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On the other end of the spectrum they can and should do more sergeant-level unit upgrade special characters that are about asskicking without particular strategic acumen.
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# ? Dec 8, 2014 03:10 |
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# ? Jun 11, 2024 23:07 |
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Whoa there partner that would require restraint which is not something GW has ever had.
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# ? Dec 8, 2014 03:43 |
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So this is probably way late to the party here but I was pawing through some WD's that have been gathering dust at my FLGS while waiting on some friends to finish up a game, and saw that Space wolf guy on a flying boat/chariot pulled by two dogs. Goddamn nearly fell on the floor laughing. I don't know why anybody has any hope for that game.
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# ? Dec 8, 2014 04:24 |
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The concept for that model is so loving stupid I don't know where to begin other than someone must have drafted it up as a joke and his supervisor didn't get it, because his supervisor plays warhammer.
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# ? Dec 8, 2014 06:45 |
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Numlock posted:So this is probably way late to the party here but I was pawing through some WD's that have been gathering dust at my FLGS while waiting on some friends to finish up a game, and saw that Space wolf guy on a flying boat/chariot pulled by two dogs. Goddamn nearly fell on the floor laughing. ~~~murder klaus is coming to tooown~~~
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# ? Dec 8, 2014 06:47 |
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S.J. posted:The concept for that model is so loving stupid I don't know where to begin other than someone must have drafted it up as a joke and his supervisor didn't get it, because his supervisor plays warhammer.
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# ? Dec 8, 2014 06:53 |
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In other news, guess who just issued a profit warning .quote:Games Workshop Group PLC saw its shares fall Monday after it said it now expects its operating profit for the first half to be slightly lower than last year, hit by the strong pound.
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 09:15 |
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drat you, £!
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 09:26 |
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Can someone who knows more than I do explain whether that's an actual reasonable explanation or whether it stinks of trying to blame something for their losses? Because it sounds perfectly reasonable if taken at face value, but for all I know it could be another case of "$4 million website! note: 3+ million of that is actually other losses that we had to launder somehow").
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 09:28 |
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It's bullshit. The pound has been up just as much as it's been down. Putting this into context with the hangover from 7th ed, people buying the rules who couldn't afford it in the first week of release and people buying new units to fit into the meta, along with WHF End of times which has apparently been a runaway success, it's really not good.
Daedleh fucked around with this message at 09:36 on Dec 9, 2014 |
# ? Dec 9, 2014 09:34 |
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Rulebook Heavily posted:And on top of that, space marines used to be the force where you bought fewer models and painted fewer models and still had an army that was just as good, which is a consideration for a beginner or anyone on a budget and is a huge factor. Grey Knights kind of usurped that from Space Marines more recently. EDIT: Night10194 posted:Someday, I really want to see a Marine who is introduced as EITHER a very good commander OR a very good fighter. Getting told every single Marine ever is the best commander in the Imperium and also the best fightman is part of why they're so insanely boring as a whole. HiveCommander fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Dec 9, 2014 |
# ? Dec 9, 2014 10:39 |
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They're blaming the strong pound for their stuff being overpriced basically
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 10:45 |
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Phoon posted:They're blaming the strong pound for their stuff being overpriced basically Forging the narrative.
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 10:48 |
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Well, the pound did just get a new codex.
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 10:55 |
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JerryLee posted:Well, the pound did just get a new codex. Yeah, and have you seen how OP its against most of the other currencies out there? I mean, One pound is worth $1.56, 1.2 Euros - and those are just the competitive currencies, your even more stuffed if your one of the poor sods who runs a Zimbabwean Dollar force - Each Pound is worth 361 ZWD! I know the ZWD is a horde currency, but still!
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 11:56 |
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Sterling's taken over as the low unit-count choice.
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 12:19 |
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JerryLee posted:Can someone who knows more than I do explain whether that's an actual reasonable explanation or whether it stinks of trying to blame something for their losses? Because it sounds perfectly reasonable if taken at face value, but for all I know it could be another case of "$4 million website! note: 3+ million of that is actually other losses that we had to launder somehow"). It's not unreasonable and dependent on the financial report could be true. If sales across the EU and US are down it could be attributed to the strength of the pound, which is at something like a 5 year high against the dollar. However, if they are a million lower than last year (which is still £10 million in profit, important to remember that) there is a strong possibility that the US market has completely turned on them. There is no more fat to trim anywhere in their sales business over there.
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 12:22 |
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petrol blue posted:Sterling's taken over as the low unit-count choice. It is unfortunate that it has Nazi iconography on it in the form of a Deaths Head. What? That's the current portrait of the Queen? Woops!
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 12:24 |
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serious gaylord posted:It's not unreasonable and dependent on the financial report could be true. If sales across the EU and US are down it could be attributed to the strength of the pound, which is at something like a 5 year high against the dollar. Anecdotal but in my experience the playerbase of the US has told games workshop to gently caress right off. At the local game stores in Houston I see more people on Warmachine play nights in the middle of the week than I do show up for 40k Tournaments. One store I regularly visit stocks more Saga than Warhammer Fantasy and Warmachine gets more shelf space than 40k and Fantasy combined. The local facebook groups openly talk about buying knock-off poo poo from China since a lot of the players would otherwise be priced out of the hobby and at least twice a month someone is completely selling out of the game (I'm doing that sometime this week). Other games with tighter rules, lower costs of entries, and more customer focused company policies are booming in sales while GW constantly bleeds market share.
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 13:05 |
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serious gaylord posted:It's not unreasonable and dependent on the financial report could be true. If sales across the EU and US are down it could be attributed to the strength of the pound, which is at something like a 5 year high against the dollar. It's not unreasonable for a small drop to be attributed to currency fluctuations but not this much and especially not in the context of the rest of the market. It smells of a "everything's fine, it's just a one-off" excuse same as one man stores and the website in the previous report.
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 13:40 |
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Exinos posted:Anecdotal but in my experience the playerbase of the US has told games workshop to gently caress right off. At the local game stores in Houston I see more people on Warmachine play nights in the middle of the week than I do show up for 40k Tournaments. One store I regularly visit stocks more Saga than Warhammer Fantasy and Warmachine gets more shelf space than 40k and Fantasy combined. The local facebook groups openly talk about buying knock-off poo poo from China since a lot of the players would otherwise be priced out of the hobby and at least twice a month someone is completely selling out of the game (I'm doing that sometime this week). I completely agree that 40k is dying in the US, however I would say that the wargaming market is remaining stable, not really booming. Theres a lot of cross cannibalism between games, a lot of it coming from 40k being dropped and those people starting multiple games due to the much lower model count required. All my opinion though.
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 13:56 |
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Basically it seems like what's happening is they are losing ground to competitors outside the UK worse than within the UK and attempting to use currency fluctuations as an excuse. Doesn't seem very convincing to me but it might work on shareholders? I assume they are losing out worse outside the UK than in due to the power of the brand and the advantage of GW only stores being the only gaming shops in some places.
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 14:13 |
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Grey Hunter posted:I know the ZWD is a horde currency, but still! You think it's bad now? Should've seen the previous codex, it was basically unplayable!
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 14:22 |
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HiveCommander posted:EDIT: Nobody would take him the same way they don't take vanilla commander Plus, I've been indoctrinated so hard that a Space Marine leader with a primary ranged weapon seems just wrong. On the other hand, yesterday was the first time I saw Bolt Action and to my even greater surprise Judge Dredd in actual stores. Sure, it was a hobby shop in Japan, but still. A hobby shop with three Golden Demons (including this one). Then again, 40K isn't particularly popular here (nor is anything not CCG) and the only fans I've seen are over 30 or foreigners. Possibly both.
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 14:27 |
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Exinos posted:Anecdotal but in my experience the playerbase of the US has told games workshop to gently caress right off. At the local game stores in Houston I see more people on Warmachine play nights in the middle of the week than I do show up for 40k Tournaments. One store I regularly visit stocks more Saga than Warhammer Fantasy and Warmachine gets more shelf space than 40k and Fantasy combined. The local facebook groups openly talk about buying knock-off poo poo from China since a lot of the players would otherwise be priced out of the hobby and at least twice a month someone is completely selling out of the game (I'm doing that sometime this week). This is basically how it is at my LGS. A year ago we had people filling up tables to play 40k on Wednesday night, which was club night; now, it's being dominated by X-Wing, Warmachine, and Malifaux, with only one or two games of 40k being played. Almost no one plays WHFB outside of their homes, and even the store owner did a sale to get rid of WHFB inventory that wasn't moving simply to make room for other stuff. A lot of it can be chalked up to high prices and bad/mediocre codices, but 7th edition was seemingly the straw that broke the camels back. It came out too soon for a lot of people, at a completely ridiculous price ($100 for 3 books, only 1 of which you need? Pft), and didn't fix any of the underlying problems with 6th. Some have sold off their armies, others have shelved them for the next few years, and the amount of players who are actively playing each week is vanishingly small. It's pretty dire for a club built on the back of 40k to almost abandon it entirely.
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 17:50 |
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Man did I ever pick the wrong year to try to get back into Warhams.
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 17:52 |
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serious gaylord posted:I completely agree that 40k is dying in the US, however I would say that the wargaming market is remaining stable, not really booming. Theres a lot of cross cannibalism between games, a lot of it coming from 40k being dropped and those people starting multiple games due to the much lower model count required. Again, Anecdotal to me, but other games and systems are doing huge business. X-Wing constantly moves off the shelves and new releases can be hard to find at all, some of the local stores do large volumes of Warmachine/Hordes and even the smaller games like Flames of War and Saga are selling decently. By contrast I basically never see Games Workshop product moving any more and the same boxes sit up on the shelves with their ridiculous pricing for months, or even years, on end. Don't remember the last time I seen one of the Land Raider boxes even get touched at the local shop for example and I'd almost be willing to be money that it would only have been to move it from the middle to the top in favor of something that may actually sell. The fact is that GW has hosed themselves by being a giant poo poo-pile run by people consumed by trying to push the edge on what price someone will pay for that "Jewel like object of wonder". I used to be a huge GW Fanboy and had a massive Tyranid army, a massive Space Marine Army, and a massive Chaos army for 40k while also some fantasy Orcs and Vampires, mostly used for fun and Mordheim. I've already sold the Nids to a goon, pawned off the marines during a local Bits Bazaar then used that store credit to go all in on Warmahodes, Now I'm inventorying my Chaos stuff that I've spent hundreds of hours converting and sculpting while I expect the retail value to easily top 3k I'll probably be selling out closer to $1,000 just so I don't have to move it to the new house and can instead use that money on other games. And my story is not that unique. GW had absolute market dominance and now people locally are struggling to find games of 40k or fantasy and it's going to only get worse. New players see the buy in price and turn to the other games on the shelves while old players see them trying to monopolize everything and charge inflated rates which just leaves a sour taste. What would have previously been a White Dwarf painting article or something done by Black Gobbo on the website is now a $4.99 Black Library digital download. New codex's feel incomplete and surprise surprise there are often additional supplements available, sometimes day 1, that add what seems to be missing. Hell, they can't even give fans new wallpaper images to promote their lines, it's a loving paid product as well. That's not even taking into account the game is an unbalanced mess and the rules are poo poo, even with the 6th edition FAQ that costs $100.00 and calls itself 7th. They act like saying it's a Beer and Pretzels game makes it ok to be a sloppy turd and the game effectively does not work at a competitive level. When people play a game, even a casual game, they tend to play to win and if there is so much randomness or just broken jank in the game that it often feels a matter of pure luck over any form of skill then people will not play that game. The fact that GW has stopped any sort of official support on the competitive scene and flat out promoted it as "Forging the narrative" should be enough for most people to run away right away but the whole sunk cost fallacy kicks in. I can play a goofy list with a theme via Warmachine and the rules are good enough and (almost) all models are good enough that I still have a chance if I out play my opponent. All that and more has combined into the perfect storm of GW getting hosed by their own policies. Meanwhile there are always new people buying into X-Wing and that's probably going to blow the gently caress up when the movies come out. I constantly see new people demoing and buying into Warmachine thanks to the press gangers and that community. Back at my old local store we were adding 1 to 2 regular warmachine players a month and they stuck with it to the point where it would be hard to find a table on a Thursday night while the 40k players could not even fill half the tables for their monthly scheduled event on a Saturday. This is just my local experience but based on people I talk to in various boards and other locations I would be extremely surprised if it was in any way contained in my area.
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 19:18 |
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Quote != edit
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 19:19 |
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Apollodorus posted:Man did I ever pick the wrong year to try to get back into Warhams. Get out now and join the rest of us in games that don't suck.
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 19:24 |
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On the 'what about the strategic-master marine' topic: one of the things that really put me off GW was that it became harder and harder to make my own awesome leader - with all the fluff about GW's Big drat Heroes, I want to create my own Big drat Hero character. Now, to be clear, I've not actively played since 3e (maybe start of 4th?), but it really felt like the GW fluff-writers had created their characters, and they had to be the best characters - the wargame equivalent of the GM's pet NPCs hogging the limelight in RPGs. I've not played WH, but I get the impression it has the same thing - you can't create McAwesomepants the Necromonster, you have to use Nagash because that's the character the GM thinks is coolest. Why can't I forge my narrative? e: Exinos posted:GW had absolute market dominance and now people locally are struggling to find games of 40k or fantasy and it's going to only get worse. I think this is key to what's going to kill GW - hobbys are the sort of thing that spiral badly. If 90% of the games played locally are System X, you'll likely play that even if it's a worse system, because you get to play more. But every time that %age drops, anyone new (or looking to buy a new army, etc) has a lower chance of buying into System X, which means less games are played of it... GW's strategy worked while they were 90% of the market (people bought even even knowing GW were shite because that's what everyone played), but they seem to be in a serious downward spiral now. petrol blue fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Dec 9, 2014 |
# ? Dec 9, 2014 19:36 |
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Because your dude obviously isn't as cool as Captain Bloodtalon of the Bloodfoxes and his amazing idea of maybe not charging *directly* into the enemies guns and going behind them. Brilliance!
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 19:38 |
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petrol blue posted:On the 'what about the strategic-master marine' topic: one of the things that really put me off GW was that it became harder and harder to make my own awesome leader - with all the fluff about GW's Big drat Heroes, I want to create my own Big drat Hero character. Now, to be clear, I've not actively played since 3e (maybe start of 4th?), but it really felt like the GW fluff-writers had created their characters, and they had to be the best characters - the wargame equivalent of the GM's pet NPCs hogging the limelight in RPGs. Because assholes will make min/maxed heroes that are 99% unkillable and 100% no fun to play against.
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 19:43 |
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And some special characters aren't nearly that already?
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 19:46 |
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Indolent Bastard posted:Because assholes will make min/maxed heroes that are 99% unkillable and 100% no fun to play against. This is a total departure from Primarchs because...
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 19:47 |
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serious gaylord posted:However, if they are a million lower than last year (which is still £10 million in profit, important to remember that) there is a strong possibility that the US market has completely turned on them. There is no more fat to trim anywhere in their sales business over there. It's not a possibility, it's pretty much a given at this point. They priced themselves out of Australia and New Zealand, and now they have apparently done the same to North America. GW clearly wants to retreat back to being a UK-only company at this point. Also keep in mind that one of the bigger (E: USA-based) online retailers (Miniatures Market) recently had a fire sale of all their GW stuff, during which they said numerous times "once our GW stock is gone, we will not be taking any further orders for GW product". I strongly suspect that we will see more US-based retailers following their lead in the next year or two. GW was a pain in the rear end for them to deal with, but as long as their stuff sold they were happy to put up with it. If GW's stuff isn't selling any more, why would a retailer want to keep on putting up with their nonsense? Especially when other games seem to be doing just fine, and are made by companies that don't have ridiculous policies for online retailers. Sydney Bottocks fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Dec 9, 2014 |
# ? Dec 9, 2014 19:47 |
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Indolent Bastard posted:Because assholes will make min/maxed heroes that are 99% unkillable and 100% no fun to play against. petrol blue fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Dec 9, 2014 |
# ? Dec 9, 2014 19:48 |
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Apollodorus posted:Man did I ever pick the wrong year to try to get back into Warhams. An entire x-wing army costs as much as the new 3-piece exquisitely crafted rulebook and companion lore for the warhams.
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 19:52 |
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Apollodorus posted:Man did I ever pick the wrong year to try to get back into Warhams.
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 19:52 |
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petrol blue posted:Why can't I forge my narrative? Serious answer; because GW doesn't actually care about players "forging the narrative" and most players probably don't give a poo poo about it either. I'm willing to bet that most 40K games that actually get played don't even pay lip service to the concept of narrative. Like, the armies themselves might be built to some standard of fluff, i.e. the Nurgle warband where everything's in 7's or whatever, but in terms of campaign play or creating unique and personalized characters or charting out a timeline, I imagine only a tiny fraction of players even care about stuff like that as opposed to "well I've got some Orks, you've got Space Wolves? All right, let's get the table set up."
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 19:56 |
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# ? Jun 11, 2024 23:07 |
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Indolent Bastard posted:Because assholes will make min/maxed heroes that are 99% unkillable and 100% no fun to play against. I love posts like this because they miss the point so drat hard.
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# ? Dec 9, 2014 19:59 |