Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I can't seem to get to their site.

Is it down for other folks too?

Oh yeah. Big time. Limited codexes and new marine releases.

Aw, so things go on sale tomorrow?

Pre orders are up now. The reason it's so slammed is the limited codexes.

Its up but its just not able to handle the volume of people online trying to get the Salamanders special edition codex cover.

pfft salamanders. Everyone wants the second founding BT cover man. free dust jacket!

The Uk site is also down "Maintenance" they say , i was in the process of paying and got hanged mid buy!

same with AUS

still no worky:(...
luckily, i have my WD to drool over until i can get a look at the sprue pics...
so many bits!!!

cheers
jah

 jah-joshua wrote:
still no worky:(...
luckily, i have my WD to drool over until i can get a look at the sprue pics...
so many bits!!!

cheers
jah

I got some of the sprue pics (tac, vanguard, sternguard, captain,chaplain) up over at Warseer, and Procrastinator got some of the other pictures up as well. You can go look there, or if someone wants to port them over here.

very nice, MajorWes...
thanks for that....
there are really some amazing bits in the new kits...

cheers
jah

 MajorWesJanson wrote:

 jah-joshua wrote:
still no worky:(...
luckily, i have my WD to drool over until i can get a look at the sprue pics...
so many bits!!!

cheers
jah

I got some of the sprue pics (tac, vanguard, sternguard, captain,chaplain) up over at Warseer, and Procrastinator got some of the other pictures up as well. You can go look there, or if someone wants to port them over here.

Modular combi-weapons...those hypocritical d-bags.

weeble1000 wrote:
Modular combi-weapons...those hypocritical d-bags.

What did I miss?

weeble1000 wrote:

 MajorWesJanson wrote:

 jah-joshua wrote:
still no worky:(...
luckily, i have my WD to drool over until i can get a look at the sprue pics...
so many bits!!!

cheers
jah

I got some of the sprue pics (tac, vanguard, sternguard, captain,chaplain) up over at Warseer, and Procrastinator got some of the other pictures up as well. You can go look there, or if someone wants to port them over here.

Modular combi-weapons...those hypocritical d-bags.

and still just one or two beaky helmets and only one single studded pauldron. We all know which thread is going to continue to get bumps.....

edit: kinda wish that old gee dub just came out with a bits sprue that had 10 plastic studded pauldrons, and 5 of the bolter-half of the combi-bolter, along with 2 of each top-side option, 5 mark 8 torsos, and while we are at making wishes, a twin-link assault cannon with combi-missile launcher attachment.

hmmm I'd been thinking about buying one or two limited editon codices just for the sake of reselling them and making myself a couple bucks. Website crash solved that decision for me.

 Breotan wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
Modular combi-weapons...those hypocritical d-bags.

What did I miss?

Stealing chaprerhouse's idea after trying to sue them over it?

I think the advantage of the combi-bolter in this kit is that if you don't intend to use it, it's design is favorable to a quick conversion over to a full-fledged specialist weapon. gee dubb might have one-upped it on CHS on this one.

 poda_t wrote:
I think the advantage of the combi-bolter in this kit is that if you don't intend to use it, it's design is favorable to a quick conversion over to a full-fledged specialist weapon. gee dubb might have one-upped it on CHS on this one.

Yea, and that's the point of competing in the marketplace without being a morally bankrupt a-hole. You don't sue someone over vague similarities in the design of a toy gun that barely qualifies for copyright protection. You just make it better and cheaper.

I don't think it is wrong to take the idea of a modular combi-weapon. It is very, very, very wrong in this specific context. The damn lawsuit is still ongoing. Except that GW in fact lost their claim against the CHS combi-weapon kit. So GW knew full well that they did not own the CHS combi-weapon product. They knew it, and based on their own legal arguments that they are still making, this product they just released would be willful infringement.

But the GW one is plastic. And doesn't require magnets. That makes them very different, does it not?

Yep this clearly shows that GW is on the edge of financial ruin.

I mean, they print a limited number of books that are nothing more than the same content with a different dust jackets while charging more than twice the price for them, and their website crashes from everyone trying to order one.

If these guys don't learn how to run a business they're going to go broke....

I do not think that Gee Dub is on the verge of financial ruin - slow collapse, maybe, but not a catastrophic failure.

Compare this to the final days of TSR, which were... just plain sad.

Gee Dub is in better shape than that, at the least.

Stealing the idea of modular combi-weapons from a company that they accused of stealing the idea of combi-weapons.... Oi! (Me, I wonder why none of those combi-weapons include an integral grenade-launcher. Combi-weapons are already here.)

Getting a spinny-spinny-spinny on my browser for GW at the moment, so I am going out on a limb and guessing that their site is still down.

The Auld Grump

I think he was being sarcastic Gump old pal.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
I do not think that Gee Dub is on the verge of financial ruin - slow collapse, maybe, but not a catastrophic failure.

Stealing the idea of modular combi-weapons from a company that they accused of stealing the idea of combi-weapons.... Oi! (Me, I wonder why none of those combi-weapons include an integral grenade-launcher. Combi-weapons are already here.)

The Auld Grump

Oh come on Grump, you can't seriously suggest such an obvious and freely available modelling concept was "stolen" from Chapterhouse, they just should have been doing it in the first place.

And I entirely sided with CH and desperately wanted them to win their case, but its such a silly thing to say, modular weapons is an obvious and common modelling staple, its hardly an "idea" that they stole, like inventing a race or a tank or something.

 mattyrm wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
I do not think that Gee Dub is on the verge of financial ruin - slow collapse, maybe, but not a catastrophic failure.

Stealing the idea of modular combi-weapons from a company that they accused of stealing the idea of combi-weapons.... Oi! (Me, I wonder why none of those combi-weapons include an integral grenade-launcher. Combi-weapons are already here.)

The Auld Grump

Oh come on Grump, you can't seriously suggest such an obvious and freely available modelling concept was "stolen" from Chapterhouse, they just should have been doing it in the first place.

And I entirely sided with CH and desperately wanted them to win their case, but its such a silly thing to say, modular weapons is an obvious and common modelling staple, its hardly an "idea" that they stole, like inventing a race or a tank or something.

Obvious and freely available?

You mean like Roman Numerals and fur, maybe? *Blink, Blink* Oh! Maybe Grenade Launchers!

Considering that Gee Dub didn't do that 'obvious' thing until Chapterhouse did....

Yep! Stolen is in fact the word that I would (and did) use!

I would be less annoyed (read 'not annoyed at all') by any other company doing so - I am annoyed that Gee Dub is not holding themselves to the same standard of ethics that they tried to hold someone else.

The term I want is 'hypocrite' - which describes GW's behavior in this regard quite well....

Feel better now?

I do not see this as being in any way actionable, simply that GW does not follow the ethics that they espouse.

The Auld Grump, but we both know that the Chapterhouse suit was not at all about ethics.

or you could look at it as the courts said it wasn't stealing and GW decided "well okay F*** it" and did it themselves as well

Why are you comparing IP infringement to the act of cutting a model up for multi-part sprue manufacturing?

GW accused chapter house of making a very specific fictional weapon with specific look which was based off their universe and their IP.

Changing a way a model you already make is "chopped up" to be put on a plastic injection molding isn't even close to the same thing. Combi-weapons have for 20 years been a mostly "character only" thing, which has been metal models which usually was made in as few parts as possible. Now they made a unit with the option in plastic which is designed to be as many parts as possible.

I guess then "how you chop your model up for molding" is now a protected concept? If someone makes a model which bends at the knee, woe be to anyone else who tries to every do that with their models! I bet GW are a bunch of bastards for making detachable heads on models too? I am sure they were not the first one to do that either.

nkelsch wrote:
Why are you comparing IP infringement to the act of cutting a model up for multi-part sprue manufacturing?

GW accused chapter house of making a very specific fictional weapon with specific look which was based off their universe and their IP.

Changing a way a model you already make is "chopped up" to be put on a plastic injection molding isn't even close to the same thing. Combi-weapons have for 20 years been a mostly "character only" thing, which has been metal models which usually was made in as few parts as possible. Now they made a unit with the option in plastic which is designed to be as many parts as possible.

I guess then "how you chop your model up for molding" is now a protected concept? If someone makes a model which bends at the knee, woe be to anyone else who tries to every do that with their models! I bet GW are a bunch of bastards for making detachable heads on models too? I am sure they were not the first one to do that either.

You are missing the point. It is hypocritical to argue that you own something completely not ownable, like piles of skulls, and then to blatantly take something equally unownable from someone else. If GW can own piles of skulls, CHS can own modular combi weapons, see? In reality, netither ows either, but the hypocrisy lies in that GW asserted rights to someting as ridiculous, but does not extend tose rights to anyone else, i.e. GW thinks it only needs to follow rules when it is convenient to do so.

You can bet your butt that if GW had produced that sprue before CHS released its combi-weapon kit, it would have been an infringement argument. GW is morally bankrupt, or at least Alan Merrett, Gil Stevenson, Andy jones, Tom Kirby, jes Goodwin, John Blanche, and all of those a-holes who demand rights and respect far and above what anyone deserves, but offer no respect to anyone else's rights. Have you forgotten that they tried to steal the work of their own independent contractors with a completely trumped up lie?

As grump said, it is awfully convenient tht GW, only now, has released a modular combi-weapon; after failing in a lawsuit to prove infringement, after getting complete access to CHS's sales records. GW did not spontaneously decided to do it. GW was not panning to do it. GW did it because that is what customers want, proven by CHS's success with that product. GW coud have simply seen that, and done exactly what it just did without filing some BS abusuive lawsuit. That's the way business works. Instead, GW decided to spend a million dollars on a horribly failed crusade to put that company out of business. The problem was in immediately jumping to "obliterate via lawsuit."

GW already had kombi-weapons. How you chop up a model for casting is not the same thing.

You are making stuff up. If GW made a set of Space Marine legs which bended at the knee then someone would claim they are ripping someone off.

Cutting up your own models based upon your own designs to be easier to cast is not the same as making a whole new model based upon someone else's IP. They are not even the same discussion.

Old GW combi weapons were stand-alone characters in metal. New one is plastic so they have much more flexibility... I don't see how they are stealing their own model which they have been making for a decade just in more individual pieces... You have to be really trying to justify some irrational hatred to call that stealing.

Wow - talk about missing the point.

Let me put it in words to be understood by the hard of thinking.

GW would have been the one suing if somebody else did Marine legs, bent at the knee. They have sued over shoulder pads, so we can take that as a given.

Chapterhouse makes modular combi-weapons, and has since before the suit.

If GW was making modular combi-weapons before the suit then they would have tried to sue Chapterhouse over it.

GW did not make modular combi-weapons before the suit.

GW tried to sue anyway - and lost.

GW is only now making modular combi-weapons - after Chaperhouse showed that it was profitable.

GW is by their own standards copying somebody else's work, more directly than in the example in which they tried to push forward a suit.

They are not holding themselves to the same standard that they tried to apply to other people.

This makes them hypocrites.

Being hypocrites is not illegal - it is however of dubious ethical content.

It is not necessary to be hypocrites in order to be a big company - look up Procter & Gamble in an industrial espionage case, oh, about a decade or so ago.

The people that P&G were spying upon (Unilever) only found out about it when the president of Procter & Gamble called them up to confess to the crime.

He discovered that his company was breaking the law, and held his company to the same standards that he would have held another company. (P&G's stock went up following this... and so did the stock of the company that they were spying upon. The stock market can be weird.)

Mr. Weeble is in fact correct - neither company should, or does, own the concept - but GW has already shown itself to be more than willing to waste a million dollars trying to prosecute a lesser example.

So GW comes across as both hypocrites and as incompetent in legal matters in regards to IP. The latter by trying to forward a largely frivolous suit and the former by then going and doing what they had accused others of doing.

The Auld Grump

You are missing the point. GW sued CH not because they were making 'modular Combi-Weapons' but because they were making 'Combi-Weapons' period. A concept GW felt they owned as it was a fictional weapon which was designed and exists in their universe and CH was making what was attempting to be a 'GW Combi-Weapon' not a 'Generic space rifle with attached napalm nossle'

GW was arguing over IP issues... not the modular concept of the model. It would be trying to sue everyone who make 'Humanoid models with detatchable heads' (which they didn't do). I believe that falls under patents and is a whole different discussion.

You *CAN* steal IP. You can't steal how you carve up your own model for mold-making. While the courts said CH didn't steal GW's IP, You are making stuff up when you claim someone can own 'chopping up models for plastic molding.' is theft and is the same thing as what GW's suit was about. It is not the same and is a non issue and pointless hate-mongering for the sake of upping your post count.

You are continuing to miss the point - GW did not invent either combi-weapons or the term combi-weapons. (If I recall correctly 2000AD - Judge Dredd had them - and GW made the Judge Dredd RPG - but the term was used in the comic Judge Dredd first. They stole an idea from IP that they were licensing.)

They sued Chapterhouse anyway.

They lost the suit.

Then they went and copied the modular combi-weapons that the person that they lost the suit against were making.

They were and are holding others to a different standard.

It is not that they are making the combi-weapons that is the problem - it is the fact that they would have sued others for doing the same thing, and had done so against a company that made the modular C-W that GW was not making.

Look up the definition of the word 'hypocrite'. GW's behavior is very much part and parcel with the primary definition of the term.

It has nothing to do with who has what IP rights, and everything to do with the fact that they have sued others for doing similar, but lesser, things.

Good lords, above and below, they sued over the use of the Chaos star that they stole from Moorcock when they were licensing a game from a company that had licensed the game rights from Moorcock!

They had 'borrowed' some of the IP that they later tried to sue over!

And you refuse to see why folks call this hypocritical behavior.

You may wonder why people disparage the white knights - this willful blindness to GW's faults, while crowing about those same faults in other companies, is very much a part of the reason. GW is not the only hypocrite in town.

If anything, many of the white knights reflect poorly on GW - making the company look even worse by association.

I know that I am never so annoyed with GW as I am when I have had to deal with some of the white knights best armored against reality.

There are companies that I am much more forgiving of - most especially those that show signs of trying to learn from past mistakes. *Cough* WotC *Cough, cough*

I see no such learning behavior from GW, merely hypocrisy, complacency, and entitlement.

When GW does something that I agree with then I post about it - I used to post about Mordheim and how GW was making the rules readily available for free on a regular basis. And plugged Empire figures to use for the game.

But GW has been doing fewer and fewer things that I approve of less and less often, and I am seeing it having a negative impact on both the company and upon the hobby in general.

I would much rather see GW improve its reputation than have more things to complain about - when they had a sale on the Sorcery terrain I plugged it. It was atypical behavior that I approved of, and wanted to reward.

Most of us that grouse about GW would rather see them grow the hobby, and in turn grow their share of that hobby. Instead we see them holding on to an ever shrinking sandbar, and claiming it as their fortress wall and moat.

Then they add more skulls.

Blub, blub, blub....

Back on topic - the GW USA site is now back up - but the Specialist Games area no longer has the Mordheim or Necromunda downloads.

The Auld Grump