Articles tagged with: Warhammer 40000

Reddit has a section called "IAMA" in which actual and former employees of all kind of jobs talk about them. In this case, an ex trades sales representative who worked for severeal years at Games Workshop has given lots of interesting answers.

I'm going to do a small list of the most interesting points because the thread is huge and quite long read, but has some gems inside, and also other former employees (like a casting manager) added info and answered questions.

Italic parts are comments from me, the rest are some of the employee answers summarized.

• Price jumps and high prices are because miniatures are not a non-necessary commodity, and because people can pay for those prices.
  They are also high so that initially you cannot buy everything and you will come back next month for more.
• High prices also serve as entry point: GW doesn't wants everyone to play, they want it to be a "prestige game".
• Blood Bowl or Gorka Morka were great for players but terrible for sales, as the basic boxes had almost everything needed (so you wouldn't spend over time more money). That's why they don't reappear.
  (but now that we've seen Space Hulk and Man'O War/Dreadfleet, maybe as limited reeditions...)
• The goal is to keep you in a cycle of perpetually buying your army, by generating the need to have the new things that come out.
• About how plastic models are created:

Masters for plastics used to be made as "3-ups", 3x larger then the finished model.

They then use resin castings of those 3ups to make a layout of the mold in clay, contouring the mold lines where they need them to follow the edges of the model so there are no undercuts.

Then they make a resin "mold" of the layout. Then they do the same for the other side of the mold.

The resin mold they just made from the 3ups is then used on a machine called a pantograph engraver. The moldaker uses a stylus, which is attached to a flexible arm to follow the cavities of each part, on the other side of the machine there is an engraver removing metal from the aluminum or steel block. The mechanical arm that connects the molddmakers' stylus and engraver can be set to reduce the size to whatever you need, so when the stylus moves 3", the engraver will only move 1" for example.

• Original plan for the 6th Warhammer Fantasy edition was to launch one army book per month. It didn't worked and now development cycles are longer.
• GW's policy is not to release information farther than one month out. They doen't want you saving your money until next month, they want you to spend it every month.
  Also if you know that race X will be renewed in Y months , there's no reason for you to buy now instead of saving for the new models.
  (apart from buying metal minis before they go finecast)
• GW and the stores do not want competitive players/tournaments. They want to run introductory leages, have new players, people spending in upgrading armies, but not playing just for winning.
• Armies are not perfectly balanced. There are "nukes" (too strong units), and GW does almost only internal testing of codexes.
• Gaming in-house (inter-staff) is way different than local gaming clubs. In-house want to play and have a great narrative, at stores/tournaments pleople play to win.
• Prices are not set by manufacturing costs, but for "play value". Their value to a gamer is where the price point is set, rather than what they cost to manufacture. This is the "goblin index". This is why plastic Terminators are only 5$ less than metal Terminators (while they are much cheaper to manufacture).
  Employees paid minis by metal gram stock price instead.
• Space marines make up roughly 12% of sales, and all of the other races make up roughly 2% each, but that's lumping Ultramarines, Dark Angels, Blood Angels, etc. all in one big bunch.
  40k and Fantasy actually split right down the middle in terms of actual sales. Popularity, may tend towards 40k in your area, but overall, both are really equally popular, according to the actual sales figures.
• The company LOVES and listens to the online community.
  (Or so he says...)
• You get paid less than you would elsewhere (working at GW), as they have a steady stream of young fans who would just LOVE to take your job. The turnover rate was pretty high.
• GW isn't really afraid of any other company. For one thing, no other line can sustain an entire store on its own, unlike the GW retail outlets.
• The move to Finecast was due more to the rising costs of metal than anything else.
  While they were not able to lower the costs of Finecast models, the cost of resin is much more stable than metal so, hopefully, this will keep price increases in check and make them less frequent.
• In his opinion the company has suffered a bit for losing so many dedicated, experienced folks.

Publication date: 2012-02-18

Tags: Warhammer 40000 Warhammer Fantasy

Fifth book of the Ultramarines, once again Uriel Ventris will fight foes, but this time new ones. After being restored as an Ultramarine and captain of the fourth chapter, the misterous Tau race seem to be attacking Pavonis, an old known of Uriel (they saved the planet in the past, in the first book of the series).

The planet is also suffering severe imperial monitoring of all areas and activities, there is still civil unrest and povertry, and the balance of the planet seems still too fragile.

As in previous books, the pacing is nice, switching between multiple sub-plots that slowly progress towards a common junction and conclussion.

The Tau are portaited ok, but as it is a race I don't fancy much (aliens with Japanese looking mechs, meh) the book was not as engaging as others.

One problem in this book is an excess of humanization for some characters. We're talking a bout a millennium of war, death and destruction, an era where only the strong or the evil persist. Military forces are either almost brainwashed or fear-driven (Imperial guard + Comissars).
And then some characters are too human and think too much, when they should just do it "for the Emperor". If you read the book you will understand what I mean. It smells to much to be credible.

The battles are well narrated, has the usual plot changes, deceipts and surprises, but here Uriel acts just like a clever Space Marine captain instead of someone who went through a lot of "uncommon experiences" and terrible foes. You could change the names of characters or the SM chapter and nobody would notice.

It feels like the second Matrix movie. Not much plot, no story advancement... almost nothing except some spectacle with known characters (and not so much, as there are lots of secondary characters).

Publication date: 2012-02-01

Tags: Books Warhammer 40000

The truth is that I have few things in my wishlist of miniatures.

I started very young with Warhammer 40.000 so for example I am proud of owning a Rogue Trader Space Marines box (almost two squads), MK.I Rhinos (two), a Predator and a Landraider.

I've been collecting for years some wanted miniatures, and for example my Eldar army comes almost fully from second-hand miniatures (like 90% of the army). Everything except a Falcon, the dreadnought and some plastic troops are old metal units.

I might try to get some old Genestealer hybirds somewhere in the future (for my genestealer cult) but it is really low priority.

But... when I was young I always wished I could have tho specific miniatures (I didn't ever saw them in local stores), the two Inquisitor Terminators. One with a breathing mask and a hood, the other with beard and a cybernetic leg. Specifically, this two dudes:

My friend Vicente told me a while ago that one of the shopping websites we use (Noble Knight) had all kinds of second-hand goods, not only books and boardgames. So a few weeks ago I tried finally to actively search for this inquisitors, remembered that comment... and found one assembled and base-coated in black for just 15$ (At ebay I've seen things like 50$ minimum for a sealed box one, without detailing the pieces inside apart from a crappy photo).

I risked and bought it... And I made the right choice, because it arrived in really good shape and I've just started painting it:

So far only has a finished black base coating, dark grey for the armor and light grey tending to white for the hood and skulls.
No highlighting and most stuff not even started, but the color scheme is in place and I'm glad with how it looks.

Also as you can notice it has some excess lead not removed in some areas, the original owner didn't cared much when assembling it... But I have already taken them out (were not so easy to spot with the black mini).

One of the two Inquisitors obtained, one left :)

Update: Thanks to ebay I was able to find the other inquisitor, yay! My greatest collector's dream came true :D

Publication date: 2012-01-22

Tags: Painting Warhammer 40000

Third and last book about the Grey Knights forming the Omnibus (there is a fourth book which I'm currently reading), Alaric will face again the forces of chaos... but in a different way.

The book starts with the capture of the main character by chaos forces (Ultramarines Omnibus copy?) but this time, filling with gladiator-like chaos arenas where he will fight hellspawns and mutants.

And so it goes most of the book, which is a pity because could almost be any other non-grey knight character. It is just "remembered" here and there with small details, but quite hollow in general. Excepting two or three specific points, the whole book could have any other main character without anybody noticing it.
In fact this way of forced refering to previous books characters and enemies is done too much, as if the author was trying to force us to link with the past because the current one was too detached (and indeed it is).

The story (without spoilers) gets really really absurd, to some points that I doubt a Grey Knight would have gone.

Also, unlike in other books not part of this trilogy Grey Knights are usually treated not as powerfull as here... but in this book it is too extreme. Way too much easy killing of demons and monsters by an almost unarmed GK (no power armor, no halberd, just gladiator old weapons).

A big dissapointment. I just finished it to close the trilogy.

Publication date: 2012-01-19

Tags: Books Warhammer 40000

Lately I've been playing less videogames and assembling & painting more. I am becoming slowly tired of current games being all the same, meanwhile I read a lot about Warhammer 40.000 and I feel eager to do anything related to it.

Apart from a half-painted Dark Angels Dreadnought and a MK VI Space Marine I found and started painting (to test highlights in Dark Angels green), I am mainly painting one badass I had pending and that is actually taking a lot of space due to the unglued parts: The ork Stompa.

The head is fully done (but not yet glued) as it is the body and legs, excepting some minor details on the front (like the spotlights or the gretchin in the upper right tower)...

... and some details also in the back (mainly the two gretchins arguing at the door.

I've finally glued some pieces like the ramp with the mek gretchin.

The head was already painted, but the body took a while (I didn't had spray, which I will correct for the next time). As soon as I finish with it, I can paint the arms and this monster will be ready to break havok among the greenskin enemies.

I've played with some types of effects, like rusty metal, white + silver metals, and black washes to give dirty and used looks to the back pipes.

But I have another thing related with the Stompa.

Back when I bought it, I also bought an oven, and the cardboard had a shape that inmediately gave me an idea: To build an Stompa assembly facility.

I took some spare parts from my ork trukks, two spare gretchins and some wooden chopsticks. and built this scenery piece:

It is basically a big round platform (in which fits a real Stompa!) with mechanical arms, some decoration and walls, and a watchtower.

The ork trukk spare parts were really handy, both for the machinery and for filling the wall gaps.

This is the section that took most time: The watchtower, made of dozens of chopstick pieces cut and glued together. Plus some cardboard, a few ork grenades and used ammo at the floor, and that big sign is just waiting to have painted a big red "Waaagh!".

Some glyphs and the stairs to walk up to the tower.

I didn't wanted to abuse with the ork decoration, the walls already have an orcish look and feel.

The piece in the middle is from ikea, it was a bit curved so wasn't useful anymore for the hama beads, so it was perfect for filling the middle "crater".

Today I have finally base coated it in grey (spray gift of my friend Vicente ^_^)

It now looks much better (as you don't see the original material colors) and I can better think of the color schemes

My idea is to start with it as soon as I finish with the stompa, not giving much detail to the scenery but focusing on the details like the gretchin.

I progress quite slowly but as the main idea is to disconnect from the world and "reach my Zen" while assembling & painting, it is ok for me.

Publication date: 2011-12-27

Tags: Painting Warhammer 40000