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What if Games Workshop rented the Warhammer 40,000 copyright to another game company like Mantic or Fantasy Flight Games?

We all know games like X-Wing are fantastic and growing in popularity. Mantic has some great games as well. For these companies, the rules and gameplay come first, so hence their game design/rulesets are fun.

If these companies create fun games for the wargaming enthusiast, maybe Games Workshop REALLY SHOULD just create great looking models and shy away from making rules all together.

Should GW just make models, and NOT any RULES for 40k?

Are we all hoping that perhaps GW doesn't ever make another CODEX or RULEBOOK? What if FFG made a 40k RULEBOOK-would you be interested in it?

I think that's what they should do. IMHO GW should focus on 2 things:

1) Models
2) Background/fluff

#2 would also encompass Black Library novels and allow for "atlas" type of supplements (e.g. detail a world, talk about its culture, history, demographics, etc. rich information to help the narrative aspect of the game)

They don't want to write rules, so I really don't get why they still do it. They should allow someone else to write the rules of the game, be able to provide guidelines (but not what they currently do where the model is made and then rules need to be tacked onto it) so the end result is a good game with great models, instead of good models and a crap game.

WayneTheGame wrote:
I think that's what they should do. IMHO GW should focus on 2 things:

1) Models
2) Background/fluff

#2 would also encompass Black Library novels and allow for "atlas" type of supplements (e.g. detail a world, talk about its culture, history, demographics, etc. rich information to help the narrative aspect of the game)

They don't want to write rules, so I really don't get why they still do it. They should allow someone else to write the rules of the game, be able to provide guidelines (but not what they currently do where the model is made and then rules need to be tacked onto it) so the end result is a good game with great models, instead of good models and a crap game.

Yeah, that seems to be a good solution.
GW even said that they are a models company, not a games company (despite their name).
They should really hand over the rules writing part to someone who actually gives a damn about balance.

Either that, or replace the current GW staff. But that might result in the background getting destroyed...not that they aren't doing a good job of that anyway, of course.

You already kind of have that option now.

Simply play Warmachine with 40k "Counts as" models

Are we all hoping that perhaps GW doesn't ever make another CODEX or RULEBOOK? What if FFG made a 40k RULEBOOK-would you be interested in it?

I can't judge Mantic, but as far as FFG games is concerned, I'd have my doubts about a decent 40k ruleset. Most of the collectible games I've played from them so far have been quick to learn, out-of-the-box types of games, with rather simple basic rules using tons of cards, tokens and special rules that only come with certain models. While I thought that X-Wing and Armada were quite fun to play, I didn't really like Imperial Assault and it's addons, which might be the closest thing to a ground tabletop in their lineup.

If I had to name a company that I'd like to give a shot at a 40k ruleset, it would probably either be Battlefront or Warlord Games (of Flames of War and Bolt Action fame).

Overall, it probably won't happen, though. For pretty much every gaming company, it's the miniatures that make the money, and the rules are mostly money-loosing business used to promote figures and accessories (dice, terrain, etc...).

 womprat49 wrote:
What if Games Workshop rented the Warhammer 40,000 copyright to another game company like Mantic or Fantasy Flight Games?

What an interesting prospect.

What would happen if GW licensed out its IP to a company like FFG?

I have absolutely no idea what could ever possibly happen.

the biggest thing youd notice is that the rest of the industry would be in uproar, games workshop is a leviathan of grunt and influence in the buisness and them playing favourites like that especially with a big name company would be viewed as patronage by other companies especially smaller end things.

it would be a PR nightmare for both companies

What GW really should do is follow their own company line. They claim to be a miniature company, not a game company.

If they really believe that, they should have Fantasy Flight Games do all the rules for their miniature games. GW can then focus on producing models, while Fantasy Flight can make rulesets which will sell those models.

I wouldn't mind another company doing the rules so long as they keep the core mechanics and hit/wound/save format.

I would imagine deviating away from that would alienate far too many people.

I've been saying GW should outsource game design to an actual gaming company for years. There are so many systems that are not only easier to learn and more balanced, but that make more sense from a story perspective. For example, why is a Titan exactly as easy/difficult to hit at a distance as a Grot? Would it be that hard to have a model's BS roll against a defensive value instead of having a BS chart? Would that not make 6+ BS more relevant?

Don't like the way cover saves work? Have cover add to a model's defensive value instead of granting a cover save. Now every army benefits from cover all the time instead of just some armies some of the time.

riburn3 wrote:
I wouldn't mind another company doing the rules so long as they keep the core mechanics and hit/wound/save format.

I would imagine deviating away from that would alienate far too many people.

40K is a horrible game right now. If getting rid of hit/wound/save format is gone, I am all for it. Yes I know it's opinion, but it's so stupid, you get "hit" then you roll to "wound" then roll to "save". It makes the game longer. If anything, if you get "Hit", you DIE unless you "save". There should be no "wound" rolls at all. Especially with the power of these weapons, you take a bolter shot wearing a T-shirt and you get a save for it? Fine, you can get a save for it, but wearing a t-shirt but getting hit by a bolter shot, you should be dead unless this magical t-shirt can save the hit. No wound should be rolled at all.

Part of the problem of 40K besides the I Move/ I shoot/ I assault and do everything while you only do nothing for 1/2 hour except remove minis is too much rolling slowing the game down as well. Removing the "wound" part I would be all up for it.

I believe another company making the rules and having nothing 40K rules as is now, would be a great idea.

Davor wrote:

riburn3 wrote:
I wouldn't mind another company doing the rules so long as they keep the core mechanics and hit/wound/save format.

I would imagine deviating away from that would alienate far too many people.

40K is a horrible game right now. If getting rid of hit/wound/save format is gone, I am all for it. Yes I know it's opinion, but it's so stupid, you get "hit" then you roll to "wound" then roll to "save". It makes the game longer. If anything, if you get "Hit", you DIE unless you "save". There should be no "wound" rolls at all. Especially with the power of these weapons, you take a bolter shot wearing a T-shirt and you get a save for it? Fine, you can get a save for it, but wearing a t-shirt but getting hit by a bolter shot, you should be dead unless this magical t-shirt can save the hit. No wound should be rolled at all.

Part of the problem of 40K besides the I Move/ I shoot/ I assault and do everything while you only do nothing for 1/2 hour except remove minis is too much rolling slowing the game down as well. Removing the "wound" part I would be all up for it.

I believe another company making the rules and having nothing 40K rules as is now, would be a great idea.

Not necessarily. If you shoot an elephant, there's a good chance that unless you are using a big gun, its just going to be pissed off. That's what they are trying to convey. Sometimes hitting something isn't enough.
Its sort of the same with people. You might hit someone with a bullet, but what if it just hits something that isn't vital? What if it just hits the arm, and the target shrugs off the pain.
I do agree that the order is wrong.
It should be hit-save-wound.

They should outsource to two companies.

They should outsource their rules to Wizard of the Coast, as they have been able to manage the massive rules and interacts in both D&D and Magic the Gathering.

They should outsource their models to Bandai Japan, as they make the best plastic models in the world, with fully articulate and detailed figures at less than $15 the size of a Riptide.

 Nilok wrote:
They should outsource to two companies.

They should outsource their rules to Wizard of the Coast, as they have been able to manage the massive rules and interacts in both D&D and Magic the Gathering.

They should outsource their models to Bandai Japan, as they make the best plastic models in the world, with fully articulate figures at less than $15 the size of a Riptide.

No, Wizards of the Coast would be horrible for the game. Fantasy Flight would be far better, and they already have a working relationship with 40k through the RPGs. WOTC do terrible things to games.

And GW is perfectly fine making their own models. Unless you want the models to become way way more expensive. GW makes damn fine miniatures.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Nilok wrote:
They should outsource to two companies.

They should outsource their rules to Wizard of the Coast, as they have been able to manage the massive rules and interacts in both D&D and Magic the Gathering.

They should outsource their models to Bandai Japan, as they make the best plastic models in the world, with fully articulate figures at less than $15 the size of a Riptide.

No, Wizards of the Coast would be horrible for the game. Fantasy Flight would be far better, and they already have a working relationship with 40k through the RPGs. WOTC do terrible things to games.

And GW is perfectly fine making their own models. Unless you want the models to become way way more expensive. GW makes damn fine miniatures.

Provided they have the right designs.
Dat Pumbagore.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Nilok wrote:
They should outsource to two companies.

They should outsource their rules to Wizard of the Coast, as they have been able to manage the massive rules and interacts in both D&D and Magic the Gathering.

They should outsource their models to Bandai Japan, as they make the best plastic models in the world, with fully articulate figures at less than $15 the size of a Riptide.

No, Wizards of the Coast would be horrible for the game. Fantasy Flight would be far better, and they already have a working relationship with 40k through the RPGs. WOTC do terrible things to games.

And GW is perfectly fine making their own models. Unless you want the models to become way way more expensive. GW makes damn fine miniatures.

Fantasy Flight, in my opinion, are not as good as WtC for managing a large rule system across a large selection of books, like for D&D, and keeping all the FAQs in order. If WtC managed 40k like they manage MtG (thousands of pages of details rules and FAQs for every strange interaction) we wouldn't complain of about FAQs ever again.

For Bandai, have you ever purchased, or seen a Gunpla kit? I can pickup a kit that dwarfs a Warhound Titan at only $140, and is fully articulate. Bandai are wizards with plastic, easily having the best plastic kit manufacturing in the world. With Bandai, the quality would remain largely the same, but prices would go down.

If they weren't too busy with star wars I'd say FFG should get the game AND fluff. Their rpg stuff really captured the feel of the setting so much better than the current GW murderfang murdering with his murderclaws thans to his murderlust BS.

 jonolikespie wrote:
If they weren't too busy with star wars I'd say FFG should get the game AND fluff. Their rpg stuff really captured the feel of the setting so much better than the current GW murderfang murdering with his murderclaws thans to his murderlust BS.

Also, they don't appear as light handed with Chaos as GW.
GW seems to be afraid to get into the real gnarly stuff when it comes to chaos.
FFG, not so much.
If FFG releases a Chaos dex, it might actually be good.

If they did this then that would mean that they are financially screwed but still want to keep their ip. This would be the red flag that 40k is dying.

riburn3 wrote:
I wouldn't mind another company doing the rules so long as they keep the core mechanics and hit/wound/save format.

I would imagine deviating away from that would alienate far too many people.

huh, I would hope not. Hit/Wound/Save only serves in dragging the game along, lowering the variation (which is a false problem anyways) of rolls and allowing the introductions of "special rules" that only serves to affect a percentage result. I would reduce everything to a single Attack roll and the option of a single Reaction roll, either as a save or as a returned attack, something like Infinity.

 Nilok wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Nilok wrote:
They should outsource to two companies.

They should outsource their rules to Wizard of the Coast, as they have been able to manage the massive rules and interacts in both D&D and Magic the Gathering.

They should outsource their models to Bandai Japan, as they make the best plastic models in the world, with fully articulate figures at less than $15 the size of a Riptide.

No, Wizards of the Coast would be horrible for the game. Fantasy Flight would be far better, and they already have a working relationship with 40k through the RPGs. WOTC do terrible things to games.

And GW is perfectly fine making their own models. Unless you want the models to become way way more expensive. GW makes damn fine miniatures.

Fantasy Flight, in my opinion, are not as good as WtC for managing a large rule system across a large selection of books, like for D&D, and keeping all the FAQs in order. If WtC managed 40k like they manage MtG (thousands of pages of details rules and FAQs for every strange interaction) we wouldn't complain of about FAQs ever again.

For Bandai, have you ever purchased, or seen a Gunpla kit? I can pickup a kit that dwarfs a Warhound Titan at only $140, and is fully articulate. Bandai are wizards with plastic, easily having the best plastic kit manufacturing in the world. With Bandai, the quality would remain largely the same, but prices would go down.

They're decent kits. But totally wrong in terms of what a table-top wargame would want or need. I do not think they could duplicate their large scale kits to the infantry dude level. At best you'd get some cool Titan sized kits in plastic, but their infantry would be too expensive and not detailed enough.

GW is very very good at making plastic miniatures. No need to bring in another company who is good at making a very different kind of miniature.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

riburn3 wrote:
I wouldn't mind another company doing the rules so long as they keep the core mechanics and hit/wound/save format.

I would imagine deviating away from that would alienate far too many people.

huh, I would hope not. Hit/Wound/Save only serves in dragging the game along, lowering the variation (which is a false problem anyways) of rolls and allowing the introductions of "special rules" that only serves to affect a percentage result. I would reduce everything to a single Attack roll and the option of a single Reaction roll, either as a save or as a returned attack, something like Infinity.

I absolutely hate the 3 or somerimes 4 rolls to resolve a simple kill. 2 is perfect, one against your stat one against your opponents. 3 is unnecessary and is just a pointless roll, 4 is plain stupid.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

riburn3 wrote:
I wouldn't mind another company doing the rules so long as they keep the core mechanics and hit/wound/save format.

I would imagine deviating away from that would alienate far too many people.

huh, I would hope not. Hit/Wound/Save only serves in dragging the game along, lowering the variation (which is a false problem anyways) of rolls and allowing the introductions of "special rules" that only serves to affect a percentage result. I would reduce everything to a single Attack roll and the option of a single Reaction roll, either as a save or as a returned attack, something like Infinity.

They did this for Betrayal at Calth, and I love it. It really speeds up the game, while retaining the random nature.

I've actually been toying with the idea of converting the BaC rules for tabletop battles.

GW will sue Mantics for making rules that hurt their model sales. If all the models achieved balance by beter writing then the hot models that sell well will decline and other models once useless begins to sell a bit more. What ultimately happens is brand cannibalizing. Oh kroots are selling well because they are now balanced with other models but the ghost keel and riptides suffer because of a price increase to make them balanced.

Oh whats that? Scat Bikes cost 50ppm and are now balanced? Looks like a drop in sales. Oh look here the wraith Knight cost 400pts? oh it no longer sells well.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Nilok wrote:
They should outsource to two companies.

They should outsource their rules to Wizard of the Coast, as they have been able to manage the massive rules and interacts in both D&D and Magic the Gathering.

They should outsource their models to Bandai Japan, as they make the best plastic models in the world, with fully articulate figures at less than $15 the size of a Riptide.

No, Wizards of the Coast would be horrible for the game. Fantasy Flight would be far better, and they already have a working relationship with 40k through the RPGs. WOTC do terrible things to games.

And GW is perfectly fine making their own models. Unless you want the models to become way way more expensive. GW makes damn fine miniatures.

Fantasy Flight, in my opinion, are not as good as WtC for managing a large rule system across a large selection of books, like for D&D, and keeping all the FAQs in order. If WtC managed 40k like they manage MtG (thousands of pages of details rules and FAQs for every strange interaction) we wouldn't complain of about FAQs ever again.

For Bandai, have you ever purchased, or seen a Gunpla kit? I can pickup a kit that dwarfs a Warhound Titan at only $140, and is fully articulate. Bandai are wizards with plastic, easily having the best plastic kit manufacturing in the world. With Bandai, the quality would remain largely the same, but prices would go down.

They're decent kits. But totally wrong in terms of what a table-top wargame would want or need. I do not think they could duplicate their large scale kits to the infantry dude level. At best you'd get some cool Titan sized kits in plastic, but their infantry would be too expensive and not detailed enough.

GW is very very good at making plastic miniatures. No need to bring in another company who is good at making a very different kind of miniature.

Currently, the smallest model kits that Bandai produces are 3.5" tall and only ~10-14$ with import tax. Also included in the cost is making their kits partially to fully articulate, which does increase the cost of required and different plastic. It is not rocket science on how to reduce the size of a model, and Bandai have the best design engineers in the business. I honestly don't see how this is worse. And yes, you do need to take into account that Bandai kits either have their parts molded in the correct colors or pre-painted/primed for collectors while Games Workshop models are not.

 Filch wrote:
GW will sue Mantics for making rules that hurt their model sales. If all the models achieved balance by beter writing then the hot models that sell well will decline and other models once useless begins to sell a bit more. What ultimately happens is brand cannibalizing. Oh kroots are selling well because they are now balanced with other models but the ghost keel and riptides suffer because of a price increase to make them balanced.

Oh whats that? Scat Bikes cost 50ppm and are now balanced? Looks like a drop in sales. Oh look here the wraith Knight cost 400pts? oh it no longer sells well.

There is absolutely no grounds for a lawsuit there, but then GW tried to claim they own roman numerals and made an offhand comment at that trial about how they should have copywritten the whole 28mm scale when they had the chance, so who knows what dumb stuff GW will sue over.

The GW lawyers are more qualified to write the rules for the game than the editors...

And the game devs probably know more about IP law than the lawyers.

Wait a minute.... I think I just stumbled across a way to solve all GWs problems!

WayneTheGame wrote:
I think that's what they should do. IMHO GW should focus on 2 things:

1) Models
2) Background/fluff

#2 would also encompass Black Library novels and allow for "atlas" type of supplements (e.g. detail a world, talk about its culture, history, demographics, etc. rich information to help the narrative aspect of the game)

They don't want to write rules, so I really don't get why they still do it. They should allow someone else to write the rules of the game, be able to provide guidelines (but not what they currently do where the model is made and then rules need to be tacked onto it) so the end result is a good game with great models, instead of good models and a crap game.

GW don't want to invest in making the game better, I don't see why they'd be any happier to let an external company do it. If they were interested in doing so, they'd just pay a games designer to do it in house and keep control of it.

I would be all for Fantasy Flight Games being commissioned to write the rules for Warhammer and let GW/BW be in charge of writing the fluff and making the models. I really doubt that FFG would want to cut into their Star Wars sales though, so I wouldn't count on them jumping on this. They do well enough with the RPG for Warhammer and Warhammer 40K.

Honestly, I think this would probably end up harming FFG if they did get a license, since GW would probably manage to screw them over in some way. And I don't want that since FFG is pretty well close to home, and I like that a "local" company has hit it big.