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lobbywatson wrote: They should just hire the people from dakka. I mean obviously most of them run multi-million dollar businesses and know what to do....
If that was the only requirement, I could do it; I manage several million dollars per year in funds and a hundred or so employees.
Sadly, GW's financials are a hundred million and thousands of employees; not to mention a worldwide operation.
My realization that I do not currently have the knowledge or experience to run a company that large does not prohibit me from recognizing the completely asinine decisions that GW's management seems to make a habit of committing.
Uh... GW is nowhere near that large a company. We're talking a company that considers 15 million GBP a year as "pretty good." It's not a mom-and-pop operation, by any means, but it's not the ConglomCo that you're making it out to be.
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
GW's turnover is in the hundreds of millions GBP, certainly approaching or over $200m a year.
Profit wise, you're in the ball park, but as companies are taxed on their net profit, "make some" is perfectly adequate once the accountants are done.
Sure, it's not Google, but they're a relatively significant operation .
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
Uh... GW is nowhere near that large a company. We're talking a company that considers 15 million GBP a year as "pretty good." It's not a mom-and-pop operation, by any means, but it's not the ConglomCo that you're making it out to be.
Yeah, the entire company only had sales totaling 134.6 Million GBP ($226.13 million), with a profit of 21.4 million GBP ($35.95 Million). That is approximately equal to the sales of a single district for a Lowe's or Home Depot. Heck, a small market K-mart (single store mind you) does $20 million in sales annually.
So GW has the sales generation of 11 small K-marts or 6 small market Lowe's locations.
Though their profit margin is way, better. At almost 16%.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/05/31 01:22:22
lobbywatson wrote: They should just hire the people from dakka. I mean obviously most of them run multi-million dollar businesses and know what to do....
If that was the only requirement, I could do it; I manage several million dollars per year in funds and a hundred or so employees.
Sadly, GW's financials are a hundred million and thousands of employees; not to mention a worldwide operation.
My realization that I do not currently have the knowledge or experience to run a company that large does not prohibit me from recognizing the completely asinine decisions that GW's management seems to make a habit of committing.
Uh... GW is nowhere near that large a company. We're talking a company that considers 15 million GBP a year as "pretty good." It's not a mom-and-pop operation, by any means, but it's not the ConglomCo that you're making it out to be.
huh. I don't know why I was thinking it was a hundred million or something... ah well. In that case, I couldn't do any worse than current management....possibly.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/05/31 01:30:34
Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century: Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others; Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected; Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it; Refusing to set aside trivial preferences; Neglecting development and refinement of the mind; Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do
Uh... GW is nowhere near that large a company. We're talking a company that considers 15 million GBP a year as "pretty good." It's not a mom-and-pop operation, by any means, but it's not the ConglomCo that you're making it out to be.
Yeah, the entire company only had sales totaling 134.6 Million GBP ($226.13 million), with a profit of 21.4 million GBP ($35.95 Million). That is approximately equal to the sales of a single district for a Lowe's or Home Depot. Heck, a small market K-mart (single store mind you) does $20 million in sales annually.
So GW has the sales generation of 11 small K-marts or 6 small market Lowe's locations.
Or 1000 small family operated convenience stores, it is a futile exercise drawing these comparisons, and has no real relevance to the point the poster in question was making (he didn't feel being unqualified to run a business GW's size disqualified him from having an opinion on how badly run GW is)
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
Uh... GW is nowhere near that large a company. We're talking a company that considers 15 million GBP a year as "pretty good." It's not a mom-and-pop operation, by any means, but it's not the ConglomCo that you're making it out to be.
Yeah, the entire company only had sales totaling 134.6 Million GBP ($226.13 million), with a profit of 21.4 million GBP ($35.95 Million). That is approximately equal to the sales of a single district for a Lowe's or Home Depot. Heck, a small market K-mart (single store mind you) does $20 million in sales annually.
So GW has the sales generation of 11 small K-marts or 6 small market Lowe's locations.
Or 1000 small family operated convenience stores, it is a futile exercise drawing these comparisons, and has no real relevance to the point the poster in question was making (he didn't feel being unqualified to run a business GW's size disqualified him from having an opinion on how badly run GW is)
That's true, you don't have to be a veterinarian to know that a dog is dead or a trained chef to understand that something tastes bad.
I was just pointing out that it's not that large of a company, heck, even I've been a district level manager that handled sales that exceeded GW's annual. It wouldn't be too hard to think that there are many more like me on the forums as well as those that have handled even more prestigious positions. Not to mention that there are probably a few that are involved and are far more accomplished with stocks and business assessments than I am.
But, come to think of it. If the average customer were to spend $200 annually on GW products Accounting for wholesale prices we could conservatively estimate that GW actually gets $100 from each customer. That would mean that GW only has about 2 million customers world wide. Not a very large community. I never really thought of that before.
I was being very generous with the whole sale costs. I don't know how much they charge fro their wholesale prices. Maybe someone that buys from them whole sale could tell me. Like, how much does GW charge a retailer for the BRB? That would tell you the amount of sales that GW gets directly from their affiliated retailers. I'm sure that it is higher than 50% because of direct sales and their own storefronts.
Maximum discount is 40% off retail before taxes, not all retailers will get the full discount.
Their margin, averaged out over literally everything they sell, before factoring non-production related costs, is somewhere in the region of 70%.
Also, while I see flaws in your logic, I don't think 2m is an unreasonable number to arrive at, and while it is tiny as a percentage of the global population, let us not lose sight of exactly how many people that is.
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
azreal13 wrote: Maximum discount is 40% off retail before taxes, not all retailers will get the full discount.
Their margin, averaged out over literally everything they sell, before factoring non-production related costs, is somewhere in the region of 70%.
Also, while I see flaws in your logic, I don't think 2m is an unreasonable number to arrive at, and while it is tiny as a percentage of the global population, let us not lose sight of exactly how many people that is.
Sales don't factor in costs, it's a raw figure. So, if the wholesale charge is (on average) 70% of the retail cost for the independent retailers and direct sales (through their stores and online) attributes 100%, of dollars spent by the consumer at least 75% of those dollars go directly to the GW sales line. Remember we aren't factoring in costs, these are raw sales numbers.
So, let's say the average GW customer spends $200 a year on GW products (that's only $17 a month). To reach the annual sales numbers listed at the GW web site, you only have 1.5 million customers.
1.5 million people is the population of Phoenix, Arizona.
Are you trying to say that 1.5m is a lot or a small amount. Because 1.5m is a lot of anything, just because it is a fraction of, say, the number of Big Macs sold globally each year, doesn't mean it somehow ceases to be significant in a niche market like wargaming.
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
wuestenfux wrote: Well, GW seems to be on a consolidation move to reduce expenses and optimize profits. This a quite natural for a company that needs to please their shareholders.
However, what worries is that GW is not finding a way to get new players into the games. Its not only the prices, its also the rule book of 200 pages which are hard to master for a beginner.
Here PP makes a much better job.
I 100% agree. Having just got into Hordes I read the quick start rules in 10 minutes then was able to go out and play an introductory game.
$50 start-up cost, or less if you split one of the 2 player battle boxes, is great for getting new people into the game as well.
Ailaros wrote: You know what really bugs me? When my opponent, before they show up at the FLGS smears themselves in peanut butter and then makes blood sacrifices to Ashterai by slitting the throat of three male chickens and then smears the spatter pattern into the peanut butter to engrave sacred symbols into their chest and upper arms.
I have a peanut allergy. It's really inconsiderate.
"Long ago in a distant land, I, M'kar, the shape-shifting Master of Chaos, unleashed an unspeakable evil! But a foolish Grey Knight warrior wielding a magic sword stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final blow was struck, I tore open a portal in space and flung him into the Warp, where my evil is law! Now the fool seeks to return to real-space, and undo the evil that is Chaos!"
Considering all the desperate moves lately (one-man stores, rushed releases, fat-trimming etc) I can't help but imagine this guys and one of his quotes when I think of GW's desperation:
"There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept."
masterdoobie wrote: Considering all the desperate moves lately (one-man stores, rushed releases, fat-trimming etc) I can't help but imagine this guys and one of his quotes when I think of GW's desperation:
"There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept."
I think you've mixed GW management up with this guy....
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
Are you trying to say that 1.5m is a lot or a small amount. Because 1.5m is a lot of anything, just because it is a fraction of, say, the number of Big Macs sold globally each year, doesn't mean it somehow ceases to be significant in a niche market like wargaming.
It's a small amount. It may be a large share of the gaming market, but it's a tiny amount for a customer base from a global company. I touched on this because of the fellow that was waiting for someone with business experience to make comments.
While, like I said before, you don't have to be a trained chef to know that something tastes bad, I was letting that fellow know that there are many people in these forums that do have business experience that equals or surpasses that of the GW scope. I'm one of them and I'm by no means unique. As I said before, there must be many more on these forums that have greater experience than I.
Their customer base is dwindling. Their sales are falling year to year. They're staying profitable only by raising prices and slashing costs. They're a shrinking business in a growing segment.
Cause, as I can attest as a physics student, Quantum physics is fething hard...
In opposition to math which is locally trivial.
Things went downhill for GW when they became a shareholder company.
They have to satisfy both, the shareholders and the customers. This seems to be a trade-off.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/05/31 06:19:32
Former moderator 40kOnline
Lanchester's square law - please obey in list building!
Illumini: "And thank you for not finishing your post with a "" I'm sorry, but after 7200 's that has to be the most annoying sign-off ever."
Kain wrote: The people at Dakka, Bolter and Chainsword, Heresy Online, Warseer, the various race specific forums, BolS, and /tg/ would be able to make a much better and more balanced game where each faction felt powerful, fluffy, and variable and there would at least be an attempt to keep each unit viable.
And ultimately, a system free of pay to win disease is a more viable long term system that attracts more new consumers and appeals to old ones. Furthermore, GW also seems to have no concept of the importance of marketing to a business. World of Tanks got big partially because it plastered it's advertisements on every corner of the internet. Evony and the other, even more misogynistically advertised Evony copycats became infamous for doing the same (with boob girls who were never actually in the game). That nobody in GW ever tried doing the same is nothing short of amazing.
We would probably go for a living ruleset however.
Another reason World of Tanks got so big is because there are about 500 million men and boys in the world who have got computers and think it would be fun to drive around in a tank blowing stuff up and WoT lets you do that for free with practically no time or cost investment.
40K on the other hand requires a substantial cash, time and mental effort investment just to start to play, unless you have friends who will let you join in with them. That is why veterans and word of mouth are important to GW's success.
Kain wrote: The people at Dakka, Bolter and Chainsword, Heresy Online, Warseer, the various race specific forums, BolS, and /tg/ would be able to make a much better and more balanced game where each faction felt powerful, fluffy, and variable and there would at least be an attempt to keep each unit viable.
And ultimately, a system free of pay to win disease is a more viable long term system that attracts more new consumers and appeals to old ones. Furthermore, GW also seems to have no concept of the importance of marketing to a business. World of Tanks got big partially because it plastered it's advertisements on every corner of the internet. Evony and the other, even more misogynistically advertised Evony copycats became infamous for doing the same (with boob girls who were never actually in the game). That nobody in GW ever tried doing the same is nothing short of amazing.
We would probably go for a living ruleset however.
Another reason World of Tanks got so big is because there are about 500 million men and boys in the world who have got computers and think it would be fun to drive around in a tank blowing stuff up and WoT lets you do that for free with practically no time or cost investment.
40K on the other hand requires a substantial cash, time and mental effort investment just to start to play, unless you have friends who will let you join in with them. That is why veterans and word of mouth are important to GW's success.
Making their fanbase alienating "strategies" even dumber.
6,000pts (over 5,000 painted to various degrees, rest are still on the sprues)
they will probably be fine for now. ive noticed many people whining about GW in one thread then talking about the 500 dollar limited edition thing they just bought from them in the next.
Don't be concerned about the future of the game. The best possible thing that can happen is that Games Workshop goes bust. Someone will adopt the franchise, and come in with a fresh approach which likely includes actual balance to the rules, and sensible marketing including prices that win back customers.
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
Don't be concerned about the future of the game. The best possible thing that can happen is that Games Workshop goes bust. Someone will adopt the franchise, and come in with a fresh approach which likely includes actual balance to the rules, and sensible marketing including prices that win back customers.
I must say I see a slight flaw in that plan, if GW does go bust it would indicate that most of the supporters of the game had left. And if there are very few fans left then other companies might be hesitant to buy the IP, and as time goes on more and more people of the who were still fans move on to new games. JUst my two cents though, could be completely wrong
Everything I say, barring quotes and researched information, is my personal opinion. Not fact.
"Being into 40k but not the background is like being into porn but not masturbation..." - Kain
"I barely believe my dice are not sentient and conspiring against me." - knas ser
Sure, that could actually happen. I imagine GW will try and ring every cent out of selling the IP and probably not set a sensible price. But eventually they will have to, and during the limbo. worst case scenario is that there is a widely used homebrew version of the ruleset online, updated by someone who really cares about balance. Almost any of us could do it better than GW. Someone out there is bound to do it even better than that.
Or we just use 7th for a while.
A drastic change needs to happen, GW being gone will be a good thing, even if it gets slightly worse for a small amount of time afterwards (although I doubt it could get much worse by remaining static, its already p bad)
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
I hear a lot of talk on the forums about the modeling aspect of GW, but what about the massive success of the 40K novels, and specifically the Horus Heresy series? This is a definite money-maker for GW (or Black Library, if you want to be technical, same thing) and is one of the few things I regularly purchase. Anyone have any numbers on what the many, many novels are doing for GW?
6000 pts
2000 pts
2500 pts
3000 pts
"We're on an express elevator to hell - goin' down!"
"Depends on the service being refused. It should be fine to refuse to make a porn star a dildo shaped cake that they wanted to use in a wedding themed porn..."
There is indeed a middle ground between total bust/buy out and continuing the status quo.
The company could end up licensing the product to a larger game manufacturer such as Hasbro. That way the company remains intact and still draw income from the property. That way they retain the IP and could still produce the Black Library and Forge World stuff.
There are many ways that this whole thing could go.
Edit: The more I think of it, the more likely that may be the eventual case. A standard Licensing agreement generally pays 7% without the costs associated with production. While this is a 50% reduction from what they are currently getting it could easily be made up for with the increased volume of sales.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/05/31 18:34:24
Retrogamer0001 wrote: I hear a lot of talk on the forums about the modeling aspect of GW, but what about the massive success of the 40K novels, and specifically the Horus Heresy series? This is a definite money-maker for GW (or Black Library, if you want to be technical, same thing) and is one of the few things I regularly purchase. Anyone have any numbers on what the many, many novels are doing for GW?
I'd expand that to licensed products in general. The Dawn of War series of video games must have done very well for GW, Space Marine was fairly well received too. If they concentrate on getting good games out, rather than the trash since Space Marine it would work well for them. Not only do they stand on their own merit (books, pc games etc), but they bring more into the other aspects of the hobby. I'd known about 40k for a long time, but only got into it after playing Dawn of War, without it I wouldn't have. I doubt I'd have gone in as deep without all the novels like Gaunts Ghosts, Horus Heresy etc either.
The trash video games coming out lately could be taken as desperation on GWs part too I guess. They're farming out the IP to any company that promise a quick buck.
SHUPPET wrote: Sure, that could actually happen. I imagine GW will try and ring every cent out of selling the IP and probably not set a sensible price. But eventually they will have to, and during the limbo. worst case scenario is that there is a widely used homebrew version of the ruleset online, updated by someone who really cares about balance. Almost any of us could do it better than GW. Someone out there is bound to do it even better than that.
Or we just use 7th for a while.
A drastic change needs to happen, GW being gone will be a good thing, even if it gets slightly worse for a small amount of time afterwards (although I doubt it could get much worse by remaining static, its already p bad)
We already had that, It was the pancake edition. What we need is someone to home brew some balanced codex's.
Its hard to be awesome, when your playing with little plastic men. Welcome to Fantasy 40k
If you think your important, in the great scheme of things. Do the water test.
Put your hands in a bucket of warm water,
then pull them out fast. The size of the hole shows how important you are.
I think we should roll some dice, to see if we should roll some dice, To decide if all this dice rolling is good for the game.
- They are stuck with a very antiquated business model. The sell-through, shop-based model is now more of a hindrance than a help. They could easily sell online and shut every single shop. However, they have a customer base which is accustomed to the shop as a social centre if nothing else. I bet many go in and chat, maybe play a game and sometimes buy the odd bit to keep the 'manager' happy. However, they probably then go and place all their GW orders with a third party discounter online. On the other hand if they shut their shops they run the risk of causing the community to collapse and getting cries of "they're panicking" from the t'internet. I imagine if they went all serious and got in consultants they would be advised to shut or radically scale back the shops and go for more online. In the UK there are shops in many small towns, often within a pretty easy distance of a major city where a central hub store could exists, say Macclesfield to Manchester, or similarly Bury, Stockport, etc. They could easily shut those for purely financial reasons. I think this is a massive quandary for them and a huge drain on their bottom line.
- They do seem to exist in a bubble. They don't like to engage with the fans except on their own terms. They jealously guard their release schedule, etc. I fear this is unhealthy and makes them disconnected from the reality of the situation.
- I have always argued that they should do some sort of promotions, army of the month discounts, sales, loyalty rewards, whatever.
- Considering GW's profit obsessions it is incredible that they still manufacture in the UK. This is actually something which keeps me sweet on them because it provides skills jobs, supply chain, etc in my home nation and I appreciate that. However, commercially it must be expensive. Surely it would be cheaper to produce in China? I don't know why they do this. Possibly because they like to control everything and having all the functions in one location means the senior management can micro-manage every aspect of the process.
Given the margins on their products they have a remarkable lack of profitability. The margins on plastic miniatures at GW prices must be immense. They could get away without retail boxes through net sales and simply pit them in bags. That their profit margins are so low is amazing really, every product sold must carry a margin of at a guess 60%+. Where does the money go? Shops probably don't make any money and are one-man now to try and minimise the loss. There are a lot of chiefs, designers, etc and I bet they pay decent wages to them. However, the main expenses I guess will be in the very top echelons with generous wages, bonuses and huge expenditure on office furniture, expenses, etc. I'm just guessing but I feel they are haemorrhaging money somewhere.
I feel that with their products so expensive compared to the materials used this is a company which could very easily be run at a massive profit but is not well run and does not know how to sort this out. It probably runs "as it always did". Look at Black Industries. Shut down as a non profit making arm but then FF have taken the RPG stuff and made a massive success when GW saw this as a loss maker. Different approaches?
Also GW profits were boosted by the sheer value of the royalties from the Space Marine game. Amazingly this was a massive chunk of their entire profit and this shows how much more profitable a moderately successful console game is than their entire product line.
Kain wrote: The people at Dakka, Bolter and Chainsword, Heresy Online, Warseer, the various race specific forums, BolS, and /tg/ would be able to make a much better and more balanced game where each faction felt powerful, fluffy, and variable and there would at least be an attempt to keep each unit viable.
And ultimately, a system free of pay to win disease is a more viable long term system that attracts more new consumers and appeals to old ones. Furthermore, GW also seems to have no concept of the importance of marketing to a business. World of Tanks got big partially because it plastered it's advertisements on every corner of the internet. Evony and the other, even more misogynistically advertised Evony copycats became infamous for doing the same (with boob girls who were never actually in the game). That nobody in GW ever tried doing the same is nothing short of amazing.
We would probably go for a living ruleset however.
Another reason World of Tanks got so big is because there are about 500 million men and boys in the world who have got computers and think it would be fun to drive around in a tank blowing stuff up and WoT lets you do that for free with practically no time or cost investment.
40K on the other hand requires a substantial cash, time and mental effort investment just to start to play, unless you have friends who will let you join in with them. That is why veterans and word of mouth are important to GW's success.
WoT did spend money on mainstream advertising as well, they had posters on the London Underground for example.
Isengard wrote: - They are stuck with a very antiquated business model. The sell-through, shop-based model is now more of a hindrance than a help. They could easily sell online and shut every single shop. However, they have a customer base which is accustomed to the shop as a social centre if nothing else. I bet many go in and chat, maybe play a game and sometimes buy the odd bit to keep the 'manager' happy. However, they probably then go and place all their GW orders with a third party discounter online. On the other hand if they shut their shops they run the risk of causing the community to collapse and getting cries of "they're panicking" from the t'internet. I imagine if they went all serious and got in consultants they would be advised to shut or radically scale back the shops and go for more online. In the UK there are shops in many small towns, often within a pretty easy distance of a major city where a central hub store could exists, say Macclesfield to Manchester, or similarly Bury, Stockport, etc. They could easily shut those for purely financial reasons. I think this is a massive quandary for them and a huge drain on their bottom line.
Commercial contracts are an interesting beast (at least for shops and warehousing in the UK) in that contracts tend to be set up in ways that protect both the leaser and the lessee. Likely GW can't just up and leave or give notice when it feels like it, and I'm led to believe that at some point in time they negotiated some excellent discounts on locations that makes it very difficult for them to back out of the contract, though usually if you can get another tenant in the you don't have to pay the costs whilst you're tied to the location as long as it isn't vacant.
Ex-Mantic Rules Committees: Kings of War, Warpath
"The Emperor is obviously not a dictator, he's a couch." Starbuck: "Why can't we use the starboard launch bays?"
Engineer: "Because it's a gift shop!"
World of Tanks also did TV advertising around Christmas.
The shops are a key marketing device for GW, as their only other way to engage with people is through Warhammer Visions. In shops potential customers can experience the physical product assembled, painted and working in game. They can even be taught how to paint and play, and experience the community feeling of wargames. However this doesn't work with one man staffing.
The other advantage of shops is that once you have got people into them you can show off a whole range of products. However GW only does 40K and WHFB. If they haven't already sold that idea to the customer, they haven't got anything else to interest him.
If the shops aren't working the other way of selling is by word of mouth. However GW have spent the past five+ years annoying swathes of veterans, driving them away from the games and convincing them to actively promote rival systems.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/06/01 05:19:01
It used to be that GW products and "Citadel Miniatures" were sold in normal toy and gaming shops. And indeed when they first started off GW shops actually sold non-GW products as well. I remember being surprised as a kid one day when I went into the GW shop and was told they didn't sell BattleTech and I had to go elsewhere.
Perhaps the time has come not for GW to stop having a retail presence, but to fold back in with normal shops. There are few such shops these days in the UK. If GW stores became more general again, it would be a huge boost for gaming in the UK and possibly, if as people have said they're just not profitable anymore, then it would be a help to GW as well.
If I were manager of a GW franchise somewhere, I would be very tempted to hand back my big yellow and red sign and go general. Board games, RPGs, other wargames. You'd get a lot more through-traffic from the store and you could still sell GW products.
Anyone know if there's anything contractual / legal stopping that? Are stores actually franchises or do GW own them and just have the manager as a straight employee?
What is best in life?
To wound enemy units, see them driven from the table, and hear the lamentations of their player.
" I'm sorry, but after 7200 's that has to be the most annoying sign-off ever." 
6,000pts (over 5,000 painted to various degrees, rest are still on the sprues) 
6000 pts
2000 pts
2500 pts
3000 pts
