That Jake you speak of got me into the hobby too! However, I was in london which is where he went just after being in the mississauga store.

I pre ordered the guard/vespid kill team box and will probably pre order the previewed ork/ratling one too. The minis are just oo good!

Games Workshop making people happily trap themselves in meat freezers is the best metaphor ever XD

As an adult with a full time job, spouse, and two kids it’s just easier to play another GW game than learn a whole new system. Despite the differences the games play pretty much the same. It’s easy to jump around.

Our group used to be almost exclusively Infinity. Recently Killteam has been taking over. Most of us still believe that infinity is a better game but our gaming location cannot accommodate permanent tables and Killteam is faster and easier to setup and has a smaller footprint. Sad to see Infinity losing out because of that. Has Battletech taken off at all at your store? How do you feel about Battletech's return to a prominent position?

Good analysis. Ultimately the decisive advantage GW enjoys is that you can easily find people who play their games and that’s what makes the difference compared to more Indy products

My own theory has always been that their specialist games are basically an in-house Kickstarter to fund things. Aeronautica and Titanicus basically paid for a fair chunk of the new Epic. Kill Team appears to have helped kickstart the new Krieg range for 40k. WarCry and Underworlds have been used to supplement AoS ranges. A lot of Specialist games also seem to be how GW funds their terrain these days. WarCry terrain for AoS, the whole Zone Mortalis terrain for Necromunda that also works for 40k and 30k (same with the Gallowdark space hulk terrain from KT).

GW is also quite clever in never allowing us to be "done". There's always a new shiney that keeps us running to keep up. I don't blame them it's their job to sell us stuff.

After the way AMG screwed the Armada and Xwing players, I truly hope that GW puts AMG out of business. AMG is GW's biggest competitor and I hope they punish them badly.

I think your analysis is spot on; at least for me. As I age in the hobby, I find that my main interaction with the Warhammer worlds is through the specialist games. Kill Team and Legions Imperialis are 40k (and 30k) for me, while Old World is the fantasy game of choice of my gaming group. The big exception is AoS, which I love so much, I could never really drop. However, I don't play it NEARLY as much as I used to.

GW is going crazy with the number of new editions since June: Age of Sigmar Kill Team (out this weekend) Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game (out in December) Underworlds (announced at Warhammer Day, unsure when it will be released, but would make a great Xmas gift).

Would you not do the exact same thing if you were in the same position and saw that most of your competition treated physical retail stores as an afterthought in favour of online crowd funding projects delivered by post and selling stl files completely online? I'd even go so far as to argue that the primary target of specialist games are not the end users, but instead are the independent retailers who own and run most of the publicly available space that is set aside for actually playing games. Hey independent retail store owners; do you want to drop money on stocking an independent game that could be dead on arrival because the crowd funding sucked all of the oxygen out of the room, or do you want to buy stock from a brand a with historically good sales history? But I recently learned that ForgeWorld recruited Kev White from Hasslefree Miniatures (essentially hiring the guy responsible for most of their sculpts), which lines up neatly with your observation that GW is not just content to be the biggest fish in a small pond but is actively trying to stamp out their competion.

When you guys mentioned that games workshop's specialist games was to get the smaller companies out of business, I immediately thought of what you said next, plenty of existing game companies came into being because games workshop abandoned those specialist games. I think there's a careful distinction between thinking games workshop just wants to take all your money, I think games workshop looks at the pie chart of all sorts of games and kinds of gamers and has been looking into creating games for each of those kinds of customers. Those who want something fantasy versus those who want something science fiction, those who want large games versus small games, etc. it is then a problem on our end as consumers to assume that we have to want and buy into every game system that they come out with. As I get older I'm able to look at 40K and recognize that I prefer smaller games and that I pretty much just want to stick with combat patrol. I got burned out on fantasy battles so the fantasy side of things doesn't really appeal to me, but then spearhead came out and it does, but that doesn't draw me into age of Sigmar. But that's just me, there are plenty of different gamers out there with different itches to scratch. So I'm not ready to say that games workshop is trying to put other companies out of business, but they are realizing that there were customer segments that they weren't profiting off of and have found ways to resurrect old games and properties and putting out new versions of those games to appeal to that slice of their customer base. On one hand if their product is superior and I like their game better than the smaller competitors games then games workshop might get my dollars, on the other hand it is not an automatic that I give up my third party game to buy back into games workshops new release. However I can see that as a group of people, a playgroup, I might find myself back under the GW umbrella to play game XYZ because the people I want to play games with migrated back and I have to play what everyone's playing.

Bringing back BFG would only really compete with Dropfleet, Warcradle is supposed to be bringing back Firestorm Armada at some point, but honestly, that seems dead in the water, other than that. What with X-wing and Armada gone, everyone else in the spaceship miniatures world is super tiny, and mostly either producing miniatures or rules, not both I'm not sure there's much incentive to bring back BFG

Definitely part of the plan, to keep people tied into the Warhammer universes, was the big error of dropping it the first time imo..... a bigger part now, as opposed to then, is taking up the publicity oxygen. They won't crush a lot of the smaller games, as a lot of their player bases are attracted by aesthetics GW doesn't have, or the gameplay of GW games doesn't work for them. Personally, I am not currently playing any of the GW specialist games as the rules don't deliver an experience I want, or the GW product release model (cough Necromunda) is obnoxious.

games workshop sell to retailers through customer hype

im not sure gw is that organised

I grew up playing 40K and Old World. Now that I am older with a family, these specialty games are really the only way I can stay in the hobby. Finding them time to build and paint 1 squad is a much easier task to manage then an entire 40K or TOW army.

I think AOS probably supports Old World as compared in the past when Old World was a third of of their production but only produced 14% of sales. I also remember enjoying the wargame Trinity and it died so quickly when the next edition of 40K came out that year.

Ordered one from you guys the other day, it will be here Monday. 😁

I totally agree about the smaller companies games. I talked with a customer about this today, how the amount of fun you have with your friend is fairly irrelevant to the game system. It’s based on the individuals and a popular game lets you actually find people to play with. The reality about prices is that more money spent = customer is more likely to keep playing. I don’t really like stocking super cheap to enter games because often if you steer a customer to only play a $50 to enter game they probably won’t stick around.

"When Old World went away the first time . . . " I wonder if we'll see market forces strong enough that a once core line is completely replaced again.

Aaaaaaactually... according to former GW staff there is some in-house rivalry between the different studios, as they all have separate budgets. The studio heads for AOS and TOW apparently have an almost adversarial attitude. It's one of the reasons there's virtually no crossover between the two product lines since the relaunch of TOW. I couldn't believe it when I heard it. It's unbelievably poor management if true.

Two things... 1. I always try to support the brick and mortar FLGS, making the vast majority of my purchases there. So if Warhammer is all they stock... which is pretty much the case... then GW products are what I buy. Huge barrier to getting into things like Infinity or Dead Zone. The local store does GW, Shatterpoint and MCP and I just pass on non-GW IP systems anymore. 2. GW ABSOLUTELY cares about tracking sales by system, perhaps due to idiotic internal rivalries. They’re making a tremendous effort to make it as difficult as possible to use models for more than one system. As others said... Beastmen is a case in point. As well as, apparently, stand alone Daemons armies disappearing from 40k and AoS.

I like all the specialist games because I like 40k, it's not the other way around. It's sucks for the smaller guy but it is what it is

Chris made a really good comment and it may be foreshadowing why we haven't seen a Mordheim reboot yet... If you ever see GW struggling financially, prepare your wallet for a Mordheim release to empty your account. They don't need to release it right now, as much as people would love to see it.

Those old world box sets are so good (but i've never bought one because I have the miniatures already).

At LVO this year, its Almost all but the nichest games for GW are there, All AMG games, Warmachine. That is it No ASOIAF, No Conquest, No Infinity, no Batman game, nothing, when they all had spots in the past. GW is trying to muscle out the competition and as cost of living increases and stores are required more and more to be a business proper instead of a passion project for people like they used to be in the 2000s and early 2010s, they will trim fat and only leave what sells, GW, Magic and D&D

The problem is we more or less 100% know GW DO care what you buy within their company. GW do not operate like a normal business or company and are rife with internal factions and politics such as the AoS vs WFB conflict. If GW did not care where you buy your models as it all falls under the same profit margin (which it doesn't) then they wouldn't have squatted Beast Men from AoS and you'd see plenty of kits sold under the AoS/WFB banner or even explicitly AoS/40K (as was once the case). If you watch the "inside scoop" from Squarebase there was massive infighting over which game system retains the "Beastmen" AoS of Old World: it 100% mattered which system makes which % of profit, they are in effect in competition with each other. A normal company wouldn't care but GW are not normal. If you've sold yourself to the higher ups as someone arguing WFB is nonsense and AoS is the way forwards ("cause a League of Legends/Warcraft ripoff is way better than WFB"), of course you're going to spike the other side's football (which is ultimately what happened). Why are so many 40K units under the Kill Team banner? Which incidentally are priced too high are not selling... which in turn has signalled to GW to RAISE THE PRICES even more, rather than reduce, with the new edition (lol). GW have games like Necromunda and Blood Bowl because they know those customers aren't going to buy any other GW product or liable to go elsewhere. GW produce games like Warcry and Underworlds maybe in some vague sense to compete with other GAMES but more likely they are there to compete with other MINIATURES. Selling small groups of plastic miniatures which are highly characterful directly competes with games like Malifaux. Most people including 80% of GW's customers buy miniatures to paint - not to play games, remember.

So, you guys just now figuring out how capitalism works? 😊

I hope they keep supporting Legions Imperialis in the longer term with more factions beyond the mechanicum

its less of a cave and more of a blackhole sucking you into infinity

Funny note. Blood bowl is older than Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader.

Interesting discussion. One thing with Wargaming in itself is already kinda of a niche hobby so if you really want to play against someone you want a big a group of people to play it with so you have a redundancy of people to actual play with. With other systems from other manufacturers you sort of need to drag your gaming group into it and hope they will stick with it or even start it. I guess some people find it nice if Specialist brings out a new system as it is a GW product, it can be easier to get someone into it if they already are part of the GW eco-system. The one curious thing GW has done is with the new Kill-team is adding Solo / Coop almost if they are seeing what Board gaming has been doing and thinking we can hook this system into that and get new people into the eco-system.

I am firmly in the camp of “please god leave Mordheim alone. Just don’t touch it”

I hope you guys know that you are the favorite channel of sooo many LGS workers out there.

I really love your guys’s videos! You have some pretty interesting conversation bits. Have you ever thought about just going into the main topic? Instead of doing an intro?

Definitely appreciate the gymn analogy

I have 3 kids full time job I thought I had no time. I used to try to schedule hobby time in my garage at my desk and it rarely happened and took me 3 years to nearly finish an army but I wasn't happy with it. This past year I stopped waiting for full sessions and set up a mini setup in my laundry room and anytime id get literally a couple minutes to breathe Id go and get a micro hobby session in. Those minutes added up and Im nearly done my army and just won store champion for my local GW armies on parade. You have more time than you think! If you're motivated you can always find tiny moments here and there that accumulate

Great hobby, but the cost of living crisis we are all in now, really makes you think is this box of plastic a more sensible choice then purchasing good quality foods. You’d be broke trying to keep up with everything. Still love everything else about it though.

Get an airbrush and put a nice zénithal on your minis. You can play them like that and it’s motivating to get the shades put on top.

When im sitting on discord chat, i usually paint. In that little time after dinner my wife and i spend some chill time apart before we go walk the dogs. - strictly old world, i have no time for other hobbies now 😂.

I developed a big ole spreadsheet to keep me going, and I just hit 500 models painted this year. I think having some kind of accountability mechanism is a good motivator, for me at least. I think it also help to remember is any progress is progress. If you're too tired to paint precision blends, paint some boots and pouches. Anything that keeps you regularly connected to painting will reduce the friction of painting next time.

You start with a "Days of Our Lives" reference? I remember watching that as a kid when I had a day off school sick, and I'm over 60! And (after a quick Google search) it finished on broadcast tv in 2022!! That show left our (New Zealand) screens decades ago.

Ive never heard of this channel before, but these people seem very misinformed. Some things they are saying are completely wrong and just false, some things they are saying are really exaggertaed or misrepresented, and some things (Other Side being a flop) are spot on. I had a whole list of points to go through in the video to discuss, but no one will read these comments anyway. I will jist sum it up to say that Malifaux is hardly dead. Its grown quite a lot dueonf 3rd edition and is fairly popular (as far as non-GW wargames in 2020s are concerned) in various places across the world. Okay i couldnt resist one thing. I wouldnt know how active Wyrd is on social media but me and my playgroup got ads for the last expansion book on youtube constantly ahead of and just after the release. I could point to half a doze other things they either made up or grossly exaggerated, but Im really done now.

If you play as you go with a good gaming group it’s motivating. Don’t struggle in isolation.

"You can get better REALLY fast if you apply yourself" - Dai's first nomad Gecko~ As an extension to this video topic, what about another video about how to improve yourself by establishing Hobby Nights with like-minded people ;). Primarily speaking to how people will come together for 40k/KillTeam/AoS/Spearhead "Nights" but not many people come together for weekly painting nights. Gotta perpetuate what made the group successful~ Miss you guys, see you soon~

It’s not about not having time for me, it’s losing interest in a project and wanting to paint something different. That’s why skirmish level games are better for me. Painting 6 to 10 similar models... no problem... 100 models? Oh man.

Best advice for hobbying is just to make sure you have a small area and that the area isn't cluttered and relatively clean. I had 30 models out for 2 months painted nothing, cleaned up and painted 5 in 2 weeks l.

“Crushing some videos on your phone” I feel like you wanted to say crushing some beers with the boys!