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 Azreal13 wrote:

Additionally the book which WAS going to advance their storyline? It's been delayed no less than twice now, once with the release of N3 and now with the release of Human Sphere for N3.

Nevertheless, it's something they're intending to do, and the very fact they've even thought about it still underlines the point that GW doing it isn't the least innovative, which was the point I was refuting.

Honestly, until it actually releases?

I'm not holding my breath for it to advance the storyline.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Big models in wargames aren't innovative. Firstly, it's not even a new idea. Secondly, to be innovative generally carries the connotation that it is more advanced or an improvement than what came before it, not simply "different". Most games simply choose not to have giant models for the sake of the game.

Having lots of big plastic kits in a wargame isn't innovative, big plastic kits have been around for decades and if your wargame is experiencing severe scale growth like 40k and AoS is doing then having big plastic kits in a wargame is simply a natural progression of the fact big plastic kits have always existed.

We may just have different views of innovation, but if you look at 40k plastics from roughly 1989 (MKI Rhinos) through ~2005, the models slowly got larger and more detailed, but the difference between, say, the MK I Landraider and MKII landraider wasn't that huge. However, starting in about 2006, markedly larger kits started coming out, at least partially due to the switch to CAD sculpting.

I don't think innovation needs to be revolutionary or gamechanging. But I know if you look at a pick up and play night from 2005, you'd see mostly rhino sized vehicles, with the odd Landraider or Monolith. Now, nearly every army has at least one kit that's way bigger than even a landraider.

Way back when I first started playing 40k at the tail of 2E in the late 1990s, it was a lot smaller. The biggest model was the brand new Eldar Falcon, and a mk.1 Rhino was a rarity on the tabletop, to say nothing of a mk.1 Land Raider - almost all games were maybe a couple dozen footsloggers per side. Armorcast was a novelty, and you didn't actually play them on the tabletop outside very special events.

Now, a typical game of 40k expects multiple Knight-class models, each of which unambiguously towers over any of the older models. Things like the Stompa and Baneblade are simply HUGE, and armies feature few dozen to several dozen models. The game is dramatically larger, and GW has gotten players hooked into buying (and fielding) their bigger kits.

Polonius wrote:I think demanding a completely new game to call a company innovative is a bit of a high hurdle.

To me, the area in which GW has been most innovative over the last 10 years or so has been really expanding the size, complexlity, and level of detail in wargaming minis. Starting with the LOTR Oliphant, continuing the Baneblade/Stompa, and really reaching its peak lately, GW is making multiple massive plastic kits in a market where releasing a handful of plastic sprues a year is laudable.

That's genuinely innovative, at least in my book..

JohnHwangDD wrote:I wrote "Knights" as opposed to "Imperial Knight" specifically to include the WK, Stompa and SS models.

And the big plastics *are* innovative, given that nobody else was doing them in wargaming. Changing scale from squad-based is new and different. The Colossals don't count any more than the old Armorcast stuff.

Sorry, but to me, moving from 'making plastic model' to 'making slightly bigger plastic model' isn't really innovative.

Innovation is a slightly hard process to pin down in business terms, but usually it refers to producing a new product or changing a process in a radical way that hasn't been tried before (sometimes not by anybody, but not always). In terms of a business model, GW have knuckled down on their core market of 40K, and gradually abandoned their other product lines without creating any new ones. AoS was a last ditch attempt to revive Warhammer, and is a step in the right direction in terms of qualifying as innovation (hence my comments about Mr Rountree), but it's a last-ditch move of desperation caused by response to contracting customer base and revenue. In my eyes, that detracts somewhat from it's innovative qualities, as it's not something they're innovating by choice, but rather doing out of desperate necessity due to market pressures. YMMV.

Generally speaking though, as said, GW has not been innovative since LOTR. There's been no attempt to open up fresh wargaming markets (FFG beat them to the prepackaged prepainted game model that could have been expanded into general toy stores), there's been no reverse integration attempted, no attempts to expand into other related fields of industry, no new product lines (i.e. games) launched that weren't based on older ones, few and poor attempts to leverage strong IP into the gaming, television, and movie fields, and so on. For the most part, GW has squatted with the tried and tested revenue producers, cut anything that didn't support that model, and paid down all their debt.

Which is fine, up to a point. But as we've seen with their declining revenue\/turnover, they've failed even by focusing solely on those activities (from a financial sense). They're still making money, but not as much as they used to, and they're fast surrendering market share. That's not to adopt a 'The End is Nigh' attitude, but it is, I would say, an accurate summary of things up to 2015. They still have plenty of wiggle time and room to turn things around, and Mr Rountree seems to be making efforts in that direction. Under Kirby though? I would say that in terms of business, it's rare to see a publicly quoted company have ossify and turn inwards to such an extent as they did.

Which, if the article is accurate, has a very good reason. Namely, Kirby borrowed a shed ton of cash, and was terrified of screwing up. So the company became risk-averse to the extreme., Now Kirby has made his money, the company has paid down it's debt, and there's been a slight change in head management, I personally expect things to improve somewhat.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I wrote "Knights" as opposed to "Imperial Knight" specifically to include the WK, Stompa and SS models.

And the big plastics *are* innovative, given that nobody else was doing them in wargaming. Changing scale from squad-based is new and different. The Colossals don't count any more than the old Armorcast stuff.

Great, now compare those to Dreamforge Leviathans....yeah, Imperial Knights are crap. Now compare them all to nearly any large-scale Gundam kit; multi-part, multi-color, hundreds of pieces and 1/4 the price. Knights, whichever you choose, are not innovative in the least; multiple companies have been there for years if not decades. Using "wargaming" doesn't make the kit innovative, it's a goalpost shift on a tired old argument that people use to justify their personal preferences.

GW makes some nice kits but claiming that the techniques that they currently use or the kits they're making are innovative is just wrong.

 Ketara wrote:


Sorry, but to me, moving from 'making plastic model' to 'making slightly bigger plastic model' isn't really innovative.

The difference between the current landraider or defiler (both impressive kits in their day) and modern Imperial Knights, Wraithknights, etc. is more than slightly bigger. GW is using a new process in computer design to pack sprues tighter, with more bits, and thus able to make cost effective wargaming models that are two to three times larger. That's not "slightly bigger."

 agnosto wrote:
Great, now compare those to Dreamforge Leviathans....yeah, Imperial Knights are crap. Now compare them all to nearly any large-scale Gundam kit; multi-part, multi-color, hundreds of pieces and 1/4 the price. Knights, whichever you choose, are not innovative in the least; multiple companies have been there for years if not decades. Using "wargaming" doesn't make the kit innovative, it's a goalpost shift on a tired old argument that people use to justify their personal preferences.

GW makes some nice kits but claiming that the techniques that they currently use or the kits they're making are innovative is just wrong.

The dreamforge kits are awesome. And the company that made them required a kickstarter and years of prep time to create their kits. GW is churning out a similar sized kits regularly.

This ties into why the Gundam argument isn't that great, and why the models being for wargaming is actually a big deal (if perhaps not innovative). Gundam kits are marketed to a very large market, while wargaming models are geared towards a smaller market. It really is a big deal that you can get anything close to Gundam level size and articulation on a kit that's going to sell less than a tenth as many units.

Now, if the most innovative thing a company does over a decade is expand a current product line, that's worrying, but I just don't see 40k as being as creatively stagnant as some people here.

 Polonius wrote:

 Ketara wrote:


Sorry, but to me, moving from 'making plastic model' to 'making slightly bigger plastic model' isn't really innovative.

The difference between the current landraider or defiler (both impressive kits in their day) and modern Imperial Knights, Wraithknights, etc. is more than slightly bigger. GW is using a new process in computer design to pack sprues tighter, with more bits, and thus able to make cost effective wargaming models that are two to three times larger. That's not "slightly bigger."


.

Even if I surrender that point (which I don't), it makes little difference. For a publicly quoted company worth over a hundred million, moving to what is now a commonly used form of digital sculpting in the artistic industry is hardly a massive innovative achievement worth boasting about by big business/industrial standards. It hasn't stopped their revenue decline, it hasn't opened up new markets, and it hasn't massively economised old ones. If that's honestly the most innovative thing that can be pointed to, it speaks volumes in support of my point.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I wrote "Knights" as opposed to "Imperial Knight" specifically to include the WK, Stompa and SS models.

And the big plastics *are* innovative, given that nobody else was doing them in wargaming. Changing scale from squad-based is new and different. The Colossals don't count any more than the old Armorcast stuff.

Whoah there. Did anyone else get a head rush from those goalposts moving so fast?

So you don't count Colossals because reasons. M'kay.

 Ketara wrote:

Even if I surrender that point (which I don't), it makes little difference. For a publicly quoted company worth over a hundred million, moving to what is now a commonly used form of digital sculpting in the artistic industry is hardly a massive innovative achievement worth boasting about by big business/industrial standards. It hasn't stopped their revenue decline, it hasn't opened up new markets, and it hasn't massively economised old ones. If that's honestly the most innovative thing that can be pointed to, it speaks volumes in support of my point.

I agree, it's not a major innovation, and if it's the biggest thing you've done in a decade, you can expect to lose market share. I just reject the notion that innovation has to be earthshattering, because what games are all that revolutionary? A game like Kings of War is successful almost completely on execution, not because it's an innovative design. I'm assuming that it's most interesting mechanic, cumulative wounds/nerve testing, was filched from another game in the classical tradition. Privateer press nailed it with the fury/focus mechanic, but haven't really innovated Warmahordes all that much, yet the game grows due to good balancing. (I know that PP has other games, including IKRPG which I enjoy, but none of them have really shaken up the gaming community).

As an employee of a massive organization, I'll say this about GW adopting a new tool: getting legacy employees and managers to buy into a new practice or process is a big deal, at least for them. I wouldn't minimize the switch to nothing.

Imagine if GW placed their product as high end model kits only.
Not wargame models, just "highly detailed" models of the grim-dark future.
Then compare them to Gundam or any of those kits with metal barrels, photo-etched parts, cast to colour and pose able.

They would fail hands-down.

Yes, I know people can like their models but without purpose, without a living background they came from, the models look like some fascist's wet dream come to life.

 Polonius wrote:

The dreamforge kits are awesome. And the company that made them required a kickstarter and years of prep time to create their kits. GW is churning out a similar sized kits regularly.

This ties into why the Gundam argument isn't that great, and why the models being for wargaming is actually a big deal (if perhaps not innovative). Gundam kits are marketed to a very large market, while wargaming models are geared towards a smaller market. It really is a big deal that you can get anything close to Gundam level size and articulation on a kit that's going to sell less than a tenth as many units.

Now, if the most innovative thing a company does over a decade is expand a current product line, that's worrying, but I just don't see 40k as being as creatively stagnant as some people here.

What's that got to do with innovation? The one-man shop out-did a company worth over $100million, designed everything himself and wheeled and dealed to make his dream happen. Great for him. What's important here is that his design, from a strictly wargaming perspective, to stay within those goalposts, and implementation were/are innovative while I dare you to say that anything on the Imperial Knights was innovative...when they're what amounts to upscaled dreads down to the inability to walk correctly and certainly lacking articulated joints. Wraithknights are a bit better but they came along later. Mark was there first and his kit is still better than anything in plastic that GW makes today from a design perspective. I refuse to argue personal likes or aesthetics because that's subjective but the design is clearly, subjectively, superior.

You can argue the price of the Gundam all you like. Personally, most of the kits aren't my cup of tea but they exist and no amount of stretching the argument will make GW's kits any more amazing in comparison from a pure design perspective.

-

 agnosto wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I wrote "Knights" as opposed to "Imperial Knight" specifically to include the WK, Stompa and SS models.

And the big plastics *are* innovative, given that nobody else was doing them in wargaming. Changing scale from squad-based is new and different. The Colossals don't count any more than the old Armorcast stuff.

Great, now compare those to Dreamforge Leviathans....yeah, Imperial Knights are crap. Now compare them all to nearly any large-scale Gundam kit; multi-part, multi-color, hundreds of pieces and 1/4 the price. Knights, whichever you choose, are not innovative in the least; multiple companies have been there for years if not decades. Using "wargaming" doesn't make the kit innovative, it's a goalpost shift on a tired old argument that people use to justify their personal preferences.

GW makes some nice kits but claiming that the techniques that they currently use or the kits they're making are innovative is just wrong.

GW is innovative in terms of getting those kits onto the tabletop, where they can be played with. A Gundam kit will not play nearly as well.

 agnosto wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

The dreamforge kits are awesome. And the company that made them required a kickstarter and years of prep time to create their kits. GW is churning out a similar sized kits regularly.

This ties into why the Gundam argument isn't that great, and why the models being for wargaming is actually a big deal (if perhaps not innovative). Gundam kits are marketed to a very large market, while wargaming models are geared towards a smaller market. It really is a big deal that you can get anything close to Gundam level size and articulation on a kit that's going to sell less than a tenth as many units.

Now, if the most innovative thing a company does over a decade is expand a current product line, that's worrying, but I just don't see 40k as being as creatively stagnant as some people here.

What's that got to do with innovation? The one-man shop out-did a company worth over $100million, designed everything himself and wheeled and dealed to make his dream happen. Great for him. What's important here is that his design, from a strictly wargaming perspective, to stay within those goalposts, and implementation were/are innovative while I dare you to say that anything on the Imperial Knights was innovative...when they're what amounts to upscaled dreads down to the inability to walk correctly and certainly lacking articulated joints. Wraithknights are a bit better but they came along later. Mark was there first and his kit is still better than anything in plastic that GW makes today from a design perspective. I refuse to argue personal likes or aesthetics because that's subjective but the design is clearly, subjectively, superior.

You can argue the price of the Gundam all you like. Personally, most of the kits aren't my cup of tea but they exist and no amount of stretching the argument will make GW's kits any more amazing in comparison from a pure design perspective.

That's a fair point. Personally, I think that bringing a product to a new, niche, market is pretty innovative, especially when it's not just a one-off, but you can see it otherwise. The reality is, nobody is making plastic wargames miniatures at the size GW is, on a regular basis. That might be closer to leveraging your capital than innovation, but right now 40k and AOS are the only games that currently have a wide range of plastic kits larger than a tank.

I think the broader point is that there has been very little innovation from GW, which has led to the company leaving an obscene amount of money on the table.

The Imperial Knight is not innovative - it is a port from a smaller scaled game into a larger scaled game.

Both the Epic version and the new Knight are from the same company, and play the same role.

It is no more innovative than a model of the Thunderhawk would be.

You can like the model - I personally think that it is one of their better large models - but continuing to port miniatures from one scale to another is not innovation.

There were resin models of Titans before - both from 3rd party manufacturers (duly licensed) and from Forge World.

Having the big models on the table is not innovative - it is a repetition of a theme.

Making the models single pose is kind of the opposite of innovation, taking a step backwards in progress.

And, yes, the Leviathans by Dream Forge are even better, and a heck of a lot more poseable.

And having alternate weapons load outs...

The Auld Grump

Gundam kits make GW look primative in comparison.
And WMH collosals were out before knights.
Wanna wargame with gundam kits? Use Mekton Z rules. Me and my brother used to battle gundams on the table all the time. Boom. Innovation.

It does seem like the Warhammer and 40K games rules wise took a NOSE DIVE into the pavement around 2010.

But one thing got me thinking. What 'if' Citadel and GW 'split' again? Have one company DEVOTED to just making solid rules and books to game with the miniatures Citadel produces, rather then having everything under one umbrella.

Coming back to topic, I actually do think that the different scale and more realistic proportions, together with monopose and little to no assembly helped LOTR become so big in its time. It certainly helped marketing the figures via DeAgostini / Eaglemoss - which probably brought more non-nerds to miniature wargaming than any other miniature game ever, and in turn made a part of those people start buying into other LOTR stuff sold by GW directly.

 Talizvar wrote:
Imagine if GW placed their product as high end model kits only.
Not wargame models, just "highly detailed" models of the grim-dark future.
Then compare them to Gundam or any of those kits with metal barrels, photo-etched parts, cast to colour and pose able.

I suspect that you have no clue what modern scale armor kits cost, if you're talking about a high-end kit with lathe-turned barrel and metal etch. Especially if you're accurizing the various external stowage with a resin drivetrain. I think a proper 1/35 scale tank with all of the "good stuff" for an acceptable IPMS competition build will set you back the same $150-$200 when you add it all up.

And it won't be appreciably easier if you want to do an IPMS competition-level battleship or better yet, an aircraft carrier with all the aircraf. Those aren't cheap, once you go the accurizing route with the PE and resin bits. For example, I've kind of wanted to do a Junkers Ju-290, and the base kit alone is about $100.

Little off topic but John I had that model one time and couldn't give it away. It ebayed for like 35 bucks. T-T

I dislike the word "innovative" so easily said for many blunt things that should never count as innovation.

GW produces big kits, probably indeed because none of their competitors can easily do so and puts them in a safe space that they cannot be directly compared.

The old "Gundam argument" is quite good actually, GW has bought the same machinery Bandai has, why they are not using them? why we do not see coloured plastic sprews? multi couloured sprews, hollowed one piece plastics? why is CAD design so lately introduced?

Moving from models, why we see the same ideas reheated in different games? why can't we move from the same old mechanics to something more fluid and modern?

Boardgames had a recent "new idea" in the form of deck building and many competitors show more balanced and fluid systems made by the old guard that left non the less.

 Polonius wrote:

-snip- GW is using a new process in computer design to pack sprues tighter, with more bits, and thus able to make cost effective wargaming models that are two to three times larger. That's not "slightly bigger." -snip-

It's also not innovation. Indeed, it's practically a dictionary definition of iteration.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
Little off topic but John I had that model one time and couldn't give it away. It ebayed for like 35 bucks. T-T

Yeah, secondhand kits go crazy cheap, due to model hoarders. There are guys with basements full of sealed kits, and when they hit ebay, it's always way cheaper than the local shop.

 Polonius wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

Even if I surrender that point (which I don't), it makes little difference. For a publicly quoted company worth over a hundred million, moving to what is now a commonly used form of digital sculpting in the artistic industry is hardly a massive innovative achievement worth boasting about by big business/industrial standards. It hasn't stopped their revenue decline, it hasn't opened up new markets, and it hasn't massively economised old ones. If that's honestly the most innovative thing that can be pointed to, it speaks volumes in support of my point.

I agree, it's not a major innovation, and if it's the biggest thing you've done in a decade, you can expect to lose market share. I just reject the notion that innovation has to be earthshattering, because what games are all that revolutionary? A game like Kings of War is successful almost completely on execution, not because it's an innovative design. I'm assuming that it's most interesting mechanic, cumulative wounds/nerve testing, was filched from another game in the classical tradition. Privateer press nailed it with the fury/focus mechanic, but haven't really innovated Warmahordes all that much, yet the game grows due to good balancing. (I know that PP has other games, including IKRPG which I enjoy, but none of them have really shaken up the gaming community).

As an employee of a massive organization, I'll say this about GW adopting a new tool: getting legacy employees and managers to buy into a new practice or process is a big deal, at least for them. I wouldn't minimize the switch to nothing.

Like I said originally, innovation doesn't have to be earthshaking. It can be something as simple as having a HIPS engineer come up with a way of tooling that gives the same product at half the price. But by the same measure, a clear logical technical progression in line with industry standards doesn't usually count as innovation. If it did, upgrading from Windows Vista to 7 would count as innovation.

Thinking on it, I'd actually say that GW innovated in two specific ways post LOTR boom. Namely, Finecast and one man stores. Both were pretty much unheard of, in terms of being a production method/retail model in this industry. Unfortunately, both seem to have flopped, and hard. The first was a poor substitute for the metal it replaced, even after a years adjustment, and the second can be said to have actively cost them market goodwill (and potentially revenue).

 Ketara wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

Even if I surrender that point (which I don't), it makes little difference. For a publicly quoted company worth over a hundred million, moving to what is now a commonly used form of digital sculpting in the artistic industry is hardly a massive innovative achievement worth boasting about by big business/industrial standards. It hasn't stopped their revenue decline, it hasn't opened up new markets, and it hasn't massively economised old ones. If that's honestly the most innovative thing that can be pointed to, it speaks volumes in support of my point.

I agree, it's not a major innovation, and if it's the biggest thing you've done in a decade, you can expect to lose market share. I just reject the notion that innovation has to be earthshattering, because what games are all that revolutionary? A game like Kings of War is successful almost completely on execution, not because it's an innovative design. I'm assuming that it's most interesting mechanic, cumulative wounds/nerve testing, was filched from another game in the classical tradition. Privateer press nailed it with the fury/focus mechanic, but haven't really innovated Warmahordes all that much, yet the game grows due to good balancing. (I know that PP has other games, including IKRPG which I enjoy, but none of them have really shaken up the gaming community).

As an employee of a massive organization, I'll say this about GW adopting a new tool: getting legacy employees and managers to buy into a new practice or process is a big deal, at least for them. I wouldn't minimize the switch to nothing.

Like I said originally, innovation doesn't have to be earthshaking. It can be something as simple as having a HIPS engineer come up with a way of tooling that gives the same product at half the price. But by the same measure, a clear logical technical progression in line with industry standards doesn't usually count as innovation. If it did, upgrading from Windows Vista to 7 would count as innovation.

Thinking on it, I'd actually say that GW innovated in two specific ways post LOTR boom. Namely, Finecast and one man stores. Both were pretty much unheard of, in terms of being a production method/retail model in this industry. Unfortunately, both seem to have flopped, and hard. The first was a poor substitute for the metal it replaced, even after a years adjustment, and the second can be said to have actively cost them market goodwill (and potentially revenue).

Sometimes innovation isn't the solution - sometimes what you need to do is look back and see what worked in the past, and what isn't working now.

One problem in a corporate culture is 'no going back' - because admitting that a mistake has been made means that someone has to admit to making that mistake.

Which can lead to the removal of the person admitting to that mistake.

So more changes are made on top of a faulty foundation, with a resulting loss in market stability.

I think that GW is suffering from that problem - they know that the games are not expanding as they once did, but the changes that they have made have not helped.

So they pile new mistakes on top of old.

Something else that occurs to me is that the LotR craze might be the root of GW's insistence that the bulk of their market are collectors, not gamers.

With the LotR models, that might well have been true.

The Auld Grump

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I wrote "Knights" as opposed to "Imperial Knight" specifically to include the WK, Stompa and SS models.

And the big plastics *are* innovative, given that nobody else was doing them in wargaming. Changing scale from squad-based is new and different. The Colossals don't count any more than the old Armorcast stuff.

Great, now compare those to Dreamforge Leviathans....yeah, Imperial Knights are crap. Now compare them all to nearly any large-scale Gundam kit; multi-part, multi-color, hundreds of pieces and 1/4 the price. Knights, whichever you choose, are not innovative in the least; multiple companies have been there for years if not decades. Using "wargaming" doesn't make the kit innovative, it's a goalpost shift on a tired old argument that people use to justify their personal preferences.

GW makes some nice kits but claiming that the techniques that they currently use or the kits they're making are innovative is just wrong.

GW is innovative in terms of getting those kits onto the tabletop, where they can be played with. A Gundam kit will not play nearly as well.

My grocery shop has new bigger bananas very innovative!

Puppetswar must be very innovative too!

 Polonius wrote:

 Ketara wrote:


Sorry, but to me, moving from 'making plastic model' to 'making slightly bigger plastic model' isn't really innovative.

The difference between the current landraider or defiler (both impressive kits in their day) and modern Imperial Knights, Wraithknights, etc. is more than slightly bigger. GW is using a new process in computer design to pack sprues tighter, with more bits, and thus able to make cost effective wargaming models that are two to three times larger. That's not "slightly bigger."

 agnosto wrote:
Great, now compare those to Dreamforge Leviathans....yeah, Imperial Knights are crap. Now compare them all to nearly any large-scale Gundam kit; multi-part, multi-color, hundreds of pieces and 1/4 the price. Knights, whichever you choose, are not innovative in the least; multiple companies have been there for years if not decades. Using "wargaming" doesn't make the kit innovative, it's a goalpost shift on a tired old argument that people use to justify their personal preferences.

GW makes some nice kits but claiming that the techniques that they currently use or the kits they're making are innovative is just wrong.

The dreamforge kits are awesome. And the company that made them required a kickstarter and years of prep time to create their kits. GW is churning out a similar sized kits regularly.

This ties into why the Gundam argument isn't that great, and why the models being for wargaming is actually a big deal (if perhaps not innovative). Gundam kits are marketed to a very large market, while wargaming models are geared towards a smaller market. It really is a big deal that you can get anything close to Gundam level size and articulation on a kit that's going to sell less than a tenth as many units.

Now, if the most innovative thing a company does over a decade is expand a current product line, that's worrying, but I just don't see 40k as being as creatively stagnant as some people here.

I don't think the market for gundam kits is actually that much bigger than wargaming if it even is. In Japan its probaly bigger but in the rest of the world wargaming is likely to be bigger.
Gundam shows are pretty niche when it comes to anime.

But on the topic of why the kits are so nice, the hands are cast as a single piece yet the finger joints can move.

Gundam isn't niche in Japan. Its everywhere. Even in 7-11's.

Outside of japan it is.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I wrote "Knights" as opposed to "Imperial Knight" specifically to include the WK, Stompa and SS models.

And the big plastics *are* innovative, given that nobody else was doing them in wargaming. Changing scale from squad-based is new and different. The Colossals don't count any more than the old Armorcast stuff.

That's true as far as it goes, but the giant models don't fit in the game, as you correctly pointed out in the thread about 6mm/15mm/1:72 scale models for FoW. (Size versus Scale versus Ground scale.)

It became a problem when GW spooged the Apocalypse rules into the main rulebook in 6th edition.

The release of 6th edition marked the start of the noticeable decline of 40K sales, though doubling the price of the rules was also partly responsible.

If it was an innovation it was a bad one.