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 Talys wrote:
If you're talking about the business cycle, GW is a pretty good example of a company that has a period of relatively rapid expansion, followed by many consecutive periods decline (or at least, stagnation). Of course, looking at trends that span decades, it's not like a company can only have one boom cycle; given that GW has proven to be a pretty durable company, at some point, they'll probably have a hit (even if it's just by luck) and they'll start that cycle anew.

But I when I was talking about contraction, I was not referring to the business cycle - I was speaking to the growth or decline of the customer base, global reach, revenues, profits, offerings, and facilities.

Their period of rapid expansion ended 12 years ago. Nearly a third of the life of their company ago... How long do we keep referring to the LOTR bubble or blaming it for their problems?

 agnosto wrote:
Unless GW is a magic, special unicorn and somehow universal business principals and terms don't apply, contraction will mean a general economic decline and indicate one of the 4 stages of the business cycle (expansion, peak, contraction, trough). I would argue that since their income is still in decline, they haven't quite reached trough yet, though this report seems to indicate they might be close. Once their revenue levels off, how long they remain static will depend on policies moving forward but I'm not too concerned as Mr. Rountree has already outlined some of the company's growth plan. Of course, whether it all works or not will be the proof in the proverbial pudding.

The GW growth plan
1. Raise prices
2. Release stuff faster
3. Build crappy new website
4. Switch all stores to 1 man stores with restrictive hours and 1/10th the stock level of the FLGS across the street
5. Can fantasy and replace it with the most universally hated war game in the history of the hobby

They started this plan 2 years ago and their revenue/profit have continued to drop. Their "growth strategies" somehow manage to double down on a lot of the policies that made them lose customers to begin with. Until their growth strategy includes "ask the customers what they want, then listen to them" and "write MUUUUCCCHHH better rules" I don't have much confidence in the direction of the company or upper management.

A part of the GW growth plan that contributes to the higher profit margins that doesn't seem to be acknowledged is the shift from a company that sells lots of small models to fewer small models and more larger (and more profitable) models.

I think it's also a source of angst amongst players who really don't like playing with or against large models (or perhaps have no desire to build or buy the expensive large models). But clearly, this is a part of GW's direction.

@Trasvi - I wasn't referring to LoTR (or any other particular point in GW's history), but LoTR certainly shouldn't be "blamed" for anything. They made a ton of money off it, and it paid for lots of manufacturing upgrades and filled the coffers, providing many lasting benefits to the company. Something doesn't have to last forever to be good.

Could GW drop all infantry and character models from their sales catalogue and make money just selling the £30+ kits like Tyrannofex, Nagash, Knight Titan and Archaon? I doubt it.

While those models probably have a higher profit margin then the infantry kits, most people buy them as part of a conceptual system that involves a skirmish game and fluff.

OTOH the recent new kits show that GW is agressively upping the price on even standard infantry and character kits when new releases or revised sets give them the opportunity.

I've mentioned the Machine Cult Adeptus Techpriest before, a clamshell character kit (monopose plastic single infantry figure; £22 is a startling retail price.

The new Tau Firewarriors are £30 for 10, compared to £12 for 12 when the earlier version of the kit was first out. To be fair, some of the price increase is inflation over 14 years, higher VAT, and they had to make new moulds, and they are nice figures.

The new Dwarfadin Fyreslayers are £30 or more for a box of six. They are part of the trend for very high prices of the AoS infantry sets.

@Talys,

I don't agree or disagree. I think that the advent of the larger models is due to several core issues one of which is lack of new blood. GW doesn't aggressively recruit new customers via traditional, formal or informal, channels of marketing. They have, and still do, depend on word of mouth and their one-man stores to introduce new people to their products. One result from losing customers AND moving stores to less expensive, less trod areas is less exposure to people who are not already aware of them.

These factors, combined with more competition in the market means less new people. Veterans generally already have all the troops and other small models that they need so they're pretty much just selling to the few new people and veterans starting a new army.

They still sell, create, and update smaller kits. They have reworked older kits like space marines and firewarriors and added new bits to encourage veterans to refresh their collections. Not offering bit sales also serves this purpose, even with newer, big kits like the imperial knights. Until a third-party vendor starts selling carapace weapons, I'm stuck either paying too much on eBay or butt whole new kits to get those weapons.

Yes, people get stuck on the large, flashy kits but they still make small kits. Just look at the releases over the past year, for every large kit, there's a small kit released too.

I would like to try to re-cap on the executive decisions that got GW plc from the largest games company in a state of growth. to a model selling company with over a decade of falling sale volumes...

Accountant 1,' We make more profit on the WHFB and 40k ;lines of product.'(Fact)
Sales manager A.(If we stop selling all the other ranges all our customers will buy WHFB or 40k instead, and so we make more profit.'(Flawed logic.)
Accountant 1.'Exactly !'

Oooops!
This move drove off all the customers who wanted skirmish games ,specialist boxed games, and large battle games using smaller minatures.(And sensible sized playing areas.)

And realizing the demand for the type of games GW plc shunned, other companies made these sort of games and made lots of ex GW gamer and collectors happy.

Then
Accountant 2 .'New customers spend more than veteran customers.And new customers have spent a lot of money before they realize how much work they have to put in to get a playable game.'(Fact.)

Sales manager B.'So if we ignore game play issues and the things the veteran customers want fixed, we can focus on churning and burning new customers and make more money.'(Flawed logic.)
Accountant 2 'Exactly.'

Ooops!
With no external marketing, GW relied on positive word of mouth from the veterans to help draw new customers in to GW plc .)
Realizing the complete lack of interest in veteran customers and game play,the main recruiters for GW products (after GW stores .)Now actively drive potential customers into other companies customer base , those companies who actively communicate with customers and invest in sorting out game play issues.


Having effectively halved their potential customer base, GW have had to up retail prices and cut costs to try to maintain flat revenue of falling sales volumes.This raised the barrier to entry driving away a lot of potential new players.So the churn and burn of new players in reduced numbers is no longer enough to sustain GW.

So to prop up the the falling sales volumes , they have released large kits to appeal to veteran collectors.The die hard GW fans who will pay any price for a few pence worth of plastic because it is sold by GW plc.

So by choosing the path of least effort for the GW Chairman /C.E.O, GW plc has slipped into a state of decline while Mr T.Kirby is counting his millions ....

I am really struggling to see how anyone can turn this sort of decline around without action based on serious market research.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Could GW drop all infantry and character models from their sales catalogue and make money just selling the £30+ kits like Tyrannofex, Nagash, Knight Titan and Archaon? I doubt it.

While those models probably have a higher profit margin then the infantry kits, most people buy them as part of a conceptual system that involves a skirmish game and fluff.

Oh, I totally agree. I'm in that category, too: I enjoy both small and large models, and my conceptual army (and models I want to field) includes both. I think it's one of the reasons that Apocalypse in 40k is a bigger money maker than titans in Epic: people like the infantry and smaller vehicle sized models.

I was just pointing out that a lot of the money being spent and profit being generated is going towards those bigger models (not to mention product development and launch windows). Once upon a time a Ghostkeel-sized model would have been a really special model that you'd have one or two of; now, it's something you squad up, and it's considered a medium-sized model. I think as time progresses, we'll see relatively fewer genuinely new small model troop kits, though a lot will be reboots and retools.

I think that character models are a whole other thing. I suspect GW loves a successful character model -- the cost is probably really small, and the profit margin must be huge, though I doubt they sell a ton of them.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The new Tau Firewarriors are £30 for 10, compared to £12 for 12 when the earlier version of the kit was first out. To be fair, some of the price increase is inflation over 14 years, higher VAT, and they had to make new moulds, and they are nice figures.

The new Dwarfadin Fyreslayers are £30 or more for a box of six. They are part of the trend for very high prices of the AoS infantry sets.

Keep in mind that there's now a great way to get the Firewarriors -- the Get Started box is only £50, includes 3 Crisis suits, the 10 fire warriors, and the new Ethereal model. Plus a whole bunch of drones. It doesn't really get much better than that.

With the dwarfs, I think you have them a bit mixed up. The Vulkite Berserkers (axe guys) are 10 for £35, and the Hearthguard (polearm guys) are 6 for £25. Still, point taken: that's WAY more than Skitarii Vanguard and Infiltrators, or Blood Angels Tacticals or Harlequin Troupe. I'm not convinced that all new 10 man troops and 5-6 man elites are going to be at these prices, though the dwarf models seem to be selling like hotcakes (to my surprise), so, sadly, it may encourage this pricing level. Maybe they'll come as a bundle in a Start Collecting box at some point, and make it more attractive.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think the new GW thing is to get people to buy the troops in Start Collecting boxes, and then transition to all the big, hugely expensive stuff (and character models) after. The Start Collecting boxes generally give people a taste of the bigger kits, as well as an introduction to the difference between a character sprue and a troop model.

 agnosto wrote:
Yes, people get stuck on the large, flashy kits but they still make small kits. Just look at the releases over the past year, for every large kit, there's a small kit released too.

Yeah, for sure. The ratio used to be much different though: look back at when Wraithknight came out; I don't even recall if there was another giant model that year. In the last two years, it seems like GW is popping out centerpiece models at the rate of one a month, not including Forge World.

 Talys wrote:


Yeah, for sure. The ratio used to be much different though: look back at when Wraithknight came out; I don't even recall if there was another giant model that year. In the last two years, it seems like GW is popping out centerpiece models at the rate of one a month, not including Forge World.

Yep. I think there's a lot to it though; what I described above, greater margin for each sale, perfection of CAD model design and manufacturing which allows for the bigger kits, all contribute to the wealth(?) of big kits. Keep in mind that GW has only been in the CAD design game for a relatively short while.

 Talys wrote:


I think it's also a source of angst amongst players who really don't like playing with or against large models (or perhaps have no desire to build or buy the expensive large models). But clearly, this is a part of GW's direction.

I don't mind playing against big models, but hot damn are they terrible to take places. Especially GW big models. A bolt action tank goes into the foam fine. So do my star destroyers and mon calamari cruisers ( I use KR foam for those though). But my arachnarok? What a pain. And the newer big models are even MORE fiddly than my old spider. Like, how does anyone take Nagash, anywhere? Some sort of custom laser cut packing foam?

 Talys wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Could GW drop all infantry and character models from their sales catalogue and make money just selling the £30+ kits like Tyrannofex, Nagash, Knight Titan and Archaon? I doubt it.

While those models probably have a higher profit margin then the infantry kits, most people buy them as part of a conceptual system that involves a skirmish game and fluff.

Oh, I totally agree. I'm in that category, too: I enjoy both small and large models, and my conceptual army (and models I want to field) includes both. I think it's one of the reasons that Apocalypse in 40k is a bigger money maker than titans in Epic: people like the infantry and smaller vehicle sized models.

Citation needed. I loathe even the idea of 40K Apoc, I can't wait to get hold of Epic, assuming they don't feth it up. You mustn't conflate poor sales through lack of support or promotion and commercial potential.

I was just pointing out that a lot of the money being spent and profit being generated is going towards those bigger models (not to mention product development and launch windows). Once upon a time a Ghostkeel-sized model would have been a really special model that you'd have one or two of; now, it's something you squad up, and it's considered a medium-sized model. I think as time progresses, we'll see relatively fewer genuinely new small model troop kits, though a lot will be reboots and retools.

Yes, because there's little design space left at the infantry level without retreading old ground, or butchering fluff beyond what even GW may currently balk at (some Tau assault Firewarriors or similar.) That's an issue inherited from a 30+ year old system lacking granularity, compounded by an apparent dearth of real visionary talent remaining at the studio.

Couple that with increasing efficiencies in both design and production methods and vomiting out some giant death robot is the no brainer decision.

Although it has always been thus, it's just that 20 years ago it was Dreadnoughts and Predators, and now it's Imperial Knights and Riptides.

I think that character models are a whole other thing. I suspect GW loves a successful character model -- the cost is probably really small, and the profit margin must be huge, though I doubt they sell a ton of them.

Quite, which is why we're only seeing them now that CAD design and improvements in the production process have dropped the overhead low enough to allow the replacement of metal and/or resin in this role. Just a shame they couldn't spend just as midge more to give them pose ability and options.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The new Tau Firewarriors are £30 for 10, compared to £12 for 12 when the earlier version of the kit was first out. To be fair, some of the price increase is inflation over 14 years, higher VAT, and they had to make new moulds, and they are nice figures.

The new Dwarfadin Fyreslayers are £30 or more for a box of six. They are part of the trend for very high prices of the AoS infantry sets.

Keep in mind that there's now a great way to get the Firewarriors -- the Get Started box is only £50, includes 3 Crisis suits, the 10 fire warriors, and the new Ethereal model. Plus a whole bunch of drones. It doesn't really get much better than that.

With the dwarfs, I think you have them a bit mixed up. The Vulkite Berserkers (axe guys) are 10 for £35, and the Hearthguard (polearm guys) are 6 for £25. Still, point taken: that's WAY more than Skitarii Vanguard and Infiltrators, or Blood Angels Tacticals or Harlequin Troupe. I'm not convinced that all new 10 man troops and 5-6 man elites are going to be at these prices, though the dwarf models seem to be selling like hotcakes (to my surprise), so, sadly, it may encourage this pricing level. Maybe they'll come as a bundle in a Start Collecting box at some point, and make it more attractive.

To the best of my knowledge, we have absolutely no guarantees the Start Collecting bundles are hanging around, GW suffers from ADD with this sort of thing historically, and the best you can argue is that these help with the price for now. Frankly, the Start boxes are just about in the price band of what the models should cost for me to buy them, but they're not enough of a draw to get me buying again.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think the new GW thing is to get people to buy the troops in Start Collecting boxes, and then transition to all the big, hugely expensive stuff (and character models) after. The Start Collecting boxes generally give people a taste of the bigger kits, as well as an introduction to the difference between a character sprue and a troop model.

Yeah, there's no better way of curing sticker shock than giving a false impression of the cost of your product..

 agnosto wrote:
Yes, people get stuck on the large, flashy kits but they still make small kits. Just look at the releases over the past year, for every large kit, there's a small kit released too.

Yeah, for sure. The ratio used to be much different though: look back at when Wraithknight came out; I don't even recall if there was another giant model that year. In the last two years, it seems like GW is popping out centerpiece models at the rate of one a month, not including Forge World.

I expect you'll see a correlation between the implementation of new design and production processes and the production of large kits, new software and new factory floor toys, coupled with an increase in competence using them = more big ass gak.

 Talys wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The new Tau Firewarriors are £30 for 10, compared to £12 for 12 when the earlier version of the kit was first out. To be fair, some of the price increase is inflation over 14 years, higher VAT, and they had to make new moulds, and they are nice figures.

The new Dwarfadin Fyreslayers are £30 or more for a box of six. They are part of the trend for very high prices of the AoS infantry sets.

Keep in mind that there's now a great way to get the Firewarriors -- the Get Started box is only £50, includes 3 Crisis suits, the 10 fire warriors, and the new Ethereal model. Plus a whole bunch of drones. It doesn't really get much better than that.

Of course, that's completely ignoring the old, 2006 battleforce, that was £50 on release, which included a Crisis Suit Commander, 12 Fire Warriors, 12 Kroot, 3 Stealthsuits, 6 drones, and a Devilfish.

Heck, following inflation, it'd be £60-£65 in today's currency. Twice as many models, and a vehicle. That's the kind of crazy, in-house inflation GW's suffered from over the past decade.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Talys wrote:
Oh, I totally agree. I'm in that category, too: I enjoy both small and large models, and my conceptual army (and models I want to field) includes both. I think it's one of the reasons that Apocalypse in 40k is a bigger money maker than titans in Epic: people like the infantry and smaller vehicle sized models.

Citation needed. I loathe even the idea of 40K Apoc, I can't wait to get hold of Epic, assuming they don't feth it up. You mustn't conflate poor sales through lack of support or promotion and commercial potential.

Really? Is it controversial to say that Imperial Knights and Forge World titans, some of the best-selling models for GW and FW, make more money today than their Epic counterparts (accounting for currency, inflation, etc.)? Or even, collectively, that the epic-sized models outsold the current Titan size models in revenue or profit?

I'm not saying it's a better game. Just that they make more money off of them. I can't imagine that if GW were making millions and millions of dollars of profit off of Epic they'd have ditched it.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Yes, because there's little design space left at the infantry level without retreading old ground, or butchering fluff beyond what even GW may currently balk at (some Tau assault Firewarriors or similar.) That's an issue inherited from a 30+ year old system lacking granularity, compounded by an apparent dearth of real visionary talent remaining at the studio.

Couple that with increasing efficiencies in both design and production methods and vomiting out some giant death robot is the no brainer decision.

Although it has always been thus, it's just that 20 years ago it was Dreadnoughts and Predators, and now it's Imperial Knights and Riptides.

Putting aside that a lot of people actually like the new models (and spend money on them), you're absolutely right about the up-scaling of the game, from infantry to bigger infantry (terminators), to little stompies (dreadnoughts), to tanks, to flyers, to bigger stompies (riptides), to bigger flyers, and now to huge stompies (stormsurges). Capped by Forge World with epic, ginormous stompies (Ta'unar, Revenants, Reavers, Warlords, etc.). Probably an Emperor titan next year. Followed by a model with retractable casters that will have a selling feature of being able to fit in a room with an 8' ceiling.

Obviously, this isn't for everyone, which is why you see a some people leave 40k. Like I said, some people don't like the game filled of giant stompies (like you, right?), other people have zero interest in modelling them, and so on and so forth. I don't think there's ever going to be a reset button on 40k (or AoS) to return it to a primarily infantry and small vehicle game; even the Start Collecting boxes have big models like Hive Tyrant and Carnosaur. So outside of groups that simply choose not to field the large models, 40k will just not be a game for these fans. Though I don't think it's out of the question that GW release some other game primarily for small model fans, like a Mordheim reboot.

What will be interesting to me is, in the decades to come, whether a setting like WMH will look like it does today, or if it too will upsize (both in the number of models and size of models). If it doesn't, it will interest me greatly to see how PP keeps existing players spending money on models, because at the end of the day, that's pretty important. Or if their route will be to allow WMH to become a mature product, and start a new, exciting game.

 Azreal13 wrote:
To the best of my knowledge, we have absolutely no guarantees the Start Collecting bundles are hanging around, GW suffers from ADD with this sort of thing historically, and the best you can argue is that these help with the price for now. Frankly, the Start boxes are just about in the price band of what the models should cost for me to buy them, but they're not enough of a draw to get me buying again.

Of course, GW can do something dense and kill off something popular However, they've told their independents that these are regular order items that aren't going anywhere. I don't think they're part of the extended range, though (the stuff they must stock).

 Azreal13 wrote:

Yeah, there's no better way of curing sticker shock than giving a false impression of the cost of your product..

I think it's more like getting people addicted to cheaper plasti-crack. It's no different than WMH single faction starter boxes, which are also a great deal and in that general price range.

 Talys wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Talys wrote:
Oh, I totally agree. I'm in that category, too: I enjoy both small and large models, and my conceptual army (and models I want to field) includes both. I think it's one of the reasons that Apocalypse in 40k is a bigger money maker than titans in Epic: people like the infantry and smaller vehicle sized models.

Citation needed. I loathe even the idea of 40K Apoc, I can't wait to get hold of Epic, assuming they don't feth it up. You mustn't conflate poor sales through lack of support or promotion and commercial potential.

Really? Is it controversial to say that Imperial Knights and Forge World titans, some of the best-selling models for GW and FW, make more money today than their Epic counterparts (accounting for currency, inflation, etc.)? Or even, collectively, that the epic-sized models outsold the current Titan size models in revenue or profit?

I'm not saying it's a better game. Just that they make more money off of them. I can't imagine that if GW were making millions and millions of dollars of profit off of Epic they'd have ditched it.

I'm saying you're making assumptions by comparing two things that have never sold side by side, one of which suffered chronically from being abandoned as a consequence of Kirbyism and stem from very different periods in their history, with absolutely no hard numbers to back up either the sales of the current models or the demand for new Epic models should they become available. I'm not even necessarily disagreeing with you, but I can say I'm not in the market for a Titan or Imperial Knight, but I'd be very keen to spend on Epic.

As much as I loved epic (and currently enjoy Drop zone commander), I gotta agree with Talys on this one. From what I've seen Imperial Knights alone are more popular than the entirety of Epic. Small scale just doesn't have as many adherents. But I think if they come back and make a new Epic by focusing on Titans, it could have some serious potential. I'm betting they'll shoot for a scale between 40k dreadnoughts and maxing out at Imperial Knight size for Imperators. It'll be a doubly whammy of not needing to interact with the old school Epic, and being a small number of large (but expensive) models. If they base it on BFG rules, you'll have a pretty interesting game. And it'll match GW's love of big fat models, and they'll be able to sell all kinds of new terrain at the new scale.

If I was them, I'd use 10mm. The Titans will be suitably large, but not too large, and the terrain will be useable for a few other 10 mm scifi games that are out there. Good double whammy.It'll piss the few remaining epic fans right off, but GW doesn't care about their current fans, as AoS shows. They just care about that next dollar.

Small scale has plenty of adherents across wargaming generally, but the problem from GW's angle is that you can't sell a 6mm space marine tank for £40. People would just look at you strangely when they see it is only about 15mm long.

GW's cunning plan is to get people to buy lots of SM tanks, giant stompies, etc, at very high prices (£35 being about the minimum, running up to £100 per kit) and then cram them on to the table for a game in 28mm scale.

To me as a gamer that's a non-starter because the in-game distances don't make sense. Wargames need room for manoeuvre and you can't get it when the board is so crowded. If I wanted to play that style of Apoc game I would do it with substitute models from other companies, that are much cheaper and for a modeller, fun to modify..Or I would use a different rule set and play in the garden where I would have enough space. I used to do this with Battletech models in 1/72 scale.

However I am a wargamer hobbyist who used to play some 40K, rather than a GW HHHobbyist. I am not GW's target market.

The Starter Boxes are to me a clear indication that GW have started to feel the pinch caused by low take-up of armies at the now very high standard retail prices. Consequently they have cleverly make some good value bundle deals that allow them to sell a new army to people without reducing the price of the individual boxed kits. I am pleased that they have taken up my suggestion in that regard, and I believe it will be successful, because I myself have been induced to start Lizard Men by the good value Seraphon starter..

I've always thought 15mm was the perfect scale for a wargame of the scale 40k wants to be (ie, several tanks on the field at once, large walkers, several squads). But it's probably too close to 28mm for GW to do it.

I was at a Warmaster tournament a couple of weekends ago at one of the Online discounters and they were struggling to meet demand for the Starter boxes. Anecdotal but seemingly a popular release. Someone obviously feels that a cheaper back bone to an army with expensive add-ons is the way to go. Simple enough logic, lets hope they continue it.

RE Epic, as popular as it would be with me I con only see it being a second string product line. That's not a bad thing, GW need other differential lines to reinforce their turnover and grow it (the market for 28mm is only so big after all). A new scale would burn too many existing Epic gamers and goes against what GW know; updated kits of existing units still sell, everyone wants the new shineys.

I think this report combined with the recent SGS news and Starter releases represents an interesting transitional period for GW. They're image with gamers seems to quickly being rehabilitated (although it will take allot to finish the make over!) and again anecdotally I'm seeing an upturn of WH40K and AoS being played at clubs.

Warmaster was 10mm, I think 15mm is better because you can actually see the detail on human sized models. If you want to play with really large numbers of troops or larger vehicles/monsters then 6mm is good but I don't like the way infantry just becomes blobs at that scale.

There's a surprising amount of availability in 10mm historicals.

I never really saw the point of the scale, because there already was 6mm and 15mm, 10mm arguably becoming an awkward neither fish nor fowl scale, especially when scale creep starting to make them more like 12mm. (At the same time, scale creep was making some 15mm ranges more like 18mm.)

Warmaster Historical like most Ancient rules works just as well with 2mm, 6mm, 10mm, 15mm or 25mm figures, subject to suitable adjustments given in the rules, of measurements.

Of course Warmaster uses 40mm x 20mm base sizes so the scale is irrelevant really but as a scale 10mm works perfectly as a scale for Fantasy gaming.

It's small enough to give you a huge battle field to manoeuvre on and big enough to allow you to make out the differences in types of infantry or cavalry units and importantly allow the player to view their similarity with their bigger 28mm Warhammer versions.

6mm should never be blobs. Even given GWs tentative steps into plastic back in the day, a Tactical Space Marine still clearly looked like a Tactical Space Marine and was easily differentiated from an Assault Marine never mind an Ork, Eldar or Squat in the same range.

Smaller scale is also soooo much easier to paint.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I've always thought 15mm was the perfect scale for a wargame of the scale 40k wants to be (ie, several tanks on the field at once, large walkers, several squads). But it's probably too close to 28mm for GW to do it.

Well 3rd ed 40k was a 15mm WWII ruleset that had to be modified when the original 3rd ed (a revised 2nd ed) was rejected by the accountants who wanted a rule system that would encourage more sales.

Given its similarity to the editions that came before it I'd be surprised in that (not in rules for sales but the 15mm bit).

WW2 traditionally was played either with 20mm (to match the easily available 1/72 scale model kits for vehicles) or 6mm scale to allow for realistic weapon ranges.

 notprop wrote:
Of course Warmaster uses 40mm x 20mm base sizes so the scale is irrelevant really but as a scale 10mm works perfectly as a scale for Fantasy gaming.

It's small enough to give you a huge battle field to manoeuvre on and big enough to allow you to make out the differences in types of infantry or cavalry units and importantly allow the player to view their similarity with their bigger 28mm Warhammer versions.

6mm should never be blobs. Even given GWs tentative steps into plastic back in the day, a Tactical Space Marine still clearly looked like a Tactical Space Marine and was easily differentiated from an Assault Marine never mind an Ork, Eldar or Squat in the same range.

Smaller scale is also soooo much easier to paint.

I didn't mean blobs as in you can't tell them apart, I meant blobs as in they don't look human, they just look like blobs with the general features of a face smooshed in to them. Sure, a Guardsman still looks different to a Space Marine.... they just don't look like Guardsmen and Space Marines

15mm is pretty much the smallest models where an individual model can still look decent (in my opinion at least). You can still have some character to the faces, even a lot of 15mm models look wonky.

15mm also lets you fit quite a lot of models on the table still. If I really wanted to fit even more models on the table I'd just accept that the individual models aren't going to look that good and go down to 6mm rather than stopping at 10mm.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

jonolikespie wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I've always thought 15mm was the perfect scale for a wargame of the scale 40k wants to be (ie, several tanks on the field at once, large walkers, several squads). But it's probably too close to 28mm for GW to do it.

Well 3rd ed 40k was a 15mm WWII ruleset that had to be modified when the original 3rd ed (a revised 2nd ed) was rejected by the accountants who wanted a rule system that would encourage more sales.

I could believe that, which probably makes sense why I think it'd be better suited to 15mm

notprop wrote:Given its similarity to the editions that came before it I'd be surprised in that (not in rules for sales but the 15mm bit).

2nd -> 3rd was a pretty big change, it kept some things (hits, wounds, saves) but the entire turn structure changed, the CC system changed, modifiers were dropped, a lot of weapons which previously had unique profiles got lumped under "close combat weapon" or "power weapon". It was a change which made army sizes much larger.

I've got some pretty cool looking 12mm stuff. Sure you can't paint eyes on them but they've got sculpted faces.

Some of my 6mm stuff from the 90's was truly awful though; I've found a pile of it but since it's out of the bag I can't even tell what era they are meant to be from.

 notprop wrote:
Given its similarity to the editions that came before it I'd be surprised in that (not in rules for sales but the 15mm bit).

Rick Priestly himself said that in a podcast interview a year ago, they planned to make 3rd edition a tied up and balanced 2nd edition and all the work was done in that direction and suddenly really close to the printing deadline (I remember 6 or 9 months) the accounting demanded the new edition to need twice as many models to play... Rick out of time brought in his homebrew WW2 15mm rules he had for playing games at his home with his friends and 40k 3rd edition (and every edition after it) was born.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

 notprop wrote:
Given its similarity to the editions that came before it I'd be surprised in that (not in rules for sales but the 15mm bit).

Rick Priestly himself said that in a podcast interview a year ago, they planned to make 3rd edition a tied up and balanced 2nd edition and all the work was done in that direction and suddenly really close to the printing deadline (I remember 6 or 9 months) the accounting demanded the new edition to need twice as many models to play... Rick out of time brought in his homebrew WW2 15mm rules he had for playing games at his home with his friends and 40k 3rd edition (and every edition after it) was born.

That is hilarious. The last piece of real game development GW did on 40k was Rick throwing his homebrew WW2 rules in to 40k at the last minute. It's so sad it has to be true

Well, I take that with a small pinch of salt. I remember playing early WHFB and playing later 40K and finding them very similar in overall concept.

No doubt some of the details were different, such as Move stat. But anyway, if Rick Priestly had a set of 15mm WW2 rules that he used for the basis of 3rd edition 40K, his WW2 rules were pretty similar to the existing Warhammer rules.

 Talys wrote:
A part of the GW growth plan that contributes to the higher profit margins that doesn't seem to be acknowledged is the shift from a company that sells lots of small models to fewer small models and more larger (and more profitable) models.

I think it's also a source of angst amongst players who really don't like playing with or against large models (or perhaps have no desire to build or buy the expensive large models). But clearly, this is a part of GW's direction.

IMHO, this is an outgrowth of Kirby's belief that GW customers exist in a vacuum and as a captive audience, they will love and buy the larger models at the higher price instead of abandoning the hobby. This is also an outgrowth of the assumption that the big flashy models will draw in new customers. I think that the latter gamble might have blown up in their face (especially in light of the new heavily discounted "Start Collecting" boxes. Take the best selling Imperial Knight as an example...

Imperial Knight: US MSRP: $157 (Swank display piece or a part of a larger army. Game play requires additional rules / codex to use)

vs

Warmachine: All In One boxes: MSRP: $129.99-$144.99 (Complete 35 point army + Physical rulebook) Total: $144
Malifaux: 2P Starter (MSRP $65) + Crew Box (MSRP $50) + $50 for 1-2 character boxes to fill in your list to 50 soulstones. Total: $165
Infinity: eRulebook (Free!) + Starter (~$54) + Line Infantry Box (~$38), Specialist Box (~$43) + Remotes (~$43): Total: $178 (Note, I used Combined to price these, as they have new and therefore more expensive boxes. I'm also being conservative, here, you can play Infinity for less if you are more judicious about your box choices).

If you want a big stompy display piece, you will still probably buy the Knight - however it's a pretty big assumption that its coolness/bigness is enough to provide sufficient value for it to compete with competitor's products - considering that you can buy a competitive army (at tournament size in Malifaux/Infinity) for its cost +/- $20usd.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Spoiler:

Small scale has plenty of adherents across wargaming generally, but the problem from GW's angle is that you can't sell a 6mm space marine tank for £40. People would just look at you strangely when they see it is only about 15mm long.

GW's cunning plan is to get people to buy lots of SM tanks, giant stompies, etc, at very high prices (£35 being about the minimum, running up to £100 per kit) and then cram them on to the table for a game in 28mm scale.

To me as a gamer that's a non-starter because the in-game distances don't make sense. Wargames need room for manoeuvre and you can't get it when the board is so crowded. If I wanted to play that style of Apoc game I would do it with substitute models from other companies, that are much cheaper and for a modeller, fun to modify..Or I would use a different rule set and play in the garden where I would have enough space. I used to do this with Battletech models in 1/72 scale.

However I am a wargamer hobbyist who used to play some 40K, rather than a GW HHHobbyist. I am not GW's target market.

Top post.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:they just look like blobs with the general features of a face smooshed in to them.

I think it's a mistake to focus too much on facial features at 6-10mm, as a sculptor. One thing I'll give GW props for is that their smaller scale stuff often looked a lot better than other 6-10mm ranges out there, which tends to look a bit rushed and 'chewed', IMO. Epecially when they try to cram on a lot of details and textures. (To Herzlos - there were some funky 6mms in the noughties, too. Following Epic:A's demise there were some churned out by a big-name sculptor. Those really did look like blobs) Warmaster and Epic, from what I could see, took a bit more care in the overall shapes and proportions. 'Course, using 3-ups for any plastics would've helped.

I also think it's a mistake to focus too much on facial features at 6-10mm, as a gamer too. If you're worried about individual infantrymen when there's three to four hundred on the table, you're doing it wrong. (WFB's big mistake, too)