You know i've said on here for years that I wouldnt bother with Armada because i've got two big BFG fleets if i wanted a 'capitol ships' type game.

Well got them out yesterday and realised that compared to xwing they are crude and clunky looking, the set up time is immense and i've actually not played the game in about a decade.

My xbox360 died recently so i thought 'sod it', i'll ebay the lot to buy a PS4 but there is a possibility I might buy Armada instead

Wierdly i'd not realised how much the stuff goes for on ebay. I've had bids on some stuff almost as soon as it was listed

Actually im pretty certain im going to use the cash for a ps4 as im having 'fallout' withdrawal already!

I know I keep saying it, but I really need to get around to ebaying my own GW stuff. I haven't played 40K or Fantasy in over 2 years now - since before I started X-Wing, in fact. Which is a shame because I'd just invested in my own 4x6 gaming table complete with scenery as well.

I was considering keeping 500 points or so of my painted models for 40K in 40 minutes games, but the temptation would always be there to pick up more, add more options etc. I really think it's time to just get rid and call it a day on the hobby.

(especially since I picked up the Armada starter box yesterday as well...)

I always regret selling painted models. I sold my old dark eld 4th ed army , 3000 points very well painted (my stuff used to get into studio collectors guides etc) and 3000 points of Imperial Guard cadians (all been in white dwarf and imperial armour books) for next to nothing to friends (because working at GW you got sacked if you ebayed stuff).

Mainly did it because 'new' plastics came out and they were free, then you realise you cant face painting another two huge armies so i ended up with two partly painted , not wholly assembled plastic armies.

Since then i've always kept painted 28mm stuff as its always useful for a variety of games but BFG is quite niche. Much as i love my painted chaos fleet (and it does look ace) im never going to use it, the imperial fleet i had purely as a fleet to loan someone for a game against at home, i had no intention of playing it so never got round to painting it.

While you cant really do 'excellent' paint jobs on BFG stuff (its not the scale , its the clunkiness and amount of 'texture' on them) i was pretty pleased with my chaos fleet.

This is my battleship here.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/321856375661?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

The GW stuff i dont part with is 80s lead citadel like 'rogue trader' 3rd ed warhammer, judge dredd ranges. That is just shooting up in value and now costs more for some stuff than current range stuff as its just soo much nicer

I've tried to get people into gothic but it's impossible because they can't buy their own models easily, it's a shame because I have some fond memories of nights spent playing.

I'm still hoping 8th edition of 40k will turn things around, but if rumours are true and its going AoS style i'll sell all but my wolves too much love went into them, it's a sorry state of affairs.

I can tell you for a certainty that 40k will *not* be going the way of AoS, i was out with some design studio mates the other day and heard how 40k is going to go and while i can't tell you what is going to happen... i'm happy to tell you that is not it.

Warhammer needed a total revamp, sales were rock bottom (less than 15 per cent overall IIRC) and it just wasnt as popular. 40k began taking over from warhammer in terms of sales from the early 90s.

Its so profitable they don't want to change it drastically.

*personally* i think that GW have shot themselves in the foot with AoS as while you're *supposed* to be able to do WFB type huge fights with all your old figures the game seems to play best with 20 models a side.

If it were me i'd have kept WFB ticking over and made the range flagship stores, WW and Mail order/direct sales only and launched AoS as a 4th system in time between WFB and 40k or even made it totally like 'oblivion' and have the events take place on deamonic/ethereal planes of reality aside from the warhammer world but influencing the 'real world' the way the warp influences the imperium.

Oh and last thing i'll leak and if they have not made this clear yet i might get people into trouble.

Slaanesh isnt dead... S/he'll be back

Nice paint job on the battleship!

I was going to get into BFG for a while, but I was the only one who was interested, so I never picked up more than a single Necron cruiser.

Nice paint job on the battleship!

I was going to get into BFG for a while, but I was the only one who was interested, so I never picked up more than a single Necron cruiser.

My LGS got into BFG quite heavily about 6 years ago. It was a nice change from 40k and Fantasy, and I had around 1500pts of Space Marines kicking around. What killed the game for us was someone ran a campaign and would restrict ships he felt were over powered, while taking some of the nastiest things he could in a Tau fleet.

Oh, and Necrons. Necrons killed the game as well. Faster and more manoeuverable than Eldar, harder to kill than Space Marines, and wrecked absolutely everything.

Hate to break it to you but as you know GW killed Battle Fleet Gothic years ago (right around the same time they made finecast). They even killed Forge World ability to support specialist games.

While I hoped that this would open the door to BFG 2.0 face it GW is more interested in re-writing their cannon and destroying their franchises to be more appealing to mass consumers faster than you can say J. J. Abrams. Face it no one likes the grim darkness anymore, people want to whitewash their savage history in which the strong survive and justice was in the form of might makes right. People want to replace the scary horror where ones mind slips into madness and they themselves become the villain to that silly teen horror where people get slashed when naked and the worse thing that happens is someone dies.

So it is sad that I have to say I can add Warhammer to the list of franchises that got watered down by nostalgia violating marketing industries right next to Star Trek and even Star Wars (the sin of prequels have yet to be atoned for).

I guess the only thing left to do is the appreciate the wonder, shock, horror, triumph and awe those franchises once hold and cherish the experiences I had with them.

Can you provide examples where GW has changed their fluff from grim-dark to appeal to the masses (no, WHFB to AoS does not count)?

As for the specialist games, GW has taken an interesting turn with them. Let's be honest, they stopped supporting them because people weren't buying them. What they are doing now, though, is turning their specialist games into video games and using that medium to draw people into the warhammer fold. Gothic, Mordheim, Man o' War, Blood Bowl... all being made into games.

Yeah I'm hoping EA does something like Battlefleet Gohic Armada for Star Wars but will see.

Can you provide examples where GW has changed their fluff from grim-dark to appeal to the masses (no, WHFB to AoS does not count)?

As for the specialist games, GW has taken an interesting turn with them. Let's be honest, they stopped supporting them because people weren't buying them. What they are doing now, though, is turning their specialist games into video games and using that medium to draw people into the warhammer fold. Gothic, Mordheim, Man o' War, Blood Bowl... all being made into games.

Actually that's not why they stopped supporting them.

People were buying them but not follow on sales in the volume they did for the mass combat systems like 40k and WFB. The profit margins were much less on specialist games and to GW if it doesnt make a high enough percentage profit there is no point in making it even if its popular.

Basically GW existed as a means to write rules that sells figures, EVERYTHING they did from the 80s onwards was on the premise that people used to buy citadel miniatures for roleplaying games, they might buy four or five for themselves, the GM might buy 30 or more monsters on average.

Warhammer was written purely to give people a reason to buy hundreds, and then more.

Specialist games were *very* popular (bloodbowl and necromunda are still played every week in Warhammer World by people), the problem is even if you were MENTAL about blood bowl or necromunda you're really only ever going to buy 50 to 70 models (five gangs, six teams) and your overall spend is going to be a few hundred quid even if you played it twice a day.

I worked in Bradford GW shop briefly in the late 90s, necromunda was massive and played daily but while you sold hundreds of core sets, the 'follow on sales' were not that great.

The other problem was support resources.

When i was in UK HQ in the early 2000s, i started off with black library, we shared an office with specialist games/fanatic. They had like three guys making all the specialist games mags, layout was done via overtime or getting a guy in from mail order who knew how to use quark (that was andy hall who later went on to better things but at the time worked in direct sales) , Stevie Hambrook (RIP mate) would spend most his evening laying out pages and they relied on contributor fan material because they literally had no budget.

If you think about it, if i pay someone £15k a year to write me rules for spacemarines and 3 million people buy 300 space marine figures thats quite a bit of profit, or i could pay that guy 15k a year to have to write EIGHT rulebooks supporting eight specialist games of which I'd sell maybe one million (still profitable) but not AS profitable as im selling less and my production costs are eight fold.

Later Jervis was brought in an while i really dislike Jervis's style and think hes a below par games designer the standard of content went up and they hired a few better writers like Matt Keefe and put them in a new offfice, made a big deal about supporting specialist games but again gave it almost zero budget past wages.

Its why a lot of fanatic models are terrible (they were main studio rejects) or bad conversions (blood bowl amazons), sculpted by people trying out for studio sculpting jobs or freelanced out very cheaply to studio sculptors to do in their spare time.

Its why you have mental stuff like 'eldar farseer and fire dragon guards',and, 'imperial laser destroyer' in necromunda... they were simply rejected main range stuff that jervis coudl have for free.

Likewise all the terrible mordheim gangs like 'ostlanders' were rejected sculpts for things like marienburgers or test pieces.

when new sculptors try for a job they used to be told 'sculpt a space marine', or 'do a space pirate' or 'try these concept sketches for a mordheim band and make one'. Their sculpts would be cast to see if they had left bad overhangs etc etc and we ended up with boxs of test sculpts in the office.

Collectors go mad for these but most of them are not very good.

Anyway thats what happened to specialist games from the perspective of someone in that office at the time or with friends in the new one.

Its not that they were not selling its more that they sold and then you struggled to sell someone more.

P.s. For a long time the policy was to periodically redo licences to be seen to protect the IP but you'll notice that FFG now make dozens of what were once specialist games of GW's . Even though FFG has been bought out by Asmodee they should still continue to make stuff like talisman , dungeonquest etc.

I can't see GW ever stopping doing spacehulk as that makes a killing everytime it comes out

Can you provide examples where GW has changed their fluff from grim-dark to appeal to the masses (no, WHFB to AoS does not count)?

As for the specialist games, GW has taken an interesting turn with them. Let's be honest, they stopped supporting them because people weren't buying them. What they are doing now, though, is turning their specialist games into video games and using that medium to draw people into the warhammer fold. Gothic, Mordheim, Man o' War, Blood Bowl... all being made into games.

That's not true I was a regular store goer and in 2004 specialist games were always on the go we constantly had mordheim and inquisitor being played by at least half a dozen people, bfg was also popular.

It was the manager Tim that stopped us playing them not a lack of interest.

Specialist games got canned because GW thought they were taking sales away from their main games, this moronic thinking saw them throw away a virtual monopoly and open the market for competitor's, specialist games never lost money.

No decision has hurt them more it's given people choice and a way out of the GW hobby.

Its as much about core games being more effective at making money over the long term.

Also specialist games take up a lot of shelf space and most GW stores couldnt really jusitfy having a quarter of the shop dedicated to fanatic press stuff, its why it went mail order.

They were the sort of game where you wanted or needed 'specific stuff' like a brakkar the avenger heavy bolter and a escher heavy to put it on, once you'd bought the game you rarely went into the store to buy extras 'off the shelf' as the games were nearly all about personalised small forces.

Put it this way, GW still do this, at forgeworld they work out the profit margins for everything and how much they have sold of it, the worst performing 10 to 15 per cent of products get retired in order to make more room for new stuff.

In the stores rack space is everything, its why newer big kits had the option to make two different models in one box because they dont have the space to have more. Each range is allocated x number of codes, usually less than 20 and thats so many blister packs on racks, so many small boxs so many big boxs etc.

The idea being every store can stock the same product.

Can you provide examples where GW has changed their fluff from grim-dark to appeal to the masses (no, WHFB to AoS does not count)?

As for the specialist games, GW has taken an interesting turn with them. Let's be honest, they stopped supporting them because people weren't buying them. What they are doing now, though, is turning their specialist games into video games and using that medium to draw people into the warhammer fold. Gothic, Mordheim, Man o' War, Blood Bowl... all being made into games.

, specialist games never lost money.

Thats correct, however they made far LESS money than the same time and effort put on core games.

Its a self defeating policy by GW that appeals to share holders.

They make more of the stuff that has the highest profit margins and shelve the stuff that is profitable but makes less or is more time/space intensive.

This is great if your share price goes up from 90p a share to £9 a share but eventually you end up with a store that sells only space marines and chaos space marines (of sorry thats AoS isnt it? )

Then your share price plummets as people are buying into a game with no depth and therefore no longevity.

I can tell you for a certainty that 40k will *not* be going the way of AoS, i was out with some design studio mates the other day and heard how 40k is going to go and while i can't tell you what is going to happen... i'm happy to tell you that is not it.

Slaanesh isnt dead... S/he'll be back

I keep hearing rumours about GW doing a Horus Heresy game/plastic box... Anything you can tell us about that?

In hindsight they went overboard with the End times and AOS. They should have ended with a final battle that stops the incursion and leaves the world wrecked, but not destroyed. Archaon with (a stolen) Ghal Maraz VS Nagash. It would make for some nice book ends to warhammer.

Can't keep a good chaos god down

How did you hear about alessios indian/cat people codex?

I didnt know that had got out of the studio, it was a proposal i remember at the time for a new race.

The big joke for years was 'codex blob men', they even had some terrible models put in the studio cabinet ( i think i have one somewhere, i sold a lot of them on ebay), the studio staff would say it was a new codex coming out to see how far the rumours got and where they were coming from.

I could tell you more about future 40k / 30k but then i'd have to kill you

Nah, in all seriousness im still very good friends with guys who work in the design studio and leaking stuff gets them in the s*** as its obvious who they game regularly with.

I just would not worry too much about the future of 40k, nothing drastic is going to happen.

all i will say is Tony Cottrell , the man behind forgeworld is really moving on up in GW Group* and he seems to know what people want...

*Gw is actually several small companies that internally 'sell' stuff to each other and invoice each other for services.

Group is like strategy, legal, the board etc, then you have UK Studio who make white dwarf, do the website, run events and community, then you have 'design studio' which is self explanatory and the offshoot 'production studio' who do photography and books layout... then you've got 'manufacturing', 'plastics', direct sales etc etc

Its not a simple and homogeneous as people think , its lots of little empires

But basically if i said most the stuff i know is happening then i wouldnt be told anymore which would make my gaming evenings with my mates suck so i'm going to be selfish and keep quiet

Can you provide examples where GW has changed their fluff from grim-dark to appeal to the masses (no, WHFB to AoS does not count)?

As for the specialist games, GW has taken an interesting turn with them. Let's be honest, they stopped supporting them because people weren't buying them. What they are doing now, though, is turning their specialist games into video games and using that medium to draw people into the warhammer fold. Gothic, Mordheim, Man o' War, Blood Bowl... all being made into games.

, specialist games never lost money.

Thats correct, however they made far LESS money than the same time and effort put on core games.

Its a self defeating policy by GW that appeals to share holders.

They make more of the stuff that has the highest profit margins and shelve the stuff that is profitable but makes less or is more time/space intensive.

This is great if your share price goes up from 90p a share to £9 a share but eventually you end up with a store that sells only space marines and chaos space marines (of sorry thats AoS isnt it? )

Then your share price plummets as people are buying into a game with no depth and therefore no longevity.

Oh no doubt the main games make more money but how much is an monopoly worth?

Want to play a fantasy game lets go to GW

Want a Sci-fi gun fest go to GW

Want sweeping games involving dozens of tanks and hundreds of infantry lets go GW

Want to have space ships dueling...etc. etc.

They had gaming tables and offered a large range different games to play if you got burnt out on one you took a break but you were still playing a GW game, you were still in their store still impulse buying their licensed products.

Now for fantasy your going to Mantic

For starship games your going to FFG

Big sweeping battles you have dropzone commander or battletech alpha strike.

Scifi/steampunk games PP.

How much of that money that was going to GW now goes to other companies, judging by the declining financial situation at GW it's millions and millions.

They seriously hurt their relationship with their customers and that's never recovered hence why it's so easy to always believe the worst.

I seem to recall considering getting the licence for a gw product for a re-release myself once and basically a mate in licencing said the licences start at about a million.

They probably dont do too badly out of doing stuff 'out of house'

You know i've said on here for years that I wouldnt bother with Armada because i've got two big BFG fleets if i wanted a 'capitol ships' type game.

Well got them out yesterday and realised that compared to xwing they are crude and clunky looking, the set up time is immense and i've actually not played the game in about a decade.

My xbox360 died recently so i thought 'sod it', i'll ebay the lot to buy a PS4 but there is a possibility I might buy Armada instead

Wierdly i'd not realised how much the stuff goes for on ebay. I've had bids on some stuff almost as soon as it was listed

Actually im pretty certain im going to use the cash for a ps4 as im having 'fallout' withdrawal already!

Your better off getting the Xbox One. Yeah I can see why now people think captures ships in this game is crazy. I remember buying cruisers for 15 American dollars, now a two cruiser set is like 50 - 100 American dollars.

Hate to break it to you but as you know GW killed Battle Fleet Gothic years ago (right around the same time they made finecast). They even killed Forge World ability to support specialist games.

While I hoped that this would open the door to BFG 2.0 face it GW is more interested in re-writing their cannon and destroying their franchises to be more appealing to mass consumers faster than you can say J. J. Abrams. Face it no one likes the grim darkness anymore, people want to whitewash their savage history in which the strong survive and justice was in the form of might makes right. People want to replace the scary horror where ones mind slips into madness and they themselves become the villain to that silly teen horror where people get slashed when naked and the worse thing that happens is someone dies.

So it is sad that I have to say I can add Warhammer to the list of franchises that got watered down by nostalgia violating marketing industries right next to Star Trek and even Star Wars (the sin of prequels have yet to be atoned for).

I guess the only thing left to do is the appreciate the wonder, shock, horror, triumph and awe those franchises once hold and cherish the experiences I had with them.

Well if your still a fan of Gothic you'll be happy to know a Gothic video game is coming out soon.

I keep hearing rumours about GW doing a Horus Heresy game/plastic box... Anything you can tell us about that?

I don't know about GW but i see a brand new Horus Hersey board game when I go into the store. I want to say its like a brand new MB version of the old Horus Heresy.

different horus heresy

There is the board game from the 90s 'horus heresy', remade as a big box set then there is the 'world setting/timeframe' horus heresy that is currently what forgeworld write codexs and rules and make models for... FW stuff is very very successful

Not surprising GW *may* want the main factory getting in on those profit margins.

As for consoles... nah wouldnt touch the xbox one if it was half price.

I dont like the 'constant room scanning' thing, im not mad on microsofts accounts policies and i feel that the PS4 has more longevity as its got better graphics processing from everything i've read.

Most decisively all my mates have PS4s so i'd rather adopt a platform i can play with my pals on than be the only guy out of the ten of us who cant swap games or join them online...

Its a no brainer really

The good news is that in the UK a new PS4 is about £270 ish and my ebay sales are up to £160 after 48 hours or so...

So certainly a new PS4 on the weekend

I too got into BFG because I like the 40K universe and the variety of armies.

Then I got into X-Wing and started to think about converting BFG to these rules. This was before Armada was an option. I have not done much on this but have had fun making stat cards:

It was fun while it lasted...

Pictures of the heresy plastics have leaked so it's coming, it'll contain five terminators 20 marines a contemptor dreadnought and two characters which if released for the £75 that's rumoured is a good deal compared to the resin prices.

However the same rumours have said it's going to preview the AoS style rules, now I'm not saying gadge is wrong but the people who leaked this are very reliable they told us details about the end times months before release, they were spot on about AoS and round bases.

Design guys may have no intention of making big changes but they don't have final say Kirby and the board do and those idiots thought going all in on AoS was a sound business plan.

different horus heresy

There is the board game from the 90s 'horus heresy', remade as a big box set then there is the 'world setting/timeframe' horus heresy that is currently what forgeworld write codexs and rules and make models for... FW stuff is very very successful

Not surprising GW *may* want the main factory getting in on those profit margins.

As for consoles... nah wouldnt touch the xbox one if it was half price.

I dont like the 'constant room scanning' thing, im not mad on microsofts accounts policies and i feel that the PS4 has more longevity as its got better graphics processing from everything i've read.

Most decisively all my mates have PS4s so i'd rather adopt a platform i can play with my pals on than be the only guy out of the ten of us who cant swap games or join them online...

Its a no brainer really

The good news is that in the UK a new PS4 is about £270 ish and my ebay sales are up to £160 after 48 hours or so...

So certainly a new PS4 on the weekend

The Heresy game I am looking at has current art and minis it looks like, but its not kept with the Warhammer stuff made by GW.

As for the Xbox you can always just not get one with Kinect or turn it off. I will still point out, if something bad happens to your Xbox, like some steals it, and you get a new one, Microsoft will put all your saved game progress right back on the system as long as you played online. The best you can hope for with a Playstation in the same event is if you were saving everything to memory cards. Unless you keep them on you at all times theirs a good chance they would be stolen with the Playstation. If all your friends on the PS I guess you will be getting a PS anyway.

Yeah the main selling point is all my close friends have PS4s

Honestly, xboxone, not going to happen, especially if i had to buy one with bits missing not to have my room scanned

And if i get burgled, i have stuff far more important to me than video games....

xboxone, not going to happen. No interest in it.

BTW i get the impression *this* is the horus heresy box set you're referring to?

https://wargamecenter.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/unboxing.jpg