Author Topic: WTF Gamesworkshop  (Read 14710 times)

Offline Jr_Boyd

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WTF Gamesworkshop
« on: March 26, 2016, 12:02:52 PM »
Okay, nobody really needs to respond to this but this is the only forum I really post on so let me rant for a sec.

I have enjoyed a good game of Warhammer for over thirty years (I know you should not admit that). I have put up with all the stupid restructuring and game changes. I watched a very affordable hobby become so expensive even I am going holy hell that is expensive and I can buy what I want. I use to even enjoy a grand tournament a couple of times a year - not anymore. Does it appear like they are sprinting to out of business to anyone else? I have quit buying GW stuff completely. I have a pretty awesome wood elf, Beast-men, Tau and jungle fighter army that has gotten moth balled and will stay that way. And who is buying all these $150+ models please people they are toys you can't eat, wear or even sell them for what you pay. I will play with friends when they want but I hate being force feed new games. I like you guys probably have hundreds of painted miniatures that will not see a table again because of lousy decisions like this. I am finished with my little rant and back to why I reinvested in Chronopia, I figure if I am going to spend my time it should be doing what I like and at least I know nobody can pull the rug out from under me.

JB

Offline joshuaslater

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Re: WTF Gamesworkshop
« Reply #1 on: March 27, 2016, 08:11:48 AM »
I never bought into GW games to play them.  I have bought cool models from them in the past.  I'm really starting my foray into miniatures neutral games like Frostgrave and This is Not a Test.    You should check out the Kickstarter for This is Not a Test.


Your rant is very common John.  Play old games like Chronopia and new games that let you push the models you want to.
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Offline Jr_Boyd

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Re: WTF Gamesworkshop
« Reply #2 on: March 27, 2016, 09:29:55 AM »
You know there is no shortage of decent game rules and certainly not great miniature lines. The real rub for me is wargaming is a longterm hobby, sure some people buy miniatures to push them around a table and play like chess trying to "win" something (not sure what that is). These people are easy to identify because they don't own a single painted miniature and for them it is about the game. Anyone who really enjoys wargaming knows it is a social event. Something to spend your down time painting, sculpting, enjoying the creativity, sharing ideas and friendly debates about what is should be or could be. It is reason to gather with friends and relax.

The problem I see with mainstream wargaming companies is they only focus on how to sell the models. How do you do this? you make it the next unstoppable killing machine on the table and you repeat this process until your product (the rules) are so bastardized and broken you have to start over. If you crack open the 2nd edition warhammer the game was uber creative, chaotic and player controlled - granted this sometimes made for some very one sided broken games but if you played with people you like you tended to right size stuff (AKA house rules) and away you went. Fast forward to today a 6 year old can play age of sigmar, I like the figures but I will never own one even though they strangely enough are Chronopia looking. i could even muster up the strength to play but I won't because it will end up with a box of games less miniatures in a few years (I have a pretty sweet Eldar Battle Fleet Gothic fleet).

Alright starting to sound like my daughters, i will have some more pictures shortly

JB

Offline DARNIZHAAN

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Re: WTF Gamesworkshop
« Reply #3 on: March 27, 2016, 12:26:21 PM »
Never played a GW game but I would buy their models to proxy.  The warhammer rpg looks pretty good, at least the edition I saw.  Never played that either, though.

Offline pinksuezo

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Re: WTF Gamesworkshop
« Reply #4 on: March 27, 2016, 04:01:08 PM »
it should be doing what I like and at least I know nobody can pull the rug out from under me.

Funny, that's exactly why I got into Warzone. I started collecting back in 07, after the license was dead and eBay was the main source of minis. Though there are many minis that never saw the light of day that I would have loved to have, knowing that the line was limited and static made it way more appealing to me than GW's games, which are a game of constant catch up and pay up if you want to stay relevant. The downside is I have an extremely limited number of people to play with, and have even resorted to playing against myself (which is surprisingly fun), but I have 0 intention of ever biting into GW's hook.
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Offline Horned Owl

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Re: WTF Gamesworkshop
« Reply #5 on: March 31, 2016, 08:12:34 AM »
It cannot be denied that Games Workshop has successfully segregated its own brand of tabletops from the rest. There are magazines, catalogues, even paint brands dedicated solely to “the Games Workshop hobby” (quote), to the exclusion of other wargames, and there are Games Workshop stores all over the place where obsessive care is taken that the customers do not come into contact with players of other games (as I found out personally). That was part of a highly successful marketing strategy that incidentally aimed at younger gamers and antagonised the segment of older, more experienced players that had started out with the Rogue Trader universe.

From Games Workshop´s point of view, that was a good move. The older audience tended to be more skeptical, more conservative in spending their hard-earned quid, less brand-conscious (and more inclined to buy proxies). They also had experience with other games and were able to compare Nottingham´s product against those. The youngsters were more excitable about new releases, easier to impress, and, most importantly, they were the market segment with the most cash to spend on leisure.

Necessarily, the miniatures and background started to reflect the target audience, becoming more garish and cheesy, loaded with super-human abilities and impossibly huge weapons. (Actually, it cannot be denied that this in turn influenced the look of competing products like Chronopia and Mutant Chronicles to no small extent!)

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Sounds like the soulless evil marketing machine taking over wargaming, pushing their product to kids and wringing all the fun out of it for cold, hard money, right?

I´m with David Hume, though. Nottingham´s economical choice was definitely never motivated by any desire to advance the hobby, but it has benefitted the scene nonetheless. Games Workshop stores and games have attracted thousands of young gamers – the ones that would never have shown up at the games stores and clubs if they hadn´t heard of GW´s shiny product by their peers at school, the annoying young ones that we older elitist bunch never would have stooped to inviting to the table. And they grow older, and mature into able gamers, and over the course of their wargaming career, some of them become disillusioned with GW and start playing other games. A huge segment of today´s wargamers started out with “the GW hobby”. We didn´t make the conscious choice to recruit young blood (many of us actively discouraged them!), but GW did. And they did us an immense favour. If they hadn´t applied sound brand marketing principles to the wargaming hobby, the scene´s population would be a fraction of what it is today.

The rich and varied background of the Warhammer universe (which isn´t exactly my cup of tea but – again – was consciously designed to appeal to a wide variety of gamers) has in turn forced producers of other games to come up with similarly interesting storylines. Where at the time of Rogue Trader tabletop games tended to be background-generic or came with a thin story that left much to imagination, in the wake of Warhammer´s success background-heavy games proliferated. (Unfortunately, GW´s recipe of overblown abilities and monstrous shoulder pads has also infected many of those games, but, well...)

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If you are one of those who have become disillusioned with Games Workshop but still enjoy the background (which is a quite common phenomenon), there are a few things you can do. If you are ready to switch to 15mm, there are quite a few miniatures ranges that can be used as proxies. It´s not advisable to put them on a forum (Games Workshop has an annoying habit of scanning wargames forums for mentions of proxy ranges and then bringing copyright lawsuits down on the producers), but if you´re interested, I can eMail you a few links. Many of those proxies take the look of the game back to the Rogue Trader days, but that´s not a bad thing in my book. A positive side effect is that 15mm miniatures are ridiculously cheap – I just bought a complete army of over sixty troops, complete with a whole fleet of vehicles, for less than 85 pounds, which included shipping from Britain to Germany.

Other games, especially generic ones like Tomorrow´s War or StarGrunt II, lend themselves readily to use with the Warhammer background and miniatures (and may well be superior to Nottingham´s own ruleset which is – it must be said – simultaneously much too basic and way too complicated). I´ve noticed that this is an easy way to wean other gamers away from GW, because they can keep using their collected armies and the background they are familiar with. Most of the complaints from Games Workshop victims are not about the outlay of collecting an army in the first place, but about the constant cost of keeping up with all the new developments in rules and new miniatures. Switching to other rulesets eliminates that need while letting you keep your previous investment in terms of miniatures and enabling you to still play with your friends.

Games like Chronopia and WarZone, which after all were designed for a background not too different from GW´s, aren´t hard to convert. It´s easy to shake a few stats for Space Marines or Eldar from your sleeve, and at the end of the day a boltgun isn´t all that different from a Panzerknacker in its effects.

In fact, once you have begun converting stats, you will quickly notice that many of the special abilities that GW places on their miniatures are hugely and unnecessarily complicated. Most fancy weapons turn out to do the same damage that normal guns do, just in a more convoluted way. An Ogryn´s excessive strength or a Striking Scorpion´s mandiblaster will both translate into a higher close combat score, without the need for special rules. This, by the way, is the biggest complaint I have against Games Workshop: their rulesets are the worst atrocity ever to be visited on the Marshman Rule. (For those who aren´t familiar with it: the Marshman Rule says that a game is only good if you can take away all special rules, play a game with only the most basic of troops, and still have an interesting fight. It´s kind of a Bechdel Test for games.) Again, this is for marketing purposes; unique powers and abilities make a new miniature appear special and desirable, and can be toted in detail in the brand magazine, which also has to be bought to have the rules reference – you get the picture.

Points costs are going to be the greatest obstacle to stat conversions. Without a formula, it´s hard to compare troop abilities and come up with a proper points value.  On the other hand, all costing systems are horribly arbitrary anyway, so you´re in good company there. If you´ve got a relaxed opponent, it´s probably easier to use rule of thumb and just put something on the table that looks balanced to your instinct instead of fiddling with points.

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Offline semai99

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Re: WTF Gamesworkshop
« Reply #6 on: March 31, 2016, 08:20:09 AM »
I played GW for years then I discovered the Mutant Chronicles RPG game when they came out with the 1st edition Warzone tabletop rules I was all over them I loved the background & especially loved the price of the miniatures, then 2nd edition 3rd edition & now Prodos Resurrection which Im not all that fussed about but some nice miniatures being released but I'm to impatient with all these multi-part kits in now days, I did buy into the new Mutant Chonicles RPG again on KS.

Only really bought in heavily into the specialist games with multiple Epic40k, Bloodbowl & Warmaster armies (I bought 300 blisters for £100 when a shop was dumping all the stock years ago  ;D :o) which I still have only selling or sold off most of my early GW stuff for 40k or Warhammer fantasy except my Dwarf & Beastmen Armies always loved them.
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Offline pinksuezo

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Re: WTF Gamesworkshop
« Reply #7 on: April 04, 2016, 07:33:44 PM »
obsessive care is taken that the customers do not come into contact with players of other games (as I found out personally)

any juicy horror stories there...?
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Offline Manic _Miner

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Re: WTF Gamesworkshop
« Reply #8 on: April 04, 2016, 11:27:04 PM »
 It is funny how GW can charge £18 for a plastic Spacemarine.The prices just seem to go up all of the time.

 I lost interest in the miniatures Years ago now.Way too many other cool ranges out there to choose from and at better prices.

 Not a fan of being pounced on when i walk into one of there shops either.

 Will be interesting to see how they do in the next five or so Years.

 Warlord games are doing well with the Antares game with lots of new releases coming out.Makes me wonder how long it will be until they do a Fantasy game.

Offline Petru5

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Re: WTF Gamesworkshop
« Reply #9 on: April 05, 2016, 06:51:11 PM »
Now that Warlord inked a deal with Wargames Factory for their miniatures, it may not be too long.  I've perused the rules for their new game, Project Z.  While they aren't mind-blowing, they appear to be pretty solid.  Who doesn't like a good zombie game?  That's rhetorical, really.  ;D
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Offline Pueblic

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Re: WTF Gamesworkshop
« Reply #10 on: April 19, 2016, 12:41:17 PM »
¿Have anyone tried 9th Age? although it's conceived as a competitive game (and the Warhammer Fantasy Battles successor) you can ignore the competitive part and just have fun because it's still a fan game and not directed to sell tons of miniatures.