Not super surprising. FFG directly competing with Warhammer Age of Sigmar with their Runewars miniatures game was kind of a signal, along with GW increasing the number of tie-in boardgames they have been putting out. I didn't realize Fury of Dracula was a GW IP, sad to see that go. I feel bad for the Conquest players out there too

I was talking with a local shop owner last weekend. He was telling me that the LCG card gaming thing is drying up too...at least in his area. I think you may see some more drops, maybe no wholesale IP, but definitely pieces of it.

GW on the other hand. Man they make their own world and live in it.

LCGs tend to be fairly regional. And none of them are near the size of Magic.

What has if a miniature is painted or not to do with the quality of the sculpt?

GW miniatures are good but they are not the only ones these days that make really nice miniatures

.

Fantasy, much loved as it was, was not making money. End of. GW is a business; if something isn't making money, kill it.

The vast majority of bitching about GW comes from Codex hoppers; "Tau are great now, buy an army". "****, Eldar are better, sell Tau and buy Eldar" etc.

Fantasy, as it was (from a business sense) had to die.

Here is the problem with your logic. This applies not only to fantasy gw, it applies to Games Workshop as a whole. It seems like there are some distinct problematic issues in their business model overall, at least from the bits and bits you get from the GW player base.

As I did dislike their model nearly 30 years ago already, I might be wrong on their current business model … if there were changes at all from the 90's to now. ;-)

Sorry, I've got to disagree with you.

Fantasy was the game that built GW. At the time it was an exciting world of Elves and Dwarves etc. The movies of the late '80's were full of fantasy ****. That changed, but a loyal fanbase remained.

Right up until the AoS makeover, GW tried to bring new players into Fantasy.

They brought out some fantastic models but people had lost interest in the game. Period.

The business model was ****, no arguments there; but I saw something on the TV last night which I've never seen, an advert for GW (albeit books).

So maybe, we'll get our games back.

Cheers

Baaa

Just saying: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

And what I mean with bad business model is not a consumer friendly one, but one that expands your business. Asmodee had 40% growth in revenue 2016 alone so far, their games are build around the very idea that beginners have a good experience. Which is kind of one of their major improvements in imperial assault over decent too.

That is the part of business model which I mean, a model which actively combats stagnation, because stagnation is the equivalent of death.

If you still disagree that is fine, I just had to argue to clear this up in case that there was a misunderstanding.

Yep,

In hindsight that was a bad move.

But seriously? What miniatures manufacturer of the time wouldn't have wanted to jump on the LotR Movies Bandwagon. Ironically, the rules for the game were really good.

Asmodee and GW have (until now) very different business models. Until Asmodee bought FFG their expertise was mainly in the European board games genre. By buying FFG they've entered the miniatures world with a bang.

The problem is, and always will be, that GW control their IP.

FFG/Asmodee for the most part, don't and rely (at the moment) entirely on licenses.

Yep, I'll agree with you that GW lost direction with the last prick who was in charge, but they're changing, and I wouldn't count them out yet.

Cheers

Baaa

Just saying: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

For those of us interested but not "in the know", could you elaborate a bit?

That was a bad time....

A dark time? Emperor took over, killed all the Jedi bad?

It's almost as bad as the prequels.

Cheers

Baaa

What has if a miniature is painted or not to do with the quality of the sculpt?

GW miniatures are good but they are not the only ones these days that make really nice miniatures

.

I would say its a huge part of the reason for X-wings success.

On GW game night, a new customer walks in, and has no clue WTF is going on in the sea of primer...

But come in on FFG night for X-wing?

Honestly, which is going to be more appealing to a new gamer?

I love GW sculpts, but very rarely do they look good on the table from my experience, and thats where they need to look good.

Fantasy, much loved as it was, was not making money. End of. GW is a business; if something isn't making money, kill it.

The vast majority of bitching about GW comes from Codex hoppers; "Tau are great now, buy an army". "****, Eldar are better, sell Tau and buy Eldar" etc.

Fantasy, as it was (from a business sense) had to die.

Here is the problem with your logic. This applies not only to fantasy gw, it applies to Games Workshop as a whole. It seems like there are some distinct problematic issues in their business model overall, at least from the bits and bits you get from the GW player base.

As I did dislike their model nearly 30 years ago already, I might be wrong on their current business model … if there were changes at all from the 90's to now. ;-)

Sorry, I've got to disagree with you.

Fantasy was the game that built GW. At the time it was an exciting world of Elves and Dwarves etc. The movies of the late '80's were full of fantasy ****. That changed, but a loyal fanbase remained.

Right up until the AoS makeover, GW tried to bring new players into Fantasy.

They brought out some fantastic models but people had lost interest in the game. Period.

The business model was ****, no arguments there; but I saw something on the TV last night which I've never seen, an advert for GW (albeit books).

So maybe, we'll get our games back.

Cheers

Baaa

I find the recent Black Knights are one of the best made fantasy models on this planet. The skeleton warriors and Crypt Guards are just superb. All models that where introduced in that perod of time were outstanding. I disliked the old Skeleton models where the skulls have facial expressions. I was so hoping for years and years for a new Orderly Knights box in that quality .... we will never see it ... Now I am sad.

Oh well ... all models that are filled with skulls are crap. I'm sorry for my foul language. It just needed to be said.

I always loved a lot of the Fantasy models, Wood Elves in particular (for no fathomable reason) but never actully liked the game.

And as much as I love X-Wing, anyone that tries to compare the quality of miniature with what GW produces is smoking some really bad stuff.

Cheers

Baaa

Because its so awesome to see dozens of primer sprayed armies on the tables on GW night at the FLGS right?

My army, and those of the people I play are fully painted.

Cheers

Baaa

Fantasy, much loved as it was, was not making money. End of. GW is a business; if something isn't making money, kill it.

The vast majority of bitching about GW comes from Codex hoppers; "Tau are great now, buy an army". "****, Eldar are better, sell Tau and buy Eldar" etc.

Fantasy, as it was (from a business sense) had to die.

Here is the problem with your logic. This applies not only to fantasy gw, it applies to Games Workshop as a whole. It seems like there are some distinct problematic issues in their business model overall, at least from the bits and bits you get from the GW player base.

As I did dislike their model nearly 30 years ago already, I might be wrong on their current business model … if there were changes at all from the 90's to now. ;-)

Sorry, I've got to disagree with you.

Fantasy was the game that built GW. At the time it was an exciting world of Elves and Dwarves etc. The movies of the late '80's were full of fantasy ****. That changed, but a loyal fanbase remained.

Right up until the AoS makeover, GW tried to bring new players into Fantasy.

They brought out some fantastic models but people had lost interest in the game. Period.

The business model was ****, no arguments there; but I saw something on the TV last night which I've never seen, an advert for GW (albeit books).

So maybe, we'll get our games back.

Cheers

Baaa

Just saying: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

And what I mean with bad business model is not a consumer friendly one, but one that expands your business. Asmodee had 40% growth in revenue 2016 alone so far, their games are build around the very idea that beginners have a good experience. Which is kind of one of their major improvements in imperial assault over decent too.

That is the part of business model which I mean, a model which actively combats stagnation, because stagnation is the equivalent of death.

If you still disagree that is fine, I just had to argue to clear this up in case that there was a misunderstanding.

I have to disagree. New players have to be drilled and robbed and drilled and robbed and drilled and robbed again! New players need to prove themselves. They need to prove their readyness for the one ond only hobby. New players need to sacrifice a big portion of both their money and their life to be ready for GW!

I walked away... JUST WALK AWAY.

And what I mean with bad business model is not a consumer friendly one, but one that expands your business. Asmodee had 40% growth in revenue 2016 alone so far, their games are build around the very idea that beginners have a good experience. Which is kind of one of their major improvements in imperial assault over decent too.

That is the part of business model which I mean, a model which actively combats stagnation, because stagnation is the equivalent of death.

Asmodee's product line is a handful of years old, and yet we can already see them combatting stagnation as they throw everything and the kitchen sink into X-Wing to keep churning new sales. Give it a few more years, and they'll struggle with the second hand market just like GW does. Close to half my collection is from EBay lots as it is.

This is the part people aren't understanding. X-Wing is a relatively new game, early in its product life cycle. Games Workshop couldn't duplicate Asmodee's business strategy if they wanted to. But Asmodee's strategy isn't any more consumer friendly than GW's, lol. It's just deceptively structured. Look at what the "Actual Cost" is of a tournament winning list is vs the "Model Cost" of a tournament winning list. The way FFG packages upgrades tied to specific ships and has forced rarity on desirable cards. Twin Laser Turret? Better buy K-Wings! Glitterstim? Crack Shot? TIE Mk II? There's a reason why E-Bay is stacked full of "No Upgrades" Imperial Raiders, Khirax Fighters, Punishers, K-Wings and Star Vipers on the cheap.

We dump of Games Workshop, but the cost to competitively play X-Wing is not much less than small 40K armies, and you're using a fraction of the models you're buying. It's good for casual players who just want to buy a few ships and fly around with their friends, and it has a low cost of entry, but, then again, with GW introducing Kill Team as an officially supported product again...

What has if a miniature is painted or not to do with the quality of the sculpt?

GW miniatures are good but they are not the only ones these days that make really nice miniatures

.

I would say its a huge part of the reason for X-wings success.

On GW game night, a new customer walks in, and has no clue WTF is going on in the sea of primer...

But come in on FFG night for X-wing?

Honestly, which is going to be more appealing to a new gamer?

I love GW sculpts, but very rarely do they look good on the table from my experience, and thats where they need to look good.

Possible but I think most gamers choose the game which has fluff, miniatures, rule, support they want and local players are also important, so if I want a ground based fantasy game I couldn't care less about X-Wing and we were talking about sculpt quality of the miniatures not how likely the game gets new players and as said paint is irrelevant if you are comparing the quality of the sculpts.

GW is hemorrhaging market share, is extremely over-invested in physical stores that show consistent losses across the board as well as declining year-on-year sales, and all of this in a time of dramatic market growth. Having missed the last 5 year major growth cycle, the opportunity for GW to recapture lost interest has passed.

Over the next 10 years the market will continue to evolve away from brick-and-mortar sales and towards internet sales, and GW is completely unprepared to make the transition. More, they are completely invested in attempting to fight it. The internet isn't a fad, folks, and it isn't going away. GW is fighting the tide here.

Finally, they are first and foremost a model company at the beginning of the technological end to the model industry. They are like Kodak at the beginning of the digital camera boom. Failing to use existing money to transition spells doom as the industry moves on, and GW has squandered their money and their market. 3D printing both at home and as a service will crush small-run manufacturing like model companies. Or rather, it will replace them.

I cannot see how GW survives barring some miracle. I'm looking forward to their demise as a company, so that their properties (and people) can go on and become a part of healthy organizations. Hopefully it happens soon while there is still time to salvage what remains of their customer base, and so that their employees can transition to new companies rather than crash and burn. I love 40k, and Warhammer Fantasy (and Blood Bowl, and Necromunda). Few things would make me happier than seeing them recover under competent management with a company prepared to take advantage of them.

I have to disagree. New players have to be drilled and robbed and drilled and robbed and drilled and robbed again! New players need to prove themselves. They need to prove their readyness for the one ond only hobby. New players need to sacrifice a big portion of both their money and their life to be ready for GW!

Sorry,

Again this is another misconception. I have NEVER walked into any GW store and had someone try to sell me an 1850pt army straight off the shelf, ever. I have never had anyone try and induct me into a cult.

40k has had for a long time, and it's just been given a reboot, a skirmish game. Killteam which acts as an intro into the game.

Another misconception is that you HAVE to buy the newest rulebook or codex.

That is YOUR choice.

The only person that ever stopped you playing 3rd Edition, was you.

Cheers

Baaa

I do not think GW will die soon and if you are talking about 3D printers well I think it will take some time before we get printers tin the consumer market that can print quality miniatures in a reasonable time because as far as I know the quality today isn't good enough and I takes ages to print.

Just saying: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

For those of us interested but not "in the know", could you elaborate a bit?

" Fantasy was the game that built GW. At the time it was an exciting world of Elves and Dwarves etc. The movies of the late '80's were full of fantasy ****. That changed, but a loyal fanbase remained."

It's not only the 80's which were full of fantay stuff, I would not even bet tha the late 80's had seen more than we have seen thanks to the LotRs hype. And btw, 2001 is the release year of the first movie, called The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring ;-)

So I remember when the GW LotR miniatures were released about the time of the first movie, and I wanted them, but didn't know how to paint, wasn't sure who I'd play the game with, and thought they were too expensive at the time -- so I never took the plunge.

How did that break the GW business model?

GW broke the revenue stream when they stopped expanding. I did not even remembered that short lived LotR GW game, even when it is ironically a good point too. GW failed to expand and is slowly dying since at least 15 years. I was myself referring to the whole fantasy hype caused by LoTRs and WoW (a warhammer fantasy clone!!!) while GW led their own fantasy series die and was unable to create any significant new customer base for the product.

Yep, I'll agree with you that GW lost direction with the last prick who was in charge, but they're changing, and I wouldn't count them out yet.

They will have a glorious future under the Asmodee house, though FFG might become the new brand name for warhammer products, while they keep citadel around for the models. ;-)

My army, and those of the people I play are fully painted.

You stopped buying new ones, you had plenty of time to paint your old ones, you do not count.

Just saying: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

For those of us interested but not "in the know", could you elaborate a bit?

" Fantasy was the game that built GW. At the time it was an exciting world of Elves and Dwarves etc. The movies of the late '80's were full of fantasy ****. That changed, but a loyal fanbase remained."

It's not only the 80's which were full of fantay stuff, I would not even bet tha the late 80's had seen more than we have seen thanks to the LotRs hype. And btw, 2001 is the release year of the first movie, called The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring ;-)

Some of us are old enough to remember watching The Beatles' foray into the LotR on TV young one!!

So don't lecture me

And much as I love The Beatles, those Scouse accents didn't quite pull it off.

Cheers

Baaa

Yep, I'll agree with you that GW lost direction with the last prick who was in charge, but they're changing, and I wouldn't count them out yet.

They will have a glorious future under the Asmodee house, though FFG might become the new brand name for warhammer products, while they keep citadel around for the models. ;-)

Can I have a can of what you're drinking please?

Cheers

Baaa

Would be nice if FFG got the license to sell their Star Wars games in Asia again...

So I remember when the GW LotR miniatures were released about the time of the first movie, and I wanted them, but didn't know how to paint, wasn't sure who I'd play the game with, and thought they were too expensive at the time -- so I never took the plunge.

How did that break the GW business model?

It was a bad license deal.

GW had to stock, advertise, demo and put shelf space aside. It was (is) a good game with a good ruleset, but it didn't get the bite that GW hoped. It was a gamble that didn't pay off.

Cheers

Baaa

Opens a can of Sarcasm. Here suit yourself Baa.

Opens a can of Sarcasm. Here suit yourself Baa.

You mispelt my nom de plume

Cheers

Baaa

This was the wrong move... for GW. I've been thinking for a LONG while that the only good things about Warhammer Universe games were what FFG had done with them. GW are Bug-Awful game designers. I have never played a Game of Warhammer Fantasy that didn't make me want to throw my lovingly-painted models against a wall. On a couple of occasions I actually threw them. With FFG games on the other hand, I am usually having the time of my life even if I'm getting my rump handed back to me on a platter. I had hoped that maybe GW would actually give up on designing games, sell the ENTIRE license for the WH universes (Even the core games) to FFG and just focus on making models - which was always their strong point.

Oh well. Screw GW. Haven't bought a thing from them in 6 years and have no intention of ever giving them a penny again. I'm sure this will free up FFG to pursue alternative plans with much more freedom.

GW didn't support Fantasy because people weren't buying as much because GW didn't support Fantasy...

Of course the real reason appears that GW simply did not have full guaranteed control of the Warhammer trademarks.

My understanding was always that people weren't buying Fantasy because the buy-in was absurd, even more so than for 40k. WHFB didn't scale well to lower point games, and the number of models required for the typical point range, especially if you wanted to play something 'swarmy' like Orcs or Skaven, was nuts. 40k has a bit of this problem but it was much worse for Fantasy Battle. What Baaa pointed out about longtime players no longer buying anything new because their armies were done just compounded that. As much as people seem to hate AoS, there are people who enjoy it out there, and by all accounts it's a far easier game to buy into because you don't need multiple 20+ man infantry blobs to make an army. It's the difference between if you had to have a 300 point Epic list to start playing X-wing versus just a core set.

The naming and trademarks stuff is likely largely down to their ill-advised legal adventure in trying to shutdown that 'Space Marine' book a few years ago when they were denied being able to copyright 'Space Marine.' It's not likely a driving force behind the decision to redo fantasy as a game, but instead is likely why there was the fluff reboot. Needing to change the game anyway gave them a chance to reset the lore with copyright-able names.

As for why the license is going away, I feel it's probably far more likely GW pulling things back in-house than any other reason. I doubt RuneWars was the impetus, but rather something FFG started after it became apparent they were going to lose the license. They stopped announcing new GW license stuff a while ago, which means they stopped working on new product even longer ago; anything that's been coming out for the last year was probably far enough along the development pipeline that they knew they could get it out before the license expired. It's unfortunate, I was hoping for at least an expansion or two for Forbidden Stars.

This was the wrong move... for GW. I've been thinking for a LONG while that the only good things about Warhammer Universe games were what FFG had done with them. GW are Bug-Awful game designers. I have never played a Game of Warhammer Fantasy that didn't make me want to throw my lovingly-painted models against a wall. On a couple of occasions I actually threw them. With FFG games on the other hand, I am usually having the time of my life even if I'm getting my rump handed back to me on a platter. I had hoped that maybe GW would actually give up on designing games, sell the ENTIRE license for the WH universes (Even the core games) to FFG and just focus on making models - which was always their strong point.

Oh well. Screw GW. Haven't bought a thing from them in 6 years and have no intention of ever giving them a penny again. I'm sure this will free up FFG to pursue alternative plans with much more freedom.

Scew GW. Amen.

GW is hemorrhaging market share, is extremely over-invested in physical stores that show consistent losses across the board as well as declining year-on-year sales, and all of this in a time of dramatic market growth. Having missed the last 5 year major growth cycle, the opportunity for GW to recapture lost interest has passed.

Over the next 10 years the market will continue to evolve away from brick-and-mortar sales and towards internet sales, and GW is completely unprepared to make the transition. More, they are completely invested in attempting to fight it. The internet isn't a fad, folks, and it isn't going away. GW is fighting the tide here.

Finally, they are first and foremost a model company at the beginning of the technological end to the model industry. They are like Kodak at the beginning of the digital camera boom. Failing to use existing money to transition spells doom as the industry moves on, and GW has squandered their money and their market. 3D printing both at home and as a service will crush small-run manufacturing like model companies. Or rather, it will replace them.

I cannot see how GW survives barring some miracle. I'm looking forward to their demise as a company, so that their properties (and people) can go on and become a part of healthy organizations. Hopefully it happens soon while there is still time to salvage what remains of their customer base, and so that their employees can transition to new companies rather than crash and burn. I love 40k, and Warhammer Fantasy (and Blood Bowl, and Necromunda). Few things would make me happier than seeing them recover under competent management with a company prepared to take advantage of them.

The big problem with your argument is that Asmodee have announced, and are enforcing, a GW based profit margin business model which is entirely based on whether or not you are a 'bricks and mortar' or 'internet' seller.

Yep, the interwebs is the way to buy things cheaply at the moment, but if Asmodee keeps going, that ain't going to be the case and real shops ain't going anywhere soon.

Cheers

Baaa