Thats the new name I'm giving for whenever GW's lawyers get sicced on whatever target has been deemed to somehow infringe upon, impinge upon, or otherwise irritate the head honchos in Lenton.
Today's entry is a prospective one. That is, no lawsuit has been filed that I am yet aware of. But it seems a good possibility. Check out 5m 21secs of this video:
UPDATE: the video has disappeared! Did Lawhammer strike it down?
Showing posts with label games workshop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label games workshop. Show all posts
Monday, June 9, 2014
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Gamesday 2013 - Less is Less
The last year has seen its share of controversy for Games Workshop. But while disagreements with fans and the hobby community at large are nothing new to the Nottingham studio, this year's Gamesday illustrated how much aggressive management decisions have damaged the company and perhaps it's relationship with even the most die-hard fans.
I hadn't realised this year's UK Gamesday was going to be a smaller event than recent shows have been until I spoke to a Forge World customer service rep a couple of weeks ago. I hadn't even noticed it had been moved back to the National Indoor Arena until I rang to pre-order some models. But the sales rep told me they were only selling half as many tickets as they did for sites at the National Exhibition Centre.
Thinking back on the madness of the last couple of years at the NEC, I thought at first the issue was perhaps one of crowd control. It's just really, really hard to safely move 8000 people around an enclosed space. Even with the great improvements to the retail area they introduced in 2012, Gamesday last year was still a draining experience. In some ways, there was too much to see and do, and it was all spread out over a really big area. Walking from a seminar to a signing to a display game and then back to the store and so on, all through a hot crowd of fellow fans, well, once a year is enough for that much effort over toy soldiers. So perhaps this year was going to be a more intimate affair, I thought as I queued up, early last Sunday morning. More time to examine the models, talk to the designers, and enjoy the displays and participation games.
But, after visiting every part of the arena, every table and stand and seminar or signing area, and then, barely more than an hour later, sat in the stands and watched hundreds of bored looking punters trudge past on the floor below, I realised thats not why they did it at all.
GW's corporate strategy has, for several years now, been all about doing the same or more with less. GW is all about 'efficiency' these days. Not 'the hobby', not the fans, not anything else but making a higher profit margin. Even if that means less customers overall, and certainly if that means less staff.
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| The Charybis assault pod, new from Forgeworld |
Hence there were no demo games at this years Gamesday. No store-built display tables or have-a-go scenery areas. No speed-painting or scrap demons. The studio staff were there and there was an area where you could paint a free mini using the digital paint by numbers system GW flogs these days. But you can meet the designers and the writers at several other events throughout the year and all GW stores will give you a free mini and guide you on how to paint it when you are starting the hobby.
No, this was a bare basics event, one where the licensees literally had as much floor space and quite possibly more actual interaction with customers than GW itself.
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| Celebrate! |
What GW did have was shopping. Alan Merrett recently testified in front of a US Court that GW's customers' favourite activity at Gamesday was 'buying things from Games Workshop'. Perhaps this was why fully two thirds of the main show floor was dedicated to sales. In the picture above, the sales area is to the left. This line of red shirts clustered in a line to the right of the shot is the line of sales tills that stretched across the hall. The little collection of tables and stands beyond it is the display and studio area.
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| Here are some happy people, happily doing their favourite hobby activity. |
As a metaphor for how GW feels about its business, its customers, and the hobby in general, you can't get much better than this. Sales, sales, sales. The company could just about scrape together enough staff for a massive retail operation. But beyond that - not so much. Gamesday used to be a chaotic but fun celebration of the hobby, the biggest company in the market, its fantastic IP's, and the people that make and play it. Just like the stores. This year though, its a stripped down experience. No fun, no joy, just money.
Forge World at least had a strong show. Funny how the 'niche' studio seems so much stronger than the parent organisation. Lots of new models, great displays, entertaining seminars. This part of the business truly does do more with less.
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| This Forgeworld table is designed to represent the layout of Gamesday. Dark, cramped, crowded... |
I was disappointed by Gamesday 2013. But I have been disappointed by GW for a while now so I'm used to it. I feel worse for friends from my local club though who went this year to their first ever Gamesday and came home bruised and annoyed. They had heard the stories of Gamesdays past and were expecting to be blown away. Instead many of them came away discouraged and frankly angry at a waste of time and money. And these are people who still love GW.
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| At least Forgeworld put a little effort into it. |
There was in fact very little to differentiate this affair to the studio open days and Black Library events that are run at Warhammer World. It really comes down to Golden Demon, the longtime premier painting competition everyone wants to win.
Its a prestigious award and some truly amazing art is produced there each year. The display cabinets still had their own area, its just it was in the basement, four flights of stairs from the main hall, cramped, and badly lit. The Armies on Parade competition being squeezed into the same space didn't help, but if I were a top flight painter, busting my ass over a year to get something put together flawlessly and beautifully, only to find it displayed in a narrow badminton court hidden away at the bottom of a lift shaft.... I might start thinking the sheen of the thing was wearing a little thin.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Games Workshop and The Peter Principle
Have you heard of the 'Peter Principle'? It is the idea that eventually everyone gets promoted to a level of incompetence. That is, you get a job you are qualified for and capable of executing. Eventually your hard work is recognised and you get promoted. Maybe you are good at that next level of responsibility and action so you get promoted again. But, after a few steps like this, you get promoted to a point where you actually aren't capable of doing the job.
Its not a bad theory. The same principle can, in fact, be applied to a lot of areas (pro-Poker players are also liable to play their way up onto tables they can't compete with) including the development of business.
Another way of looking at this idea is that businesses will find what seems a successful strategy and then milk it and stretch it to the point of breaking. It is my belief Games Workshop is doing just that.
Games Workshop, being a Publicly Limited Company, makes its financial results freely available. At the uppermost level, the company appears to be doing well. Profits are good. Shares paid a healthy dividend recently. More lines are continually being added to the product portfolio and new shops and retail accounts appear to be being opened and added every month.
All good, right?
Well, not really.
The problem with the profits being generated by Games Workshop, and in particular recent increases in same, is that they come not from increased sales per se but from increased efficiencies. That is, GW is not selling more boxes of models, they're just spending less on doing it.
These efficiencies come in several flavours, from supply chain reorganisations to mass lay-offs and the opening of one-man stores with limited opening hours. Several stores have just announced reduced opening hours - including my own local GW.
While the financials make sweet reading to share holders looking for dividends, they are not good news for the business in the long run as they ignore one of the primary factors in GW's survival and prosperity over the last twenty years - its retail network.
By this I mean the shops and the people that work in them. Its all very well having the largest network of retail floorspace in the industry, but it does you no good if its staffed by mouth-breathers who neither know nor care about the product they peddle. Just ask any High Street fashion or technology outlet.
Research by the YMCA network of gyms in America found that people became and stayed members more for the social side of the gym than the actual fitness side. That is, they YMCA figured out it didn't need to spend as much money on fancy new gym equipment as it did on getting staff to be welcoming to members, know their names and goals, that sort of thing. Similarly, people go into stores like GW as much to play with other people as they do to shop.
When you walk in to a GW, as well as enticing boxes full of fantastical toys and games, you see other players. The background and the models are great - probably best in the industry and all that - but what keeps people playing and buying beyond the first impulse purchase is the social side of gaming. People like doing stuff with other people, its as simple as that. GW stores have facilitated that.
Or at least they used to.
My local GW used to have pretty much unlimited gaming, painting, and modeling for anyone. You could turn up any day of the week and, if there was a space, sit and paint, or play a game with a friend. You generally wouldn't do this on a weekend day, just because those were the days all the school kids would mob the store so best to stay away. But apart from that, it was a great place to hang out, play, paint, build, chat, etc.
Then we got a new manager and this was changed. Now there would only be spaces for gaming and painting on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Sure, it was from opening till 8pm, but that wasn't the big message that most of the loyal customers took home. What these new gaming hours said was 'if you aren't buying something, you aren't welcome in the shop five days a week'. Sounds dramatic, I know, but thats what we heard. This was particularly galling after a lot of the regulars had literally worked through nights to help the Store Manager get a display board ready for Games Day. One regular's flat became a sort of doss-house for the volunteers trudging back and forth to the store each day to build more and paint more. For the store.
Playing hours just recently changed again (less than a year after the first reduction). Now the Tuesday gaming has been shortened to end at 5pm. So, if you have a job or family commitments during the day, you're out of luck on a Tuesday. Oh, and by the way, during school holidays, over 16's gaming only starts at 5pm anyway.
And today it was announced the shop wouldn't even open on Tuesdays.
So, to revise, we have gone from a store with a loyal clientele who all visited several times a week, bought, played, and painted there, and were willing to work nights for free to help the staff with their projects to one where we are only welcome one day of the five in a week unless we have our wallets open.
I am not unaware of the rationale behind 'efficiencies' like these. There's a recession on, blah blah blah. No doubt sales on these two days are particularly weak. To save on wages and overheads the decision has been made. But really it is just one more negative response to the problems of business.
Once again the profit margin is being protected not by aggressively driving volume sales, innovating new product lines, or recruiting new customers, but by cutting off what the upper management see as dead flesh.
It may be the higher ups see this as part of a viable long-term strategy to eliminate their retail footprint entirely - they sell the same product at exactly the same price on the web. Perhaps they figure they can continue to make money that way. The official blurb from GW is that they are a manufacturer, not a retailer, so its entirely plausible the Board of Directors sees the retail network as a liability, not an asset. The problem with that though is there are a growing number of alternative retail outlets that do provide gaming, do value customer footfall, and sell all GW's competitors for less than GW's prices.
I'm also aware I'm a little spoilt by having Wayland Games and Tabletop Nation on my doorstep. But I'm not the only GW customer who is finding alternative places and systems to play.
Is it a coincidence then, that the biggest single share holder, recently receiving a nice dividend of 29p per share, in GW is also its 62 year old Chairman? Is it ironic or sarcastic that that same Chairman said in his preamble to recent financials that 'short-termism' was a great evil?
We will see. For now though, there is really no reason for me to go into a Games Workshop. I can get anything I want from them cheaper elsewhere, including getting to actually play their games. But I can also get a whole lot more from those other venues and I will post more about that later in the week.
Its not a bad theory. The same principle can, in fact, be applied to a lot of areas (pro-Poker players are also liable to play their way up onto tables they can't compete with) including the development of business.
Another way of looking at this idea is that businesses will find what seems a successful strategy and then milk it and stretch it to the point of breaking. It is my belief Games Workshop is doing just that.
Games Workshop, being a Publicly Limited Company, makes its financial results freely available. At the uppermost level, the company appears to be doing well. Profits are good. Shares paid a healthy dividend recently. More lines are continually being added to the product portfolio and new shops and retail accounts appear to be being opened and added every month.
All good, right?
Well, not really.
The problem with the profits being generated by Games Workshop, and in particular recent increases in same, is that they come not from increased sales per se but from increased efficiencies. That is, GW is not selling more boxes of models, they're just spending less on doing it.
These efficiencies come in several flavours, from supply chain reorganisations to mass lay-offs and the opening of one-man stores with limited opening hours. Several stores have just announced reduced opening hours - including my own local GW.
While the financials make sweet reading to share holders looking for dividends, they are not good news for the business in the long run as they ignore one of the primary factors in GW's survival and prosperity over the last twenty years - its retail network.
By this I mean the shops and the people that work in them. Its all very well having the largest network of retail floorspace in the industry, but it does you no good if its staffed by mouth-breathers who neither know nor care about the product they peddle. Just ask any High Street fashion or technology outlet.
Research by the YMCA network of gyms in America found that people became and stayed members more for the social side of the gym than the actual fitness side. That is, they YMCA figured out it didn't need to spend as much money on fancy new gym equipment as it did on getting staff to be welcoming to members, know their names and goals, that sort of thing. Similarly, people go into stores like GW as much to play with other people as they do to shop.
When you walk in to a GW, as well as enticing boxes full of fantastical toys and games, you see other players. The background and the models are great - probably best in the industry and all that - but what keeps people playing and buying beyond the first impulse purchase is the social side of gaming. People like doing stuff with other people, its as simple as that. GW stores have facilitated that.
Or at least they used to.
My local GW used to have pretty much unlimited gaming, painting, and modeling for anyone. You could turn up any day of the week and, if there was a space, sit and paint, or play a game with a friend. You generally wouldn't do this on a weekend day, just because those were the days all the school kids would mob the store so best to stay away. But apart from that, it was a great place to hang out, play, paint, build, chat, etc.
Then we got a new manager and this was changed. Now there would only be spaces for gaming and painting on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Sure, it was from opening till 8pm, but that wasn't the big message that most of the loyal customers took home. What these new gaming hours said was 'if you aren't buying something, you aren't welcome in the shop five days a week'. Sounds dramatic, I know, but thats what we heard. This was particularly galling after a lot of the regulars had literally worked through nights to help the Store Manager get a display board ready for Games Day. One regular's flat became a sort of doss-house for the volunteers trudging back and forth to the store each day to build more and paint more. For the store.
Playing hours just recently changed again (less than a year after the first reduction). Now the Tuesday gaming has been shortened to end at 5pm. So, if you have a job or family commitments during the day, you're out of luck on a Tuesday. Oh, and by the way, during school holidays, over 16's gaming only starts at 5pm anyway.
And today it was announced the shop wouldn't even open on Tuesdays.
So, to revise, we have gone from a store with a loyal clientele who all visited several times a week, bought, played, and painted there, and were willing to work nights for free to help the staff with their projects to one where we are only welcome one day of the five in a week unless we have our wallets open.
I am not unaware of the rationale behind 'efficiencies' like these. There's a recession on, blah blah blah. No doubt sales on these two days are particularly weak. To save on wages and overheads the decision has been made. But really it is just one more negative response to the problems of business.
Once again the profit margin is being protected not by aggressively driving volume sales, innovating new product lines, or recruiting new customers, but by cutting off what the upper management see as dead flesh.
It may be the higher ups see this as part of a viable long-term strategy to eliminate their retail footprint entirely - they sell the same product at exactly the same price on the web. Perhaps they figure they can continue to make money that way. The official blurb from GW is that they are a manufacturer, not a retailer, so its entirely plausible the Board of Directors sees the retail network as a liability, not an asset. The problem with that though is there are a growing number of alternative retail outlets that do provide gaming, do value customer footfall, and sell all GW's competitors for less than GW's prices.
I'm also aware I'm a little spoilt by having Wayland Games and Tabletop Nation on my doorstep. But I'm not the only GW customer who is finding alternative places and systems to play.
Is it a coincidence then, that the biggest single share holder, recently receiving a nice dividend of 29p per share, in GW is also its 62 year old Chairman? Is it ironic or sarcastic that that same Chairman said in his preamble to recent financials that 'short-termism' was a great evil?
We will see. For now though, there is really no reason for me to go into a Games Workshop. I can get anything I want from them cheaper elsewhere, including getting to actually play their games. But I can also get a whole lot more from those other venues and I will post more about that later in the week.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Good old fashioned Blood Angel Terminators (with NMM)
I had a great day at Wayland Games/Tabletop Nation today, including a sweet game of 40k where my Eldar/Corsairs tabled a bunch of Grey Knights :) More on that tomorrow (I think). For today, here's some Blood Angel Terminators I painted a while back.
Having painted nearly thirty Space Wolf Termies before this lot, it was kind of a relief to build and paint models with pretty much the same armour and equipment. Paint for the armour is the usual recipe of Mechrite Red, Blood Red layer, Blazing Orange and Vomit Brown highlights and Graveyard Earth shade.
The Storm Shield has a very basic Codex Grey base. I forgot what I used for shades and highlights. I believe the cracked effects are just lines of Codex Grey/Chaos Black mix, with a very fine highlight of skull white (maybe a very light grey?) to give that 3D effect.
The 'nid skull is a spare from a genestealer sprue. Its a happy coincidence that the few 'nids I have painted have been that colour as it matches the colours on the termies really well. Almost as if I planned it...
Side view - so you can see the Forge World shoulder pads. The sculpt quality is pretty good. You can keep the ribbons and parchment as far as I am concerned, but the winged blood drops are really sharply cast - very easy to paint up with a striking contrast between the recesses and raised points. I don't think the Blood Angels pack is nearly as good as the Space Wolves one - it would have been nice to see a proper conversion kit, rather than just an upgrade style pack. But they are still a nice way to mark out your BA terminators out as different than the plain boxed ones.
So here I wanted to show the blend I did for the NMM effect on the Thunder Hammer. There's something about taking pictures with my phone when the light is really strong though, hence that bar effect you can see. I suspect its just that the light is too strong for my camera, but hopefully you get the idea. For a steel effect, I often start with a base of Hawk Turquoise/Bleached Bone. I then blend up to Space Wolves Grey, then through to White. I blend down to Regal Blue.
Getting this NMM effect is, in my opinion, easier on smaller pieces, like these blades or Dreadnought claws, than on big pieces of armour. Thats because you only have to worry about light coming from one direction. Often my NMM blends can actually look really crumby until the very last step - the edge highlight and notching. I often do this with my lightest blend of the base but you can do it with straight white paint too. Basically, you overbrush the edges (every one!) so you get a fine edge highlight and then add a few diagonal streaks. Depending on how you do it, you can get either the effect of the blade being pitted from striking hard objects of seeming to shine with reflected light.
You don't have to do a NMM blend to get this effect either. Even if you use the old Boltgun Metal/Badab Black wash, followed by a drybrush with Chainmail technique, you can add a degree of verisimilitude to your blade by adding these notches/streaks. The trick is getting the lines thing enough to look natural and then knowing when to stop :)
PLEASE do feel free to ask any questions. I know you are reading this :) If you have any questions about any of the stuff I have painted or written about, leave a comment. Unless you're going to be rude, of course. In which case, move on - this isn't the place for you :)
The 'nid skull is a spare from a genestealer sprue. Its a happy coincidence that the few 'nids I have painted have been that colour as it matches the colours on the termies really well. Almost as if I planned it...
Getting this NMM effect is, in my opinion, easier on smaller pieces, like these blades or Dreadnought claws, than on big pieces of armour. Thats because you only have to worry about light coming from one direction. Often my NMM blends can actually look really crumby until the very last step - the edge highlight and notching. I often do this with my lightest blend of the base but you can do it with straight white paint too. Basically, you overbrush the edges (every one!) so you get a fine edge highlight and then add a few diagonal streaks. Depending on how you do it, you can get either the effect of the blade being pitted from striking hard objects of seeming to shine with reflected light.
You don't have to do a NMM blend to get this effect either. Even if you use the old Boltgun Metal/Badab Black wash, followed by a drybrush with Chainmail technique, you can add a degree of verisimilitude to your blade by adding these notches/streaks. The trick is getting the lines thing enough to look natural and then knowing when to stop :)
PLEASE do feel free to ask any questions. I know you are reading this :) If you have any questions about any of the stuff I have painted or written about, leave a comment. Unless you're going to be rude, of course. In which case, move on - this isn't the place for you :)
Friday, August 17, 2012
Back from Holiday - Here's Something I Made Earlier
Ok then, I'm back from a week overseas in the sun. I got to read the entire Sigmar Omnibus (Graham McNeil is the God-King of fantasy) as well as the Dragonlance Legends Trilogy. Dragonlance is an under-rated, perhaps even unheard of franchise these days, but the story of Raistlin's quest for Godhood and Caramon's quest for, well, his self, is a great one.
Anyway - I've managed to get in my second game of 40k since I got back, but no painting, so here's some stuff I painted a while back.
This fella started life as a Black Reach dreadnought. He's had a few paint jobs, all poor, before I decided what I really needed for my Blood Angels was another, fourth, dread. He's painted with my usual BA recipe of Blood Red over Mechrite Red, with Blazing Orange line and Vomit Brown edge highlights, and a shade of Graveyard Earth in the recesses.
In case you're not familiar with it, the Frag Cannon is awesomeness incarnate (at least, it was in 5th). You get two rending template hits worth of bang for your buck and this guy has been something of a unit-assassin for me in the past. Flying around on a Stormraven, he likes to jump off, blast a 'safe' unit in a building, maybe assault them if they haven't all been minced by the cannon, then jump back on the 'raven and do it all over again.
As I said, the body is the Black Reach dread. But I had enough spares in my bitz box to give him a BA fist.
At this point, with a few thousand points of BA's in the box, I'm running out of synonyms for rage. This dread got good old 'Anger' on his scrolling. And, to be honest, I couldn't be bothered to think of something clever/paint that small for his glacis nameplate so he's just got some random squiggles there. Dont' tell anyone.
Another nice view of the Frag Cannon. I'm also quite pleased with how the decals came out on this model too. The yellow is perhaps a tad overbright for the dark red plates, but this emblem, the skull on the shin guard, and the numeral on the other shoulder all look natural and painted.
One of the things I love about the latest BA codex is the versatility of the army list. You can have a jump pack army, a flyer army, a dreadnought army, and a fast tank army. This one is unique to BA's too - the Baal Predator. Once again though, you can see my slight shortage of enthusiasm for names in the lack of a title for the nameplate. I've only used it once in a fight though, so I guess eventually I'll be inspired to name it.
As well as being fast and having Scout, the Baal can be equipped with lost of flamers. A Flamestorm on the turret and heavy flamers in the sponsons. Great for clearing buildings - a possibly increasingly likely target in the new edition of 40k.
I used Forge World's Black Soot weathering powder around the vents and exhausts for a nice little effect. The barrels were washed with increasingly dark washes of browns.
The yellow decal on the turret didn't bed down quite as well as I would have liked - you can still see the edging on the drops in the right light. Unusually, repeated treatments with Micro-sol didn't help any either :(
The decals on the front came out a little better though. The extra weathering the received might have helped, being a mix of weathering powder and sponged on Mechrite Red.
So thats a couple of my BA vehicles. Tomorrow (probably) - Terminators!
Anyway - I've managed to get in my second game of 40k since I got back, but no painting, so here's some stuff I painted a while back.
So thats a couple of my BA vehicles. Tomorrow (probably) - Terminators!
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Games Workshop Studio Open Day
It was a bit of an odyssey getting there, but yesterday was the GW Studio Open Day. Well, it was initally advertised as such, but at some point that got changed to Warhammer 40,000 Open Day. Still, a good time was had by most.
Having arrived ridiculously early, I found this in the car park:
Apparently the thing is street legal but is immobilized while on display. Yeah, I tweeted a bad joke about rolling a one. Anyway, if you plan on stealing it, bring your own battery.
The doors rolled open on time, at 10am, and in we all trooped.
The whole gaming hall of Warhammer World (or are we supposed to call it GW:HQ now?) had been put to use, with a fenced enclosure full of display cabinets, demo game tables, and, most importantly, Design Studio staff waiting to answer questions and tell us how they make the magic happen. Wait, wrong company? Well, tell us how they do that voodoo dey do do. Or something.
This was a great opportunity to learn from the masters, as it were, and I got a great little tutorial from Edgar Ramos on sculpting cloaks. There was a genuine 'Eureka!' moment, where I realised the trick, that little simple piece of magic that makes these things work, as well as a great look at how a master works, tips on tools to buy, and he even wrote down the name of a good book for further reading. Thanks, Edgar!
As well as hands on demos, there were also a lot scheduled demos and seminars. These were ticket only events - one had to choose which ones to attend before entering the hall - but, really, once you were in a seminar room the policy is pretty easy going. Its quite possible to stay in the same seat all day and just enjoy talk after talk.
So, what did I see and what did I learn?
First up was a talk on the latest edition of 40k, with Jervis Johnson, Matt Ward, and Jeremy Vettock. Matt was there to talk rules, Jeremy because he was in charge of background, and Jervis because, well, he's Jervis Johnson, man!
We started with some pre-written questions, supposedly based on FAQ's from the community. To be fair, some of these were fairly pointed - why have you added Allies and Fortifications to the rules, for example. The real answer is, of course, because we are a miniatures company that wants to sell more miniatures so we have broadened the amount of stuff you can play in your armies hoping you will therefore buy more of it. Questions such as this were met with fairly professional PR-style answers though - '40k fiction has often featured great alliances but the game has not. We wanted to bring that back to the game and also we want you to be able to play with a cool model if you see it and like it'. Both answers are true of course.
A couple of other titbits - Jervis said 'fantastic new buildings models coming into the range', in reference to the fortifications question. So yes, new buildings are on the way.
Matt Ward said random charge were in the game now as a response to the new wound allocation system. As you lose the closest models during shooting/overwatch, the designers wanted you to still have the chance of pulling off a charge afterwards.
He also said challenges in combat were designed to redress issues typified by the marine sergeant. If he has a power fist, he is essentially a 10-wound model who tends to hide at the back of the combat until the last second when he steps forward and wipes out the enemy squad. Alternately, if he is a Devastator sergeant, he dies first. With challenges, the idea is you might have one model holding off a particularly powerful enemy, such as a daemon prince, until his squad could finish off the rest and come to his aid.
The issue of not being able to charge after arriving from reserves was also tackled. The guys said they wanted to remove 'mugging' from the game. The idea of players being able to pull off some hammer-smash, wipeout manouevre, without their opponent being able to react or resist in any way, was unpopular with the designers. Genestealers outflanking and then assaulting you to death was mentioned (although Jervis pointed out to Matt Ward that could still happen) but, more specifically, Vanguard Veterans and Heroic Intervention was singled out as a tactic that will be removed from the game in future.
Jervis also said future codexes will rely less on codex-specific special rules and abilities and more on the core rulebook's USRs. The idea is that by making the core rules more robust, there will be less possibilities of imbalance in future releases. I'm not sure how well this sits with Matt Ward, being infamous as he is for writing codexes with game-shattering rules within. But apparently thats the way we're going.
After that talk I got to go to a sculpting demo with Martin Footit (very good), one on painting Space Marine chapter markings on shoulder pads with Simon Adams (not so good), and a further demo of painting and weathering an Ork Bomma with Stuart Williamson of Forge World (very very good).
After that it was pretty much time to go. Despite taking place in a fairly small venue, its still a lot to take in and can be quite tiring.
It is still very inspiring though. Seeing dozens of fellow hobbyists, meeting and watching some of the best painters and modelers in the world and hearing from some of the creators who made all this stuff happened in the first place is very inspiring. These events make me believe in 40k and want to build my own little part of its universe.
GW does well to put these kind of events together. Frankly, it makes you forget all the awful marketing decisions, all the price rises, and the insulting memos from senior staff and just love the hobby. It could be better though.
Apart from Jervis, none of the GW staff seemed comfortable with or happy to be talking to the public. In the first talk, for example, all three speakers made a big deal out of not wanting to handle the microphone or handle the questions being asked. This is a big deal - why have a public-facing, PR event like this if you are going to put people in front of the public who make it clear they don't want to be there?
Its a shame in two ways. Firstly, for the guys giving the talks/demonstrations. These guys could be, should be, like rock stars. You're in a room with a hundred or more people who have paid to come and see you because you are bloody good at your job. Should this not be something you enjoy and get a kick out of? Shouldn't it be fun, talking to fans and sharing your knowledge and expertise? Secondly, the fans, the punters, paid to see their idols/role models. Shouldn't we fell welcome and wanted? Shouldn't we feel these guys are approachable, warm, happy to be there? Its not nice to pay for an event and see people who make it obvious they would rather be at home in front of the TV.
Its true that public speaking is a major fear for a lot of people. But it is also true most of these people could be coached and trained to get past that fear and actually enjoy the experience. I know because I married a Vocal Coach. Seb Perbet mentioned he had recently attended a four-day course on anatomy and physiology, paid for by GW, just so he could be a better sculptor. If meeting the public is going to be part of the job, shouldn't GW stump up for some speaking training too?
Still, it was a great day out. You needed to go to the talks to make the day complete - the demo area in the gaming hall is not that big - and it helps that there is a great bar on hand too. But it was still an excellent opportunity to to geek-out, learn from the best, and go home with more toys to play with and more ideas to make them great.
Thanks, GW :)
Having arrived ridiculously early, I found this in the car park:
 |
| Naff colour scheme |
The doors rolled open on time, at 10am, and in we all trooped.
The whole gaming hall of Warhammer World (or are we supposed to call it GW:HQ now?) had been put to use, with a fenced enclosure full of display cabinets, demo game tables, and, most importantly, Design Studio staff waiting to answer questions and tell us how they make the magic happen. Wait, wrong company? Well, tell us how they do that voodoo dey do do. Or something.
This was a great opportunity to learn from the masters, as it were, and I got a great little tutorial from Edgar Ramos on sculpting cloaks. There was a genuine 'Eureka!' moment, where I realised the trick, that little simple piece of magic that makes these things work, as well as a great look at how a master works, tips on tools to buy, and he even wrote down the name of a good book for further reading. Thanks, Edgar!
 |
| Nerds ahoy! |
So, what did I see and what did I learn?
First up was a talk on the latest edition of 40k, with Jervis Johnson, Matt Ward, and Jeremy Vettock. Matt was there to talk rules, Jeremy because he was in charge of background, and Jervis because, well, he's Jervis Johnson, man!
We started with some pre-written questions, supposedly based on FAQ's from the community. To be fair, some of these were fairly pointed - why have you added Allies and Fortifications to the rules, for example. The real answer is, of course, because we are a miniatures company that wants to sell more miniatures so we have broadened the amount of stuff you can play in your armies hoping you will therefore buy more of it. Questions such as this were met with fairly professional PR-style answers though - '40k fiction has often featured great alliances but the game has not. We wanted to bring that back to the game and also we want you to be able to play with a cool model if you see it and like it'. Both answers are true of course.
A couple of other titbits - Jervis said 'fantastic new buildings models coming into the range', in reference to the fortifications question. So yes, new buildings are on the way.
Matt Ward said random charge were in the game now as a response to the new wound allocation system. As you lose the closest models during shooting/overwatch, the designers wanted you to still have the chance of pulling off a charge afterwards.
He also said challenges in combat were designed to redress issues typified by the marine sergeant. If he has a power fist, he is essentially a 10-wound model who tends to hide at the back of the combat until the last second when he steps forward and wipes out the enemy squad. Alternately, if he is a Devastator sergeant, he dies first. With challenges, the idea is you might have one model holding off a particularly powerful enemy, such as a daemon prince, until his squad could finish off the rest and come to his aid.
The issue of not being able to charge after arriving from reserves was also tackled. The guys said they wanted to remove 'mugging' from the game. The idea of players being able to pull off some hammer-smash, wipeout manouevre, without their opponent being able to react or resist in any way, was unpopular with the designers. Genestealers outflanking and then assaulting you to death was mentioned (although Jervis pointed out to Matt Ward that could still happen) but, more specifically, Vanguard Veterans and Heroic Intervention was singled out as a tactic that will be removed from the game in future.
Jervis also said future codexes will rely less on codex-specific special rules and abilities and more on the core rulebook's USRs. The idea is that by making the core rules more robust, there will be less possibilities of imbalance in future releases. I'm not sure how well this sits with Matt Ward, being infamous as he is for writing codexes with game-shattering rules within. But apparently thats the way we're going.
After that talk I got to go to a sculpting demo with Martin Footit (very good), one on painting Space Marine chapter markings on shoulder pads with Simon Adams (not so good), and a further demo of painting and weathering an Ork Bomma with Stuart Williamson of Forge World (very very good).
After that it was pretty much time to go. Despite taking place in a fairly small venue, its still a lot to take in and can be quite tiring.
 |
| Its a bomma! Its a bomma, yeah, yeah, yeah! |
It is still very inspiring though. Seeing dozens of fellow hobbyists, meeting and watching some of the best painters and modelers in the world and hearing from some of the creators who made all this stuff happened in the first place is very inspiring. These events make me believe in 40k and want to build my own little part of its universe.
GW does well to put these kind of events together. Frankly, it makes you forget all the awful marketing decisions, all the price rises, and the insulting memos from senior staff and just love the hobby. It could be better though.
Apart from Jervis, none of the GW staff seemed comfortable with or happy to be talking to the public. In the first talk, for example, all three speakers made a big deal out of not wanting to handle the microphone or handle the questions being asked. This is a big deal - why have a public-facing, PR event like this if you are going to put people in front of the public who make it clear they don't want to be there?
 | |
| Building this is easy. Talking to people about it, however... |
Its a shame in two ways. Firstly, for the guys giving the talks/demonstrations. These guys could be, should be, like rock stars. You're in a room with a hundred or more people who have paid to come and see you because you are bloody good at your job. Should this not be something you enjoy and get a kick out of? Shouldn't it be fun, talking to fans and sharing your knowledge and expertise? Secondly, the fans, the punters, paid to see their idols/role models. Shouldn't we fell welcome and wanted? Shouldn't we feel these guys are approachable, warm, happy to be there? Its not nice to pay for an event and see people who make it obvious they would rather be at home in front of the TV.
Its true that public speaking is a major fear for a lot of people. But it is also true most of these people could be coached and trained to get past that fear and actually enjoy the experience. I know because I married a Vocal Coach. Seb Perbet mentioned he had recently attended a four-day course on anatomy and physiology, paid for by GW, just so he could be a better sculptor. If meeting the public is going to be part of the job, shouldn't GW stump up for some speaking training too?
Still, it was a great day out. You needed to go to the talks to make the day complete - the demo area in the gaming hall is not that big - and it helps that there is a great bar on hand too. But it was still an excellent opportunity to to geek-out, learn from the best, and go home with more toys to play with and more ideas to make them great.
Thanks, GW :)
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
A New Golden Age of Gaming
This is currently a great time to be a player of games. Not video games, mind you - tabletop games.
Indeed, while the videogames industry languishes and contracts, being increasingly dominated by a few monolithic publishers and publications, there is an unprecedented diversification in the wargames and boardgames market.
We are, as gamers (and I shall just use that term from now on to describe all of us who play our games with dice, cards, miniatures, and friends), exiting a period of time for the industry that may in some respects be seen as a kind of dark age.
Nearly three decades ago wargaming was cool. I was a boy in the Eighties and it was an exciting time for those who, like me, loved sci-fi and fantasy. Special creature effects were being invented, as was the modern movie and the VHS player. Satellites were joining the world up (yes, this was before the internet) and the most influential roleplaying game of all time, Dungeons and Dragons, made it to the UK.
I still remember, nearly thirty years later, being invited to my first ever D&D session. The game was described to me. I couldn't believe or comprehend it. 'You can do anything you want?', I asked. 'How?'. It was an awesome experience.
From the success of D&D sprang Games Workshop. From being an importer and distributor of American games, this Nottingham company was able to become a creator. Warhammer Fantasy and then Warhammer 40,000 were born. For a while, maybe half the kids I knew collected and painted their miniatures or played pen and paper RPG's. It was never 'cool' cool, like being great at football was cool, but it was accepted and widely understood.
Things changed over the next few years.
Few other companies in the industry were able to thrive and survive through the nineties and noughties. A few tried and even made good products. Rackham Miniatures, were, I am told, great figures. But none could match GW's success. Well, I say success - really we're talking about survival here.
Thats because I don't believe GW is the only large miniatures company to make it across two centuries solely because they made products that were so good noone could possibly compete. Its more a case of there being so little money in the industry's pool as a whole it only could sustain that one big fish.
Think of how much competition there has been for the hobby money of GW's traditional customers since the Eighties ended. The internet was invented. So was internet gaming and, really, the modern game. VHS, then DVD, then Blu-ray. And console gaming. When I was a lad, toy soldiers was all we could spend our cash on. Since then the alternatives have grown exponentially.
In the face of all these broadened horizons, gaming became a niche product.
This may all be about to change though.
Look at how much competition there is to GW today and where it has come from.
For a start, there is Privateer Press. In 2011, Warmachine overtook Warhammer Fantasy as the biggest selling wargame! They sold so well in fact, they could not match demand with product, a problem that likely cost them the chance to outsell even 40k. This, with no retail outlets of their own.
This year Mantic is getting serious. Despite having product for sale on the net and shop floors for some time now, their recent Kickstarter found more than 1500 backers willing to stump up $355,000 to support them. This massive cash injection meant Mantic's Five Year Plan for development got compressed down to about 6 months, a 'Dare to Dream' meeting had to be held to come up with new ideas for stretch goals, and nearly twenty new lines and an expansion have been added to their portfolio.
Boardgames have enjoyed similar success. Sedition Wars: Battle for Alabaster is now the highest funded boardgame on Kickstarter, raising just south of $1M for Studio McVey and CMON in a month. Can you imagine what that sort of backing means for a small studio like the McVeys'?
SW:BFA overtook another CMON boardgame, Zombicide - $781K, and a Steve Jackson remake, OGRE - $923.7K, on its way to the top spot, showing there is massive support for indoor games that use dice and models and require friends to play.
It doesn't stop at Kickstarter though. This year saw DUST Warfare released, building on the success of Fantasy Flight's DUST Tactics boardgame. Great models, great setting, and a simple ruleset will make for great sales. Super Dungeon Explore and Descent also scratch that itch, for lovers of Fantasy, dungeons, rolling dice and looting monsters.
Much of the success of these games is owed to the internet. Like many other lines, internet selling and fast shipping have opened up massive new markets to localised sellers. GW survived at least in part thanks to its network of retail outlets. A strong high street presence has kept them enough in the public's eye to maintain sales and a turnover of new customers. In fact, their recent profits have been driven more by 'efficiency', i.e. firing staff and opening one-man stores, than increasing sales though. While this strategy may become an increasingly burdensome millstone around GW's neck, its rivals are not so encumbered and are reaching areas and markets without having to worry about renting floorspace or sales staff.
Its perhaps also telling to consider where a lot of the talent for the market's expansion is coming from. Its GW again. Alessio Calvatore is a name that crops up again (Mantic) and again (DUST) in discussion of new games. The Perry twins, Mike McVey, Rik Priestley, and Bob Naismith are all names familiar to longtime GW fans - all now work for, with, or as the competition.
None of this is meant to imply there is no talent or no successes outside GW's stable or the games mentioned in this article. What I am implying is the market is ripe for expansion. While in times past there could be only one, today there is room for many many smaller businesses to live, thrive, and survive. The exodus from GW of well established names and talents shows that these guys see this too. They no longer feel they have to put up with whatever strictures working for GW placed upon them. They don't have to make games for someone else any more - they can make them for themselves. And instead of shareholders (one in particular) raking in dividends from their hard work, they can take all the profits too.
At least where I live, this optimism is being matched by retailers. Wayland Games are now installed in their massive new warehouses in Hockley, Essex, and recently published concept art of their gaming space. I have been there and I have to say, the visualisations they released don't do the place justice. It is huge. A new store/game space also opened up in town this past weekend too. ROTDOG has lots of floorspace and lots of games to sell. Their range does not include GW or PP though, suggesting the owner is confident he can make money just from selling other games (DUST, SDE, etc.) and renting tables.
This means that my small town, Southend, now has three retailers and four gaming spaces currently available.
What does the future hold?
I believe it is entirely possible tabletop gaming will overtake PC and console gaming as the cool pasttime for a generation of children and young adults growing up today.
And why not?
There was a time, barely more than ten years ago, when internet and console gaming was uncool. Seriously! When I played my first online shooter (Star Trek Voyager - Elite Force!), dial-up was the standard and playing games over the net was really not a widespread activity. Multiplayer games, at least for the PC were barely even invented! It was really only when Halo was released that local console multiplayer became popular, I couldn't tell you what game made internet gaming take off. But we have a generation now that grew up with the net and gaming over it and considers it to be normal, natural, and cool to do.
Things change though and what is considered the norm by one generation very quickly becomes a fad to the next.
People like to play together. I suggest that what has stopped them doing so in recent times is a lack of choice, more than an ingrained aversion to tabletop games, and a cool looking new alternative - internet gaming. Price has been an issue too. But tabletop games are getting cheaper (at least if you price them by volume. And ignore GW) and consoles and PC games are getting pricier. Seriously - £50 for another COD game? That is the same/extremely close to the last one I bought? And that I will only play for four or five months before exchanging it for a clone? And that on top of my £150-200 console.... Compare that to a boardgame where every game can be different, new models or expansions can be added, and where your friends can come over to play too. It costs less, lasts longer, and is not the same game as you bought last year.
So, a new Golden Age of Gaming could well be nigh. What has been a dark time for gamers, with little choice, few places to play, and some small amount of social stigma, could well be ending. We are entering a new period, with great choice, great variety, and new places to play and opponents and teammates too. Its a good time to be a gamer - I hope you are enjoying it too :)
Indeed, while the videogames industry languishes and contracts, being increasingly dominated by a few monolithic publishers and publications, there is an unprecedented diversification in the wargames and boardgames market.
We are, as gamers (and I shall just use that term from now on to describe all of us who play our games with dice, cards, miniatures, and friends), exiting a period of time for the industry that may in some respects be seen as a kind of dark age.
Nearly three decades ago wargaming was cool. I was a boy in the Eighties and it was an exciting time for those who, like me, loved sci-fi and fantasy. Special creature effects were being invented, as was the modern movie and the VHS player. Satellites were joining the world up (yes, this was before the internet) and the most influential roleplaying game of all time, Dungeons and Dragons, made it to the UK.
I still remember, nearly thirty years later, being invited to my first ever D&D session. The game was described to me. I couldn't believe or comprehend it. 'You can do anything you want?', I asked. 'How?'. It was an awesome experience.
From the success of D&D sprang Games Workshop. From being an importer and distributor of American games, this Nottingham company was able to become a creator. Warhammer Fantasy and then Warhammer 40,000 were born. For a while, maybe half the kids I knew collected and painted their miniatures or played pen and paper RPG's. It was never 'cool' cool, like being great at football was cool, but it was accepted and widely understood.
Things changed over the next few years.
Few other companies in the industry were able to thrive and survive through the nineties and noughties. A few tried and even made good products. Rackham Miniatures, were, I am told, great figures. But none could match GW's success. Well, I say success - really we're talking about survival here.
Thats because I don't believe GW is the only large miniatures company to make it across two centuries solely because they made products that were so good noone could possibly compete. Its more a case of there being so little money in the industry's pool as a whole it only could sustain that one big fish.
Think of how much competition there has been for the hobby money of GW's traditional customers since the Eighties ended. The internet was invented. So was internet gaming and, really, the modern game. VHS, then DVD, then Blu-ray. And console gaming. When I was a lad, toy soldiers was all we could spend our cash on. Since then the alternatives have grown exponentially.
In the face of all these broadened horizons, gaming became a niche product.
This may all be about to change though.
Look at how much competition there is to GW today and where it has come from.
For a start, there is Privateer Press. In 2011, Warmachine overtook Warhammer Fantasy as the biggest selling wargame! They sold so well in fact, they could not match demand with product, a problem that likely cost them the chance to outsell even 40k. This, with no retail outlets of their own.
This year Mantic is getting serious. Despite having product for sale on the net and shop floors for some time now, their recent Kickstarter found more than 1500 backers willing to stump up $355,000 to support them. This massive cash injection meant Mantic's Five Year Plan for development got compressed down to about 6 months, a 'Dare to Dream' meeting had to be held to come up with new ideas for stretch goals, and nearly twenty new lines and an expansion have been added to their portfolio.
Boardgames have enjoyed similar success. Sedition Wars: Battle for Alabaster is now the highest funded boardgame on Kickstarter, raising just south of $1M for Studio McVey and CMON in a month. Can you imagine what that sort of backing means for a small studio like the McVeys'?
SW:BFA overtook another CMON boardgame, Zombicide - $781K, and a Steve Jackson remake, OGRE - $923.7K, on its way to the top spot, showing there is massive support for indoor games that use dice and models and require friends to play.
It doesn't stop at Kickstarter though. This year saw DUST Warfare released, building on the success of Fantasy Flight's DUST Tactics boardgame. Great models, great setting, and a simple ruleset will make for great sales. Super Dungeon Explore and Descent also scratch that itch, for lovers of Fantasy, dungeons, rolling dice and looting monsters.
Much of the success of these games is owed to the internet. Like many other lines, internet selling and fast shipping have opened up massive new markets to localised sellers. GW survived at least in part thanks to its network of retail outlets. A strong high street presence has kept them enough in the public's eye to maintain sales and a turnover of new customers. In fact, their recent profits have been driven more by 'efficiency', i.e. firing staff and opening one-man stores, than increasing sales though. While this strategy may become an increasingly burdensome millstone around GW's neck, its rivals are not so encumbered and are reaching areas and markets without having to worry about renting floorspace or sales staff.
Its perhaps also telling to consider where a lot of the talent for the market's expansion is coming from. Its GW again. Alessio Calvatore is a name that crops up again (Mantic) and again (DUST) in discussion of new games. The Perry twins, Mike McVey, Rik Priestley, and Bob Naismith are all names familiar to longtime GW fans - all now work for, with, or as the competition.
None of this is meant to imply there is no talent or no successes outside GW's stable or the games mentioned in this article. What I am implying is the market is ripe for expansion. While in times past there could be only one, today there is room for many many smaller businesses to live, thrive, and survive. The exodus from GW of well established names and talents shows that these guys see this too. They no longer feel they have to put up with whatever strictures working for GW placed upon them. They don't have to make games for someone else any more - they can make them for themselves. And instead of shareholders (one in particular) raking in dividends from their hard work, they can take all the profits too.
At least where I live, this optimism is being matched by retailers. Wayland Games are now installed in their massive new warehouses in Hockley, Essex, and recently published concept art of their gaming space. I have been there and I have to say, the visualisations they released don't do the place justice. It is huge. A new store/game space also opened up in town this past weekend too. ROTDOG has lots of floorspace and lots of games to sell. Their range does not include GW or PP though, suggesting the owner is confident he can make money just from selling other games (DUST, SDE, etc.) and renting tables.
This means that my small town, Southend, now has three retailers and four gaming spaces currently available.
What does the future hold?
I believe it is entirely possible tabletop gaming will overtake PC and console gaming as the cool pasttime for a generation of children and young adults growing up today.
And why not?
There was a time, barely more than ten years ago, when internet and console gaming was uncool. Seriously! When I played my first online shooter (Star Trek Voyager - Elite Force!), dial-up was the standard and playing games over the net was really not a widespread activity. Multiplayer games, at least for the PC were barely even invented! It was really only when Halo was released that local console multiplayer became popular, I couldn't tell you what game made internet gaming take off. But we have a generation now that grew up with the net and gaming over it and considers it to be normal, natural, and cool to do.
Things change though and what is considered the norm by one generation very quickly becomes a fad to the next.
People like to play together. I suggest that what has stopped them doing so in recent times is a lack of choice, more than an ingrained aversion to tabletop games, and a cool looking new alternative - internet gaming. Price has been an issue too. But tabletop games are getting cheaper (at least if you price them by volume. And ignore GW) and consoles and PC games are getting pricier. Seriously - £50 for another COD game? That is the same/extremely close to the last one I bought? And that I will only play for four or five months before exchanging it for a clone? And that on top of my £150-200 console.... Compare that to a boardgame where every game can be different, new models or expansions can be added, and where your friends can come over to play too. It costs less, lasts longer, and is not the same game as you bought last year.
So, a new Golden Age of Gaming could well be nigh. What has been a dark time for gamers, with little choice, few places to play, and some small amount of social stigma, could well be ending. We are entering a new period, with great choice, great variety, and new places to play and opponents and teammates too. Its a good time to be a gamer - I hope you are enjoying it too :)
Monday, May 28, 2012
These boots are made for hiking
Well, the latest GW price sheets are out and there are some corkers on the spreadsheets. A lot of the rises are what one might refer to as incremental. Some would even say reasonable. But check out the hikes on Razorbacks and the Space Marine Battleforce and tell me that's not GW milking the old cash cow a little too much...
Any way, all this makes me very glad I bought a Cryx army from Privater Press last night. I've no idea if half the units are any good, but the worst case scenario is I end up ebaying the surplus units once I get to grips with the game.
I also enlisted as a supporter of Studio McVey's Kickstarter campaign and bought a copy of Sedition Wars. Well, I will have bought a copy whenever they actually cast and box the thing. (Still not happy about paying a UK studio to ship me a game from the States though...)
I did, however, decide against the Mantic Kickstarter though. As much as I want to support UK studios, and promote diversity in the industry in general, I really am unlikely to ever play the game or paint all the miniatures they would send me. Plus there's my experience at Salute, where people where happy to push me towards the sales stand, but not exactly champing at the bit to show me how to actually play the game.
There's one other thing about Mantic that worries me too. For all their talk about innovation, my read of the rules for Warpath, Mantic's sci-fi game, is that it's basically a simple version of 5th edition 40k. Same turn sequence, same rolls to hit and wound. The only difference seemed to be the absence of armour saves. The factions in both Warpath and Kings of War are recycled from GW's games too. So... is Mantic's mission statement basically to make the same games as GW - only cheaper?
Given the massive market share GW has, it's perhaps not the worst business model. It's just not - inspiring. Plus given that 6th edition 40k is just around the corner, isn't Mantic at risk of looking even less inventive and agile, selling a copy of an old game the market leader doesn't even make any more? But then again, Warpath isn't even officially released yet so perhaps the finished product really will be an innovative and novel take on tabletop sci-fi.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Moving to Privateer Press?
I've been talking about it for a long time, but this might be when I finally jump on to the PP bandwagon (or us it a ship?).
It's coming up to that time of the year when Games Workshop bumps up all it's prices and, if the figures that have been published for American sets are to be believed, this year is going to be a whopper.
I'm not even going to bother trying to understand why they do it. I know it's about making profit and the final prices are decided on by people far removed from the actual costumers. But it's just getting ridiculous.
A couple of years ago, when I walked back into a GW for the first time in twenty years, a boxed starter set cost £50. Now some of them cost £65. It is likely then that these same boxes well cost over £70 in a month's time. Warhammer is now approaching absolutely laughable, insane, prices for a hobby product intended for a mass market.
There is a tipping point for the price if these models, after which, it is no longer sensible to buy them. The value-added which GW beings to it's products - the great background lore, the supplementary products (books and CD's), it's retail network and associated gaming clubs, will just be outweighed by the fact noone can say with a straight face they paid nearly a hundred pounds for twenty models and a vehicle and then another twenty for a crappy finecost commander, and forty more for the rulebook.
I think we are there, or thereabouts. The competition is circling, waiting to snap up all the customers. I bet they can't believe how easy GW is making it.
On that note, PP is doing a 'summer sale' thing. Importantly for EU customers, there is free worldwide shipping on Warmachine and Hordes starter sets (if you live in Essex, it's still slightly cheaper to collect it from Wayland Games though). They are also doing army bundles for around £75. Each one is, the site says, 25 points and you get a rulebook too. I did a quick comparison of the contents of the Cryx and Retribution sets and their prices at Wayland and it looks like you basically get the rulebook for free - a saving of around £20.
So, my only real dilemma is which to go for -Cryx or the Retribution?
Monday, May 7, 2012
Review: Forge World's 'Imperial Armour Model Masterclass Volume Two'
I have been waiting a long time in eager anticipation for the second in Forge World's painting and modeling books - the expansively titled 'Imperial Armour Model Masterclass Volume Two'. I even got to Salute a couple of weeks ago, expressly to have a chance of picking up a copy at the FW stand. Sadly I was still too late on the day but FW were happy to let me order a copy for home delivery :) Cue another week and a half of waiting - and it has arrived!
I loved the first volume and have used or adapted several of the techniques described therein on my models (I even got the wife to help build and paint a Baneblade with me, using the techniques FW described). I'm a big fan of learning new stuff and expanding my repertoire and the book certainly had lots of new challenges and things to try. But would the second volume in the series be as eye-opening? Would I be as inspired to hook up the airbrush and dig out the oil paints and varnishes? Most importantly, how expensive would the new toys I would feel obliged to buy be?
The answers to those questions are, it turns out, 'kind of', 'a little', and 'probably not much'.
Its not that Vol.2 is bad by any means. It contains lots of well shot photo's of gorgeously painted miniatures. There are quite a few different models shown as well. The problem really is that it doesn't feel like this book really develops the hobby. It doesn't add as much to the world of painting 40k miniatures as Vol.1 did. Many of the techniques described in Vol.2's guides have already been described in Vol.1. If you already know how to use layers of varnishes, apply decal, sponge on weathering, you may not learn much more here.
You may think that the chance to learn the colours used in painting some of the gorgeous FW models you've seen at shows or on the web is good enough reason to buy this book. Which brings me to second, and probably biggest, problem with Masterclass 2: it uses the old Citadel paint range. You would have to be either very lucky or strangely prescient to still have a stock of Bleached Bone, Scorched Brown, Khemri Brown, or Mechrite Red, but these and many others are used in the painting guides.
This leaves painters hoping to replicate the schemes presented therein with a dilemma - do you attempt to map those mentioned colours over to the new ones GW describes as their replacements, bearing in mind the new colours are not identical to the old ones and are in some cases, I am told, quite different? Or do you just go with Vallejo's Game Colour range, in which case you can get more or less identical shades with purposefully similar names, albeit possibly of a slightly lesser quality than the original? Given that if I were to follow FW's guides to the letter I would already be buying several Vallejo paints (as FW don't seem too squeamish about mentioning they use colours and products GW don't do), add the fact I hate and fear change and, well, the choice is clear for me.
That said, the guides are nicely laid out and photographed, if a little casual in their descriptions. At times this can be a little silly. In the guide to painting a Reaver Titan there are some lovely pictures of the upper surface of the carapace. This is a gorgeously marbled piece and FW suggests you achieve this effect by airbrushing paint 'in subtle marbled patterns'. But this is a 'Masterclass' book - you are supposed to have some experience/ability/brains before buying it and more often than not the pictures and descriptions are detailed and good enough to enable you to do something quite cool with your next big project.
The question then is, 'if I already have Masterclass Vol.1, do I need Vol.2?'. My suggestion would be this: if you are alread au fait with the techiques described in Vol.1, you probably don't need this book. That is, unless the list of models shown contains some you really like the sound of.
If you don't have Vol.1 but are interested in discovering and trying some new painting and modeling techniques, I would suggest checking the list of contents of each book, then buying the one with the most interesting models to you in it. That is to say, if you just buy Vol.2 but not Vol.1, you won't be missing out on any secrets of the Universe guaranteed to win you power, money, and Golden Demons.
Be aware though, not all painting guides are created the same. The guide to the Brass Scorpion in Vol.2 is quite detailed and has lots of cool stuff to try out. The Phantom titan bust 'gallery' by contrast, is only a couple of pages long, the largest part of which is big big pictures. If you buy this book hoping to revolutionise your Eldar painting, you may be disappointed.
I was also a little disappointed by the choice of what models went into this book too. The weakness of Vol.1, I felt, was it was fairly traditional tank-heavy. Lots of muddy and rusty Imperial and Chaos cans that is, not so much Xenos stuff. I hoped Vol.2 would therefore switch the focus from the lumbering human technology and show us some tips and tricks for painting Eldar, Tau, and even 'nid models. But, apart from the aforementioned Phantom gallery and a few shots of the Mymeara models, there are next to no xenos in the book.
Essentially the, Vol.2 is 'more of the same'. None of the content is bad, much of it very very good and well presented. But it is also very very similar to Vol.1, uses paints that aren't being made any more, and may not feature models or races you are interested in buying or playing. Not a horrible product at all, but a missed opportunity to develop a brand and a series into new directions.
I loved the first volume and have used or adapted several of the techniques described therein on my models (I even got the wife to help build and paint a Baneblade with me, using the techniques FW described). I'm a big fan of learning new stuff and expanding my repertoire and the book certainly had lots of new challenges and things to try. But would the second volume in the series be as eye-opening? Would I be as inspired to hook up the airbrush and dig out the oil paints and varnishes? Most importantly, how expensive would the new toys I would feel obliged to buy be?
The answers to those questions are, it turns out, 'kind of', 'a little', and 'probably not much'.
Its not that Vol.2 is bad by any means. It contains lots of well shot photo's of gorgeously painted miniatures. There are quite a few different models shown as well. The problem really is that it doesn't feel like this book really develops the hobby. It doesn't add as much to the world of painting 40k miniatures as Vol.1 did. Many of the techniques described in Vol.2's guides have already been described in Vol.1. If you already know how to use layers of varnishes, apply decal, sponge on weathering, you may not learn much more here.
You may think that the chance to learn the colours used in painting some of the gorgeous FW models you've seen at shows or on the web is good enough reason to buy this book. Which brings me to second, and probably biggest, problem with Masterclass 2: it uses the old Citadel paint range. You would have to be either very lucky or strangely prescient to still have a stock of Bleached Bone, Scorched Brown, Khemri Brown, or Mechrite Red, but these and many others are used in the painting guides.
This leaves painters hoping to replicate the schemes presented therein with a dilemma - do you attempt to map those mentioned colours over to the new ones GW describes as their replacements, bearing in mind the new colours are not identical to the old ones and are in some cases, I am told, quite different? Or do you just go with Vallejo's Game Colour range, in which case you can get more or less identical shades with purposefully similar names, albeit possibly of a slightly lesser quality than the original? Given that if I were to follow FW's guides to the letter I would already be buying several Vallejo paints (as FW don't seem too squeamish about mentioning they use colours and products GW don't do), add the fact I hate and fear change and, well, the choice is clear for me.
That said, the guides are nicely laid out and photographed, if a little casual in their descriptions. At times this can be a little silly. In the guide to painting a Reaver Titan there are some lovely pictures of the upper surface of the carapace. This is a gorgeously marbled piece and FW suggests you achieve this effect by airbrushing paint 'in subtle marbled patterns'. But this is a 'Masterclass' book - you are supposed to have some experience/ability/brains before buying it and more often than not the pictures and descriptions are detailed and good enough to enable you to do something quite cool with your next big project.
The question then is, 'if I already have Masterclass Vol.1, do I need Vol.2?'. My suggestion would be this: if you are alread au fait with the techiques described in Vol.1, you probably don't need this book. That is, unless the list of models shown contains some you really like the sound of.
If you don't have Vol.1 but are interested in discovering and trying some new painting and modeling techniques, I would suggest checking the list of contents of each book, then buying the one with the most interesting models to you in it. That is to say, if you just buy Vol.2 but not Vol.1, you won't be missing out on any secrets of the Universe guaranteed to win you power, money, and Golden Demons.
Be aware though, not all painting guides are created the same. The guide to the Brass Scorpion in Vol.2 is quite detailed and has lots of cool stuff to try out. The Phantom titan bust 'gallery' by contrast, is only a couple of pages long, the largest part of which is big big pictures. If you buy this book hoping to revolutionise your Eldar painting, you may be disappointed.
I was also a little disappointed by the choice of what models went into this book too. The weakness of Vol.1, I felt, was it was fairly traditional tank-heavy. Lots of muddy and rusty Imperial and Chaos cans that is, not so much Xenos stuff. I hoped Vol.2 would therefore switch the focus from the lumbering human technology and show us some tips and tricks for painting Eldar, Tau, and even 'nid models. But, apart from the aforementioned Phantom gallery and a few shots of the Mymeara models, there are next to no xenos in the book.
Essentially the, Vol.2 is 'more of the same'. None of the content is bad, much of it very very good and well presented. But it is also very very similar to Vol.1, uses paints that aren't being made any more, and may not feature models or races you are interested in buying or playing. Not a horrible product at all, but a missed opportunity to develop a brand and a series into new directions.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Flagpole
Just a few minutes to spare while some paint dries to put out a couple of
thoughts on the recent Salute show at the Excel.
I went with an open mind. I went with an open wallet. I went, increasingly
disillusioned and frankly bored with GW games and products, with an eye to
discovering some new games to play and models to buy. Wayland Games
will be opening their new warehouse and gaming centre near me quite soon
so I thought I might get a headstart on collecting a new system.
Over an afternoon of trailing around the Excel, talking to players and reps,
and reading rules and demoing games, a couple of big differences became
apparent between Games Workshop and the competition.
When it comes to low barriers to entry, pretty much every major alternative to
GW games are streets ahead. Warmachines and Hordes, Infinity and
Mantic's offerings all offer free rule sets and cheap miniatures. It can't have
escaped anyone's notice Mantic are practically trying to give their mini's
away - barely a week passes without some mega-bundle deal arriving in my
Inbox, imploring me to buy a thousand Warpath mini's for £10.50 (or a
figuratively similar price). These boxes all come with free rules and there
were indeed several bundle deals at Salute giving free leader blisters, bags,
and the like with purchases of new armies. Warmahordes also come with the
stat cards you need to field the models and free rules are readily available to
download. Infinity has slightly more complex rules, meaning a rulebook
seems a must, but, like Privateer's games, you need very few miniatures to
start playing the game. Compare these startup costs with 40k or WFB,
where you are likely to have to spend around £100 just to get started, then
another £100 to get competitive, on models that aren't cheap to begin with
and increase in price with chilling regularity.
But, and this is important, GW is in turn streets ahead of all its competitors in
a key area - sales training.
Take my experience at the Privateer Press stand for starters.
I turned up, nice and early in the day, big smile on my face and asked a member of the
'street team' for a demo of Warmachine. 'Ah,' he said, 'can I show you
Hordes instead - its pretty much the same as Warmachine?'. Not a great
start, not showing the customer the product he has asked for, but I was in a
cooperative mood so I said 'OK' and off we went. Twenty or so minutes later we wrapped things up and I told my guide and another member of the team that had wandered over to help explain some
rules that I would really like to play the Retribution of Scyrah but didn't know
what models I should buy as there was no starter set for that faction.
'Hmmm,' they said, 'there is a recommended starter list though.'. When it
became apparent they weren't going to tell me what it was, I asked them for
some names and they rattled off half a dozen. I figured I could memorize
the list as it seemed to be largely the names of significant monsters from
Greek mythology. Then there was another awkward silence which I broke by
walking away to look for some of these beasties on the display racks along
the back wall of the stand. It turned out they didn't have most of the names I
was looking for in stock (perhaps explaining the crew's reluctance to help me
find them). They didn't have them at Wayland's stand either, although at least
the store staff there were friendly and helpfully suggested popping in to the
warehouse after the show wrapped up.
Turns out PP were actually the best customer experience I had that day. At
the Infinity table I got a game with a very friendly guy who unfortunately was
new to the system and didn't know all the rules. At the Mantic area I watched
a game of Warpath for a bit before asking one of the company reps if I
could look at the rules on the table in front of her. She said 'yes', then walked
away. Well, if you're not that interested in potential customers, I'm not that
interested in playing your game.
Its a shame really. I get why it happens - noone in the industry does retail
except GW so there's not an abundance of sales staff working for anyone
else. But seriously, why go to the trouble and expense of setting up stands
at the biggest sales opportunity in the UK and man them with people who
don't know the games, don't have an interest in bringing in new players, and
can't be bothered to even deal with people who come and ask them
questions? The marketing managers who come set these things up should
be just a little bit ashamed that the people they put in place were so
unprepared or unable to do the job they needed too. The creatives who work so hard and do such a good job at making entertaining games with gorgeous miniatures should be quite angry they are not being marketed in any way close to effectively.
So, I came away empty handed. The games I wanted to play didn't want me.
The mini's I wanted to buy weren't for sale. And so I shall probably end up
just pumping more money into GW - a company that scorns me, but still
works hard to pull me ever closer (yeah, I'm aware thats pretty close to
definitions of abusive relationships or, perhaps more aptly, those between
crack addicts and their dealers). They want to rip me off, but at least they
want me.
thoughts on the recent Salute show at the Excel.
I went with an open mind. I went with an open wallet. I went, increasingly
disillusioned and frankly bored with GW games and products, with an eye to
discovering some new games to play and models to buy. Wayland Games
will be opening their new warehouse and gaming centre near me quite soon
so I thought I might get a headstart on collecting a new system.
Over an afternoon of trailing around the Excel, talking to players and reps,
and reading rules and demoing games, a couple of big differences became
apparent between Games Workshop and the competition.
When it comes to low barriers to entry, pretty much every major alternative to
GW games are streets ahead. Warmachines and Hordes, Infinity and
Mantic's offerings all offer free rule sets and cheap miniatures. It can't have
escaped anyone's notice Mantic are practically trying to give their mini's
away - barely a week passes without some mega-bundle deal arriving in my
Inbox, imploring me to buy a thousand Warpath mini's for £10.50 (or a
figuratively similar price). These boxes all come with free rules and there
were indeed several bundle deals at Salute giving free leader blisters, bags,
and the like with purchases of new armies. Warmahordes also come with the
stat cards you need to field the models and free rules are readily available to
download. Infinity has slightly more complex rules, meaning a rulebook
seems a must, but, like Privateer's games, you need very few miniatures to
start playing the game. Compare these startup costs with 40k or WFB,
where you are likely to have to spend around £100 just to get started, then
another £100 to get competitive, on models that aren't cheap to begin with
and increase in price with chilling regularity.
But, and this is important, GW is in turn streets ahead of all its competitors in
a key area - sales training.
Take my experience at the Privateer Press stand for starters.
I turned up, nice and early in the day, big smile on my face and asked a member of the
'street team' for a demo of Warmachine. 'Ah,' he said, 'can I show you
Hordes instead - its pretty much the same as Warmachine?'. Not a great
start, not showing the customer the product he has asked for, but I was in a
cooperative mood so I said 'OK' and off we went. Twenty or so minutes later we wrapped things up and I told my guide and another member of the team that had wandered over to help explain some
rules that I would really like to play the Retribution of Scyrah but didn't know
what models I should buy as there was no starter set for that faction.
'Hmmm,' they said, 'there is a recommended starter list though.'. When it
became apparent they weren't going to tell me what it was, I asked them for
some names and they rattled off half a dozen. I figured I could memorize
the list as it seemed to be largely the names of significant monsters from
Greek mythology. Then there was another awkward silence which I broke by
walking away to look for some of these beasties on the display racks along
the back wall of the stand. It turned out they didn't have most of the names I
was looking for in stock (perhaps explaining the crew's reluctance to help me
find them). They didn't have them at Wayland's stand either, although at least
the store staff there were friendly and helpfully suggested popping in to the
warehouse after the show wrapped up.
Turns out PP were actually the best customer experience I had that day. At
the Infinity table I got a game with a very friendly guy who unfortunately was
new to the system and didn't know all the rules. At the Mantic area I watched
a game of Warpath for a bit before asking one of the company reps if I
could look at the rules on the table in front of her. She said 'yes', then walked
away. Well, if you're not that interested in potential customers, I'm not that
interested in playing your game.
Its a shame really. I get why it happens - noone in the industry does retail
except GW so there's not an abundance of sales staff working for anyone
else. But seriously, why go to the trouble and expense of setting up stands
at the biggest sales opportunity in the UK and man them with people who
don't know the games, don't have an interest in bringing in new players, and
can't be bothered to even deal with people who come and ask them
questions? The marketing managers who come set these things up should
be just a little bit ashamed that the people they put in place were so
unprepared or unable to do the job they needed too. The creatives who work so hard and do such a good job at making entertaining games with gorgeous miniatures should be quite angry they are not being marketed in any way close to effectively.
So, I came away empty handed. The games I wanted to play didn't want me.
The mini's I wanted to buy weren't for sale. And so I shall probably end up
just pumping more money into GW - a company that scorns me, but still
works hard to pull me ever closer (yeah, I'm aware thats pretty close to
definitions of abusive relationships or, perhaps more aptly, those between
crack addicts and their dealers). They want to rip me off, but at least they
want me.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Games Workshop Pages Disappearing
I have tried, unsuccessfully, to find out why Forgeworld books are no longer on the Games Workshop website. GW have ignored three questions on their Facebook page and Forgeworld were snarky but just as unhelpful on theirs.
But the shrinkage on the site gets worse. Ever since I started collecting Blood Angels I have referred to painting and assembling guides helpfully posted by Games Workshop. Tonight, they stopped working. The links no longer link to anything. If I google the pages they show up in the search results, along with previews. But there is no cached version of these pages, which probably means the cache was deleted by Google at Games Workshop's request.
The pages were:
www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?aId=8000044a
www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?aId=13700012a
I have emailed Games Workshop, asking what happened to the pages, but, as the only 'contact us' email address is for 'orders' (how telling is that, eh?) and GW's apparent reluctance to answer any questions about changes they have made, I don't hold out much hope of getting a sensisble answer any time soon.
Of course, it could just be a server problem, but then why is there no cached version?
Any other pages gone missing?
But the shrinkage on the site gets worse. Ever since I started collecting Blood Angels I have referred to painting and assembling guides helpfully posted by Games Workshop. Tonight, they stopped working. The links no longer link to anything. If I google the pages they show up in the search results, along with previews. But there is no cached version of these pages, which probably means the cache was deleted by Google at Games Workshop's request.
The pages were:
www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?aId=8000044a
www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?aId=13700012a
I have emailed Games Workshop, asking what happened to the pages, but, as the only 'contact us' email address is for 'orders' (how telling is that, eh?) and GW's apparent reluctance to answer any questions about changes they have made, I don't hold out much hope of getting a sensisble answer any time soon.
Of course, it could just be a server problem, but then why is there no cached version?
Any other pages gone missing?
Thursday, January 19, 2012
No more Armour
Here's a weird one: GW appear to no longer sell Imperial Armour books.
I have been looking forward to buying Imperial Armour 11 for quite some time - it does contain details on two of the three armies I collect, after all. But instead of rushing to the Forgeworld site to get a copy before Christmas I held off, wanting to pay for it with Paypal and skip shipping charges by buying it from the GW site. But I am foiled! Without ceremony or announcement, Forgeworld books no longer appear for sale on the GW site (certainly not in the UK anyway and I'm too lazy to check every nationality's page).
It used to be the case that Forgeworld books were initially exclusive to their own site. The reason given was it took a while for stock to reach warehouses around the world. I figured it probably didn't hurt FW's bottom line to have that initial period of exclusivity either so I'm guessing thats the reason for this latest move.
Its strange neither GW nor FW decided to mention this change to their customers though - even stranger that GW have ignored my questions about this on their Facebook page. Well, strange for a normal customer-facing company in the modern world that thrives on including its customers in the moves they make and the things they do as a way of promoting buy-in to said company's products, anyway...
I have been looking forward to buying Imperial Armour 11 for quite some time - it does contain details on two of the three armies I collect, after all. But instead of rushing to the Forgeworld site to get a copy before Christmas I held off, wanting to pay for it with Paypal and skip shipping charges by buying it from the GW site. But I am foiled! Without ceremony or announcement, Forgeworld books no longer appear for sale on the GW site (certainly not in the UK anyway and I'm too lazy to check every nationality's page).
It used to be the case that Forgeworld books were initially exclusive to their own site. The reason given was it took a while for stock to reach warehouses around the world. I figured it probably didn't hurt FW's bottom line to have that initial period of exclusivity either so I'm guessing thats the reason for this latest move.
Its strange neither GW nor FW decided to mention this change to their customers though - even stranger that GW have ignored my questions about this on their Facebook page. Well, strange for a normal customer-facing company in the modern world that thrives on including its customers in the moves they make and the things they do as a way of promoting buy-in to said company's products, anyway...
*Update* After writing a letter of complaint about getting blanked or insulted on the GW and FW Facebook pages, I got a very nice letter back from GW/FW this morning. In essence, the FW books have been pulled from the GW website simply because if they are sold that way, customers get free shipping - which means FW have to pay for it. So, to protect the margins, no more free shipping. Which is annoying because that is exactly why I was waiting for IA11 to appear on GW's site. Free shipping. Curses, foiled again.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Sprayaway!
Got a new spray gun from GW in the post this morning and, hold your breath, the parts all fit together! This meant I was able to spend some time spraying up the remainder of my Wolf Guard army and a few normal marines as well. A quick write-up on the spray gun then.
I wish I had known how quickly this thing applies paint before I did three drop-pods, a LRC and a rhino by hand! Honestly - between five and ten minutes to coat 8 terminators in a nice even colour that dries to a smooth finish, ready for shading and highlighting. The finished coat looks like the plastic itself is coloured, its that smooth.
Its not quite as simple as lining up the figures and spraying them in smooth side-to-side motions though. The intricate nature of the sculpts and the model's poses meant I could not get away without picking each one up to angle them so as to let the paint jet get into some of the nooks and crannies. As a result I now have Space Wolves grey fingers and thumb so everyone I meet at the club tonight will instantly know what I've been doing. Caught blue-handed.
The setup of the gun is a little finicky too. The adapter that attaches to the propellant can is a little looser than I would like - I could hear a little hiss of escaping gas when I changed cans halfway through the session, even though the adapter was tightly screwed on. The hiss did stop though so I guess this could just be a consequence of all the pars taking a second to expand or contract into place.
Judging the quantity of paint going into the jar could be more an art than a science too. The marks the jar has on it are designed for foundation paints only so one has to use slightly less water for normal colours. When you're using a homemade mixture like I do for Wolves base coat that already has had a little water added to dilute there's no way of knowing in advance what consistency you want the spray mix to be. I'm a little surprised GW haven't included a guide for non-foundation paint mixtures, but hey-ho. I seemed to have got the right thickness in the end and I guess there's always going to be an element of experimentation involved anyway.
Its hard to say how efficient the spray gun is. As I considered the amount of wastage involved in transfering my paint mix into the gun's canister and then returning the excess back to the original jar I began to wonder if this wasn't just another way for GW to make me buy more of their paints! Naturally a lot of paint in the spray you fire is going to miss the model completely and I can life with that. But I hate the thought of leaving paint in the gun's jar just to be washed away duing the rinse! Surely GW could have come up with an adapter that fitted directly onto the plastic pots the paints come in? Maybe not, maybe I'm asking too much. I guess its really not that much wastage in the grand scheme of things and, after all, the spray gun's greatest economy is in time spent, not paint.
All in all I'm positive about Citadel's little melta-themed effort. I'm looking forward to the next time I need to paint vehicles or buildings and wondering what magic I can perform with stencils and camo patterns. No doubt this pray gun is not the greatest of its kind - I'm sure you can find more high tech tools with more bells and whitles on out there. But for a beginner hobbyist like myself without too much spare time or cash to spend, this one is more than adequate.
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