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If you owned GW tomorrow, how would you go about running the company? For example:

1) Fire senior executives, freeing up millions & eliminating toxic attitude towards customer base.

2) Spend most of 2014 on nothing but fixing rules & balancing all armies.

3) Lower cost of all products to attract larger audience & decrease the outrageous entry cost into the hobby.

4) Consolidate rules into as few sources as possible. For example: IG codex should include all vehicles associated with IG (Forgeworld, Superheavy, Imperial Navy etc etc)

5) Remove many/most of the restrictions imposed onto private business owners & provide incentive to carry GW products.

6) Put a stop to/fix the crazy lore additions like "perpetuals" & other nonsense.

What would you do?

Grab as many IG infantry and vehicles I can, give control back to Kirby and make my own Regiment. Might as well loot the sinking ship.

Realistically, there isn't likely to be much you can do that's significantly different to the current management unless you have more resources than they do.

You can get rid of the 'incompetent' managers, but chances are that you will be no more competent and you won't be able to find anyone more competent to join the company.

You can't stop the publishing cycle. You need the regular income from new models and rulebook releases to stay in business.

You don't have the resources to update every single army quickly enough for s sudden reboot. So, every new release has to be backwards compatible. This means you can't really make significant changes to the rules.

You can't ditch unprofitable sections of your company, because that's already been done.

You could try reducing the prices to see if there really is a great untapped market of potential players who feel that the game is just a little bit too expensive for them. But if you're wrong, you go bust.

I think the best you could really hope for is to improve relations with the fanbase a little (although God knows how you are going to find money for a PR department) and start working on a long-term plan to improve quality control on new releases (so you don't end up releasing lemons like the tyranid codex or models which shouldn't have made it off the drawing board without major redesigns) and working towards new version of your rules and background by identifying problems, coming up with solutions and then bridging the gap between the two over the course of five years or so (so, 7th edition 40k needs to be written with 8th edition in mind, while staying compatible with 6th edition).

Fire the rules editors and writers, hire in from game design colleges and top notable players. Get a errata and FAQ out for every publication ASAP(!!!). Stabilize the product cost within reason. And hire a [blanking blank] Experience Designer and get some [blanking] buzz going. That and keep an eye out to see if the investors all up and bail and I then need to grab the money and run haha. XD

@Perfect Organism: You give me control of a company and some time and I will absolutely get that stuff done. Coming from a realist/pessimist that's saying something. I don't care if I have to step on toes, I would crush them if I had to, to get that sinking boat back to the surface.

I'd start with building player confidence by publishing open letters to the gaming public on what's gone wrong and assuring them that the company is finally being run by hobbyists again and we'll do our best to address the issues.

Edit the codexes before release to make them as poor and unbalanced as people will say they are anyway.

Also instruct Forgeworld to exclusively produce Imperial Guard variants. Anything else, I don't give a damn.

First I'd do is set up a loyalty card, something points based.

Then I'd introduce a monthly 'discount day' with 20 percent off everything.

I'd make sunday 'Gaming Day' bring your models to a GW store, free tea and biscuits!

Then I'd start rebooting the gaming system, releasing a proto-7th edition by may/june for the player base to remove any kinks from the system, this same edition would also have all the rules for each army, (basically I'm ripping off PP). With 7th edition coming out in December time. I'd also do the same to WHFB.

Then I'd release a massive Hollywood blockbuster that completely rips off 40K and is not true to a single bit of it, just to annoy the veterans.



In reality though, I'd probably end up running the company into the ground, seeing as my only experience comes from empire simulator games.

Commissar Benny wrote:
If you owned GW tomorrow, how would you go about running the company? For example:

1) Fire senior executives, freeing up millions & eliminating toxic attitude towards customer base.

2) Spend most of 2014 on nothing but fixing rules & balancing all armies.

3) Lower cost of all products to attract larger audience & decrease the outrageous entry cost into the hobby.

4) Consolidate rules into as few sources as possible. For example: IG codex should include all vehicles associated with IG (Forgeworld, Superheavy, Imperial Navy etc etc)

5) Remove many/most of the restrictions imposed onto private business owners & provide incentive to carry GW products.

6) Put a stop to/fix the crazy lore additions like "perpetuals" & other nonsense.

What would you do?

1. Doing this would likely be viewed negatively by stock holders and other employees. It would also cost so much in severance and other related legal costs due to "illegal" firings. Anyone who thinks they can do this has never run a business.
2. Wouldn't be a big concern. However bet your ass I'd be releasing 40k Tournament rules. It would be a altered rule set for the tourney scene. It also would generate revenue.
3. Once again anyone thinking they can do this has never run a business. If you sell 100 units of X at a 50% margin and then lower prices 20% you now have to sell 66% MORE to break even. Not an answer. However releasing "starter armies" 750-1000 point armies at around 250-300 American (that's where I'm from its the money I know) would help ease that intro price into the game.
4. This is a huge revenue generator. Would consider releasing compendiums yearly however. Would add to the revenue stream.
5. Would not reinstate online sales. It would only cut into margins hurting profits.
6. Don't care. I would doubt this hurts sates beyond a tiny portion of customer base

What I would do however is bring exposure to the game with more public showings. Demo games in malls, at kid centers, etc. Let people know the game is out there. Would also release WFB and 40k for kids.Ages 12 and under. Super simple rules 500 point game types. Prepainted plastic mono pose mini's. It would be affordable to mom and dad also allowing a chance to hook kids while they are young, (If anyone thinks Hasbro wouldn't do this please put down your beer because you have had enough). Animated TV series and a weekly 1/2 show on scyfy, g4, (whoever would take it) on hobby, gaming and lore.
I need new players for the game. I need exposure, This is how I would do it. Obviously more fleshed out then this but you get my just hopefully.

I think they need to dump paper products as far as fluff is concerned. Sell off model making assets and rely on third party contracting to get 'counts as' plastic kits. They need an all in one codices/armies/rules 7th ed with minimal fluff designed by open minded people capable of creating a legit dice based paper scissors rock table top game with multiple brackets and power levels to help support competitive play. And then fluff people writing e books to support the rich history of the grim dark future. The people writing our new rules need to operate as a QC team who maintain an up to date FAQ designed to keep the game competitive and fluid.

Then they need to get into profitable events covered in streams if not also television backed up with painting tutorials and kit basing how to with DIY terrain making and strategy and tactics reviews.

Basically someone who handles making the game a competitive popular thing. Instead of trying to peddle models and backwards tech like paper product.

This mainly applies to 40k, as I know nothing about WHFB or LOTR:

1)
I'd designate certain units in each army (such as Tac Marines, Guardians,etc) as Core Units. These would receive slight price cuts, alongside better discount rates for 3rd-parties (such as 45% instead of the usual 50%).

Alongside this, we'd develop and release a '40k-lite' stand-alone skirmish game (a more polished version of Kill Team) with free rules and unit stats for the core units. This would be designed to play at 200-400pt levels. These would be published both online as a free download, and given out free with purchases from stores / FLGS's as a small A5 booklet.

The aim is to reduce the barrier of entry for new/casual players, and act as a gateway product into the main 40k game.

2)

Seek to re-engage the community:

Games Days would be treated as a marketing event rather than a sales event, intended to make customers excited about our IP / products throughout the rest of the year.

Seek to address the concerns of 3rd-party retailers, and support them by encouraging events and providing items like terrain or even prizes.

Move toward more open rules development, getting feedback at events and tournaments on planned changes.

3)

Make better use of the extensive IP to generate income, by letting other miniature companies buy rights to use it. This would allow resurrection of the specialist games range, with most of the risk being undertaken by 3rd-parties and very little risk for GW.
It also provides less incentive for 3rd-parties to make competing products.

4)

Continue to phase out GW high-street stores to reduce cost, and instead focus providing a larger percentage of FLGS product. They contains the best target market and provides an opportunity to win customers away from rival companies, including those not already interested in wargames, such as MtG players.

Offer incentives for buying from the main GW website, such as loyalty point-style schemes that give future discounts or access to limited edition products.

5)

Overall the strategy would be to win a bigger slice of the tabletop market back from rivals like PP or Mantic by directly competing with them.
GW would stop inflating product margins, and instead move toward volume production that rival companies will struggle to match. GW have the best high-volume / high-quality manufacturing infrastructure in the industry, and I see that as their biggest strength. By reducing high margins and generating income on volume, it also lowers the price ceiling that competitors use to undercut GW, and lowers the savings from buying from 2nd-hand and recast markets.

Step 1: fire all of the upper management and most of the rule authors. Anyone who isn't directly involved in the design and/or production of new model kits is gone. There is no room for incompetence in my GW.

Step 2: get rid of Tyranids entirely. They should never have existed in the first place, and it's time to correct that mistake.

Step 3: complete redesign of the 40k rules, with an emphasis on clarity and balance. Now that all of the incompetents are out of the way I can finally make a high-quality game instead of using "beer and pretzels" as an excuse to publish garbage.

Step 4: consolidate 40k's product line into something that can realistically be updated at a reasonable pace. All marine armies go into one codex, etc. There's no reason to have several different marine books, each with their own irrelevant variants of the same units. Instead the focus will be on producing a single high-quality marine army (with a "chapter tactics" equivalent for the major variant chapters). Likewise for chaos, one book for CSM/demons/cultists.

Step 5: hire the worst WAAC TFGs to playtest my new version of 40k, and fix everything they find. No more publishing books with obvious balance problems and broken rules.

Step 6: stop competing with myself. Independent stores are not the enemy, and I'm not going to treat them like one.

Step 7: invest in proper marketing instead of relying on people randomly walking into a store. This includes proper player archetype research to figure out what potential customers want to see that would get them to buy stuff, and new releases that satisfy those desires. Similarly, licensed products are a priceless marketing opportunity, not just a direct revenue source. It will not be enough to just collect a little extra money from a 40k video game, that video game will include marketing efforts aimed at getting tabletop players to buy the video game, and video game players to buy the tabletop game.

Step 8: build on my marketing work by doing something about the barrier to entry problem that drives new players away. I'm not sure what the best approach would be, but it can not cost $500-1000 (or more) just to get a basic starter army and attempt to play the game. A new customer needs to be able to show up on 40k night at their local store and be able to play a real game (not just with someone who has pity on the poor newbie) with $1-200 worth of stuff at most.

 lobbywatson wrote:
1. Doing this would likely be viewed negatively by stock holders and other employees. It would also cost so much in severance and other related legal costs due to "illegal" firings. Anyone who thinks they can do this has never run a business.

Fortunately I now own the company so there are no shareholders to worry about, and I just moved the company to a nice profit-friendly "right to work" state where I can fire everyone for any reason I like. In fact, by firing everyone and moving my operations to the US I can probably get some nice tax breaks and other benefits from the state/local government since I'll be creating new jobs.

 Peregrine wrote:

Step 2: get rid of Tyranids entirely. They should never have existed in the first place, and it's time to correct that mistake.

What? Why? Surely 40k needs armies which are genuinely different and alien?

pgmason wrote:
What? Why? Surely 40k needs armies which are genuinely different and alien?

But not Tyranids. Their fluff is stupid, their models are ugly, and they're boring as hell from a narrative perspective (yay, a mindless and faceless swarm that just eats and eats until you kill it). The only thing Tyranids contribute to the game is taking up valuable shelf space.

This is easy..

Cut box prices by 60% as GW already makes 275% profit off every kit they sell as the platic in each of those boxes does't cost the taxes charged on the final sales price to manufacture..

Then, reduce rulebook prices to 29.99 and codecies to 19.99. (Again, over priced)

Sales go up because everyone wants the new stuff, armies are started, inevitably opening the market up to countless new individuals, who in turn, buy more models to try new things.

I'd probably leave the company as is at the moment. Much as people talk about death spirals, if GW is dying, it's dying slowly and probably has several years left to solve its problems.

I'd leave the current release schedule as is and focus my attention on 7th Edition as the 'fix it' edition. I'd organize a team to analys the state of the game through test play, go to places like BoLS, Dakka, Bolter and CHainsword and seeing what gamers say, and resolving ambiguity in the BRB as well as cutting down on unnecessary fat in the rules.

I'd probably have the game focused to improve balance and clarity but leave the state of the game mostly the same (by that I mean the meta). I'd include a brief 'core army rules' in the BRB so that players can play a basic version of the game using that one rule book.

I'd then make a big deal about the relaunch with a strong advertising campaign, get everyone's attention and cut prices on the 'core army' models by 20%. I'd then host a community campaign via GW shops to allow players to determine the fate of a system or planet over the next three months (quickly followed by whatever data said we needed to do).

Assuming WD is still around, I'd get rid of it. Instead I'd launch a White Dwarf website filled with articles and videos about modeling, hobbying, etc. Probably make it the main GW site with a link to the GW store. I'd also give GW an actual internet presence beyond its own website and station Community Liasons on major forums, facebook, and twitter and make sure they're capable of clarifying rules question consistently and able to leak tid bits about upcoming content.

Personally I'd also like a 'Bitz' buy back program. Playing this game we end up with so much extra plastic, surely GW can find a way to recycle that into something profitable either by getting bits from players and giving them store credit and then reselling the bits.

Long term, I'd like to do a hard look at all the model kits and improve their contents. Devestators for example, I'd probably remove entirely, and just sell a heavy weapons plastic sprue that can be combined with a tac squad to make the heavy weapons models.

I'm getting weird deja vu. Have we had this thread recently before?

Commissar Benny wrote:
If you owned GW tomorrow, how would you go about running the company? For example:

1) [i]Fire senior executives, freeing up millions & eliminating toxic attitude towards customer base.

As we learnt again from the banking fiasco - most Senior Execs make themselves immune from being fired no matter what they do to the company and even if you do try and make them leave they get a huge pay off regardless as well as likely suing you........

1) Get rid of codexes and release rules with models to get rid of time gaps between army updates

2) Use the community to beta test rules before release

3) Advance the timeline fluff


Oh wait, this sounds familiar....

 Peregrine wrote:

 lobbywatson wrote:
1. Doing this would likely be viewed negatively by stock holders and other employees. It would also cost so much in severance and other related legal costs due to "illegal" firings. Anyone who thinks they can do this has never run a business.

Fortunately I now own the company so there are no shareholders to worry about, and I just moved the company to a nice profit-friendly "right to work" state where I can fire everyone for any reason I like. In fact, by firing everyone and moving my operations to the US I can probably get some nice tax breaks and other benefits from the state/local government since I'll be creating new jobs.

Owning a company doesn't mean you don't have to pay severance/unemployment costs. Guess what you'll still face lawsuits due to wrongful termination. Between that and moving the company to the US you should be bankrupt right about now...Course you are also going to whack tyranids. I don't even know why I responded to you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr Morden wrote:

Commissar Benny wrote:
If you owned GW tomorrow, how would you go about running the company? For example:

1) [i]Fire senior executives, freeing up millions & eliminating toxic attitude towards customer base.

As we learnt again from the banking fiasco - most Senior Execs make themselves immune from being fired no matter what they do to the company and even if you do try and make them leave they get a huge pay off regardless as well as likely suing you........

Hey someone with a brain. How'd you get here??!!

 crazyK wrote:
1) Get rid of codexes and release rules with models to get rid of time gaps between army updates

I think this is one of the best ideas to come out of more recent games like Warmahordes. It not only reduces the need to big rule books, but it allows you to update the individual units as needed to improve balance. Release an FAQ and update their in the box rules to align with the new adjustments.

It would make things a lot easier on GW and result in a more regular release schedule.

 LordofHats wrote:
Personally I'd also like a 'Bitz' buy back program. Playing this game we end up with so much extra plastic, surely GW can find a way to recycle that into something profitable either by getting bits from players and giving them store credit and then reselling the bits.

This wouldn't work. The raw materials that go into plastic kits are way too cheap to justify paying to ship discarded sprues around, and the bits business is a lot of work for limited profits. The only reason to do this would be some kind of charity deal to reward loyal customers and give them the confidence to buy kits for conversions that they can sell back once they've taken out the desired parts.

GoliothOnline wrote:
Cut box prices by 60% as GW already makes 275% profit off every kit they sell as the platic in each of those boxes does't cost the taxes charged on the final sales price to manufacture..

I don't think you understand how manufacturing works. The cost of a kit is way more than just the raw material cost, and GW doesn't make even close to 275% profit. Cutting prices by 60% would instantly kill the company because every box would be selling at a massive loss. It's possible that GW could restructure their operations so that they could make a 60% price cut eventually, but that would be a long-term project at best.

 Mr Morden wrote:
As we learnt again from the banking fiasco - most Senior Execs make themselves immune from being fired no matter what they do to the company and even if you do try and make them leave they get a huge pay off regardless as well as likely suing you........

*shrugs*

I own the company, if the existing management has contracts that prevent me from getting rid of them easily I'll just sell all of GW's IP to myself for $1, sell all of their manufacturing assets to my new company for $1, and leave GW to go bankrupt.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lobbywatson wrote:
Owning a company doesn't mean you don't have to pay severance/unemployment costs. Guess what you'll still face lawsuits due to wrongful termination. Between that and moving the company to the US you should be bankrupt right about now...Course you are also going to whack tyranids. I don't even know why I responded to you.

Four words: "right to work" state. Good luck claiming anything when state law says that either party can end your employment for any reason* at any time. And good luck claiming wrongful termination when you've been fired for poor performance. As for going bankrupt moving to the US, I'm a job creator. I'll just get the local government to pay for my moving expenses.

*Other than a very short list of reasons (race, sex, etc) that are banned by federal law, a list which does not include "your work sucks, we don't need you anymore".

Release cogent and informative FAQs.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
As we learnt again from the banking fiasco - most Senior Execs make themselves immune from being fired no matter what they do to the company and even if you do try and make them leave they get a huge pay off regardless as well as likely suing you........

*shrugs*

I own the company, if the existing management has contracts that prevent me from getting rid of them easily I'll just sell all of GW's IP to myself for $1, sell all of their manufacturing assets to my new company for $1, and leave GW to go bankrupt.

Because nothing helps with hiring new staff than a reputation for simply folding up a company and walking away from all responsibilities

On the point of "starter pricing", the problem there is that if a susbtantial and useful starter force is available for any length of time, it will be bought up in bulk by individuals, split into lots and re-sold on e-bay undercutting GW's own margins. Either all the models are cheap, or they are expensive. Anything else shoots the owner in the foot.

Create a good starter set for every army including rulebook/codex at 20% off.

That should help people get into the game after which i can get more of their money!

 Flinty wrote:
On the point of "starter pricing", the problem there is that if a susbtantial and useful starter force is available for any length of time, it will be bought up in bulk by individuals, split into lots and re-sold on e-bay undercutting GW's own margins. Either all the models are cheap, or they are expensive. Anything else shoots the owner in the foot.

But that's not necessarily true. Look at stuff like the snap-fit starter sets. Sure, you can get the models cheap online, but they're not replacing any of the "core" product lines. If you're going to make a cheap starter set you just need to make sure that the models aren't ones that people are going to want to buy more copies of once they have their starter set.

And then there's also the accessories factor to consider. Throw in a free rulebook, codex, and paper templates and you significantly reduce the cost of starting the game as a new player even if the models in the starter set are selling at full retail price. Just make sure it's all cheap paper stuff with no pictures/fluff/etc so that people who are interested enough to keep playing will eventually buy the real rulebooks.

Freeze all price increase initiatives moving forward. Have a team of analysts break down the sales, per system, per army, per kit (they must have this info already). Begin reducing prices by 10-25% on poorly selling kits to move inventory. If the kit is old and poorly selling - clear them out and put them on top priority for a re-worked plastic kit.

People love forgeworld - incorporate it officially into 40k and fantasy. It's a grey area right now that puts off some buyers, people will invest if they know a kit will get plenty of use.

The one man store model is for selling, not gaming/hobby events. If they are to keep the efficient one man stores then they need to support the community and start backing events. Community support will offset the potential reduction in sales revenue caused by the switch to online/one man store focus.

Management and GW culture needs to drop the 100% sales focus and bring back the hobby appreciation. I've spoken with a regional manager and he couldn't care less whether he was selling cars or plastic model kits... he just wanted to sell. I believe hobbyists can connect with other hobbyists - when you walk into a GW store, you shouldn't encounter a half assed sales pitch each time. The products can sell themselves when the employees have a genuine entheusiasm.

They need to make the rules more accessible to casual players. Some will argue that the rules are too simple, other that the game is too complicated - I think we can all agree that plenty of time is wasted on random tasks we need to partake in each turn that don't add to the gaming experience. Cut the fat - don't be afraid to make significant changes.

Launch a bits service - this would make life much easier for hobbyists looking for conversion opportunities / replacement parts. Other companies are making money off this, why not do it yourself? This could also be an opportunity to launch items similar to the chapter specific shoulder pads produced by forgeworld, but for all armies. Veteran hobbyists are looking for a reason to spend their money, but don't want to buy new armies each time - give them reasons to spend on their existing armies.

Balancing the codices/army books - this is tricky because it is hard to clock in the play testing hours while under development timelines. Why not present the community with some proposed alpha/beta rules to gauge the reaction? If we had just been able to preview some of the rules/units before their release..... we could have avoided so much of the whining and disappointment. If we had seen the mutilator statline..... we could have saved GW a lot of time and production costs with a big NO early on.

/rant.

 gossipmeng wrote:

Launch a bits service - this would make life much easier for hobbyists looking for conversion opportunities / replacement parts. Other companies are making money off this, why not do it yourself? This could also be an opportunity to launch items similar to the chapter specific shoulder pads produced by forgeworld, but for all armies. Veteran hobbyists are looking for a reason to spend their money, but don't want to buy new armies each time - give them reasons to spend on their existing armies.

They used to have a comprehensive bits service. It was obviously not financially viable, or else they would keep it going. With the move from individual metal castings to industrial plastics, I can see that it just doesn't make any sense for them to do it. As it stands for every bit they sell, they sell a full kit. If they were to start offering bits, then they would end up with a pile of bits that no-one ever buys. E-bay is doing a perfectly good job of selling bits for them, and for every bit that gets sold on e-bay a full kit has been sold at one point. While the mark-up on each bit on e-bay and similar might seem impressive, providing this service themselves would probably only provide a marginal benefit (if any) to GW's own cashflow and they might still end up being undercut by the market, leaving them with a large pile of sprues with only a couple of the harder-to-find or really popular bits removed.

what might make sense is to do an assessment of the bits market and see what sells the most and just do full sprues of those bits, but then they are missing the opportunity to sell a number of full kits. To be honest Forgeworld has been doing a pretty good job of filling in this gap anyway, especially for weapons packages.

 Mr Morden wrote:

Commissar Benny wrote:
If you owned GW tomorrow, how would you go about running the company? For example:

1) [i]Fire senior executives, freeing up millions & eliminating toxic attitude towards customer base.

As we learnt again from the banking fiasco - most Senior Execs make themselves immune from being fired no matter what they do to the company and even if you do try and make them leave they get a huge pay off regardless as well as likely suing you........

You're right, it would probably be easier and cheaper to just have them killed. Management seminar field trip anyone?

GW hase one big problem. It has disconnected from its historical (and increasingly cynical) player base. If they did more playtesting/QA on their releases and actually invested in some interaction with the community (that wasn't just advertising) then most of the gripes on this board would evaporate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
On the point of "starter pricing", the problem there is that if a susbtantial and useful starter force is available for any length of time, it will be bought up in bulk by individuals, split into lots and re-sold on e-bay undercutting GW's own margins. Either all the models are cheap, or they are expensive. Anything else shoots the owner in the foot.

But that's not necessarily true. Look at stuff like the snap-fit starter sets. Sure, you can get the models cheap online, but they're not replacing any of the "core" product lines. If you're going to make a cheap starter set you just need to make sure that the models aren't ones that people are going to want to buy more copies of once they have their starter set.

And then there's also the accessories factor to consider. Throw in a free rulebook, codex, and paper templates and you significantly reduce the cost of starting the game as a new player even if the models in the starter set are selling at full retail price. Just make sure it's all cheap paper stuff with no pictures/fluff/etc so that people who are interested enough to keep playing will eventually buy the real rulebooks.

The costs for making plastic models are the time for scupting the master and the investment in hardware to cast the models. I can see that snap-fit models might reduce the sculpting time a bit by reducing the number of individual poses required, but the hardware investment is probably the bulk of the cost anyway and that will hardly change at all. Also if GW invested in a line of snap-fit models I'm sure there would be a vocal section of the commnity carping on about how rubbish and monopose they are and why don't the boxes just come with some accessories anyway, seeing that GW has already sculpted all them for other kits.

GW's current kits are fantastically diverse and allow you to do a great many things as well as leaving some leftovers to play about with. I think they are much better than the 3rd edition Marine box set with only 3 or 4 individual poses and a pile of exactly the same arms and guns. The downside is that flexibility costs in terms of hardware development for casting.

In terms of cheap rulebooks, I thought that the Assault on Black REach and the new Dark Angel one came with mini-rulebooks anyway.

Assumption, I OWN GW. This to means that there are no stock holders to report to or I OWN enough of the stock to not care about what the other X% of the stock holders think. Also, as I OWN the company, I can't ousted via hostile take over. This means that the level of profit impacts mainly myself and no one else and thus I can determine the profit margin (aka, my salary) that is acceptable to me, even if it's $50K for the year.

The current boxes are overpriced because they contain loads of extra bits that aren't used and either end up in a bit box or in the trash. This means that GW is basically producing and charging for trash. Each unit for each army needs to be broken down into it's core model and there should be only 1 model of that type in the army. This means there is one Space Marine, one Chaos Space Marine, one Guardsman (Catachan get the ax), etc. I would then product smaller weapon packs which can be used across models and armies in some cases. There is no reason to have a SM, CSM, IG, Grey Knight, and Sisters bolter. They all basically use the same one. These sprues used to be available for close combat and contained pistols and melee weapons. The customer goes from buying a box with every conceivable option (though typically missing the one you want) to having the core model and a weapon pack(s). Specialized upgrade kits can be created for jump infantry, specific armies, and other items where people want to further customize their army. This also allows for the weapon and troop models to be split, so they can be modified separately. Net result is a lower price per model and people buying what they want, not a bunch of extra crap they don't need.

GW stores and online sales go away. GW now sells direct to distributors and/or FLGS. All products will be sold through them at whatever prices they want to charge. The only restriction may be sales outside of the countries, but I'd have to look at the data. MSRP would also be set based on a common currency, allowing the currency exchanges to adjust MSRP for different parts of the world. As I live in the US, all MSRP would be in US dollars, with retailers in the UK buying from me in US dollars and then setting the price in British pounds however they want.

In the short term, the rules need to be addressed by a FREE web published addendum to the current rules. I think the data and sources exist to knock this out fairly quickly.

Longer term, a new edition of WFB and 40K would be published. I'd basically leverage the PP model for community involvement in a new edition release and the universal update to all armies. I would retain the "named" character altering how the army plays, basically buying the special rules for the army.

All loyalist SM basically get consolidated into one codex. Other factions need to be pumped up so everyone is fairly balanced in consumption. WFB factions seem to be much more balanced in army consumption.

I'd create a tiered level gaming system. Each tier can uses models in the lower system. Think a single player game > Space Hulk > Multi-squad game > current 40K > Apocalypse. Certain units would be only available at higher tiers (super heavies at Apocalypse). This allows for a scaling of the game based on time and players, but allows the same models to be used at all levels. I also gets people into the game at a low investment level. Each game would have a "ready to play" starter box, with additional army expansions, except for 40K and Apocalypse.

Set prices at a level that make sense, I'll target 50% reduction,

Come up with an incentive program for FLGS to run tournaments and have weekly gaming nights for my products. Maybe it's a limited edition model that everyone who plays for a month gets or a free weapon upgrade pack or something. I'd also reinstate tournament support, but probably wouldn't have the company run the tournaments initially. I'd also continue to advance the story line each year (NO TIES ALLOWED) by having a summer tournament to get people interested in altering the fluff though their play.

All staff gets evaluated for "buy-in" and ability.