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Lovepug13 wrote:
For me.....the single strongest thing about GW is the intellectual property.

Outside of Marvel, Star Wars, Star Trek, Transformers etc it is virtually unassailable in my opinion.

The Black Library churns out the fluff and I keep buying into it.

As a business it has some hard decisions ahead, but hey thats another thread lol

I agree with this, GW might be an awful corporate entity, but I absolutely love the fluff as long as it's well written. Dan Abnetts books are as entertaining as anything I have ever read in science fiction, and I'll keep on lapping it up.

There's quite a few things I like about GW, or at least the stuff they produce; they make some awesome models and I love the background despite its ridiculousness... OK, actually BECAUSE of its ridiculousness. I think their rules are nowhere near the best out there, but they're still fairly enjoyable for what they are.

Tyranids.

Quite possibly the best realized alien miniature range on the market, thanks to sticking with some key design philosophies applied across the entire range that tie it all together.

Well, they haven't (AFAIK) filed any horrible lawsuits this week yet, so that's a good thing.

I really like a lot of the models, especially the DE range.

The setting is an interesting mix of a lot of other tropes but very approachable and certainly has a lot of material to consume.

My kids like it and it gives us something to have pretty good quality time around.

Xyrael wrote:

 infinite_array wrote:

Xyrael wrote:

Finally, GW has created many iconic scifi images which have often been emulated or simply stolen by companies such as Blizzard or EA. Many modern scifi archetypes are GW creations.

Wh-what?!

Examples, please.

EA ripped off many different vehicles from GW in C&C. Starcraft marines, yes, those too. More generally, green-skinned Orks and Orcs in Warcraft; don't forget the first WFB book was in '83. Tyranids being Zerg. I'd counter the analogy of Tyranids to Aliens by saying that early Tyranid models looked nothing like Aliens and that Tyranids themselves being a hive mind is distinctively different than Aliens; they have steadily become Aliens though, if for no other reason than people like to piggy-back on the successes of other companies marketing. Starship Troopers has nothing to do with the IoM, if you read the book (its insanely boring) you'd realize that Heinlein's novel actually matches Tau Crisis Suits better, but fluff and books for Crisis Suit pilots aren't common enough for there to be a real comparison there yet. If you're looking at the Starship Troopers movie, then I should direct you to a Wikipedia on World War 2. Most scifi meatgrinder armies are inspired by something between Nazi's and Stalingrad.

I'm not sure I see any blatantly overt ripoffs from Dune in GW's works, there might be inspirations of course (because very few concepts are original) but there may be, I was never big into Dune. Necrons are obviously Terminator, can't deny that. Chaos gods being Cthulhu is imaginitive, Azathoth and Cthulhu and such aren't themselves copied, I would've thought you'd have drawn the connection between them and Abrahamic, Zoroastrian, and Hindi traditions first. The Emperor is obviously a Christ analogue.

I'll just take the Tyranids aspect of your post, as there's many other things that are either not quite right or flat out wrong that I'm sure others will point out.

The Tyranid race evolved, conceptually from the Genestealers, and, to a lesser extent the Zoats and one or two concept sketches that were fleshed out. Now, not knowing your history, I don't know if you remember that far back, but Genestealers were for a long time a pretty stand alone monster, with very detailed background about reproduction etc. which revolved around 'implantation' into other animals in order to propagate. Now, some of the details diverge from the Alien organism, but anyone who knew both creatures could see the obvious parallels.

As for your hive mind assertion, well, Aliens are very much modelled after social insects in terms of their social construction (ants,termites etc) all GW did is amplify this to an inter galactic level, but the overall function (the GW Hive Mind is analogous to the various individual Alien Queens from the films) remains the same.

To try and argue the concept of the Tyranid race does not draw heavily from the Aliens movie franchise (which pre dates the game by a number of years, and Nids didn't really come into their own until well into second edition) is just wrong IMO.

 insaniak wrote:
And for every Belial, there's a Lelith that reminds you what they can do when they try...

Aww... I like Belial.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 -Loki- wrote:
Tyranids.

Couldn't agree more. First GW thing I ever bought was "Tyranid Attack".

 azreal13 wrote:

Xyrael wrote:

 infinite_array wrote:

Xyrael wrote:

Finally, GW has created many iconic scifi images which have often been emulated or simply stolen by companies such as Blizzard or EA. Many modern scifi archetypes are GW creations.

Wh-what?!

Examples, please.

EA ripped off many different vehicles from GW in C&C. Starcraft marines, yes, those too. More generally, green-skinned Orks and Orcs in Warcraft; don't forget the first WFB book was in '83. Tyranids being Zerg. I'd counter the analogy of Tyranids to Aliens by saying that early Tyranid models looked nothing like Aliens and that Tyranids themselves being a hive mind is distinctively different than Aliens; they have steadily become Aliens though, if for no other reason than people like to piggy-back on the successes of other companies marketing. Starship Troopers has nothing to do with the IoM, if you read the book (its insanely boring) you'd realize that Heinlein's novel actually matches Tau Crisis Suits better, but fluff and books for Crisis Suit pilots aren't common enough for there to be a real comparison there yet. If you're looking at the Starship Troopers movie, then I should direct you to a Wikipedia on World War 2. Most scifi meatgrinder armies are inspired by something between Nazi's and Stalingrad.

I'm not sure I see any blatantly overt ripoffs from Dune in GW's works, there might be inspirations of course (because very few concepts are original) but there may be, I was never big into Dune. Necrons are obviously Terminator, can't deny that. Chaos gods being Cthulhu is imaginitive, Azathoth and Cthulhu and such aren't themselves copied, I would've thought you'd have drawn the connection between them and Abrahamic, Zoroastrian, and Hindi traditions first. The Emperor is obviously a Christ analogue.

I'll just take the Tyranids aspect of your post, as there's many other things that are either not quite right or flat out wrong that I'm sure others will point out.

The Tyranid race evolved, conceptually from the Genestealers, and, to a lesser extent the Zoats and one or two concept sketches that were fleshed out. Now, not knowing your history, I don't know if you remember that far back, but Genestealers were for a long time a pretty stand alone monster, with very detailed background about reproduction etc. which revolved around 'implantation' into other animals in order to propagate. Now, some of the details diverge from the Alien organism, but anyone who knew both creatures could see the obvious parallels.

As for your hive mind assertion, well, Aliens are very much modelled after social insects in terms of their social construction (ants,termites etc) all GW did is amplify this to an inter galactic level, but the overall function (the GW Hive Mind is analogous to the various individual Alien Queens from the films) remains the same.

To try and argue the concept of the Tyranid race does not draw heavily from the Aliens movie franchise (which pre dates the game by a number of years, and Nids didn't really come into their own until well into second edition) is just wrong IMO.

Ooh! Ooh! Me! Me!

The concept of "Chaos" and the various things associated with it such as beastmen, are straight from Moorcock, not Lovecraft. Worth noting is that GW once upon a time had the license to Elric of Melnibone, the Moorcock novels which most heavily feature Chaos. While there are certainly elements of Lovecraft to the modern Chaos mythos, it's quite unreasonable to think he's the main influence on it.

Okay models and art in general.

Decent background fluff.

Fun if kludgy rules.

Not much else.

The Auld Grump

paint, their paint is abundant in most model shops I come across and to my knowledge has stayed the same price

 Rainbow Dash wrote:
... and to my knowledge has stayed the same price

For this month, sure.

Even ignoring the drop in size when they changed from the (now) Coat D'arms range to the bolter-shell bottles, GW's paints have had numerous price rises over the last 10 years or so.

GW's paints are reasonable, but there are other ranges as good or better for either a lower price or a bigger volume. Or both.

 insaniak wrote:

 Rainbow Dash wrote:
... and to my knowledge has stayed the same price

For this month, sure.

Even ignoring the drop in size when they changed from the (now) Coat D'arms range to the bolter-shell bottles, GW's paints have had numerous price rises over the last 10 years or so.

GW's paints are reasonable, but there are other ranges as good or better for either a lower price or a bigger volume. Or both.

I use Reaper, The Army Painter, and Vallejo more than GW.

Reaper and Vallejo both have, in my opinion, better paint that is more reasonably priced.

The Army Painter paints are also reasonably priced, and have a good match with the spray primers.

That said, GW paint is pretty good - just not the best.

Back to the topic at hand - the free downloads for the Specialist Games, Mordheim in particular! Mordheim is awesome!

The Auld Grump

I feel like the biggest good point of GW is that they make 40k. I absolutely love the universe, and while it does take inspiration from many things, I would say that the 40k universe is very unique and evocative, and in my opinion generally awesome.

Most of the models are really cool, too.

 gnoise wrote:
What do you think would the best looking model GW made overall or for each army (SM in general instead of each chapter)?

Space Marines: the gorget/power fist Sternguard Veteran. It simply oozes awesome (at least to me).
Chaos Daemons: the FW Brass Scorpion, especially when painted glossy like the one pictured
Chaos Space Marines: The Raptors/Warp Talons box set. lots of detail, lots of movement, and all around neat models.
Dark Eldar: the Razorwing Jet Fighter. It feels so much more like a real plane than the other fliers, and has that awesome Eldar sleekness.
Eldar: Harlequins. All of them. Nothing more to say about that.
Imperial Guard: This commissar. I just like the pose and feel of the model.
Necrons: Monolith, because it's an awesome, giant model, and I feel it exemplifies the Necrons as implacable death machines, even if the rulebooks kinda left that behind for a faster army.
Orks: ... where do I begin? It's tough, but I'd have to go with either the Dakkajet (so much detail! so ramshackle!) or the Shokk Attack Gun (for pure orkyness incarnate).
Sisters of Battle: helmeted basic Sisters. I just like the designs, and if I had the money, I would totally want an army composed of them.
Tau: Shas'O R'Myr. Not sure why, but I just love the model. I feel like it's a good bridge between the lanky and mobile-looking Hazard suits and the chickenwalker normal suits. It's sleek and looks practical.
Tyranids: This one is also very hard, because so many of the models are awesome. If I had to just choose one, though, it'd probably be the Deathleaper, both for his characterization and the model itself.

Nah, best model in the Tyranid range is the Warrior.

Not only is it a 3rd edition model, it still stacks up really wall against things like the Carnifex or Tyrant. The only downside is the lack of poseability of the legs.

Whoops... wrong post....

But I am starting up a Mordheim campaign again, soon....

The Auld Grump

Warhammer World, Bugman's Bar and the many excellent people who work at GW HQ. Never have I had a bad time there.

I also really respect their attitude to the "canon" - that it is almost infinitely flexible and is only ever one version of a story that may or may not be true.

R.

forrestfire wrote:I feel like the biggest good point of GW is that they make 40k. I absolutely love the universe, and while it does take inspiration from many things, I would say that the 40k universe is very unique and evocative, and in my opinion generally awesome.

Most of the models are really cool, too.

Imperial Guard: This commissar. I just like the pose and feel of the model.

Yeah, it looks nice. But for me, its gotta be this.

The Shadow wrote:It saddens me to see these types of threads in 40K General Discussion, it's like people don't know WHFB exists.

As for the good things about GW, they've given to me a hobby which I enjoy very much and for that alone I'm grateful.

My bad, I just assumed all was well for WHFB cause I didn't hear/see anything wrong with it. Now, to move this to general discussion...
EDIT: Haha, looks like someone beat me to it. Good thing too cause I didn't know how to do it.

Selym wrote:I think we're missing the truly best part of GW:

Da WAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!


















(That's 300 Orks)

This. So much win.

 jeeb_sound wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 infinite_array wrote:

Xyrael wrote:

Finally, GW has created many iconic scifi images which have often been emulated or simply stolen by companies such as Blizzard or EA. Many modern scifi archetypes are GW creations.

Wh-what?!

Examples, please.

The examples I can think of are the starcraft marines and those nid-like aliens.
But GW just adapted archetypes, and in several cases just plain copied them:

Necrons + WBB = The Terminator + Arnie's catchphrase
Nids = The Aliens form The "Alien" movies.
SM = Already existed in Sci-fi, but not to this degree
Power Armour = same as above
IG = Space-trooper in any sci-fi movie
Chaos/The Chaos Gods etc = Lovecraft's work (Cthulu)

The Orks, however, are an original creation

hate to tell you but even their improvements are things already existent from points as early as the 60s by many authors

Not sure where you're going with this. That's pretty much what I just said.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 mattyrm wrote:

Lovepug13 wrote:
For me.....the single strongest thing about GW is the intellectual property.

Outside of Marvel, Star Wars, Star Trek, Transformers etc it is virtually unassailable in my opinion.

The Black Library churns out the fluff and I keep buying into it.

As a business it has some hard decisions ahead, but hey thats another thread lol

I agree with this, GW might be an awful corporate entity, but I absolutely love the fluff as long as it's well written. Dan Abnetts books are as entertaining as anything I have ever read in science fiction, and I'll keep on lapping it up.

Can't deny it, few sci-fi books/movies/tv series' can beat a well-written book set in the 40k universe

Helsreach anyone?

The Universe which they created (40k and warhammer) is one of the best (IMO) the whole middle age religeous fanatism transplanted to future is a great idea.

They have released some iconic figures.

Loved the books they have released (even before Black library).

(i will not uther a word about pricing and the current management)

The only thing that HP lovecraft may have added is the whole hidden cult thing, but nothing in regard to the Chaos gods or demon's because the true forms of the ancient ones/elder ones are never described in HP's work, and it would drive you mad anyway Shub-Niggurath!

That may be so - but the WELL written 40k novels are few and far between.

It's a long hard road to find one that ISN'T marine-fanwank-bolterporn.

 Rainbow Dash wrote:
paint, their paint is abundant in most model shops I come across and to my knowledge has stayed the same price

Paint has always gone up in price every couple of years, with less in the bottle and the system isn't that great now. Some indiviual paints are better, but Vallejo beats them hands down now.

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 Rainbow Dash wrote:
paint, their paint is abundant in most model shops I come across and to my knowledge has stayed the same price

Paint has always gone up in price every couple of years, with less in the bottle and the system isn't that great now. Some indiviual paints are better, but Vallejo beats them hands down now.

Isn't that a subjective viewpoint?

 BryllCream wrote:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 Rainbow Dash wrote:
paint, their paint is abundant in most model shops I come across and to my knowledge has stayed the same price

Paint has always gone up in price every couple of years, with less in the bottle and the system isn't that great now. Some indiviual paints are better, but Vallejo beats them hands down now.

Isn't that a subjective viewpoint?

The Vallejo part, yes it is a bit subjective, but there can be quantitative analysis of consistency and coverage.

As for the less paint, that's pretty much what I've seen. Other paints give more paint per penny than GW and they seem to have less of it in their new bottles.

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:

Actually, that is not one of 40Ks strong suits.

Can you name a commercially available game currently on the market that deals with armies as large as, say, even a 2000 point 40k army?

Bolt Action.

What GW does right is the technical side of their production and kits - leagues ahead of anyone else in the market.

Any game that works on a smaller scale eg dropzone commander, flames of war and battle group kursk.

What GW did right`?
-Some models. Love 'em!
-40k universe. Awesome books came out of it.
And maybe greatest thing GW ever released:
-GorkaMorka!

 Willi4mis wrote:
What GW did right`?
-Some models. Love 'em!
-40k universe. Awesome books came out of it.
And maybe greatest thing GW ever released:
-GorkaMorka!

Hahahah i love gorka morka best game ever made by gw.

 Willi4mis wrote:
And maybe greatest thing GW ever released:
-GorkaMorka!

Tried replaying it recently and its not good at all - too many tables checking tables cross referencing tables.

Could do with a revision and it'd be much improved.

 chromedog wrote:
That may be so - but the WELL written 40k novels are few and far between.

It's a long hard road to find one that ISN'T marine-fanwank-bolterporn.

I've never read any WH40K books so I don't know but I have heard that the best ones are "inspired" by the Flashman and the Sharpe series of novels.

 chromedog wrote:
That may be so - but the WELL written 40k novels are few and far between.

It's a long hard road to find one that ISN'T marine-fanwank-bolterporn.

Eh?

'tis not all Space marine?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Warhammer_40,000_novels

And i don't expect Pulitzer price well written stories, i want SF Pulp!

The first Space Marine and Inquisitor book are still one of my favorites!

Most BL books are little more than the equivalent of a petrol garage forecourt hamburger.

Charity shopped all of mine last week, inc all the HH ones.