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The fact that tons of GW models get left on their sprues after purchase doesn't mean GW's product lines are equivalent to a pre-painted line. Sorry the contrary argument is literally laughable - as in I actually LOLed.

Davor wrote:
I thought GW wanted you to spend your X $$$ and never been seen again. So far I haven't seen that change yet.

Yeah a new customer is worth more to them than an existing one. Feels wrong from the customer side of things but there you have it.

Are there any actual new or rumors left on this topic?

 EnTyme wrote:
Are there any actual new or rumors left on this topic?

This is actually a discussion board - news gets discussed here, not just posted.

 Manchu wrote:
Seems reasonable to me that FFG would chuck GW rather than the reverse.

This assumes that GW is being a reasonable and competently-run company, which is obviously not true. FFG has no incentive to end the license. The games were still making money (demonstrated by FFG's continued support for them and investment into new games with GW's IP) and FFG has a well-established history of diversifying their business across a lot of different product lines. If GW had offered to renew the license on the same terms then FFG has every reason to accept the deal and continue their successful product lines. So that means one of two things happened:

1) GW asked for additional concessions that were not completely unreasonable (increased fees, etc) and FFG refused because the new terms would not allow those product lines to be profitable anymore. This is how WOTC lost the Star Wars license.

or

2) GW believed their own propaganda about how important they are, made unreasonable demands (stop selling your miniatures games!), and FFG told them to off. This is unproven, but it does fit rumors/speculation over the past year or so that GW had been unhappy with FFG's success in the miniatures market and continued expansion into more direct competition with GW's core products instead of just board games/RPGs/LCGs.

I certainly don't assume GW is run competently

I also don't assume that FFG's "continued support" of certain games indicates they are profitable (a certain level of support may be required under the license) or, even if that is technically the case, that they still don't represent a drain on FFG's ability to work on products that are vastly more profitable.

Your hypothetical (1) seems much more plausible to me than (2).

What seems completely nuts to me is the idea that GW withdrew its license to punish FFG for X-Wing's success or to try to undermine FFG because X-Wing has been a success.

"FFG has no incentive to end the license."
I can think of several reasons they would drop the license.

Runewars being the main one...they now have a miniatures game that is not a license. I suspect they looked at the cost of the GW license and the profit from the last few years (compared to...say Star Wars) and decided it was fine to go without GW.

Personally, I believe that X-wing is only the tip of the iceberg for the parting of ways.

Let's face it, FFG was producing the kind of games that GW USED to, but had disregarded in favor of just making miniatures.

Likely, someone at GW recognized that rather than getting morsels from licensing games through another company they could have the lion's share if they revitalized/made their own.

All of Specialist games would have likely been in direct competion to FFG's offering, and as we well know, GW doesn't like any sort of competition or sharing money with others, and is likely pulling everything back in-house to avoid that situation.

That could mean we might see the likes of the return of titles such as Talisman back under GW directly, possibly even the DeathWatch RPG revived by Black Library. Or, though unlikely, possibly the return of the WHF RPG as a Black Library imprint.

 Manchu wrote:
The fact that tons of GW models get left on their sprues after purchase doesn't mean GW's product lines are equivalent to a pre-painted line. Sorry the contrary argument is literally laughable - as in I actually LOLed.

Of course it means they're equivalent, at least for a lot of GW's customers. The fact that most people don't ever paint their models (and many of the ones who do only do it because of "no unpainted models" rules) clearly demonstrates that most of GW's customers do not see the fact that the models come unpainted and unassembled as something that adds value. In fact, these people likely see the difference between 40k models and X-Wing models as a loss of value for GW's products. If GW sold pre-painted versions of 40k models at the same price most of their customers would buy them without hesitation.

I suspect that the reason you feel that they aren't equivalent has more to do with the history of pre-painted models than any real difference between X-Wing models and 40k models. Pre-painted models used to be cheap garbage: terrible sculpts cast in the cheapest possible soft plastic with awful blobs of paint smeared on half at random. Obviously in that case you're talking about something that is not at all equivalent to what GW is offering. But with X-Wing you're talking about models that are detailed at the level of anything GW produces and painted better than most GW customers can manage. If they aren't equivalent to GW's product lines it's only because FFG is offering a vastly superior product.

@Silent Puffin

You can`t do much with X-wing figurines.

Only thing you can really do is strip and repaint them, but

I`ve got yet to see someone to do something "out of the box", very creative with any X-wing product. Only thing I can imagine, you can do with them, is an amazing diorama, there is that.

But when it comes to a single unit:

1) they are all identical figurines, that come in 1 piece. Can you really customize them physically? I think not, only add light bulbs, as was suggested a few pages back, maybe make them do noizes.
+the scale makes it even harder
+FFG leaves us with no room for imagination - they take an already known ship and produce it. All you`re left with, if you want a unique physical model, is sculpt it yourself.

-all people that do go through the troubles of painting them, usually stick to a classic color scheme (+ stripes?)

The latter is probably due to IP being so strong, it has such a distinctive appearance, and everyone loves those ships the way they are.

X-wing products are made for hobbying as much as DnD figurines are.


40K(and other GW products) ARE more(astronomically more) flexible hobby wise, you can`t argue with that.

It would be like arguing, that you can play 40K straight out of the box quicker than X-wing/


And all of the above maybe the reasons, why the 2 companies split - One (or both) of them might want to try them out in the field their counterpart excells at. Which has already been said a bunch in this thread. (+ maybe one of the compnies doesn`t see the deal as profitable anymore)

As far as X-Wing goes, ya'll do know there is an entire (unofficial) range people do buy form places like Shapeways, paint up, make their own rules for and play with, right?

The hobby angle certainly adds value! It's just that our eyes are always bigger than our bellies when it comes to actually building those armies we dream of building.

FYI I own thousands of dollars of X-Wing ships (I love X-Wing) - yes Stormonu, including stuff from Shapeways

 Manchu wrote:
I certainly don't assume GW is run competently I also don't assume that FFG's "continued support" of certain games indicates they are profitable or, even if that is technically the case, that they still don't represent a drain on FFG's ability to work on products that are vastly more profitable.

If a game isn't profitable you aren't going to continue producing expansions for it, as FFG did with the 40k card game. And their 40k RPGs and board games have no ongoing support costs, once the games are finished all FFG has to do is order another print run occasionally and let the money come in.

And, again, FFG diversifies their products to avoid GW's position of being trapped in a single product line and entirely dependent on its continued success. Even if you can make the argument that FFG could make more money by moving man-hours off the GW licensed stuff FFG has a strong incentive to keep those product lines around.

What seems completely nuts to me is the idea that GW withdrew its license to punish FFG for X-Wing's success or to try to undermine FFG because X-Wing has been a success.

It makes perfect sense if you assume that GW's narcissistic financial reports (Pokemon is just a fad! We're so much better than that!) reflect what GW's management actually believes. It is entirely believable to me that GW would be concerned about the success of FFG's miniatures games (they are, after all, direct competition for GW's miniatures games) and think that they could bully FFG into dropping them, just like their legal department thought they could shut down third-party conversion bits based on a laughably bad legal argument where they couldn't even document ownership of the IP they were claiming.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
The hobby angle certainly adds value! It's just that our eyes are always bigger than our bellies when it comes to actually building those armies we dream of building.

For some people maybe. For many people the hobby part removes value. They hate painting, complain about any event that has a "painted models only" rule, carelessly throw their models into heaps in a shoebox where half the detail bits are broken off, etc. That is GW's typical customer, and they would be perfectly happy to have pre-painted models.

@SnotlingPimpWagon

I think that's a very myoptic presentation you're making. The same things can be repeated for GW's 40K line.

For example, Space Marines - you'r limited to the range GW produces (let's see you put together a Marine with a shuriken launcher for example), and you get to paint them in your favorite primary color - plus maybe a few stripes, too. Try painting your Ultramarines anything other than blue and see what kind of funny looks you get...

Look around the net - folks have done some pretty interesting mods to the X-wing ships beyond a paint job. One example is "Uglies". Or simply look to see how people have played around with B-wings.

I clarified above that the license may entail a certain amount of required support, which would probably be factored into the budget at the outset. The result could be that a game with some subsequent support was never actually profitable.

As to the diversifying point - true but relying on two licenses rather than one doesn't get you there. These are the good times for FFG. What they want to do now is develop studio-owned IP (RuneWars) or acquire existing IPs (L5R), in an overall effort to reduce leaning on licensing generally.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Yes, the hobby angle may be value subtracted for some customers. Again, those are not GW's customers. Whether GW's customers ever get around to starting on a kit or not, the fact that it is a kit was value added. The market is too diverse these days to claim that people have to buy kits, even knowing they have no interest in assembling them or painting them.

FFG is acquiring L5R?

 Stormonu wrote:
Personally, I believe that X-wing is only the tip of the iceberg for the parting of ways.

Let's face it, FFG was producing the kind of games that GW USED to, but had disregarded in favor of just making miniatures.

Likely, someone at GW recognized that rather than getting morsels from licensing games through another company they could have the lion's share if they revitalized/made their own.

All of Specialist games would have likely been in direct competion to FFG's offering, and as we well know, GW doesn't like any sort of competition or sharing money with others, and is likely pulling everything back in-house to avoid that situation.

That could mean we might see the likes of the return of titles such as Talisman back under GW directly, possibly even the DeathWatch RPG revived by Black Library. Or, though unlikely, possibly the return of the WHF RPG as a Black Library imprint.

I agree with the first half, but 20 years of experience as a GW customer meams I have no confidence whatsoever than GW can accomplish what FFG did with the products they carried for GW. They just can't. Everything they are willing to make (shy of Space Hulk)is for the direct enhancement of sales of 40k and Age of Sigmar only. Not the universe- the core games alone. Every Kill Team, Calth, and Flyer game is to segway into 40K as they already have fledgling forces after they are done with the boardgame.

None of these latest releases are akin to Space Crusade, Battlemasters, or even Epic or Warmaster.

So what this split means to me is not as much that there was any worry that FFG was a competitor, but that we have now lost out on a great universe-building resource that GW cannot match in-house. And that's sad.

Back in the late 90's and early 2000's, yes. But now? I am extremely doubtful things like the new Bloodbowl will get more than initial attention, and then they will languish and dissapear.

 Stormonu wrote:
FFG is acquiring L5R?

Happened some time ago. Looking for a L5R LCG in the next two years.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I am extremely doubtful things like the new Bloodbowl will get more than initial attention, and then they will languish and dissapear.

At least Bloodbowl seems like it's handled by a team more connected to the FW wing rather than GW 'proper'.

Anything GW main keeps their grubby fingers away from at least has a chance. I they get involved though; it's doomed.

L5R LCG is being released at Gencon 2017...I would not be surprised to see a tabletop minis game (based off RuneWars) announced for 2018.

tpryan01 wrote:
L5R LCG is being released at Gencon 2017...I would not be surprised to see a tabletop minis game (based off RuneWars) announced for 2018.

Yep I will be buying at least some of former and I would probably buy the latter (strength of brand; don't care about LCGs or RuneWars), even despite FFG's onerous crusade against the online retailers.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Personally, I believe that X-wing is only the tip of the iceberg for the parting of ways.

Let's face it, FFG was producing the kind of games that GW USED to, but had disregarded in favor of just making miniatures.

Likely, someone at GW recognized that rather than getting morsels from licensing games through another company they could have the lion's share if they revitalized/made their own.

All of Specialist games would have likely been in direct competion to FFG's offering, and as we well know, GW doesn't like any sort of competition or sharing money with others, and is likely pulling everything back in-house to avoid that situation.

That could mean we might see the likes of the return of titles such as Talisman back under GW directly, possibly even the DeathWatch RPG revived by Black Library. Or, though unlikely, possibly the return of the WHF RPG as a Black Library imprint.

I agree with the first half, but 20 years of experience as a GW customer meams I have no confidence whatsoever than GW can accomplish what FFG did with the products they carried for GW. They just can't. Everything they are willing to make (shy of Space Hulk)is for the direct enhancement of sales of 40k and Age of Sigmar only. Not the universe- the core games alone. Every Kill Team, Calth, and Flyer game is to segway into 40K as they already have fledgling forces after they are done with the boardgame.

None of these latest releases are akin to Space Crusade, Battlemasters, or even Epic or Warmaster.

So what this split means to me is not as much that there was any worry that FFG was a competitor, but that we have now lost out on a great universe-building resource that GW cannot match in-house. And that's sad.

Back in the late 90's and early 2000's, yes. But now? I am extremely doubtful things like the new Bloodbowl will get more than initial attention, and then they will languish and dissapear.

Oh I agree, I think GW is going to make a major faceplant because they don't take the rules/game side seriously. But I get the imppresion *they* THINK they do, and it's going to be the school of hard knocks for them before (and if) they get their ducks in a row and produce some really good, memorable games again.

I will definitely agree with those who have mentioned that they spent hobby dollars on X-Wing rather than 40k because X-Wing is a better-designed game. I don't see much a future in not caring about your rules for a game company, even ones that insist they are model companies.

 Stormonu wrote:
@SnotlingPimpWagon

I think that's a very myoptic presentation you're making. The same things can be repeated for GW's 40K line.

For example, Space Marines - you'r limited to the range GW produces (let's see you put together a Marine with a shuriken launcher for example), and you get to paint them in your favorite primary color - plus maybe a few stripes, too. Try painting your Ultramarines anything other than blue and see what kind of funny looks you get...

Look around the net - folks have done some pretty interesting mods to the X-wing ships beyond a paint job. One example is "Uglies". Or simply look to see how people have played around with B-wings.

There`s scibor, chapter house, Kromlech that can give you a lot of extra hobby material to work with.

Well, I did play against purple Dark Angels and if you join necromunda/Inq28/mordheim groups, you will be swamped in amazing kit bashes, conversions and so on. We have ORKS in 40k! that trumps anything really Anyone can do a color scheme he wants with any army (well, I haven`t really seen grey knight being that deffirent), make your own chapter/ file down imperial eagles, make em half cyborgs/mutants/aliens - the amount of kits there are made by GW(+ anyone, that does 40K inspired stuff) give you a lot of possibilities. It`s the closest thing to clay The only step closer to total freedom is sculpting miniatures yourself.


There is stilll a vast majority of people, that like vanilla so to say...

I was completely unaware of uglies, to be honest. Some of them are pretty damn interesting!

 Stormonu wrote:
Oh I agree, I think GW is going to make a major faceplant because they don't take the rules/game side seriously.

Outside of 40k's lame duck ruleset, what has GW done in the past few years that makes you think they don't take the rules/game side seriously?

Other than the core rules for their flagship?!

What else needs to have happened?!!

 Manchu wrote:
As to the diversifying point - true but relying on two licenses rather than one doesn't get you there.

Except FFG has more than just two licenses. They have the Star Wars license, the GOT license, the Netrunner license, and a whole bunch of their own IP for board games. GW's IP would be their fourth major license, in addition to their own IP. And the GW IP is hardly a random trivial thing. Despite all of GW's flaws they're still a well-known IP in the tabletop gaming industry and keeping access to that product line is a win for FFG. The only reason FFG would have for giving up the diversity of the GW license is if GW set unfavorable terms.

Yes, the hobby angle may be value subtracted for some customers. Again, those are not GW's customers.

Except they indisputably are, because I'm talking about people with 40k armies.

Whether GW's customers ever get around to starting on a kit or not, the fact that it is a kit was value added. The market is too diverse these days to claim that people have to buy kits, even knowing they have no interest in assembling them or painting them.

And this is simply false. You're ignoring the "I have to play what my friends play" factor of miniatures games being a social hobby. If 40k is the dominant game in your area it doesn't matter how much you hate modeling and painting or want pre-painted models, you either slog through the chore of dealing with kits or you don't play miniatures games at all.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Other than the core rules for their flagship?!

What else needs to have happened?!!

Kindly accept this exalt.

I think there is some truth to GW's apparent position that rules don't matter. They don't matter to some customers and some of those customers even think of themselves as gamers. It is easier to see this, I guess, by shifting the context to video games, where a big part of gameplay can be, for some people, really a matter of brand or graphics. A table full of beautifully painted GW miniatures is a wonderful and entertaining spectacle. For me, for a lot of gamers, this doesn't translate into rewarding or even interesting gameplay. This is where I don't measure up to GW's ideal customer, I think. I want something more out of miniatures games than spectacle. (Although spectacle is also very important!)

And this is where FFG comes in. I am very eager to see what RuneWars is like, even if it's only looking past RuneWars to a potential L5R miniatures game.

SnotlingPimpWagon wrote:
and if you join necromunda/Inq28/mordheim groups, you will be swamped in amazing kit bashes, conversions and so on.

And if you join X-Wing groups you'll see some amazing conversions and painting. You'll also see a lot of stock models, but that's certainly better than the endless gray hordes and space marine legs on bases that you get in GW games!

Also, note that those games you mentioned are no longer supported by GW. You're essentially saying "if you join a group dedicated to painting and converting GW models for a third-party game you'll see a lot of painting and conversions". Well of course you will, that's the whole point of the group!

There are certainly some folks who hate everything about 40k, maybe especially the hobby side of things, but they buy the stuff because it's what their friends play. That doesn't make them GW's target market. Losing those folks to X-Wing doesn't make X-Wing direct competition. Maybe it will help to note that FFG did not mind licensing Flight Path to WizKids for Attack Wing (Star Trek and D&D). Even considering that X-Wing and Attack Wing share vastly more in common than X-Wing and 40k, FFG realized that the lines were not competing on any level but the most general (i.e., disposable income generally, in which terms every one of these companies compete with themselves). Customers who would only buy one or the other would do so regardless of the line itself; that is because of limited funds or just not liking one or the other IP.

 Peregrine wrote:

SnotlingPimpWagon wrote:
and if you join necromunda/Inq28/mordheim groups, you will be swamped in amazing kit bashes, conversions and so on.

And if you join X-Wing groups you'll see some amazing conversions and painting. You'll also see a lot of stock models, but that's certainly better than the endless gray hordes and space marine legs on bases that you get in GW games!

Also, note that those games you mentioned are no longer supported by GW. You're essentially saying "if you join a group dedicated to painting and converting GW models for a third-party game you'll see a lot of painting and conversions". Well of course you will, that's the whole point of the group!

Yep, just checked out a couple, and saw some.

The fact, they are no longer supported doesn`t devalue the point i was makimg. They are still made out of GW kits (mostly).
And I mentioined 40 K as well didn`t I?

"You'll also see a lot of stock models, but that's certainly better than the endless gray hordes and space marine legs on bases that you get in GW games"
That`s subjective. If it`s right out of the box and put on a table, it doesn`t feel more, than a gaming token to me. But then again, that`s my personal opinion.

I never had to play against anyone using SM legs as models, I pity you - the 40K community you described must be pretty bad in your area. It`s "nice", how you portrait an average GW gamers - as if they only consist of deranged people, who spend their time throwing models about, they spent hundrends of bucks on just before, and whining all the time. They should play x-wing, THE SUPREME PRODUCT.

No grey crap on the tables, models don`t break, if you chuck them in a shoe box, don`t have to complain about "painted armies" rule.