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I think they are in a much better position than they were a few years ago in the doldroms of the Kirby era. Stuff like Start Collecting and big boxed sets are attractive products, and they still have a massive library of well made plastic miniatures.

I don't play GW games any more, but I still collect GW miniatures for use in other games and have a lot of fondness for their worlds (well, the Old World and the 40k Universe pre-8th edition) so I can see myself remaining a customer for the foreseeable future.

Recently I have been thinking about building small forces for all the 40K factions I like, just a start collecting and a couple of boxes for each one. I think this is exactly what GW wants me to do, but I do not feel manipulated - I think they are a good deal for the most part.

There are lots of individual kits I do not buy because I think they are overpriced, but the core offering of miniatures still presents good value .

 Nazrak wrote:

Sumilidon wrote:In 10-20 years GW will no longer be able to produce distinctly higher quality minis than the average consumer will be able to with their personal 3d printer, at that point their revenue streams will be limited to 3d modelling schematics, rules, novels and loaning out their IP to game companies.

I'm not wholly convinced this is necessarily true. After all, it's not like the advent of readily-available home printing killed the print industry.

Some other people have agreed with you on this, but it's fundamentally wrong. It's confusing the medium with the product. Home printers didn't kill the print industry because the product isn't the physical book or magazine or newspaper, it's the story they're carrying to your eyeballs. The print industry is dying, the internet is what's killing it because it's a faster and cheaper way to get the product to your eyeballs. The home printer was never relevant to the printing industry.

In the case of tabletop miniatures the figure is the product, and the home printer isn't a faster, cheaper way to get the product into your collection. Yet. Anybody who thinks it's going to stay that way hasn't been paying attention.

 Elfric wrote:
It's unbelievable that there is a group of Warhammer fans that really want Games Workshop to fail.

I have issues with how GW runs things, especially when it comes to their pricing, but I don't wish destruction on the company that has brought me one of my favorite hobbies and fictional universes. There seems to be alot of nose-slicing and face-spiting going on in the WH fandom.

I'll admit that I wanted GW to crash when they released rules for burping good or having a long beard affecting AOS, I mean get the hell out, it's a tabletop wargame not a drinking game. If I want to turn it into a drinking game I'll do that on my own terms.

Why is it unbelievable. Lets say someone started to play 10-15 years ago. Bought an army for WFB, because they trusted the play what you like hype. Army sucked, they bought another army for WFB or w40k, and GW new edition nerfed it to be unfun to play. Then they waited for a WFB update a long time, which maybe never came. their W40k army stayed and sucked, when they still were buying models and codex to keep playing. AoS then killed their army, and 8th left their army in the dust.

You don't think that after 10-15 years of investing, and having little to no fun out of their money investment, some people maybe a little jaded as far as what they think about the fate of GW employees should be ? People hate other people over stuff that happened 200-300 years ago. And care nothing about the fact that it would maybe be more beneficial not to do it.

 Nevelon wrote:

I worry about GW raising the price of entry too much. I look at the costs these days and wonder how kids these days can afford it? $100 tanks, $40 monopose characters? Sure, the start collection boxes, starter sets, and other “deal” boxes can bring the price down. But the cost of the individual kits is getting out of control. Now it might just be the old Grognard in me still has my internal price meter calibrated for when I was paying 95 cents for a gallon of gas, but it seems crazy.
And as a wargame, we need fresh blood. Without opponents, where would be be? All the outreach and advertising is not going to help if kids can’t afford to plonk the cash on the barrelhead to pick up a playable army.

The price of entry isn't the problem at the moment. Start Collecting Boxes and 2 army starters ARE the point of entry into the game, if not the hobby. I'd guess most people get into the hobby buying a squad of troops or similar and some paints to decide if it's something they'll like. Then, to take the dive, the aforementioned army starters or SC boxes.

GW certainly isn't expecting young teens to be building full tournament armies (a few will, of course), they're expecting young teens to build/paint a few squads and play a few games and WANT to build full tournament armies once they're gainfully employed and have disposable income. At that point a $40 monopose character or $100 tank is affordable, especially when people of the same age routinely go out to a bar on a Friday night and drop the same kind of money on booze/food.

Start Collecting Boxes and 2 army starters ARE the point of entry into the game

:
:cough: well that is kind of a lot of money, specially for a starter. you can get whole game for this. Plus the start collecting stuff is horrible build traps. Who in their right mind needs a termintor HQ, 10 tacticals and a dreadnought or a baal predator. The start collecting may as well be named, units that you will never use, in most cases. The IG one is very good though, even with the comissar inside.

Karol wrote:
You don't think that after 10-15 years of investing, and having little to no fun out of their money investment, some people maybe a little jaded as far as what they think about the fate of GW employees should be ?

I can certainly see the frustration if that's the case - but a lot of people in the hobby are there more for building and painting rather than the game side of things, so GW's shenanigans really don't matter too much. If your fun is reliant solely on the quality of competitive play in the game, there are far better games to be looked into.

Kill Team is still pretty affordable. Rule Book, a select box of models (Deathwatch, Harlequins, Necrons, First Strike, etc.) and some dice/tape measure and a player is ready to rock and roll. Most gaming stores already had terrain if not full Kill Team boards.

There is a pretty big jump from Kill Team to even the smallest fulfilling game of full 40k though. I don't see many of the newer players locally making that jump any time soon. Which is fine by me, I like Kill Team far more than full 40k anyways.

 John Prins wrote:

Karol wrote:
You don't think that after 10-15 years of investing, and having little to no fun out of their money investment, some people maybe a little jaded as far as what they think about the fate of GW employees should be ?

I can certainly see the frustration if that's the case - but a lot of people in the hobby are there more for building and painting rather than the game side of things, so GW's shenanigans really don't matter too much. If your fun is reliant solely on the quality of competitive play in the game, there are far better games to be looked into.

Well I understand that, but unless I am wrong the prepostion was "I can understand why X fans could want the death of Y". Heck it can be even something as simple someone just being a psycho. I never understand when people say they understand why someone could do or want to do something evil. normaly I don't struggle with human interaction, but that I can easily imagine the whys. There are people who were "wrong" bye certain person from a specific group of people in their youth, only to keep trying to get back at them all their life with horrible consquances to the entire world. And it happens over and over again in history. But I do understand, that if I don't get some , or even a lot, of stuff there is a chance that different people don't get different things. It is strange to me, but I accept that such a possibility exists.
I just never know if people really don't get something or they are just making a joke, which I don't understand.

There is a pretty big jump from Kill Team to even the smallest fulfilling game of full 40k though. I don't see many of the newer players locally making that jump any time soon. Which is fine by me, I like Kill Team far more than full 40k anyways.

now if GW really did care a bit about the fans, they would develop kill team a lot more, or at least support it better. The problem with kill team is, that I don't think it generates enough turn up for GW, as you said it yourself, not many kill team players that play it for kill team, are making the jump to w40k.

Karol wrote:

Start Collecting Boxes and 2 army starters ARE the point of entry into the game

:
:cough: well that is kind of a lot of money, specially for a starter. you can get whole game for this.

I'm not arguing that GW isn't more expensive than other games, but when LEGO sets start at $140 CAD for anything decently sized, GW starters are in the ballpark of what parents can afford for their children.

Plus the start collecting stuff is horrible build traps. Who in their right mind needs a termintor HQ, 10 tacticals and a dreadnought or a baal predator. The start collecting may as well be named, units that you will never use, in most cases. The IG one is very good though, even with the comissar inside.

I agree about the build traps, but I think the only actually bad SC boxes are the Space Marines ones with Terminator HQ. Not all SC can be done in multiples like IG or Tau but are fine as single purchases.

This thread has been rolling since the 1990s. I remember when the first plastic skeleton box was released. It was $20 for 20 plastic models. And people lost their mind and said GW was going to bust any day now from their greed. That was roughly 1998 and banter was on the old AOL chat channels.

Then the land raider kit debut at $45 and the liquid hot magma of rage was scorching all in its path, because tamiya tanks were tons more detailed and cost about the same. And GW was going bust any day from their greed.

That was in 2000.

Portent and then warseer had a years long thread with over 1000 pages on the topic of GW going bust from their too high prices.

Here we are in 2019 and the thread is alive and well and the same topic for the same reasons.

I don't think they are going anywhere. They are for most of us the only game in town, like it or not.

 vict0988 wrote:
I'll admit that I wanted GW to crash when they released rules for burping good or having a long beard affecting AOS, I mean get the hell out, it's a tabletop wargame not a drinking game. If I want to turn it into a drinking game I'll do that on my own terms.

Hahaha, I think I’m the only person alive who thought this stuff was awesome.

haha 20$ for 20 models. I could afford to play like that

In the end companies go down, because of some outside stuff or something which later say was stupid to miss.

A plastic tax could cripple GW dead. As the other stuff goes, I don't know what they could miss, but I know that a long time ago Nokia ruled the phone industry, and at some point their CEOs and board decided that miniturisation has reached it peak, and that people will never want big screens etc. Who knows what is going to be GWs "big screens".

The Newman wrote:

 Nazrak wrote:

Sumilidon wrote:In 10-20 years GW will no longer be able to produce distinctly higher quality minis than the average consumer will be able to with their personal 3d printer, at that point their revenue streams will be limited to 3d modelling schematics, rules, novels and loaning out their IP to game companies.

I'm not wholly convinced this is necessarily true. After all, it's not like the advent of readily-available home printing killed the print industry.

Some other people have agreed with you on this, but it's fundamentally wrong. It's confusing the medium with the product. Home printers didn't kill the print industry because the product isn't the physical book or magazine or newspaper, it's the story they're carrying to your eyeballs. The print industry is dying, the internet is what's killing it because it's a faster and cheaper way to get the product to your eyeballs. The home printer was never relevant to the printing industry.

In the case of tabletop miniatures the figure is the product, and the home printer isn't a faster, cheaper way to get the product into your collection. Yet. Anybody who thinks it's going to stay that way hasn't been paying attention.

I think you make some fair points here, and I think you’re right that the two aren’t directly comparable. But people have been predicting 3D printing would drive GW out of business for pushing 20 years now, and I think we’re still a fair way off a 3D printer being a standard household item, or whether that will even ever be the case at all. I may we’ll be proven wrong, but I can’t see it happening any time soon.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:

 Elfric wrote:
It's unbelievable that there is a group of Warhammer fans that really want Games Workshop to fail.

I have issues with how GW runs things, especially when it comes to their pricing, but I don't wish destruction on the company that has brought me one of my favorite hobbies and fictional universes. There seems to be alot of nose-slicing and face-spiting going on in the WH fandom.

indeed.

Altough i would wish for a bit lower prices overall, and Stop selling a Balance patch, but broke or crash i'd rather not see GW go.
Would be a shame-

What, GW is crashing again?
I might not be a fan of GW's current direction regarding rules, lore and even models, but I do not think they are going to crash any time soon. They have too much institutional experience to walk into such pitfalls which generally result to company being wiped out. At some point they might see another sales dip like few times in the past, but they will survive.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
D&D also had the unique position of having someone at the head who actively hated the players, hated Gygax, hated playtesting, and in general tried to actively ruin the company in support of her own products because she had the license for buck rogers stuff that she got royalties on.. It was very unique in how it crashed, but the CEO certainly certainly tried their hardest to do their best to ruin the company.

In fairness to Williams however, she was able to acquire the company because it was almost bankrupt.

BoomWolf wrote:What's with the hate boner stone people in dakka have for GW...

They are dying better than ever and you guys are thinking "gosh I hope they are going down"... Wtf...

It has more to do with a vast number of people getting priced out of the games. Some people question how far they can push things and not suffer some sort of profit loss, but that magic moment never seems to happen.


Except for Warmaster and Inquisitor, which died fast deaths.

 Nevelon wrote:


7th’s most glaring flaws were codex creep and formations, something HH largely avoids. As a rules set it wasn’t that much worse then other editions.

Exactly, sure the core rules had a quite a few problem points in there but for the most part the core game was functional and early codexes (even with formations) where relatively toned down. Clearly something happened at GW HQ where they pushed those Decurion style formations to ramp up the power. Sales certainly went up from that but it also greatly destabilized the game due to GW's complete inability to bother balancing anything. Then eventually the FAQs happened which showed a combination of GW either not caring enough or knowing well enough how to go about fixing the boat load of issues the game was facing. That said the formations, while problematic, did really make for some interesting armies but it was usually the most powerful ones that got abused.

Unrelated to past editions but as much as I dislike 8th and hate GW's primaris business strategy (the eventual forced obsolescence of old marines is anti consumer), they are making a lot of money so i doubt they will crash due to anything they are currently doing now. Brexit, a possible british/US/global recession, increased environmental concerns over plastic usage, and whatever other external factors could cause GW to slide.

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:
Kill Team is still pretty affordable. Rule Book, a select box of models (Deathwatch, Harlequins, Necrons, First Strike, etc.) and some dice/tape measure and a player is ready to rock and roll. Most gaming stores already had terrain if not full Kill Team boards.

There is a pretty big jump from Kill Team to even the smallest fulfilling game of full 40k though. I don't see many of the newer players locally making that jump any time soon. Which is fine by me, I like Kill Team far more than full 40k anyways.

Kill team is where I am set as well, and building up a bunch of house rules it’s basically setting up as our 40k as well now. With small to large skirmish on occasion.
I hope GW does not kill it, but I sorta still kinda worried about where gw would like to take it.

 Elfric wrote:
It's unbelievable that there is a group of Warhammer fans that really want Games Workshop to fail.

Because it's what is best for the hobby in the long run. 40k is a strong IP concept with serious problems in management and game design. The best outcome would be for GW to die and for WOTC or FFG to buy the IP, get rid of all of the incompetent employees, and release a much better execution of the concept. Until then we're stuck with rules bloat, IGOUGO, and constant FAQs to fix their lack of proofreading.

Well, truth be told it would require a specific kind of person to still hate a company and a game that lets say was created 20 years ago, and is gone for 10.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Elfric wrote:
It's unbelievable that there is a group of Warhammer fans that really want Games Workshop to fail.

Because it's what is best for the hobby in the long run. 40k is a strong IP concept with serious problems in management and game design. The best outcome would be for GW to die and for WOTC or FFG to buy the IP, get rid of all of the incompetent employees, and release a much better execution of the concept. Until then we're stuck with rules bloat, IGOUGO, and constant FAQs to fix their lack of proofreading.

You assume someone like WOTC would pick it up. Might be Hollywood picks it up and goes on a spree of a dozen Space Marine films which only very casually use the slightest hint of the lore in them (and mostly falls down to Americans in space suits winning wars against orks and aliens). Meanwhile the factory shuts and production jumps to China; the highstreet shops also vanish. Furthermore who wants to buy build nad paint - throw prepainted action figures into the boxes with simpler rules and such.

Or it gets bought by a company like WOTC which then lacks the resources to dig GW out of whatever hell of finances would necessitate it selling up. Again it might end up being a simple asset strip and IP hoarding exercise. Even if they wanted to bring it back such a massive fall could see the stores closed, the factory closed and it taking years to get anything back into production. Heck look at Spartan Games; its been 2 years and Warcradle is still only just getting things together (though in fairness they did decide to basically buy all the stuff and then remake the entire game from the ground up).


Like it or not at least with GW, most of their staff are passionate about the IP itself; even as it changes over time (and even with that passion we still had the Old World to Sigmar disaster happen, though I like to think that was more management pushing it).


Thing is any company selling up tends to be because of either major problems or a major merger with huge advantages. I can't see an ideal company for GW to pair with for the latter; and the former is a dreadful thing to think of and might well come only after years of the company dwidling into problems and the game likely falling to one side.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
What's with the hate boner stone people in dakka have for GW...

They are dying better than ever and you guys are thinking "gosh I hope they are going down"... Wtf...

Well their prices are still horrendously high, especially if you want to / are playing a faction that involves a lot of disposable units, they are killing the conversion and kitbashing aspects of the hobby (see: The ork buggies), balance and game flow is still a bit wonky and feels drawn out, which is ironic considering how 8th ed is supposed to be stream lined.
8th ed is only better when compared to 6th and 7th, imo. 4th ed was better. Games were faster, infantry still mattered and there were no Knights / LoWs.

So there are reasons for wanting GW to take a big hit out of hope that they might improve. Or just die out of spite.
Personally I don't really want that. I just want the hobby to be about hobbying again, instead of just buying whatever terrain kit GW wants you to buy.

Bringing out box sets of 15-20 models would be nice too, as that would help out horde players. You should be always be able to max out a squad with just 2 box sets, imo.
Orks need about 3-6 boxes to max out a unit. Necrons need 3 sets of warriors to max out scarabs, which is goofy as hell, especially when scarabs aren't even troops and will leave you with 16 extra warriors. Which is fine, its more models, unless you already have enough warriors and want to max out everything in your army for completion's sake. They also need 3 sets to max out tomb blades and 4 to max out flayed ones, but flayed ones are gak models so who cares.

I have to strongly disagree here.

First, being expensive? hell yea they are, but this is a high quality product that resides deep within the realms of luxury. being expensive is honestly, rather expected.
Some hobbies go for mass appeal and cheap product, but GW stuff are designed, and marketed, as the top of the line, the best of the best. its a sports car, not a pickup truck.

Second-Killing the conversion and kitbashing aspect of the hobby? how? the new buggeis don't kill anything, they just give a handful of stock versions you can use if you don't care much for conversions, or bases to work from. nothing stops you from converting your own count-as for any of them. heck my tzeentch army is basically 95% conversions/kitbashed/countas (spirit hosts for horrors, morghast for princes, 30k breachers with some TS bits for rubrics, scarabs made from 30k tartaros, casstelax-achea for helbrutes...even my xiphons are modified for having rear-wings rather than front-wings)

Third, the game being drawn-out, wonky or that 4th was better. that's a valid opinion, but only an opinion and one I really don't share. I tried looking at 4th era codcies, and they were a freaking mess. "infantry mattered"? it still does. knights and LOWs not being a thing is not subjectively good-I for one love facing them, it feels great to take them down. (especially with supposedly "irrelevant" infantry) I gotta agree though that 7th had a lot of problems, but most of them derived directly from dragging aged mechanics all the way back from 4th edition, or even earlier I honestly don't know. 7th also had a lot of things I miss. (I liked the psyker system better back then, and formations as a whole were an amazing concept that could lead to the fluffiest armies being viable,it was just killed by a few formations who were bonkers)

Lastly, the box sizes.
If anything, I'd argue for SMALLER, not bigger.
Sure, you need multiples to max out. but what If you don't WANT to max out?
You want a minimal 5 man rubric squad? too bad, they come in 10s. Imagin of ork boyz came at 30s-what a pain it would be if you only wanted 10?
Boxes should adhere not to max squads, but to min squads. anything bigger can come in boxsets. not like GW is shy from putting boxsets lately.
Necron boxes need an overhaul anyway though, they are not exactly a measure of new GW given that nothing necron came out in forever outside of FW.


My main complaint about GW these days has got to honestly be primaris.
I mean, nothing is bad with the primaris themselves. they are not my flavor, but neither are nids or orks so whatever-the problem is releasing a ton of extra content to the army already most spoiled for content and attention.
Kina hard to suspend the "the imperium is besiged on all sides and on the verge of collapse" when just one faction of their multiple armies seems to be able to pump out a bigger varity of units than entire races. heck, more than multiple races-ffs I'm pretty sure that at this point you got more codex marines than the entire Tau (supposedly a coalition of several races) and necrons COMBINED.

I really wish they'll take the pedal of marines for a long, long time. and bring CSM up to speed (won't happen, they JUST got a codex, and it cried in comparison to the new codex marines), TS and DG properly fleshed out, Tau need a MASSIVE expansion of auxillaries, necrons need a big overhaul, yannari needs to be unfolded into its own actual army already, etc.
You can stop all marines (and BA/DA/SW/DW) items for 5 years, maybe even 10, and you'll still not catch up with non-imperials vs imperials, and that's not counting the fact there are imperials other than marines who would probably get a touch up in that duration (sisters are coming in about 2-3 months after all, guard are kind behind, inquisition is still index, GK needsing an overhaul and will likely get their own primaris dudes, etc.)

Isn't "Space Americans beat up all the filthy Xeno and Chaos" kind of the whole premise of 40k anyway? I'd say if Hollywood pumped out that film, they'd be pretty spot-on.

 flandarz wrote:
Isn't "Space Americans beat up all the filthy Xeno and Chaos" kind of the whole premise of 40k anyway? I'd say if Hollywood pumped out that film, they'd be pretty spot-on.

Aye but it wouldn't be gothic-grim dark and you'd likely start the film with a montage at some point as Jimmy Regular becomes a spacemarine overnight; but not just any space marine; the one that wins the war and kills the last hivequeen and saves the universe. Then he rocks off on his space ship and gets the spicy female space marine* gal and they go off to:

1) Make 5 sequels and 2 prequels

2) Fall out and he never mentions nor sees her again in the sequels if the actress doesn't renew the contract.


*could also be a female eldar or an Imperial guard or an innocent on a planet they are saving.

note - space marines are BRITISH not American!

I kinda like how GW has stuck with its Britishness rather than Americanising their stuff.

I mean, I know they all SOUND British, but just look at their society and tell me that isn't the most American thing ever. They hate "aliens". An extremely long period of societal stagnation. Incredibly harsh penalties for minor offenses. An incredibly wealthy upperclassman and a vast population of poverty stricken citizens. High chance of gun-related death. They even have an eagle as their icon. And do you really think the British would screw up Terra so badly that it has no natural water left? Or build their top government building out of gold?

 flandarz wrote:
I mean, I know they all SOUND British, but just look at their society and tell me that isn't the most American thing ever. They hate "aliens". An extremely long period of societal stagnation. Incredibly harsh penalties for minor offenses. An incredibly wealthy upperclassman and a vast population of poverty stricken citizens. High chance of gun-related death. They even have an eagle as their icon. And do you really think the British would screw up Terra so badly that it has no natural water left? Or build their top government building out of gold?

Didn't know the muricans were monarchiests, or would disallow constitutional rights, or were a fractured feudal society.

Also the eagle is double Headed go look up heraldry.

I'm just shocked you took an obvious exaggerative comparison seriously. Good show.

In other words: "it was a joke. Please don't take it seriously."