The online community rejoiced!
I became unbelievably excited about the promise of new plastic Necromunda miniatures...
Then thought about the REAL reasons behind "Good Guy" Games Workshop's strategic decisions.
Whenever a wargamer gets sick of Games Workshop, they often declare that they are going to play a different game and embrace the 'good guy' practices of another company who offer support for their games and their community.
No one ever seems to leave Games Workshop to go and play video games.
They still have that wargaming itch that needs to be scratched.
And that's where Games Workshop's competitors come in...
Rise of the Competitors
The death of Games Workshop's specialist games created competitors left right and centre.This is because smaller companies were able to fill the void left by these games and only needed to produce a small range of miniatures in order to do it. Such was the beauty of the Specialist Games. You only needed a team of 10 dudes, a handful of ships, or some tanks and a Titan to play.
Necromunda > Infinity
When I was in school (some 20 years ago!) a huge number of kids played Necromunda. All you needed was a gang, some makeshift scenery and you could play. It was cheap and cheerful wargaming at its finest. And it's lasted the test of time with my group of gaming buddies.
When Infinity 3rd edition came along, I was drawn in by the beautiful miniatures. But mostly, I wanted to play a sci-fi skirmish game about a handful of blokes running around on a terrain cluttered table. Basically, all the things I'd really liked about Necromunda.
Okay, I just wanted to play Necromunda.
Infinity was hard as hell to get in to and deceptively expensive as well.
It was not a case of buying a starter force and getting stuck in, because you needed to right combination of models for all manner of missions.
Rules wise, I found it too involved and longed for something simpler.
Mordheim > Malifaux
I really like the setting of Malifaux, the game and the miniatures.
However, in order to play competitively, you need more than just a starter box.
You need lots more models.
In the case of the Guild faction I was looking at, I would need 3 starter boxes to play a Lady Justice list properly.
I chose to keep my time and money invested in 40K. Especially as I could easily convince my friends to actually play it.
Battlefleet Gothic > Firestorm Armada
I played a little bit of Battlefleet Gothic back in the day. I had a Chaos Cruiser list, because it was cheap, fun and effective to play.
Blood Bowl > Dreadball
Blood Bowl always looked like a lot of fun. Dreadball, not so much.
Epic > Dropzone Commander
Dropzone Commander took the concept of Epic a lot further with the addition of Drop Ships and made clever use of card buildings to occupy and hide in.
It's as though they took the old Epic Space Marine stater box contents and made the game a lot better.
With the rise in size of 40K games, as well as the inclusion of super heavies and flyers, Epic could actually lose out to Dropzone Commander.
Warhammer Quest > Super Dungeon Explore
The only reason I bought Super Dungeon Explore was because I missed playing Warhammer Quest.
I played it with my buddies... and they would rather have been playing Warhammer Quest. Me too, as the Super Dungeon Explore rules were okay, but the game got tedious very quickly. Somehow Warhammer Quest never did, even though it was more complicated.
Return of Specialist Games
By bringing back Specialist Games, Games Workshop can create an effective 'catch net' to reduce the number of dissatisfied customers leaving them in favour of other games and manufacturers.If a customer feels priced out of Warhammer 40K, they would be more likely to go and play Necromunda, for example, which requires a cheaper buy in, than leaving Games Workshop entirely and starting Infinity by Corvus Belli.
That's not to say that Games Workshop's games or miniatures are always superior to the alternatives.
However, because the majority of people will have discovered the wargames hobby through Games Workshop, they would be less likely to defect if Games Workshop presents more affordable games to play which fill all niches.
Cost effective customer retention
Specialist Games are also very easy for Games Workshop to tie up and create a cost effective catch net.Let's take Blood Bowl as an example.
Teams include: Orcs, Empire, High Elves, Wood Elves, Dark Elves, Undead, Chaos, Norse, Lizardmen, Halflings, Goblins, Skaven, Dwarfs, Stormcast.
That's 14 plastic boxed sets. It would be easy to create an additional plastic boxed set of star players for each team, creating 28 boxes in total.
Let's also take Necromunda as an example.
Gangs include: Van Saar, Escher, Goliath, Orlock, Cawdor, Scavvies, Redemptionists, Pit Slaves, Spyrers, Ratskins.
That's 10 plastic boxed sets. It would then be easy to create an additional plastic boxed set with 1 of each Hired Gun type. Then a plastic boxed set of Underhive Legends, which include all the named Characters. That's 12 boxed sets in total.
Games Workshop can effectively 'wrap up' all of their Specialist Games with this sort of approach.
They could add new miniatures if they needed to, but considering the sheer scale of the rest of their range, I can't see this being an issue.
Similarly, Battlefleet Gothic ships could be sold in boxes of small fleets.
This reduces the total number of units Games Workshop needs to move, wraps up the range very quickly and for any individual parts, the huge eBay market can fill in the gaps.
After all, why should Games Workshop fret about the eBay market if the boxes were bought from them in bulk in the first place?
Good Guy Games Workshop?
Is all forgiven now that Games Workshop is making the Horus Heresy affordable and bringing back Specialist Games?
The fundamental flaws in their business are still there - rules creep, soaring prices and the falling points costs of units.
However, I do believe that Specialist Games will help to plug a hole that Games Workshop has been losing customers to competitors through.
I've spent YEARS trying to get my wargaming buddies to play other games.
But they're just not interested.
Give them the Games Workshop equivalent however, and they'll gladly play it.
So there's some food for though...
In the meantime, I eagerly await some new Blood Bowl and Necromunda plastic miniatures! - Especially when I know I can easily find opponents to play these games.