Is Forgeworld stealing the Limelight

[Joe Fixit]

We have just had the 1st codex for 6th go up for pre-order and its associated models, and whilst it seems to have some interest amongst the forums, I don't think it's quite as much as we would usually see in regards to posts across the forums. The hype, for me anyway just isn't as much.
I know chaos marine players have been waiting a some time for a new book, so naturally are looking forward to the release.

However at Gamesday this year, it was evident that Forgeworld and its Horus Heresy release was what was getting the attention. I don't think I have seen such excitement for a release as this in a long time, maybe space hulk ?

I may have been interested in Chaos marines myself but after seeing so much of what Forgeworld has to offer with the Heresy. Just how nice the models are going to be I am personally not even looking at chaos now, Forgeworld have well and truly grabbed my attention.

And knowing just how much they plan to release in the future, well I can see the majority of my hobby funds going on FW products

Now I know as forum types, we are more intune with all the facets of the hobby than the guys who don't trawl the 40k related forums but do we think that Forgeworld are going to start becoming more mainstream now. I know they have always been the niche market, in a niche market but is this about to change and will GW and FW have to work closer in regards to release dates etc

I for one think they should, I understand at the end of the day all the profits go to the same place but I do think this chaos release from GW and the HH one from FW should have had more separate time frames so each release had more limelight.

Or is it just because we are hobby enthusiasts that the FW release has more meaning to us and that overall the Chao release will not be hurt at all ?

For me personally I don't like the direction the chaos book has gone (so far). Too many beasts that could fit into a fantasy setting for my tastes. The HH seems more real to me and far grittier. A 40k (30k) for an older generation maybe that offers a higher level of realism.

What do you think ?

[alshrive]

I completely understand the point you are making. I can also see the logic of releasing them at a very similar time though. The Heresy and Chaos go together like Cheese and Port, there couldn't be a more appropriate combination of releases that they could do. Also with Games Day it is a chance for both Forgeworld and Games Workshop to literal poke the geeks into a great state of excitation.

I agree that Forgeworld may be stealing the Limelight from Games Workshop this month but with the Heresy it would always steal the limelight from GW no matter what they were releasing! Next month it will all be about the Games Workshop releases again and it will probably be 6 months before another Forgeworld release comes along that starts to steal some of the focus.

As a company i can't imagine that they are going to be that fussed. A lot of people who want both the Heresy stuff and the Chaos stuff will quite simply buy both. I love forgeworld, but i would never abandon GW for FW. GW is my Hobby, FW simply enhance that by adding more. I had a perfectly enjoyable Hobby and would have been just as content if the Heresy stuff had not been released. The fact they are actually doing the Heresy now is just icing on the cake. besides with FW doing that it leaves GW to concentrate on the current canon and universe which in the years to come is what FW will then use for it's future releases.

My Two Cents (well Pence actually!)

ALShrive

[Chris*ta]

For me personally I don't like the direction the chaos book has gone (so far). Too many beasts that could fit into a fantasy setting for my tastes. The HH seems more real to me and far grittier. A 40k (30k) for an older generation maybe that offers a higher level of realism.

I really wouldn't say the new models would fit into Fantasy at all -- even the Soul Grinder barely fits into Fantasy and that's far more biological than any of the CSM models.

I also doubt the HH release is going to seriously steal much focus (and especially profits) from the release of CSM. To do an HH army requires an awful lot of cash, so there is only a very small portion of GW customers can really afford to do such an army -- quite apart from the fact that the majority of GW customers wouldn't be that interested in doing an HH army, they're 14 year olds who are far happier with the mainstream stuff.

I just can't believe that there'll be much of a loss in terms of interest in CSM because of the FW release for the vast majority of GW customers -- I think most customers don't care about HH. Also, remember that GW is one company, they wouldn't have released the HH stuff at the same time as CSM if they thought it would be a problem -- they're not that stupid.

I also agree with Alshrive that in a couple of months GW won't be promoting FW much at all and most customers will have forgotten about it.

This said, there may be a few customers who would have started/resurrected a Chaos army who didn't because of the HH release and the decision to start a new army there. However, I think these players will go back to CSM within say 6 months, so GW will still get the money they would have otherwise spent on CSM.

[DarkDesigner]

I agree that the CSM and Horus Heresy are very good releases to do together, as players can choose between making just a HH force, just a GW CSM force, or even a CSM force using mainly HH models to represent 10,000 year old marines, or even something in between. But then I do feel if they had been released separately, with the HH going alongside something from Fantasy perhaps, there would have been less of an impact. After all, people not at all interested in the Heresy are unlikely to be interested in Chaos Marines either.

However if Forgeworld are stealing the limelight, it's because GW aren't doing enough to compete with them. Personally I think for the most part the new models are gorgeous, but there have been plenty of mixed reviews of these, and there have been models recently that just haven't done it for me at all. But FW have produced models at a consistently high standard for a long while.

The thing is, since their latest price increases, and with Forge World's quality always coming at a high price, I'm not buying into either, not on my current income. So as exciting as the Chaos and Heresy releases are, GW won't be seeing any more of my money until they seriously re-evaluate the value of their product.

[Chris*ta]

The thing is, since their latest price increases, and with Forge World's quality always coming at a high price, I'm not buying into either, not on my current income. So as exciting as the Chaos and Heresy releases are, GW won't be seeing any more of my money until they seriously re-evaluate the value of their product.

You may be waiting some time then ...

[DarkDesigner]

You may be waiting some time then ...

It's alright, I've discovered WarmaHordes and Malifaux. I realise neither are particularly cheap as such, but at least the initial outlay for a game-ready force is far lower.

[Joe Fixit]

Sorry Chris, I didn't explain myself clearly. When I ment that the models looked more fantasy, I didn't mean the game. What I am trying to say is that these new models in my opinion are too much of a blend of sci-fi and fantasy as in themed, similar to say steam punk can be. It's not necessarily a bad thing if that's what you like. I don't.
I really liked what they did with the Hellbrute, I think because I can understand that idea behind the model is a fussion of pilot and machine becoming melded by the warp.
The deamonic beasts are not for me, and that's fine. I am sure many dislike necrons. I happen to like them.

Going back to the my thoughts on FW, you and others are correct when you say that cost alone will keep pre-heresy armies as unattainable for most.

I think most players will end up buying a few nice models and use them in their current marine army. Personally I have ordered the book, but it may just be a re-run of me looking at the Argos catalogue as a kid at Christmas, wanting it all but actually quite happy with what I actually ended up with.

[Chris*ta]

See, they don't feel fantasy to me (almost) at all.

They read like the sort of crazy tech that you'd build if you were a) sent mad by Chaos and b) lived on a daemon world where the normal laws of physics didn't apply.

and personally, I can't stand Warmahordes. The "play like you've got a pair" thing seems awfully offensive, I strongly dislike the fact that every game has the same objective -- to kill the enemy commander, I dislike that every faction has one expected colour scheme, and I've seen a bunch of models that would be embarrassing compared to GW in the late 80s. Not that I'm a hater, or anything :p

Disclaimer: blah blah blah ... just my opinion ... let's not turn this into a PP vs GW discussion ... my opinion won't be changed anyway ...I might be stating my opinions overly strongly anyway ...

[DarkLink]

Actually, there's an array of different objectives in warmachine tournament scenarios. Killing the warcaster is one of them, just like tabling your opponent is present in 40k, but it's often easier to win by claiming objectives or holding a position.

[Mr Mystery]

To be fair, I think the release of a Horus Heresy expansion would overshadow pretty much anything. It's always been of interest to 40k Gamers, and even more so since the really rather wonderful Black Library series.

CSM will sell well anyway. They're one of the longest established armies out there, and a perennially popular one. Shiny new characters are out, spangly new Daemon Engines (though to be fair, still not convinced by the flier. May grow on me once I see it in the flesh though) and of course Cultists. Nothing there for established players not to like.

I'll be interested to see how well existing CSM armies work with the new book. I do my best to ignore rumours, as their veracity is all too often questionable, and to be honest I find the rumour threads themselves a depressing exercise in futility, as Johnny 10,000 posts declare the army to be bunkum without ever having seen the actual product, so forgive me if I mention things you might think are common knowledge!

Why so interested? The Necron and Dark Eldar codecies were well designed to cater for those existing armies, and I do wonder if they've pulled it off with the CSM book. Will the new units be utterly compulsory, or more something an existing army can take or leave?

[Chris*ta]

Actually, there's an array of different objectives in warmachine tournament scenarios. Killing the warcaster is one of them, just like tabling your opponent is present in 40k, but it's often easier to win by claiming objectives or holding a position.

Okay, I didn't realise. I still feel like tabling is rather different in terms of difficulty to just killing the leader.

[steelrudi]

while I have a chaos marine army, my main army is Dark Angels, plus a couple other of the Emporers finest. The "New" Chaos releases aside from the figures looks to warhammery instead of 40k for my likeing. Now the new Forgeworld releases are spot on , and until the New DA codex and models are released, they will be recieving my hard earned cash. now my old Rt stuff will have something to fit in with. Thank you Forgeworld!!! Oh and GW less fantasy, and more Sci Fi for your future 40k releases.

[DarkDesigner]

and personally, I can't stand Warmahordes. The "play like you've got a pair" thing seems awfully offensive, I strongly dislike the fact that every game has the same objective -- to kill the enemy commander, I dislike that every faction has one expected colour scheme, and I've seen a bunch of models that would be embarrassing compared to GW in the late 80s. Not that I'm a hater, or anything :p

Disclaimer: blah blah blah ... just my opinion ... let's not turn this into a PP vs GW discussion ... my opinion won't be changed anyway ...I might be stating my opinions overly strongly anyway ...

I know you didn't want this to become a Warmachine post, but I just wanted to say, I don't think they do have expected colour schemes any more than 40k does. They have usual colours in the same way that most Vampire Counts armies are painted in reds and purple, Necrons are usually metal, etc, but if you want to paint them other colours you can.

And though I agree some of the older models aren't great, the new resin is really durable and good quality and I'm really impressed with the detail they're getting out of the new models. And it's not as if 40k doesn't have any embarrassing old models that should have been retired years ago.

But yeah, if you're still happy with 40k there's no reason to stray. I reached my breaking point and found that there's plenty more than GW out there. I still love the background and may buy the odd model but for the most part, I'm hella outie.

[Durendin]

I wouldn't say that Forgeworld are necessarily stealing the limelight but I definitely see what you mean - this might just be a moment of bad timing.

The Horus Heresy has been a long-time pot-boiler with the interest being stoked by the Black Library novels and the slow trickle of pre-Heresy armours becoming a full on release which has possibly overshadowed the 6th Edition release of 40K.

I guess Games Workshop were simply striking while the iron was hot?

[DarkLink]

Okay, I didn't realise. I still feel like tabling is rather different in terms of difficulty to just killing the leader.

It is easier to kill the leader, but you're more actively focused on keeping your caster alive as well. Objectives in warmachine also work a little differently. You don't wait until turn 6 and hop on them and wait for the game to end. You have to get in the objective area, clear out all enemies, and hold it uncontested for a certain amount of time to win.

[westside]

It isn't so much that FW is stealing GW thunder, the divisions are ment to appeal to different audiences.

If you look at the sculpts, the difference between GW and Forgeworld may be that GW is for the audience that is drawn to a more 'whimsical' toy-like aesthetic, while FW is for the audience that prefers a more 'realistic' gritty grim dark look.

Personally, not much that GW has released over the past two years appeals to me. But FW on the other hand, I look forward to all their releases.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

I definitly found the chaos release to be....tame. Nowhere near as horrific and twisted as it should be IMO. So yeah, my eyes have been on the heresy stuff too since it tends to go for a more gritty/realistic look. Doubt id be able to ever afford a heresy army though sadly, £1000+ is too much for an army for me.

[Daemonette666]

It is like the marketing campaigns of old when one company like Duracell which owns Energiser, picked on Energiser as being a lesser battery. Those that were loyal to energiser, stayed and boosted the sales there. Those that believed the add, moved to Duracell. Many who bought cheap brand batteries would then buy more of the Duracell/Energiser batteries because of it.

The Tobacco industry did the same thing. Buy out one company who had a good client base, market a new flavour/brand and then counter sell another brand to compete with it. You increase the sales overall, but reduce the sales for the individual products. Either way, other companies lose sales while your company gets more.

Forgeworld and Games Workshop has the same effect withing the gaming market. GW is already a huge seller with a long history in the industry. Forge world has a reputation for making the niche/ elite market stuff. Since GW has such a huge client base, with many of us now having families of our own, steady jobs , etc, we increase their marketing ability to sell more of the Niche products. Many of us have been asking Forge World, and GW when they are gong to do a Heresy era miniature range, and they finally decided the market needs it. If they did not, the current slow trend of the community slowly expanding their interest to other gaming systems would continue, and GW would continue to reduce their overheads with the current changes to how they run their stores. This is a way for them to cut out a larger piece of the markets buying trends.

We still want the new codex,a nd some of the new models for Chaos Space Marines. Many would buy a few models, but then spend the rest of their spare money on things like Dystopian wars, Drop Zone Commander, Battletech, War Machine/ Hordes, Infinity, Malifaux, etc. The plethora of new gaming systems flooding the market, along with new miniatures from old reliable gaming systems, mean we have more choices for the same money to be spent on. This is a smart marketing ploy. Get us to spend money on the basics for the new codex update, then tease us with the bone we have been waiting on for years, that they said they would never release.

As to Forge Worlds quality, I had quite a few defects on some of my tanks and other models I received in the 5 parts order I made last month. Some of the air bubbles, and parts not completely filling in the mold. Hands that are stubs, etc are pretty bad. rather than take photos and sent them back, I have decided to green stuff the air bubbles, and missing corners of tank treads, and replace the malformed hands with parts from other models I have spare.

I have noted that GW is still having a great many problems with air bubbles and detail loss on their fine cast models, which are very brittle. I do not buy Fine cast at all after the I tried out a plague marine box set, and was told that GW are now not accepting the damaged parts (shoulder pads), which they used to replace in the early days of the fine cast release. You can not even open a plague marine or raptor box to determine if the products are of good quality before purchasing them.

I agree with what Dark Designer said, and even though I am extremely interested in buying more FW products, as well as some of the new GW chaos range, I do not have the funds to be spending more on them at the moment, and GW will have to wait till I get a lot more than just casual work.

[DarkDesigner]

As to Forge Worlds quality, I had quite a few defects on some of my tanks and other models I received in the 5 parts order I made last month. Some of the air bubbles, and parts not completely filling in the mold. Hands that are stubs, etc are pretty bad. rather than take photos and sent them back, I have decided to green stuff the air bubbles, and missing corners of tank treads, and replace the malformed hands with parts from other models I have spare.

I always thought that Forgeworld was much higher quality, I didn't realise they suffered these problems. I don't mind the odd air bubble, but when whole details are missing, especially extremities, I think that's really unfair. We're paying for a model and there should be a decent portion of that model actually present. I mean, you wouldn't buy a happy meal with only half the chips and a chunk out of the burger...


I have noted that GW is still having a great many problems with air bubbles and detail loss on their fine cast models, which are very brittle. I do not buy Fine cast at all after the I tried out a plague marine box set, and was told that GW are now not accepting the damaged parts (shoulder pads), which they used to replace in the early days of the fine cast release. You can not even open a plague marine or raptor box to determine if the products are of good quality before purchasing them.

My user icon is actually the result of a particularly bad finecast model - Queek Headtaker. I could have gotten it swapped as well if I'd noticed before I cut it all up, but I saw it as a challenge. The large skull on his totem was missing the right side of it's face, there was a huge gouge out of his sword, and the front paws of the rat at the front of the base was missing it's paws. Hence my decision to undermine the seriousness of the entire model and sculpt it holding a lump of cheese...


I agree with what Dark Designer said, and even though I am extremely interested in buying more FW products, as well as some of the new GW chaos range, I do not have the funds to be spending more on them at the moment, and GW will have to wait till I get a lot more than just casual work.

I agree with me too! As much as I was happy to hear about the move from metal to resin at the time, they have been too greedy about it and compromised the quality and increased the price to boot. I appreciate that switching the moulds isn't cheap, but we all know that once they'd gotten over that initial hit they'd have soon made their money back if it had been at a reasonable price. Maybe one day the price of Finecast will reflect the cost of the material, but I seriously doubt it.

[Simon Hodgson]

the CSM book is a big release for CSM players i look foward to seeing more chaos forces on the tables as is the case with a new codex but to tru an compare forgeworld doing the Horus Heresy with what is a simple codex release is like saying the CSM codex is as big as the Horus Heresy series which it certainly could never be so the CSM players are happy bunnies as they have there new codex a codex i will read and see whats what with as i will end upm playing against it but the Horus Heresy series of books which is yet still ongoing has had me reading them for years the release of Forgeworld nodels and books that depict the battles ect of such a series IS HUGE bigger than a simple codex release could ever be , However the CSM codex will be encountered more and i look foward to facing Chaos army lists with the new models ect so there is much LOVE for both releases

[White Tiger88]

Considering it is almost the same price to build a forgeworld army as it is a chaos space marine army... (Well a demon engine list at least) i would say they deserve to steal all the lime light they can.

[Kurnost]

Morning from sunny Australia, thought I'd throw my two cents in.... Forge World will always have my money before GW. Almost all the GW stores I've had the displeasure of dealing with have been staffed by guys who are either new to the game, or know one army inside out and poo-poo the others. It didn't sit well with me. On top of that, FW models are no more expensive than GW store prices even taking into account exchange rates, shipping etc.
Also, they have the scale of their marine armour down pat, unlike GW. I have a squad of Plague Marines done up with the FW conversion packs and MkIII Iron armour, and they're noticeably bigger than my SW.

And with the new Chaos Dex, the thing that killed it for me was that bloody dragon! It's a steampunk high elf dragon with a gun for a mouth, and those wings.....urgh.

Anyway, that's my spleen vented....