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Blanchitsu is nothing but bizarre (and cool) conversions and JB has hinted at being aware of Inq28's existence a few times.

They aren't as conversion happy as they were before.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Does Visions actually have any conversions in it?

From everything I've seen of GWs current approach they appear to view conversions as something to be avoided.

I'm sure they are more than happy with conversions if it means buying an extra $50 box of models to get the 1 arm you need to make the conversion

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Does Visions actually have any conversions in it?

From everything I've seen of GWs current approach they appear to view conversions as something to be avoided.

Yes, there are conversions in Visions.

They had a full pager on someone who created some humongous (bigger than Thunderhawk) monstrosity out of every flyer kit that GW makes Many of the models would be impractical for gaming, most of the dioramas are not representative of any game. There are also many terrain conversions, like Battlefield Gorgantum or whatever it was called (about 3 issues ago), which look really cool but would be impossible to game in. There are things like hacked up skyshields to make giant balconies, or skyshields on 24" towers, Malefactorums extended into vertical structures, tall multilevel buildings... things that would just be impossible to actually put models on for anything other than a diorama.

Kitbashes are very common in Visions.

I'm not sure why you would say GW discourages conversions.

Because basically every special character without an official model has been removed from their respective codex?

Go and say that GW encourages conversions to the Dark Eldar players who had converted their own Baron, Duke, Vect, Malys, etc.?

Also, all of those conversions you mentioned are just combinations of GW kits. Do they give any limelight to scratchbuilt models?

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Does Visions actually have any conversions in it?

From everything I've seen of GWs current approach they appear to view conversions as something to be avoided.

The've moved to kitbashing - adding bits from one kit to a model from another, and moved away from actual conversions.


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 Talys wrote:

I'm not sure why you would say GW discourages conversions.

Because none of that is converting in the conventional sense, it's just buying half a dozen scenery kits and assembling a giant structure from it. There's no plasticard, or green stuff, or anything beyond gluing something from GW to something else from GW.

@Herzlos: i'm not sure why you would interpret me saying what i like about Visions as being my exact set of requirements...
i didn't see a need for White Dwarf to change, but it did, and i have adapted...
since i gave examples of five other mags that i have collected as well, it is clear that i don't have an exact set of requirements...
what i do have, is a greater passion for GW's minis, books, and magazines than any other company's...
that doesn't mean that i expect anyone else to share my preference, though i do hope that there are enough like-minded people out there to keep GW profitable...

as for the definition of conversions, i have always called a kitbash a conversion...
taking a Marauder Horseman's head, and gluing it to a SW Scout is a conversion in my book...
scratch-building is its own beast...
it makes sense for a company to promote the use of their kits for conversion purposes, as that would equate to the sale of two boxes of models...

the current state of affairs is upsetting to people because things used to be different, which i completely understand...
when change happens, some people will decry the loss of how things were in the good old days, and maybe stop buying GW products, or adapt and continue to enjoy themselves...
i am more than happy to adapt, because the books, minis, and magazines still inspire me...

cheers
jah

Compare the 2nd Ed Chaos Codex with the modern 'Buy all our playsets and toys!' mentality and it's unsurprising that conversions are a thing of the past in official GW material.

Wouldn't want to publish a picture of something that someone can't just buy! They might give ideas to those evil third party bitz makers who keep stealing all of GW's totally-original-created-in-a-vacuum concepts, such as arrows and skulls.

For another glimpse into how it has changed compare the 4th Ed Ork Codex with the current one.

In one of them you'll find pictures of awesome scratch-built Battlewagons, Dreadnoughts, orky buildings and the massive Black Toof river display with a scratch-built Gargant and Squiggoth.

In the other you will find generic Ork kits, exactly the same as on their page on the website.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Compare the 2nd Ed Chaos Codex with the modern 'Buy all our playsets and toys!' mentality and it's unsurprising that conversions are a thing of the past in official GW material.

I still remember Andy Chambers heavily converted Iron warriors playtest army alongside whatever mess that John Blanche had knocked out for the same reason being heavily featured in a WD when the 2nd ed codex was released.

 Talys wrote:

I'm not sure why you would say GW discourages conversions.

They don't specifically discourage them (although the old website had a comment on their legal page that claimed that conversions are technically an IP violation) but they've also stopped encouraging them. As others have pointed out, there are very, very few conversions shown in rulebooks or codexes now, and since the Chapterhouse case they started removing any unit that didn't have a model from the codexes.

These days, it's all just about buying the appropriate kit, rather than creating stuff. Which is ironic, given them modelling potential opened up by the current army building system...

Herzlos wrote:

Because none of that is converting in the conventional sense, it's just buying half a dozen scenery kits and assembling a giant structure from it. There's no plasticard, or green stuff, or anything beyond gluing something from GW to something else from GW.

I'd suggest that you look into an issue of Visions before you say that, because it just isn't true

Sure, there are a lot of models and terrain that are kitbashes (I happen to think these are cool), but there are also many, many models that have been augmented with GS and such. Some are spectacular.

I mean, nobody's asking you to buy it, but if you just randomly open an issue and flip through it, you'll see plenty of stuff that doesn't come from boxes and bits -- whether it's a catachan holding a coffee cup by a tank or a Chaos lord on a gruesome throne.

My favorite model in the last couple of issues was "Howling Banshee" by Steve Party, which has a very unique-looking howling banshee with a custom facemask/hair, unique pose & weapons, and sculpted wraithbone terrain.


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 insaniak wrote:

 Talys wrote:

I'm not sure why you would say GW discourages conversions.

They don't specifically discourage them (although the old website had a comment on their legal page that claimed that conversions are technically an IP violation) but they've also stopped encouraging them. As others have pointed out, there are very, very few conversions shown in rulebooks or codexes now, and since the Chapterhouse case they started removing any unit that didn't have a model from the codexes.

These days, it's all just about buying the appropriate kit, rather than creating stuff. Which is ironic, given them modelling potential opened up by the current army building system...

Well, I understand the codex perspective, because from a gaming point of view, they want to showcase stuff that you can buy, assemble, and play (relatively easily), right? The GW thing to do if they add something new is to just sell you an updated kit, anyhow, and it drives people crazy if there's some game option that's not in the kit (like grav guns for bikes). I suppose they could show you customized models of stuff that has no game function, but then if it were cool, people would want it, and then they'd just monetize it and release it as a plastic kit

Unlike a lot of other gaming/modeling systems, the GW kits give you tons of creative potential without having to resort to sculpting (or requiring only minimal sculpting), which is a pretty big attraction to a lot of folks -- and that's just because of the sheer size of their sprue/bits library.

 Talys wrote:
I suppose they could show you customized models of stuff that has no game function, but then if it were cool, people would want it, and then they'd just monetize it and release it as a plastic kit

Or they could do what they used to do, and show you how to make it and sell you a bundle that included the kits you needed for it.

Having all of a unit's options in the kit doesn't preclude conversions. Not in the slightest... because a lot of the draw of a hobby like this is seeing the unique ways that people come up with to personalise their armies.

 insaniak wrote:

 Talys wrote:
I suppose they could show you customized models of stuff that has no game function, but then if it were cool, people would want it, and then they'd just monetize it and release it as a plastic kit

Or they could do what they used to do, and show you how to make it and sell you a bundle that included the kits you needed for it.

Having all of a unit's options in the kit doesn't preclude conversions. Not in the slightest... because a lot of the draw of a hobby like this is seeing the unique ways that people come up with to personalise their armies.

In the context of kitbashes, they do this once in a while in WD -- there was a recent one on how to combine SM kits, and of course the issues the upgrade kits, for example. They tell you exactly what kits the pieces come from (the column is sprues and glue, usually). You won't find it in visions, because a lot of the models are not built by GW, and the magazine is almost entirely devoted to photography.

There aren't ever tutorials on greenstuff sculpting and building custom terrain anymore, and that would be cool, I agree.

A Town Called Malus wrote:Because basically every special character without an official model has been removed from their respective codex?

Go and say that GW encourages conversions to the Dark Eldar players who had converted their own Baron, Duke, Vect, Malys, etc.?

Also, all of those conversions you mentioned are just combinations of GW kits. Do they give any limelight to scratchbuilt models?

Looks at awesome converted Duke model... weeps into palms...

Yeah, GW have been shifting away from conversions to kitbashes for a while now, I think it really started in the 4th edition Chaos dex (the really bad one with no flavor, all generic bland crap) There was only one "conversion" in the book and it was a kitbash Slaaneshi marine, (go figure)

The Golden Demon competition allows you to scratch build a model that is set in the 40k universe, so why wouldn't they feature such a model, if it were really awesome?

If you flip through a Visions, there is LOTS of stuff, especially peripheral to the model, that's not from a kit. A lot of what's modeled is dioramas and models on intricate bases, where only the basic model is a GW model. In many cases, those models are also modified, with GS, sculpted bits, etc.

Here are two that I really enjoyed. By Julian Bayliss, "Warlord of the Norscan Giants" from issue 19:



And by Steve Party, "Howling Banshee" in issue 18:



To me, it is a real treat to flip through a magazine that has lots of models like that, and I'll happily shell out $10 for a magazine with pictures like that, that's around 180 pages. It's certainly not a catalog. If it is, tell me where I can buy that model unpainted, and I'm there!

 Talys wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

Because none of that is converting in the conventional sense, it's just buying half a dozen scenery kits and assembling a giant structure from it. There's no plasticard, or green stuff, or anything beyond gluing something from GW to something else from GW.

I'd suggest that you look into an issue of Visions before you say that, because it just isn't true

I've seen enough of it online to be put off entirely.

I mean, nobody's asking you to buy it, but if you just randomly open an issue and flip through it, you'll see plenty of stuff that doesn't come from boxes and bits -- whether it's a catachan holding a coffee cup by a tank or a Chaos lord on a gruesome throne.

I can't, it's in a sealed bag so my only option is to buy it, and I just can't bring myself to do that.

My favorite model in the last couple of issues was "Howling Banshee" by Steve Party, which has a very unique-looking howling banshee with a custom facemask/hair, unique pose & weapons, and sculpted wraithbone terrain.

Did they explain that stuff to you, along with how to do it? Or do you just know that's what's done because you're familiar with the models and technique?

Well, I understand the codex perspective, because from a gaming point of view, they want to showcase stuff that you can buy, assemble, and play (relatively easily), right? The GW thing to do if they add something new is to just sell you an updated kit, anyhow, and it drives people crazy if there's some game option that's not in the kit (like grav guns for bikes). I suppose they could show you customized models of stuff that has no game function, but then if it were cool, people would want it, and then they'd just monetize it and release it as a plastic kit

They didn't used to be like that though, they were all for you augmenting your GW stuff with whatever you wanted. Hell, WD used to contain patterns to make vehicles out of cereal packets! Now the emphasis seems to be on buying GW.

They used to have a guy who just did terrain, Nigel Stillman IIRC. Dude just made terrain. Big landing pad, spiked trees, crashed shuttle, bunkers galore, you name it he made it.

Now? Only GW terrain on that Godawful imagination-stiffling Realm of Battle boards.

It was a guy called Owen who did the terrain including the landing pad, I can't remember his surname right now though.

Dave Andrews is (still, I think) the primary terrain / table design person.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
They used to have a guy who just did terrain, Nigel Stillman IIRC. Dude just made terrain. Big landing pad, spiked trees, crashed shuttle, bunkers galore, you name it he made it.

Now? Only GW terrain on that Godawful imagination-stiffling Realm of Battle boards.

What, having every battle on the same skull filled hill doesn't inspire you to forge narrative after narrative?

 Baragash wrote:
It was a guy called Owen who did the terrain including the landing pad, I can't remember his surname right now though.

Patten. A friend of mine who works at WHW making terrain IIRC. He, myself and another regular at our then local GW were known as the Jokearo for a reason.

 Talys wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

Because none of that is converting in the conventional sense, it's just buying half a dozen scenery kits and assembling a giant structure from it. There's no plasticard, or green stuff, or anything beyond gluing something from GW to something else from GW.

I'd suggest that you look into an issue of Visions before you say that, because it just isn't true

However, for the first several issues it was largely true.

There is an old saying that you have one chance to make a good first impression - and the first impressions of Visions were not good.

And, for many of us, those first impressions are not only all that it took, it is all that we had - my local stores no longer carry Visions - so I cannot take a look and see if it has improved.

The format was bad - with pictures falling into the well between pages.

The editing was bad.

The price was high.

All of which added up to a magazine that bookstores could not sell, so dropped it from their lists.

It may well have improved - but they had already lost the chance to make a good impression.

The Auld Grump

How relevant are WD and Visions to the financial position?

Surely they primarily sell to superfans. Is there an important role in recruiting new customers too?

White Dwarf lost nearly all capability to do that when it went direct channels only.

Shame really, because the bite size, lower cost, weekly version may well have attracted the occasional curiosity purchase were it still available in conventional news agents.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
How relevant are WD and Visions to the financial position?

Surely they primarily sell to superfans. Is there an important role in recruiting new customers too?

It used to serve a role in that regard - now?

Not so much.

Visions... I think was supposed to replace White Dwarf in the public eye - but it being so... very bad... the first few issues meant that instead it dropped off the radar.

Not the first time to see a gaming magazine take a header like that - anyone remember Inphobia?

The Auld Grump

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
They used to have a guy who just did terrain, Nigel Stillman IIRC. Dude just made terrain. Big landing pad, spiked trees, crashed shuttle, bunkers galore, you name it he made it.

Now? Only GW terrain on that Godawful imagination-stiffling Realm of Battle boards.

It was Nigel Stillman. I have one of the books he made "How to make Wargames Terrain" featuring guides to make your own hills, cairns, rivers, bridges, houses, trees, silos etc.

And all made out of cheap, easy to get stuff like cardboard, polystyrene, cork, filler and so on.

Kilkrazy wrote:How relevant are WD and Visions to the financial position?

Surely they primarily sell to superfans. Is there an important role in recruiting new customers too?

This is a good point -- they're not really relevant to GW's success or failure -- though I'd argue that they reflect GW's priorities really well, which is what makes a lot of people irate or happy (and contributes to that bottom line in some positive or negative way that we have no means of measuring).

It's really clear to me that Visions is targeted specifically to people who want to see model photography of GW products, which is most definitely a niche of a niche. On the bright side, they don't bundle any value of any other sort on it, so it's not like gamers are paying for 95% of something they don't want to get 5% of stuff they do. A lot of companies do this to force product to non-target demographics.

White Dwarf is targeted to all fans, super or not. Now, you could argue that any remaining fan of GW is a superfan, but I don't think so. There are plenty of people who like GW products (I mean, enough to spend a lot of money with them...), and it's not like everyone who buys an issue of WD blows a thousand bucks on GW stuff every month, right?

When I made less money, I didn't used to buy every white dwarf issue, even when it was monthly -- I'd just buy it if the issue had a focus on something that I was interested in, which would be maybe 6 issues (out of 12) a year. I'm sure people do this with the weekly ones too; in our play group, I think only half of us buy *every* issue.

TheAuldGrump wrote:And, for many of us, those first impressions are not only all that it took, it is all that we had - my local stores no longer carry Visions - so I cannot take a look and see if it has improved.

I won't disagree with that. Though I liked even early issues, the magazine slowly improved and the current format is a dramatic improvement. Note that the paper used in the current issues is cheaper than in the original format, probably how they balanced the cost. The old ones were a thick, glossy stock; the new ones are thinner, matte paper that doesn't show photographs as brilliantly.

The pictures being spread across 2 pages, by the way, happened on really, really few images other than GW's dioramas (and who cares, there, anyhow?). A lot of those are even fold-outs, turning into 3 page or 4 page butterfly spreads. Almost every pictures that is not a GW studio diorama is on a page or less.

Herzlos wrote:I can't, it's in a sealed bag so my only option is to buy it, and I just can't bring myself to do that.

Stores were actually given a copy to leave unwrapped for a couple of issues, when the new format came out.

Herzlos wrote:Did they explain that stuff to you, along with how to do it? Or do you just know that's what's done because you're familiar with the models and technique?

No. A lot of the models in there are 300+ hour models. The fun is just in seeing them; I'm not looking for a masterclass book on painting a Golden Demon.

Herzlos wrote:They didn't used to be like that though, they were all for you augmenting your GW stuff with whatever you wanted. Hell, WD used to contain patterns to make vehicles out of cereal packets! Now the emphasis seems to be on buying GW.

For White Dwarf, I would agree. In the current incarnation, 75% of the magazine is there to push next week's releases. But Visions is clearly NOT a catalog. It might serve zero purpose to people who mostly just game, or would prefer to look at models on the Internet, where it's free, and there's more than ample supply at any number of websites. However, some of us still enjoy printed magazines of such things, you get a good mix of stuff, and see some things that some of us otherwise wouldn't.

Again, to me, it's a reflection of GW's pro-modelling/painting priorities, as there is no similar magazine for people who mostly want to game. If the population of this microniche is nearly zero, the sales of the magazine should be so poor as to be unsustainable. As to its cost (or perceived high price), it's entirely because the magazine is targeted to a very small niche. Heck, go check the price of an issue of Architectural Digest on the news stand. Specialty magazines are really expensive; for the number of pages it is, Visions is actually cheap, though useless if you don't want what's in it.

Incidentally, I feel resistance against kitbash type or modular modelling, versus scratchbuilt and sculpted modelling. Personally, I like to see both; clearly, GW promotes the former. I think it's both because (a) there's a sales opportunity in kits and (b) it's a lot more accessible, because you're targeting people who can afford stuff rather than people who have the time and skill to build things out of nothing. I used to scratch build a lot of terrain, sometimes with good results and sometimes not. I must say, though, building things out of modular kits is a LOT easier; it takes a tenth the time, and the results almost always look great. It's easy to keep it thematically unified (and if you LIKE the GW imperium look, all is golden), and everything fits amazingly well together. Like, the buildings and sidewalks all line up.

Their last report mentioned a decline in magazine sales, but I don't think this one did.

 Talys wrote:

TheAuldGrump wrote:And, for many of us, those first impressions are not only all that it took, it is all that we had - my local stores no longer carry Visions - so I cannot take a look and see if it has improved.

I won't disagree with that. Though I liked even early issues, the magazine slowly improved and the current format is a dramatic improvement. Note that the paper used in the current issues is cheaper than in the original format, probably how they balanced the cost. The old ones were a thick, glossy stock; the new ones are thinner, matte paper that doesn't show photographs as brilliantly.

The pictures being spread across 2 pages, by the way, happened on really, really few images other than GW's dioramas (and who cares, there, anyhow?). A lot of those are even fold-outs, turning into 3 page or 4 page butterfly spreads. Almost every pictures that is not a GW studio diorama is on a page or less.

Ironically enough, I do!

I like dioramas - and a nice diorama is not impacted by crappy rules. Dioramas are the only thing that I have heard about Warhammer World that at all tempts me. (I loved McVey's Warhammer Quest diorama....)

But it was not just dioramas that had the problem - the spread for the Tyranids also vanished into the folds.

Which also had repeated images, and images that were just too similar to bother with. They needed more 'Nids to work with.

The magazine felt slapped together - more of a mock-up than an actual magazine, hurried into production with no where near the amount of work it needed.

But something else to bear in mind about a magazine built around pretty pictures*... it comes into direct competition from free content on the internet - and the material on the internet is often better looking than the then current pictures featured in Visions.

When a pricey magazine is compared to free material, and comes up wanting, then there is a problem.

Visions is supposed to be a showcase - but it kind of failed in that regard, for the first few issues at least.

I very much doubt that it has recovered the circulation lost by those first few, inept, issues.

The Auld Grump

* Yes, that does include Pr0n.... it's what the internet is for....

To be frank, my impression of Visions and WD was that one major purpose was to economise on expensive hand drawn artwork by using cheap digital photography of models that had to be painted for box art in any case and might as well be quickly arranged into a different layout, snapped from several angles and Photoshopped.

Obviously this approach has the added benefit of showing off this month's new purchasing opportunities.

Call me a sad old cynic if you will.