Warhammer 40K Tabletop Thread XLIII: "This Is A New LoW For Us All"

[Blackhawk748]

Custodes got slammed hard. Losing Objective Secured on so much stuff, and their go to stratagems got a lot worse too.

Tyranids might be the new Harlequins, if Crusher Stampede is still legal. It would be so broken that some tournaments aren't even waiting for GW and are preemptively banning it.

Wow. Don't think I've seen something so broken that TOs are just out right banning it themselves.

Way to go GW.

[lord_khaine]

Tyranids might be the new Harlequins, if Crusher Stampede is still legal. It would be so broken that some tournaments aren't even waiting for GW and are preemptively banning it.

Would it be worse than Harlequins 2 weeks ago?

[Renegade Paladin]

Wow. Don't think I've seen something so broken that TOs are just out right banning it themselves.

Way to go GW.

I am informed that GW has told the big organizers to do it in their group for the Approved TOs, since they're doing that now. I am similarly informed that in the same venue they say removing the Knight buffs was a mistake and to keep using them.

[Forum Explorer]

Would it be worse than Harlequins 2 weeks ago?

Massively. As is, people are predicting Tyranids to be an S-tier faction. Giving all of their strongest stuff a 5++ and -1 damage would probably make it so that nothing has a chance against them.

[Wraith]

Warhammer Community has shared upcoming improvements to Chaos Space Marines as part of the run-up to Nachmund: Rift War.

Not just 2 Wounds, but also 3 Attacks as standard. They also get new stats in chainaxes and Daemon weapons, as the Balefire Acolyte rule from Kill Team is being imported to the main game.

Also, the first special character from Necromunda: Ash Wastes has been announced - a bad-ass bounty hunter lady who rides her own personal ATV with a rocket launcher on her shoulder. Ash Wastes is working hard to be the silliest, craziest, most amazing update ever.

Massively. As is, people are predicting Tyranids to be an S-tier faction. Giving all of their strongest stuff a 5++ and -1 damage would probably make it so that nothing has a chance against them.

I have a friend who grew up close with people who still work at GW. So far he's been at least as reliable as any other source of GW rumours that you care to mention. His take on this is that the next few codices are all going to be broken as hell and they're doing it deliberately.

Firstly to kick-start new interest in the hobby as people come out of lockdown and distancing requirements and back into gaming and tournaments, proper - they're making stuff that people will WANT to buy, not just 'would kind of like if given the chance'.
Secondly it's very likely to be that GW are tying up 9e - every faction gets a codex thrown out ASAP, hence why we get Aeldari, Tyranids and Tau coming out one after the other (how often have we have 2 xenos releases back-to-back, let alone 3?) and each is going to be increasingly silly as 'future proofing'. Get them done, make them all good and in as little need of FAQing or revisiting as possible, then focus on 10th edition for the big re-release that 9e should have been.

Seems reasonable, to me. Haven't seen it hinted anywhere else, but it adds up and would be a smart move in GW's part.

[Renegade Paladin]

The Balance Dataslate was updated today to re-include the Knight buffs and clarify Militarum Tempestus' interaction with Hammer of the Emperor (there isn't one; they neither break it nor get it). Also they published a "Content Validity Update" which specifies which campaign books have been superseded by codices and should no longer be used in matched play. What's interesting there is some of the entries have sunset dates. Most are until January, 2023 or until superseded by a codex, but Creations of Bile and Agents of the Imperium are marked good until June 2023 with no codex provision. 10th edition release confirmed?

[lord_khaine]

I think the biggest surprise is the swift reaction.
Lizard people having replaced the GW board, accidentially caring to much about things confirmed?

[Blackhawk748]

I think the biggest surprise is the swift reaction.
Lizard people having replaced the GW board, accidentially caring to much about things confirmed?

I think its more of a "This is so broken its not attracting players, its pushing them away" situation. Like, people were VERY unhappy with Harlies, if Nids were gonna be worse it was gonna be a bloodbath for GW online.

[Cheesegear]

accidentally caring to much about things confirmed?

I don't think it's an accident.

Spoiler: -29% feels bad, man

Show

When your stock drops 25% in a quarter, you take a look around.

[Avaris]

The idea that GW stock is remotely affected by the opinions of the community, rather than the wider economic issues of the UK’s energy crisis, cost of living, and the war in Ukraine, is laughable.

[Cheesegear]

The idea that GW stock is remotely affected by the opinions of the community

It's called voting with your wallet, and it absolutely has an effect. You can tell because the 2021 holidays were...Not kind to a retail company that boasted of its massive success during the last two years when everything else was turning to ****. Why did everything turn to **** at the end of 2021 (i.e; Not in the last month). But that's not even close to what I'm talking about, so I'll stop.

rather than the wider economic issues of the UK’s energy crisis, cost of living, and the war in Ukraine, is laughable.

What does that have to do with anything?

Your stock has fallen (and it started pre-holiday season, not after, and you're a retail company...). That's a big problem.

What should you do to bring it back up? What do?

If the answer is; 'Sell your IP' 'Care about the customers you do still have.', then you're on the same page as me.

I don't care why their stock has dropped. That was never my point. What I care about is the consequences, optics and solutions, to said drop and how that manifests.

[LeSwordfish]

Do you think people making purchase decisions based on rules are more common than people making purchase decisions based on "i've spent all my money on petrol"?

My electricity bill tripled this month. I'm unable to vote with my wallet because it's empty.

EDIT: hang on, this is stock, not profits. Are the shareholders voting with their wallets?

[Blackhawk748]

Do you think people making purchase decisions based on rules are more common than people making purchase decisions based on "i've spent all my money on petrol"?

My electricity bill tripled this month. I'm unable to vote with my wallet because it's empty.

But GW doesn't know that, they just know you didn't buy anything. So they're gonna look around, see that online people are complaining about X or Y trend in the game, and try and change something, because that's something they can change.

EDIT: hang on, this is stock, not profits. Are the shareholders voting with their wallets?

This is entirely possible. Again, if you're a shareholder and you peek online to see whats up in the community, and you see people very upset with how the Release Nerf cycle goes, you may think to go to a less volatile company.

[LeSwordfish]

But GW doesn't know that, they just know you didn't buy anything.

Their electricity bill also tripled.

Again, if you're a shareholder and you peek online to see whats up in the community,

Are they doing that? I was under the impression most shareholders were big companies or large holders, not individuals going on warseer to read angry posts.

[Cheesegear]

Do you think people making purchase decisions based on rules are more common than people making purchase decisions based on "i've spent all my money on petrol"?

How does GW convince people to ignore petrol, and buy toy soldiers...Y'know...Like the good old days? ...JokingNotJoking.

I legitimately spent my rent money on Grey Knights back in 5th Ed. I ate mi goreng for every meal, for two weeks until my next pay. Cost of living? Pfft. There is only toy soldiers.

[LeSwordfish]

I legitimately spent my rent money on Grey Knights back in 5th Ed.

Well, maybe that's a you thing.

[Cheesegear]

Well, maybe that's a you thing.

Judging by how GW has exploited FOMO is the last several years, I'm pretty sure it's the kind of customers GW wants.

Fortunately for me, I was okay in a month because 5th Ed. was decades ago.

Unfortunately for GW, exploiting FOMO doesn't work when your impulse-buying customer doesn't believe they'll be okay by next paycheque. And maybe landlords aren't as lenient as they used to be.

So, back to the original spark of the conversation.

Is GW accidentally caring about their game; No. They're caring about their game on purpose. They have to... At least until such time as they don't, and new-new-NEW GW reverts back to Old GW and the simulation repeats.

[Saambell]

If the stock drop is more on the investor/stockholder side like some have suggested, the issue might be more due to perceived connections. The stock and profits jump massively for a hobby company during the times a large number of major countries had piles of restrictions and thus large numbers of people with more free time. More free time turns maybe customers of a hobby company into new customers. Thus the huge jump in profits. However, if that is the cause of profits, those countries going back to normal is actually bad for hobby company profits, as those people who got free time for the hobby have now lost said free time. Add that on top of global inflation and rising living costs, and that's a ton of maybe lost customers. Hence the stock drop. Even if GW isn't losing customers or profit, if their investors and stockholders think there will be a loss, they will sell their shares before it doesn't happen. Now that the conditions that seem to have boosted interest and sales of GW stuff have left, so too will those investors just looking for a quick buck off a jumping company.

[Forum Explorer]

For that matter, I'd say this is hardly indicative of GW 'caring'. There was a lot of people asking GW if Crusher Stampede and the Leviathan Supplement were going to be legal and predicting how broken it would be. The rules that have come out since Christmas have been pretty poorly balanced almost across the board.

[Cheesegear]

The rules that have come out since Christmas have been pretty poorly balanced almost across the board.

Again, if GW wants to continue to say 'We're a models company!', they're gonna go downhill, fast...Oh wait.

What they need to do is convince the players that they still have, that the rules they produce for the game is still better than anything that they could come up with, on their own.
TTRPGs have done this, forever:
'Yes, you can do what you want, it's your table...But your rules are stupid and dumb, and here are our official rules that aren't terrible and dumb like yours.'

At present, it's very, very clear to everyone that you don't need GW-models to play GW-games. This was always true. But back in the day the alternative to a $65 Drop Pod, was a Coke can. When your options are Drop Pod or a Coke can, the Drop Pod is Just Better, even at its absurd cost. In 202x, the alternative to way overpriced Tank...Is a different Tank from a different company...Maybe even a Tank that you can make in your own home!

So yeah.

Your stock drops ~25% in a little less than two quarters, during the biggest retail season. What do? Do the thing you can do that actually requires almost no investment at all; Make a good game.

[lord_khaine]

Hmm. Well its a convincing argument.
That the stock dropped like it got murdered seems to speak for itself.
It could explain a rush to seemingly get a new edition out?

And if your in a panic mode over dropped stock.
Then yeah making the game playable by fixing the worst outliers seems minimal investment.
Especially when the players find the broken stuff for you.

[Destro_Yersul]

If the last couple years have taught us anything, it's that the amount of money a company makes and the value of its stock have very little to do with each other.

Anyways, seems like a decent time to buy some GW stock.

[LeSwordfish]

You would think that if "release broken stuff then fix it when people buy it" was so sensible profitable, this would be the time to double down on it.

[Renegade Paladin]

You would think that if "release broken stuff then fix it when people buy it" was so sensible profitable, this would be the time to double down on it.

That only gets you so far, though, before the people who did that the first few times get wise to the scheme, and the people who didn't get tired of the game being broken.

[Wraith]

Pre-pandemic, one year GW's revenue was 50% from licensing their IP. This year we got Total Warhammer 3 and we're still due Blood Bowl 3, Dark Tide, Chaos Gate, Space Marine 2 and a ****-tonne of iOS and mobile stuff aside, so if they're going to double down on anything I expect it might be that. Double the profits for the low, low cost of rubber-stamping a bunch of stuff that last year was only a "maybe" project.

It's not as though GW are in any danger of closing down and going bust. They're not losing money, they're just not making quite as much profit as before.

[Dragonus45]

You would think that if "release broken stuff then fix it when people buy it" was so sensible profitable, this would be the time to double down on it.

Much like how a single bad movie can make tons of money of incoming hype before dropping off hard on the sequels, something being very profitable in the short term like Break The Game/Nerf The Game cycle looks like the best idea ever by the numbers right up until it totally backfires on you.

[Avaris]

Hmm. Well its a convincing argument.
That the stock dropped like it got murdered seems to speak for itself.
It could explain a rush to seemingly get a new edition out?

And if your in a panic mode over dropped stock.
Then yeah making the game playable by fixing the worst outliers seems minimal investment.
Especially when the players find the broken stuff for you.

The edition element doesn’t work with lead times on products though. The codexes being released now likely had their rules finalised at least six months ago, and were committed to print maybe three months ago at the latest. The timing of the releases, and any new edition, was set years ago, albeit it was then messed up by covid.

Putting out new rules fixes will have no effect on the stock level, and as Destro_Yersul says, stock fluctuations have very little relationship with actual profits. Plus, the GW profit position is actually fairly stable: they put out an earnings report last month, confirming that revenue over the three months December/January/February (i.e. the key retail season) was in line with expectations, and paying a sizeable dividend. Investors are spooked, but not by anything inherent to GW: the massive falls in stock have happened all over due to the recent economic shocks.

Putting out fixes is good, but they’re certainly not instigated by any cynical and/or desperate attempts to boost profits more than any other company would, or in a panic over share price.

…
In other news, had a weekend with my first wargaming in a while! Got to play my first games of Necromunda and Kill Team, and then a great game of Crusade in which my Daemon Prince was obliterated in turn 1 by T’au Fire Warriors (auto wounding on 6s is nasty if the dice are with you!), and which came down to my last surviving Plague Marine in a fist fight with an Ethereal while the fire warriors were eaten by Spawn in the background. I purposefully didn’t charge anything else in to allow for the dramatic climax!

Anyone who has played both Necromunda and Kill Team, do you recall how your first impressions compared? I enjoyed both, but to my surprise found Necromunda more straightforward in my head and less complex feeling. Possibly it’s because the base game is still much more like 40k with extra bits added, whereas Kill Team is whole new mechanics?

[Forum Explorer]

Your stock drops ~25% in a little less than two quarters, during the biggest retail season. What do? Do the thing you can do that actually requires almost no investment at all; Make a good game.

I guess my point is that they aren't doing that yet.

[Cheesegear]

This year we got Total Warhammer 3 and we're still due Blood Bowl 3, Dark Tide, Chaos Gate, Space Marine 2 and a ****-tonne of iOS and mobile stuff aside, so if they're going to double down on anything I expect it might be that.
[...]
It's not as though GW are in any danger of closing down and going bust.

GW wont die. What it will do is change into something it isn't, currently. Most likely into something tabletop wargamers don't actually want.

The GW I know will die. But GW itself, as an entity will still be around for quite some time.

I have seen it going around that the reason their stock fell was because it was an attempt to sell to another company - most likely Hasbro - that didn't take. When GW was not sold, or the deal fell through, or it was made clear that Hasbro wasn't interested in an IP about superhuman murderers murderering alien murderers murderering demonic murderers murderering murdering terminators...That's a potential reason for the stock drop. Stock-inflation-with-intent-to-sell.
But, the stock market is crazy and anything and everything can be true all at the same time.

Anyone who has played both Necromunda and Kill Team, do you recall how your first impressions compared?

My first impression of Kill Team is that it's awful. It felt like going from WHFB to AoS. I'm sure there's a market for Kill Team, but it isn't me. I might be in the market for Kill Team a long time from now, after they fix several things and allow customisation back. But that time isn't now. However, given how GW has treated it's non-major games during the pandemic (e.g; Cursed City), it's hard to know when GW will get around to making Kill Team a good game.

[Callos_DeTerran]

My first impression of Kill Team is that it's awful. It felt like going from WHFB to AoS.

What WAS the big change from WHFB to AoS that people hate so much? I've never seen WHFB, but I've seen games of AoS and they look like a lot of fun, so wondering at the issue here.