all at once). Also, AoS looks nothing like a TW:WH battle on the tabletop, because TW:WH looks like WHFB battles brought to life - the whole point of the TW franchise is that the mechanical depth comes from big block unit-based maneuver and positioning, it's all about charging the right unit with the right unit at the right angle and having the appropriate flanking force ready to engage, about crafting formations of huge angular blocks of infantry and cavalry to take advantage of the terrain and minimise your own force's weaknesses.

AoS doesn't share the same aesthetic, it doesn't share the same background/lore, and the core mechanics of the system are virtually the exact polar opposite in their design philosophy to the TW franchise - if someone could be persuaded to play AoS on the back of liking TW:WH, they could be persuaded to play literally any tabletop game and there are plenty of better ones out there to talk your mates into trying.

I would recommend Mantics Kings Of War , as a game that is closer to the game play of TW:WH on the table top.

Or Armies of Arcana, if the anacronym has to be closer to AoS.

 Mymearan wrote:
The game rules are whatever, Age of Sigmar can easily look similar to Total War on the tabletop.

No, not at all. Have you ever played a Total War game?

 Korinov wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:
The game rules are whatever, Age of Sigmar can easily look similar to Total War on the tabletop.

No, not at all. Have you ever played a Total War game?

Yep. Have you played Age of Sigmar?

I haven't played either of them but I still know that Total War is a high model count mass battle game and AoS is a small model count skirmish game.

Example of AoS battle:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In the short term Brexit will be good for GW because it will cause a sudden steep drop in the value of the GBP. This will make GW's exports much more affordable in the rest of the world, which comprises about 2/3rds or 3/4rs of the GW market.

In the medium term the UK will suffer reduced growth which is liable to reduce GW's sales in the UK. This is also likely to have a long term knock-on effect, unless somehow the UK's economic growth rate increases by not being part of the EU. This however will only reduce UK sales, which as noted above are the minority.

In the longer term, we don't know what the effects of renegotiating all the EU trade treaties will be on GW's sales overseas.

The other side of the coin is that a drop in the ££ it makes imports into the UK more expensive. For businesses reliant on imports for raw materials or manufactured goods, this added expense will offset the increased profit from selling overseas. Now from GW's point of view they don't have an issue, as they make the vast majority of their stuff in the UK, and their imported raw materials are a tiny proportion of their expenses (Plastic pellets are cheap as hell, add 10%, they're still cheap as hell)

I bring it up as it'll potentially affect other miniature companies way more - Mantic for example has most of it's manufacturing in China, add 10% to the manufacturing costs, it could really hurt them.

GW print books abroad, don't they?

 Mymearan wrote:
Example of AoS battle:

lol like playing a horde in 40k when their turn starts everyone pulls out a phone or walks away for a while. Move him move him 3 hours later almost done guys.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
GW print books abroad, don't they?

A mix of both in the UK and abroad. But books are a small part of the business, there is plenty of wood, paper mills and printing presses in the UK, and swapping printing companies is easy. Even a crazy ££ drop wouldn't impact much for books.

Sterling may not drop universally, either. So it may weaken against the Euro notably, but perhaps not so much against $ or Yuan, it's something that can be highly unpredictable.

Then you look at a variety of potential economic time bombs ticking throughout the eurozone which have the potential to damage the €, and it gets even murkier.

Indeed. For us Brits, whatever the vote comes out, the price of our toy soldiers & the fate of the companies making them may be the least of our concerns !

 Mymearan wrote:
Example of AoS battle:

Farcical. What's next, will you argue we should recommend 40K or WarmaHordes to people who play TW:WH and want to experience something similar on the tabletop?

Hey, let's take a moment to appreciate the effort that must have gone into Mymerean finding a picture of someone actually playing AOS!

They need some movement trays for those units. It'd speed things up and be quite helpful.

I think people are reading a bit much into my comments, but that's fine. I maintain that as a non-Warhammer fan you wouldn't care about the fluff differences between Total War and AoS, and as I said you can use the same models in AoS that are in TW... To an outsider who doesn't know the entire family history of the Von Carsteins or can recite Lord Dwarfington's Book of Grudges word for word they're both just wacky fantasy worlds anyway and the important thing is that both have the same races, units and characters.

 Mymearan wrote:
I think people are reading a bit much into my comments, but that's fine. I maintain that as a non-Warhammer fan you wouldn't care about the fluff differences between Total War and AoS, and as I said you can use the same models in AoS that are in TW... .

Sigmarines are in TW?