Also Americans are well aware of the jokes. We even know the Roc is a gay bar.

Games Workshop have for a long time now, been held up as the big bad bogeyman of gaming. Personally, I don't see it.

Don't like their products? Don't buy them. As a well known meerkat would say, simples.

Think you can write rules better than the people who are doing it? Kickstarter is your friend.

Just go there, design a game that works exactly how you want it to work, write the rules the way you want them to be written, sit back and get money from people.

As for GW being in decline? The figures don't lie, their half year annual review shows a drop in profits -

There aren't any accurate figures for how FFG are performing since their acquisition by Asmodee, but it is worth remembering that GW own (most of) and license their IP, FFG is a company built (and sold) on licensing other companies IP.

Cheers

Baaa

All shields forwards... why dont you stop attempting to negate my opinion and some statistics which are documented by an independent business assessing body/site with something other than your own anecdotal evidence.

Show me the turnovers, the tangible assets of these massive market share holding companies.

If anything is deluded its going 'its not like that in my local store so you're wrong'.

I dont know where you've heard the Roc is a gay bar? There is clearly the reference to lion el johnson (or whatever his name is) being lionel johnson a reputedly homosexual poet who wrote the poem 'dark angel' and then some purile people using that as a 'all dark angels are gay' baseline.

I actually meant far more that the studio often made very local references to things in the nottingham area (like the 'castle rock' necromunda campaign as the studio at the time was in the shadow of a huge sandstone rock with nottingham castle atop it. Lots of 2000ad references as pretty much the core of a lot of 40k in the early days. Also a lot of reference to UK politics at the time, especially orcs and football hooliganism with 'ere we go' being a popular terrace chant at matches.

Honestly this is getting really boring. If you honestly cant understand that GW totally dominate the wargames market then im never going to convince you.

I've tried politely to give you an insight into the companys marketing strategies, the fact that 'selling miniatures is the number one priority, rules are just an afterthought' from actually being part of that marketing team for years and running a department for GW at Lenton. Im not making this up, i was a fairly well respected manager for GW, enough for them to occasionally call me into fairly senior meetings for my opinions on proposed marketing campaigns and to fly me around the world to assist independant stockists in setting up their organised play systems.

The point is i've been inside that business, i know what their objectives are. I've had my own personal copy of Tom Kirbys 'little black book' for senior managers etc. Im not just saying 'i think it is like this' , i'm saying how it was.

Im sorry if you find that objectionable.

But please if you're going to reply, reply with some similar figures showing me how you can defend your opinion that GW dont have a dominating market share thats vastly larger than their next nearest competitor. Otherwise we're going round in circles.

if you cant do that then i'll assume that you're arguing for the sake of arguing as you've clearly got nothing more substantial to add than 'i think you're wrong'. And you know fair play, you're entitled to that view but i've done my best to show you the sort of financial disparity between companies making 28mm mass combat wargames systems.

Its getting a bit tedious now.

You dont usually find the FLGS until you've got sick of 'games night' at your local GW.

I live near the Twin Cities, St. Paul/Minneapolis. In a 50 mile radius of me I have 15 or so LGS's, and 1 GW shop.

So clearly things don't work here like they do in the UK. Many of those game stores pre-date the GW store by decades if not more.

I'm not saying you're wrong about market share Gadge, just saying the idea of a GW store is pretty rare over here. I'd also so the marketshare of GW is a lot lower today than it was in 2000. It may very well of been that back then.

But consider in 2000 how many games where there?

Warmachine was released in 2003.

Flames of War was released in 2002.

Infinity was released in 2005.

Malifaux was released in 2009.

X-Wing in 2012

So to say something had 95% of the market share when it was effectively the only game in town doesn't mean much.

Again not saying that GW isn't making a ton of money or that it's ready to fold any time soon. Just that I don't think it's powerhouse it was 10-15 years ago.

Well given they were down 50% in profits in a year they released a new version of 40k, a new space marine codex (their most popular product) and knights i think it's perfectly accurate to say they are in decline, they've consistently been making less money since 2005 when the bubble on LotR popped but last year was a major hit.

Over on warseer we were discussing it with people that work on wall street and manage hedge funds they were predicting 2-3 years before they go bankrupt.

This year they have a new version of warhammer a line already in decline (down 20% according to last years report) however the apocalypse event has not gone over well and many doubt a skirmish level warhammer is something they want to play not to mention several armies are no longer there if you played lizardmen your **** out of luck.

Meh, at least they wrote out the lizardmen... The Chaos dwarfs just stopped getting armybooks and where ignored.

I wan't my bull centaurs dammit!

Maybe a warhammer where you don't have to move huge blocks of troops and precisely align them so that they can still charge but are juuust about out of that enemy unit's charge arc, etc... might prove to be more popular.

Also they blew up the world in book 5... how are they gonna explain that?

Stealing form magic now each bubble is it' own plane of existence and they crash into each other as an excuse for fights.

Oh Sigmar I hope not.

And now you know why people are rejecting 9th and sticking with 8th even before it's come out.

I miss chaos Squats.

Okay so we got multiverse bubbles in warhammer, pre-banned OP eldar in 40k, trained raptors in Jurassic World, and aircraft with a dozerblade in 40k Conquest...

Me 'ead 'urts.

Meh, at least they wrote out the lizardmen... The Chaos dwarfs just stopped getting armybooks and where ignored.

I wan't my bull centaurs dammit!

Maybe a warhammer where you don't have to move huge blocks of troops and precisely align them so that they can still charge but are juuust about out of that enemy unit's charge arc, etc... might prove to be more popular.

Also they blew up the world in book 5... how are they gonna explain that?

Don't worry: nobody will play 9th edition anyway So your 8th (or earlier) edition lizardmen should be safe.

Plus there's a theory floating around that they might end up in 40k. You see what happened in the end times was (SPOILERS AHEAD) The Skaven, with Clan Moulder in the lead decided to settle some scores with their ancient enemies, the lizardmen. Long story short they blew up Morsslieb and rained comets on lustria. the Slann said, screw this and called exodus.Activated some truly ancient Old Ones tech and left the warhammer world! Now to me there is nowhere else to go but into 40k space. Even hinted at in the end times books, when the Skaven acidentaly make a collect call to the Eldar.

Meh, at least they wrote out the lizardmen... The Chaos dwarfs just stopped getting armybooks and where ignored.

I wan't my bull centaurs dammit!

Maybe a warhammer where you don't have to move huge blocks of troops and precisely align them so that they can still charge but are juuust about out of that enemy unit's charge arc, etc... might prove to be more popular.

Also they blew up the world in book 5... how are they gonna explain that?

If they squat Lizardmen then I'm going to be royally pissed as I'm getting ready to paint the Lizardmen army I made when the new book was released. I spent a ton of time cutting the slots off their feet and gluing them to stone tile bases and creating my own Scar Vets and Old Bloods. I sank several hundred bucks on that army...

My mates in the same boat he's been building and painting large creatures only for end times to wipe out his army, there's 200 slann left and some skin's to attend them.

The End Times weren't kind to my army, they just got crushed by Nagash and co. it was pretty demoralizing.

Has anyone been following the rumours/updates? Any thoughts?

Nope... Stupid is as stupid does.

The End Times weren't kind to my army, they just got crushed by Nagash and co. it was pretty demoralizing.

Because they are ditching every kit over eight years old and won't be making replacement kits, so if you don't buy now you'll be paying eBay scalpers later.

It's why they killed off special characters that have resin models.

Err everybody is dead due to sucked into the warp. In a sense they killed every character and every army. (Insert your "Everybody is dead Dave" meme here.) Only good thing from that ending is taht it'sa final victory for chaos, wich has been my fave faction since i bought my first WD (#132).

I'm still not entirely conviced GW didn't pull a White Wolf and destroyed the warhammer world to start with a fresh slate and new factions.

Can I also join the 'disappointed with GW' band wagon. I have 2 armies for each of 40k and fantasy (though I haven't played 40k in years) and am seriously considering selling the lot.

Err everybody is dead due to sucked into the warp. In a sense they killed every character and every army. (Insert your "Everybody is dead Dave" meme here.) Only good thing from that ending is taht it'sa final victory for chaos, wich has been my fave faction since i bought my first WD (#132).

I'm still not entirely conviced GW didn't pull a White Wolf and destroyed the warhammer world to start with a fresh slate and new factions.

The sources are very reliable they told us about the lizard men exodus weeks before the hard back book went on sale.

OK, so I have a fully painted Eldar army (probably around 4000 points or so), a half-painted Khorne Daemons army (around 2500 points or so) and a barely-painted Warriors of Chaos army (God only knows) sat in a cupboard at home, unused for around 18 months at least.

Initial estimates suggest that in order to actually play the Eldar or Khorne armies, I am now going to need to spend £70+ on the most up-to-date rulebooks alone. Warriors of Chaos... who knows.

Time for a spring clean, methinks.

OK, so I have a fully painted Eldar army (probably around 4000 points or so), a half-painted Khorne Daemons army (around 2500 points or so) and a barely-painted Warriors of Chaos army (God only knows) sat in a cupboard at home, unused for around 18 months at least.

Initial estimates suggest that in order to actually play the Eldar or Khorne armies, I am now going to need to spend £70+ on the most up-to-date rulebooks alone. Warriors of Chaos... who knows.

Time for a spring clean, methinks.

Yeah I'm planning on flogging a load of my stuff too.

They've just released a new knight codex that invalidates my old one it's barely a year old, it's BS.

They can't force you to buy new models but they can force you to buy their new rules if you want to use what you already own.

Now to me there is nowhere else to go but into 40k space. Even hinted at in the end times books, when the Skaven acidentaly make a collect call to the Eldar.

Thats not exactly true. They could end up in Rifts if they are not already, Terminator, lots of fraked up multiversal stuff going on there, Ghostbusters deal with powerful multiversal travlers as well. Hell this all could just be a preq side story for the new Mortal Kombat universe... Reptile in this new MK did come from a completely diffrent realm and he is the last survivor... Then agian Discord could use a good back story

They can't force you to buy new models but they can force you to buy their new rules if you want to use what you already own.

Only so long as the players are willing to accept it.

I guess if you're playing at a GW store, official competitions or if all your friends are using the latest edition of the rules then you haven't really got much of a choice. Casual crowds may agree to stick wth existing rulesets, though. Given the current state of limbo and wild, spurious rumours regarding the future of Fantasy (round bases? Skirmish game? Squatting?) a lot of people are talking about sticking with the old 8th Edition rules. Whether they actually do it is a different matter. Some might. Most will probably move on to 9th. Some might quit entirely.

But yeah, youre right - wholesale edition updates and codex changes every 12-18 months (it's usually one or the other within that time period at the moment; new army book or new ruleset) is VERY off putting. As is £30 for a codex and £50 for a rulebook in general.

I'm guessing that GW are using this to combat the secondary market on eBay - i.e. they can't stop people buying/selling second hand, but people need the rules to play! So let's update them as often as possible. And while we're at it, let's make people buy MULTIPLE codexes. Want one of our shiny new AdMech armies? You'll need the latest edition of the 40K rulebook, to start. And Codex: Cult Mechanicus. Oh, and probably Codex: Skitarri. You might want to pick up Codex: Imperial Knights while you're at it...

Wait, what? I've just spent £140 on rulebooks and I haven't bought a single model yet..