Rick Priestley on Lord of the Rings

[@Quoththeravenminiatures]

love Rick's views on workshop management. That level of honesty is so refreshing

[@fromthedumpstertothegrave3689]

Management in general. Given most organizations cock ups are because of management and to learn from said cock ups management as a whole have to reflect that what happened was a direct result of themselves. A combination of self preservation, groupthink and plain human fallibility means the team is WAY more likely to draw conclusions which somehow shift any blame away from them, because after all, they're the ones with the power to point fingers.

[@lordofuzkulak8308]

I think his comments about salesmen overstating what they could sell tracks with something I’ve thought about the demise of WHFB for years; GW looks at sales decreasing and decided the best way to boost sales was to make armies larger while at the same time decreasing how many minis were in a box as a way of trying to encourage players to buy more minis, but this actually had the effect that it made it more difficult for new players to start an army (or existing players to start a different army for that matter), so ended up deterring people from starting Fantasy armies.

[@fromthedumpstertothegrave3689]

You can sorta see why they did it, it worked for 40k from 2nd to 3rd edition. Arguably the difference is a combination of there being more appetite for 40k and they pushed it too far with WHFB.

[@Dram1984]

@@fromthedumpstertothegrave3689it’s one of those things that works once, maybe twice but quickly hits a point of diminishing returns.

[@richtheunstable3359]

Armies got bigger however small games still worked. There wasn't really a big price jump, some things got a little cheaper with the plastic multipart kits that came out.​@@fromthedumpstertothegrave3689

[@flammablehero6529]

Another great video with the legend Rick Priestley. Thanks for all your hard work Filmdeg!

[@andydunn3835]

I was one of those sales staff hired at 18 in uni to show people how to play Lotr. Literally money thrown at us. Nearly 20 years later and having experienced the Lotr bubble and the management examples Rick explains and the rise of modern GW i can safely agree. I had 100% confidence leading and managing crises with my senior colleagues. However, the risk-averse nature led to poor management of success.

[@monkeyhammer]

I have such fond memories of LoTR, i had the partwork subscription instead of pocket money for two years , and it was the vast majority of my hobby because i never had enough models to play more than a small skirmish in WHFB and 40K. having a game that was designed around small numbers of models and with a lot of extra guides and introductory hobby material was really useful

[@AlexAlex-zt3hi]

and it was VERY cheap

[@toast69123]

The Rick Priestley videos are always a treat. Thanks for sharing his stories!

[@BigTiBu]

Another fantastic video! The absolute dad joke about the knowing it like the back of his hand got me good

[@theandyhobday]

Thank you for capturing gaming history.

[@Filmdegminiatures]

We still need to do a Footsore video!

[@marcoschulze164]

I was part of the small group of playtesters for the first game around Stefan Hess. Fond memories, big thanks for the interview to both of you ! ❤

[@celloguy]

Wonderful! I’d LOVE to see him talk about the 2nd edition Eldar codex which represented a high water mark for 40k writing, along with the 2nd edition box.

[@williamford3605]

This was great and insightful. I could listen to Rick Priestley talk for hours! Thanks for making these, theyre wonderful

[@adamherring9803]

Wonderful insight. Hearing about issues around sales/finance projections and the issues they can cause. Whatever one thinks of it, this is not just a GW issue - what Rick describes sounds like a varient of an issue common in many large modern corporations, certainly it echos in my world of software, in that sales is simply treated and incentivised differently to every other part of the organisation, and whether it's for better or worse in terms of the bottom line (all the corp really cares for), it almost invariably causes chaos internally!

[@jcpouzols]

Rick is always such a pleasure to listen to! Thank you for sharing Tom

[@dylan9025]

Oh man, this brings back memories. I got into the game in the late 2000's, and scrounging up miniatures and rulebooks felt like discovering relics

[@snotl]

Amazing! Thanks for the flashback into my childhood!

[@BoothferryLad]

The only miniature game I’ve ever played and I love it!

[@ollies2000]

"The shite management effect". I love Rick Priestley

[@oitoitoi1]

Brilliant as always, would love for you to interview Jes Goodwin

[@Filmdegminiatures]

He’s still at GW, so it’s off the cards for now, but who knows maybe once he’s retired!

[@ginjasteve4435]

Absolutely loved this. Thanks so much. Just love to listen to Rick talk about his times and the decisions he made. Thanks both for the amazing video

[@mysteriousoul]

Another awesome behind the scenes insight into how the GW sausage is made. Would love to know what Rick and others thought about the value of producing background (in-universe) books - were they commercial flops but valuable passion projects? Or did they break even whilst enhancing engagement with the fan base? Love ya work!!

[@JEnz2z2z]

Delightful! Most amused by the struggle over Andúril.

[@captaincosmo6157]

MESBG is the ultimate panacea for all those who hate igougo. I hate alternative activations as it makes the game last so much longer. Every activation is considered each time rather than the whole turn at once. But Alternating phases....That's masterful.

[@ethanmckinney203]

The best design decision in LotR was doing away with initiative for shooting and melee in any meaningful way. Not removing shooting casualties until the end of the phase and "everybody fights" eliminated most of the first strike pathologies of WFB and WH40K.

[@matthewrbetts]

Another belter of an interview. Thanks a million.

[@stonehorsegaming]

Surprised there was no mention of how due to the licensing White Dwarf at the tine had to have the Lord of the Rings content upside down and in what was befor the back of the magazine. Even what was the back cover became a White Dwarf Lord of the Rings cover. It was like two magazines stitched together. Can't recall how long that lasted, but it seemed to go on for a while.

[@angelicdespot2735]

Was that due to licensing? I always assumed they were aware that there was a distinct market for LotR content and chose to present WD in a way that would appeal to those people without confusing them with (on the cover at least) references to anything else. And so everything else got to 'carry on as normal' as long as you knew you had to turn the magazine over.

[@nyverdaletabletop1674]

Thanks for this amazing interview!

[@treesandgeeking]

I'll be back when all family are tucked up and the midnight painting begins!

[@stevemarshall4822]

I remember the minifigs range. You could use either the appedices to the WRG 4th Edition which had fantasy add ons, a set of rules by Skytrex or there was a set of WRG influenced rules around 1974, can't remember who produced them. These were the first things I painted, and I did them terribly.

[@Miniferret91]

Thank you for making this

[@jamesbaker2019]

thanks for another superb video! appreciate your work

[@PRAISE_HASHUT]

Much respect to Rick, Alessio and all the team involved. They could have easily phoned it in and made a generic game which was a quick cash grab and move on, instead we got a beautifully crafted game (perhaps one of the best GW rule sets of all time), which is still played and well regarded to this day!!

[@PRAISE_HASHUT]

Even after the films had been and gone, the design team continued making great, thematic releases, books and models that really continued the tone of the film and book nicely

[@evansn79]

I got into the hobby through the lord of the rings (via the part work magazine!) and for years afterwards when i played 40k i played it with the lord of the rings turn structure because anything else felt really really boring. No one corrected me because out of ally friends i was the only one to read the rules. It was only years later when i went to play an apocalypse 40k game that i found out i was wrong. It'd be great to get some information on Warhammer historical - especially the wild west games that use the lord of the rings as their core system.

[@Filmdegminiatures]

Check my Warmaster video with Rick, he covers historicals a bit there 🙂

[@credibilityimyawning]

Very interesting as always. I was a lapsed player by the early 2000s and the partworks and love of the movies pulled me back in

[@jaypodoll-claflin6740]

Fantastic Interview!

[@francoantonelli7723]

I remember visiting the Nottingham Factory, making Citadel miniatures. We bought figures from a huge wooden box of sweaped-up-figures, extras etc Possibly 1981-82. Our car pulled a wheely all the way home from the weight in the car…😂😂 great days…..

[@woges5093]

BME1, 1985, much that once was is lost, but there are a few that remember it.

[@markdickey]

LOVED THIS. Thanks for sharing 😊

[@johnnybigbones4955]

I was not really paying attention to GW when the Battle of Five Armies game came out, and I kick myself now. It is one of my favourite fantasy battles and blew my tiny mind as a kid reading the Hobbit for the first time, probably the real reason I am a wargamer! They'll probably never re-release it. I love the cover art for the box.

[@AndreaMartini74]

"how I got ended up with the bad guys I don't know... Because the problem with bad guys is they're a bit, as in as in all wargames, they're a bit on the rubbish side". I love you Rick.

[@wargamer234]

Thanks for this video! I started wargaming due to LOTR, so in a way I am now a 20+ miniature gaming veteran due to this game.

[@TheAVeidt]

It seems like Rick has been waiting ages for a proper small scale release like Warlord’s Epic historicals

[@fromthedumpstertothegrave3689]

I saw them the other day and picked up a british waterloo infantry brigade. Never painted epic scale before but they're actually relatively easy to make look really good!

[@ethanmckinney203]

I wonder if this was the first internal use of Mathhammer. If so, it helps explain why LotR was pretty balanced.

[@darthcheese7971]

Hi, it's me Rick Priestley again. Gold!

[@matthinton19]

I’m a simple man. I see new filmdeg i put on to paint with

[@geertbeekman8680]

The setting and the models where great, i did work for GW at the time as a outrider and did a lot of intro games for it, but myself didn't realy got warm for the rules.

[@drsuchomimus]

The game that got me into Warhammer!

[@annoyingewok]

This was a very interesting one!

[@thatfriggingbathroom2656]

Thanks again!

[@kwest9747]

Fascinating to hear how LOTR was the sequel to Gorkamorka!

[@jamescooke800]

Gorkamorka actually shows up in the Silmarillion

[@bmmtxb]

🤣🤣🤣

[@jamescandlish7097]

Great video 🙂

[@captaincosmo6157]

I'm not sure about that battle of the 5 armies bit being linked to the hobbit films. That set came about a decade before the hobbit films happened. In fact, if I recall, GW got into trouble with newline because of it? I believe that they used their previous lord of the rings licence from when GW did LOTR miniatures inthe 80s to develop it. I am very very well open to correction on the reasons for this, but the timescales as to when warmaster battle of the 5 armies came out was definetly not when the hobbit films happened.

[@cmbsgc]

Yeah, I did a double take at that part of the interview, too. I remember "Battle of the Five Armies" being sold in the Specialist section of the GW webstore around 2008 or so, and it was already an "old" game at that point.

[@angelicdespot2735]

I wonder if Rick was thinking of the point at which GW expanded their LotR licence to include the books / appendices and not just be limited to the films? I don't know if the timeline matches up, but if that's what happened it would fit with Rick's memory of the impact on the studio...

[@lordofuzkulak8308]

@@angelicdespot2735I think he probably was as the game lasted a long time working off of the extra stuff from the books before The Hobbit was turned into a film trilogy. It’s possible that he’s also conflating stuff that was referred to in The Hobbit book that was also in LotR and its appendices; eg there were two supplement books on Moria, where Balin was featured prominently, Radagast is mentioned once in The Hobbit but the closest he gets to an appearance isn’t until LotR when Gandalf recounts a meeting with him at the Council of Elrond, there was a supplement about Sauron being driven out of Mirkwood that included rules for the Giant Spiders and Thranduil from The Hobbit, etc.

[@g1stylempdesign929]

Incredible for a kid who went from using SMELLY PRIMER in 1995 to winning a Slayer sword in 2006

[@syd4890]

Gw is a bit ungrateful to be kind regarding lotr... if it werent for it the 40k of today and even aos etc would not exist ans gw would probably be a footnote in thr hobby history. To see how they neglected the game afterwards as a bastard child is just infuriating. Thank yoy Sir and to Alessio for this wonderful game ❤

[@o.w.n.1327]

"They were selling it under the counter in brown bags"

[@falconiusazurius5572]

Loved my copy of Battle of Five Armies. It was a sad day when I had to sell it.

[@dennis7782]

Wonderful!

[@AlexAlex-zt3hi]

LOTR, the 3 rule books published during the movies, were of the best games, or at least the games i enjoyed the most, of all the GW games, among Mordheim! Really good days!

[@jamesmaclennan4525]

My proxy ranger warband includes a single Minifigs Model from the Mythical Earth Range

[@charleshill9546]

minifigs Orc with scimitar is still one of my favourite models - think it was MF25

[@nathanbuxton3271]

I love the three lotr main rulebooks from that era , and the three best of white dwarfs

[@mindcogs]

Tom, you'll have to start wearing a mic

[@Filmdegminiatures]

My voice is super nasally, no one wants to hear that!

[@jcpouzols]

@@Filmdegminiatures I for one think you have a great voice :D

[@darklighter66]

​@@TheOneTrueKit come on, you know at least one person at work who LOVES the sound of their own voice.

[@SuperFunkmachine]

Lord of the Rings had a nice set army size, the fellow ship vs a dozen goblins. warhammer aways had the scale iusse, you need 4 or 5 units of 2 or 3 dozen models.

[@Phangmaster]

If only I had a pound for every time Mr Priestley said "intuitive"

[@nathanbuxton3271]

39:45, battle of five armies game, smaller scale

[@nathanbuxton3271]

Ah he mentions it’s two mins later lol

[@GhostGuitars]

FASCINATING

[@devastator3904]

Rick was right, GW Revenue grew +20% each year from 2001 to 2003, when the LotR films were coming out, then declined just as fast as it grew. What I did not know was that's why GW's cost structure went up, to keep up with LotR's popularity, but they kept it even after it waned...and that was a ticking time bomb in 2007 when GW went into the red. This was a huge piece of the puzzle for me, thanks Tom, thanks Rick.

[@libertyprime2013]

Nice

[@arminsfrozenpeas007]

If it wasn't for this game, I wouldn't be playing Warhammer 20 years later

[@thislostendevour]

I got into GW with 6th edition WHFB and 3rd edition 40k, but looking at the lotr stuff always had a sense of magic attached to it.

[@fromthedumpstertothegrave3689]

It was a great little game. As discussed in the video the system rick came up with for having a hero like aragon face off against 20 goblins or in the same system have 20 goblins vs 15 gondorian soldiers or whatever was great. Hero units felt strong without just being given a rediculous amount of wounds.

[@AlexAlex-zt3hi]

nice editions, probably the best ones. fantasy was great at the beggining of 7th and 40k up to 4-6, then the "power creep" ruined it. LOTR, otherwise, was AWESOME till they made the "unit version of it", where you needed to move them as "groups in a base". For me, LOTR ,from The fellowship till The return of the king, and Mordheim were the best games GW ever made.

[@fromthedumpstertothegrave3689]

@ is the unit version of lotr optional? Cos I loved fellowship but with two towers and the battle you’re trying to recreate getting bigger the system felt a bit clunky

[@AlexAlex-zt3hi]

@@fromthedumpstertothegrave3689 in one of the editions you didnt have "single units/entities", they moved like if you were playing "warhammer fantasy", the square bases had inner circles to put the minis of the unit there. truth be told, i skipped that edition, to play "fantasy" i had "fantasy" at the time, but i dont remember which edition it was or how it was called. also, my friend stopped playing lotr at the time, so everything came together, no one to play that edition and the lack of interest on my part. if im not wrong, this lotr edition came between 7-8 ed of fantasy, i discussed with a friend that we thought they used it as a test for the newest fantasy ed.

[@Klickor]

@@AlexAlex-zt3hi that was War of the Ring. Released before the hobbit edition and was not a new edition and only an alternative way to play the game. The LotR game is still going strong and had a new edition just a few days ago but the game is now called "Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game". The game is still mostly played the same as back in 2001 so I recommend giving it a try again.

[@radeadcool]

Fun fact. Rick is not a real person but a series of miniatures stuck together, Pretending to be a person.

[@maxkircher4671]

The specialist games sold badly because they were sold badly, you say? This sounds to me like someone needs to make a bunch of hyper-sophisticated Summer Glau cyborgs, program them with all the advanced sales techniques and strategies and communication techniques, and then send them back in time to 1999 - 2003 with mission directives to work at GW stores and sell lots of specialist games products constantly...

[@markmorris2207]

It is a symbol that he is the heir to the throne of Gondor.

[@THX-to6gg]

The two best games GW have ever produced for me are LOTR and Space Hulk. If I could only have one of them I’d keep LOTR/MESBG.

[@johnnybigbones4955]

In my opinion, the best game Games Workshop ever made, and I am still playing the blue book version to this day.

[@jamesgreen9480]

Yay!

[@maxkraus9614]

Instant click

[@Crackparty803]

LotR killed WHFB slowly. Not because anyone played it, because nobody did, but because GW decided to shift focus to it and not actively support WHFB. Edit: I hold the greatest amount of respect for Rick Priestley for all of his work. If I had been offered the opportunity to make a LotR game, I would take it. However, it's GW's short-sightedness, as mentioned in the video, which led to WHFB being killed. That has nothing to do with Priestley. Anybody with half a brain could see that a game based on a movie is not going to maintain long-term sales. Look at how well it WHFB doing now, and how GW continue to butcher it and mismanage it. Warhammer didn't just become popular again overnight.

[@elphiefanful]

Fantasy killed itself because no one was buying it. It was still fully supported all the way up to the end, only three books not getting a redo before getting the end times hit. Nobody cares and nobody still does. Every army after the launch two have been massive flops. Middle-Earth has been their single longest in print game after 40K, 20+ years without any sort of gap. Fantasy could only dream of that sort of loyalty. And the ignorance of no one playing LotR, i would highly suggest you look up the many, many tournaments that have been going on (and still go on) for decades.

[@Crackparty803]

@@elphiefanful Sorry, but you're wrong. Compare the amount of releases in 6th ed Fantasy to 7th and 8th. There are plenty of interviews with ex-GW employees where they discuss this shift. They needed to milk the LotR license for as much as they could get, and Fantasy suffered for it. I'm happy that the game you love is still being supported.

[@AlexAlex-zt3hi]

@@Crackparty803 the lack of realeses, the increase in the cost of an army and the "power creep". i started fantasy in 6th Ed as a teen, an army, high elves in my case, an elite army, needed 1-3 heroes, 2+ basic units and up to 3 elite and singular ones. ill use as an example when they started raising the prices, so it could have been even cheaper: 3 heros = 27€; 2 basic units = 60€; 1 singular, in this case 2 bolt throwers as "one unit" = 40€; and 2-3 singular units, usually in blisters at the time so 2-3= 60-90€. 27 + 60 + 40 + 90 =210 € for an army of 1500 points, that could be used in tournaments and scaled up to 2000 points with another 50-100€. now, a basic unit of 10 minis cost between 40-55€, if not more. and editions last a lot less, add the power creep so they will make every good unit in the old codex useless so you need to purchase the "empowered ones" and voila....you kicked almost all the teens out of the hobby.

[@Crackparty803]

@@AlexAlex-zt3hi Lack of releases was the biggest factor to me. GW always maintained that fantasy wasn't selling, but some of their models were decades old. GW couldn't understand why people were not buying models they already owned. Meanwhile, AoS suffers from the opposite problem where players are quitting the game because models are being updated too frequently and entire units are becoming obsolete only a couple of years after release. Just seems like GW are shit at business.

[@AlexAlex-zt3hi]

@@Crackparty803 40k had units as old, if not more, than fantasy. armies got bigger in 7-8 eds, probably far more than 40k counter parts, and the price increased a lot, trust me, when i started around the 2000 as a teenger, a box of high elves archers was around 16-18€, before they killed fantasy the very same box was sold at 30€ FOR THE SAME KIT. (same as the spearmen and the silver helms and many other factions) Fantasy was my first contact with "miniature games", most of my friends played it, but i think it had quite some flaws, besides the increase in price, power creep and lack of releases. Magic was so OP (in 6th, you had that 1D6 ignoring armor with unlimited range and no need of LOS, or the your whole unit need to past a stat check or they perish in 8th); in 7-8 Eds they made some armies unplayable (orks, for example); the rank fighting system was braindead (my 5/6 riders charge your infantry of 200 minis, BUT if i kill the front line, you cant answer the attacks, and yes they "fixed" it in 7-8); Initiative was USELESS, more so when the elves got that "strike first rule", no matter if they got charged or charged something; the "sniper canons/rockthrowers/certain siege engines"; some movement shenanigans; and some of the most unbalanced rules ever made (vampires in 7th ed); etc

[@rokrjohnson]

First!

[@ja37d-34]

Lord of the Ass-rings.