Just saw this via the BKC forum. A real shame as games such as Warmaster Ancients, LotHS etc are great games.
http://www.warhammer-historical.com/
Sad loss that. :(
The historical games are far superior to GWs 'core' rules, which is odd given the close relation of the latter to the former.
Ah well. No doubt we'll see Mr Priestley's basic mechanics crop up elsewhere. Perhaps Warlord will take them on? ;D
I wonder what this says about GW's stock performance?
Perhaps hawking Failcast figures at £20 per model isn't as successful a business model as Solicitor and Boots Customer Service Director Mark Wells had hoped?
Earning his £307,000pa package by cutting things to the bone seems to be his tactic since 2007...
Well the core rules are written/re-written for the sole purpose of selling more and more Failcast figures, the actual mechanics in them havent radically changed since they were first released as Reaper/Imperial Commander back in the early 70s. The Historical stuff while following the dated mechanics at least didnt have the same selling axe to grind and if you liked the just about every unit has a "special" rule you could get by with just the one purchase, and of course the inevitable army lists/codexes, whatever you want to call them.
IMHO, if GW want to avoid getting any nearer to the plughole of extiction, they should a) admit that both their core games are skirmishes, do a skirmish ruleset from scratch for them and b) give up on shitecast and get back to producing reasonably priced minis in metal, if Reaper can do why cant GW?
if the answer to why not do a) is it would take too long and be too expensive, then why not do a deal with Ganesha Games, who do a cracking Fantasy and Sci-Fi ruleset
and for b) well I cant think of any other major figure company thats going down the resin only route
This is what Rick posted on the Hail Caesar Yahoo group:
Quote
From what I understand of these things it is very unlikely that GW will allow any of the WH line to pass into the hands of a third party.
It was Rob Broom (ex WH manager)that tried to buy WH - and I know of at least one other that also approached GW to do so. But not me:)
I did have a second edition of Warmaster done - it was just not wanted - I figure you just have to move on:)
I think you have to think of WH as just something Jervis and I started - with the Perrys - as a personal project. We wanted to print and produce WAB ourselves originally - but were unable to do so - mostly as GW has proprietry rights in the Warhammer brand of course. We had the money and everything set-up - we didn't need GW to do it. because of that it was initially set-up as a joint ventue company - with GW having the controlling interest (but doing nothing apart from that). For some years we (JJ, me, Perrys) ran the whole thing pretty much as we wanted - until it got too big for us to manage - at which point we employed Rob. But we did all the work ourselves - just using our contacts within GW to arrange things like production and printing, and - eventually -despatch - though we did all that ourselves to start with. GW recharged all the handling to us as a third party. At the very beginning we even held the stock ourselves - so the original print run of WAB lived in my garage for quite a while! WH was absorbed into GW mostly for accounting reasons - because GW insisted on retaining ownership the WH accounts had to conform to the same standards as other GW companies (e.g. GW USA) - which meant that the accounts charges actually exceeded any potential profit! In the end GW ended up with something it never really wanted - and only retained ownership of out of consideration to me and Jervis. The Perrys - of course - went off and did their own thing with Perry Mins.
Sorry to see it go - but I'm afraid it never sat comfortable with GW and I think they've at least done the decent thing and given up - which - I believe - is what should have happened when Rob went.
Rick
Thanks for posting that Nik. GW just seems to get worse by the day :(. I suppose they are hpoing to get back on track when the Hobbit movie comes out in the next year or so.
Second Gordon's opinions. You speak words of wisdom, Sir.
I presume however this won't be the end for Rick's writing career, so i'll be very interested to see what he comes up with next outside of the 'core GW mechanic' (i.e. his core mechanic).
GW however, continue along their own bizarre path...
A few hints are to be found on his home page, linked below:
http://rickpriestley.com/
Problem with GW is as follows.
Price increase (15 %). Turnover increases by meagre 1 %. Management curses and fires some people, cuts their wages, increases bonus and T. Kirby announces 25 % of customers buy anything at any price and he does not give a f**k about the other 75 %.
Audience cheers, players leave, less minis are sold. GW increases prices by 15 %...(repeat)