Specialist Games Coming Back To Games Workshop?
November 12, 2015 by brennon
It looks like Special Games are coming back to Games Workshop under the umbrella of a new division at Games Workshop that will work alongside Forge World called the Specialist Product Design Studio...
This flyer has appeared all over Facebook groups for Games Workshop stores including Games Workshop Belconnen. There has been NO announcement of this over on the official Games Workshop website or on Forge World but it does appear to be a legitimate announcement.
Even Games Workshop managers are saying this is on the money. We always wondered why Games Workshop were holding onto their properties like Mordheim and Blood Bowl but it appears they had a plan at least somewhere in the back of their mind.
Interestingly this development also includes The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and there is the promise of new product on the horizon to support the game.
This is quite the turn around from Games Workshop...
"Interestingly this development also includes The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and there is the promise of new product on the horizon to support the game..."
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
![Warcradle Studios Reveal TINY New 10mm Festive Marker! [Updated]](https://images.beastsofwar.com/2025/11/christmas-kyle-main-600-338.jpg)
I’ve just woken up to this.
It’s official,
My year now has two Christmases!!
If this is true then its a step in the right direction for GW. However I’ll reserve my excitement until we have official confirmation, prices and a product list.
Highly skeptical of the veracity of this flier. If nothing else mentioning that many games in one release just isnt GW, its not like they have ever managed to focus on and support more than 3 games at a time. Whilst i would love some new necromunda stuff i just dont see it happening, also questionable is the “news” comes from Oz, i mean GW pretty much treats the entirety of the southern hemisphere as its despised ginger step kid, surprised the flier didnt also say the mailorder trolls are returning along with the citadel catalog, gonna call bollocks on this one.
If nothing else, even rumors of calth surfaced in January, if epic, BFG, Necromunda, Mordheim, Blood Bowl, man o war, dreadfleet, space hulk, gorkamorka or inquisitor were returning, something would have leaked even a hint that this was on the horizon.
Would be nice if true, shame its not, my money is on it being an internal joke that has gone viral, even the division’s name sounds fishy, would GW really call a division the S.P(u).D.S???
SPDS = spuds = love spuds = another name for bollocks 😉
I very much doubt the truth in this anouncement. Posted by a store, without anything official on the printed word document and claiming to get new stuff out for LotR and Hobbit, even though the LotR licence for has run out (afaik) I will believe it, when there is a official statement from the GW HQ, not earlier.
The ‘flyer’ is just something the Belconnen store manager knocked together to announce the news on the store’s FB page, hence the spelling, grammar, and IP errors. He and other managers claim they were told this news yesterday and given permission to announce it to their customers. The cynical side of me thinks the timing is due to the big box release that GW would like to get people into stores for.
As for the The Hobbit, there’d have to be new product for GW to retain the license as it’s highly unlikely they’d be allowed to sit on it and do nothing for a few years. Assuming this is all true, then it being shunted off to a separate studio isn’t necessarily good news, albeit it confirms the place we all know it has the company.
It’s true, it’s real, but how and in what form is yet to be revealed. Very exciting news though, especially as GW is going full plastic.
Bearing in mind they didn’t produce models for half of the characters in The Battle Of The Five Armies I could see them now looking to do those in resin still under the Forge World and new Specialists moniker to keep the license going and continue ‘support’.
It’s going to be very interesting to see how they develop any of these older ranges to make them viable on the tabletop for anyone.
I would assume we’re going to see a LOT of free rules and then GW/FW just supply the models.
BoW Ben
“Assuming this is all true, then it being shunted off to a separate studio isn’t necessarily good news, albeit it confirms the place we all know it has the company”
And just to expand on this a little, the last time GW shunted one of their main product lines into a studio was when the rpgs were made into Flame Publications, which basically consisted of three guys in a room recycling D&D adventures and re-using artwork until GW canned it for good. The Hobbit being part of this new studio likely means fewer people on it and fewer resources, but at least it means it isn’t going away just yet.
This is the most ridiculous move they could do.
I love most of these games, but GW do not produce games anymore and other companies have filled that void. Perhaps they are realising the huge mistakes they have done in the last decade and trying to fix them, sorry, too late for me.
Burt I’m happy for those whom will enjoy!
Sorry mate, but what you just said requires GW to have hindsight and I have yet to see them show that.
Well, it might just be plain and simple financial insight….
I agree. GW squandered what they had going for them. BFG: well today we have several alternatives with Dropfleet Commander looking stellar (bad pun, I know). Blood Bowl: has several similar games from other manufacturers like guild ball or dread ball. Man’o War might be slightly unique but then you have many good naval games out there and I seem to recall Spartan Games Uncharted Seas is somewhat, at least thematically, similar. Epic, again there are several alternatives in that scale out there. Oh, and these other manufacturers don’t charge you GW prices either and the quality of their work is pretty damned good.
But crucially, both BFG and Bloodbowl still have a huge active community still playing the game so there’s already a good foundation to build on. I wonder how many people are playing bloodbowl but buying miniatures from people like Guildball?
Normally I would agree but GW Geelong have posted they were given the OK to release the news by the CEO of GW
Now either this is either the greatest hacking attempt in history with multiple comments from the store manager and also on the GW FB pages in Oz or suddenly all the GW managers in Australia are going for the Guiness book of records mass sacking attempt
I am still a wee bit sceptical though
Well this is interesting, I would be interested in Necromunda and GorkaMorka having new models as the games were fun and also you don’t need huge amounts of figures to play.
However unless GW have had a huuuuge change of heart (their priority is selling lots of models for high prices not games with small model counts) I will also remain sceptical…. but hopeful.
Specialist games… a new hope?
New Star Wars, and now new Specialist Games? It’s a nostalgia overload, and I love it. 😉
IF it is true there are going to be some unhappy sellers on eBay
Yep, happy buyers though!
If they revamp the figures then there will still probably be demand for the old models for nostalgia sake.
Definitely, trying to assemble fleets for BFG on ebay is extortionate, even for me! £60 for a new space marine battle barge!
am chuffed to find out how much my epic collection is worth, its not for sale but nice to know its value has sky rocketed, same with my necromunda and gorkamorka collections 😀
If the rumour is true, GW prices will probably be similar!
Yea a friend of mine got a couple of days advance warning on this and just off loaded a load of BFG stuff before the public announcement…
new/re-release Epic 40k…. o.0
The original list mentions a new GW studio etc
I wonder if this is an attempt to try and lure dome of their old designers and sculptors back
Again I add IF this is true
Why would GW allow major news story (if true) to be released by a random store in Australia? With a hastily made flyer no less? Some bizarre viral marketing attempt? Colour me skeptical
But it now looks like the majority if GW Facebook pages have posted the news
This odd I grant you
Love to see BFG back. Miss that game.
you’d think with what would seem to be such a large announcement GW wou’d have done it officially themselves. Oddness, be interesting to see what happens.
They externally-advertised Age of Sigmar, which is something they hadn’t done in a very long time. Virally getting the word out at store level is no more surprising to me than that.
In fact, probably less so give there’s a big box release about to hit the stores.
Until I see this on GW’s main page, I call BS
(And happy to be proved wrong!)
To me it’s nothing more than IP preservation, I’ve moved on from those games unfortunately.
In the case of Blood Bowl, it’s too late for IP preservation. The community have taken control and stream-lined/balanced the rules. There are still a lot of Blood Bowl events around the globe if you care to look for them.
The community even put together 3 new teams, officially accepted throughout the tournament scene! Nowadays, Blood Bowl players prefer to either buy alternative models or convert their own. It’s part of the fun!
There are some games I would definitely be interested in reviving but others have passed me by now. Two years ago I would have loved to see blood bowl upgraded but now I have guildball and i enjoy it more. That said I know lots of my friends who would be very excited by that prospect.
It’s understandable to be skeptical about this as we’re pretty conditioned to not expecting any kind of announcement from GW. But we did have odd bits like this showing up before AoS and their veracity was debated here at length.
Personally, if it does end up being legitimate then I’m thrilled. We see new games popping up every month on Kickstarter that fill the gap left by GW’s smaller skirmish games and a large amount of them are successful. There’s definitely a point of saturation but with their gigantic presence in the market GW can easily push their games out front and be popular. A lot of people still don’t like the KS format and very few of the games have much of a store presence.
And for many of GW’s younger playerbase, these will be completely new games. If AoS did what it was supposed to and opened up wargaming to new players then they’ve only ever seen the 4oK/AoS/Hobbit triumvirate.
its all well and good to support those titles but unless you make entry level products for children there will be no growth in the hobby, all this is doing is fan service and milking those fans for cash.
“entry level products for children” – they have that AoS!
If Wacoshop are going to reintroduce these games then will they be going down the ‘limited edition’ route that seems to be the fashion?
haha it does seem that way @unclejimmy, but that only supports an existing group of gw fans 🙁 and they already spend money on models there is no growth to our hobby from that just growth in gw pockets, how many of us here are here because back in the day we saw the advert for heroquest and space crusade as kids
I don’t see why they wouldn’t do it. Out of all the companies in the industry GW is the one most capable of putting out one of these games per year. And if they want to keep their release schedule up they will probably need more than 40K and AoS to fill the gaps.
Games like Nercomunda would probably only be the base game followed by box set gangs released in the weeks after and BFG they could almost do as a one box release.
Necomunda terrain?!
I just advanced ordered some 6mm Novan figures from Vanguard Miniatures
and Mad Robot have the Sci Fi bits to make Dune Freemen types (Van Saar – Necromunda)
Their skinnerz are nice to. Though it’s nice to see them supplying Onslaught as well
Cautiously optimistic…
Maybe someone should just ring GW and ask
If this is true, this is great news….
But I’ll wait until the official announcement from GW. Until then I am taking this with a giant shovel full of salt.
We have the computer game, and bringing back the Blood Bowl tabletop game would be amazing. Necromunda would be most welcome, this was one of my favourite games from GW, as was GorkaMorka, used to love trukkin’ around, grabbin’ scrap, earning teef and giving my guns more “Dhaka”. Never liked visiting the Doc though.
Stupid auto correct, I meant “DAKKA”. I’m off to the Meks workshop with my tablet…
I saw it and got excited and then my cynical side kicked in. I believe it when I hear it from GW or evidence is leaked in White Dwarf. But I hope it’s true I really do, missed out the first time Necromunda, Blood Bowl and Epic were out – as I was a snotty Fantasy only teenager lol
@torros I just rung them, and they said “we cant comment on that”.
So that means a resounding YES!!! By not commenting they have kept the idea that it is true alive and posable. I know my goofy logic is messing with me 😛
Its remarkable what a few years of declining sales (but not profit) can achieve.
Call me cynical, but Adeptus Mechanicus, 30k and now this? I wonder if we would see any of that if their end year reports were not as they are the past few years.
I don’t think they need to be any worse than they’ve been for the past two years to prompt this.
Didn’t we also have a change of CEO recently? I’m not saying he’s single-handedly changing the company but a shift in direction and focus was (not exactly expected but) always a possibility.
Would be nice if true, but even if it is, they’ll probably charge ridiculous prices for them which will act as a barrier for new players, resulting in low sales, which in turn will lead to them scrapping the lines one by one. Either that or they’ll limit it to box sets, eg BFG will only get an Imperial vs Chaos box, Bloodbowl will only have an OrcvsHuman box, etc rather than reviving the full lines which will restrict playability beyond what’s in that box (eg BFG will have a campaign for the two themed fleets but no generic rules, or just a use both entire fleets scenario).
It would be great if they handled it competently, but I’m too jaded to think they will :(. And if they do bring out new minis, I doubt they’ll match the aesthetic of the old minis that much – expect an increase in skulls.
I’d argue that Bloodbowl doesn’t really need a bunch of teams released; you can nearly convert everything you want from their current plastic kits into Blood Bowl players (and there is an absolute tonne of stuff from other companies out there in terms of boards / dice / templates / teams). Same with Mordheim really.
IF Bloodbowl saw a new starter set, and IF it was only Humans and Orcs that saw new kits, then that would still be a net positive.
Necromunda on the other hand, was a gateway game for 2nd edition because of the big overlap in rules. There doesn’t seem to be much out there as alternative “gangs” like there is in Bloodbowl (probably IP), although there is a tonne of scenery out there.
Back then you could certainly make the case it was a way to get new players into 40k, but if Necromunda got released tomorrow, then for it to remain a gateway game, it would have to change rules to match the current 40k (nobody surely wants this). Rediculous prices? If a new Necromunda boxed set came along and it was priced similar to the HH game out now, I’d think that was pretty reasonable tbh.
Epic though; I remember back in the day getting an absolute tonne of plastic infantry stuff for £5 and £10. I don’t know how they sold so cheaply.
By ridiculous prices I was thinking more of the case they actually produce full lines for them – everything would be pricy because GW is pricey anyway, and considering FW is being lumped in and FW tends to be pricier than Citadel, then the rest of the stuff produced by this new studio may end up with similar premium prices.
And by limited to what’s in the boxset, I meant that there may not be the option for things beyond them; in the case of BB, there will be rules for Orcs and Humans, but none for Undead, Chaos, Dwarfs, Elves, etc. and the teams will be preset rather than allowing you to build as you wish like how BB was. Hopefully they won’t go down that route, but it all depends on how much support GW want to put into it – one off box sets don’t require much support beyond production, allowing them to move on to another system and churn out a boxset for that and so on. Actually supporting the system requires them to put effort in and have dedicated teams to keep things going.
I’m just outlining worst case scenarios here – I hope they won’t come to pass. I hope they’ll do things well and make it affordable, especially in the case of those games where you can’t convert from one of their other lines or from another company’s lines. I’m just cynical and worried they’ll find a way to muck it up. 🙁
Odd but my initial response was “Meh” but then I already own all the old games I was interested in and I’m more interested in other companies products now /shrug
Good luck to them though and it’s an interesting change in direction for the company
Just a thought but looking at the AoS release it might be possible that they intend to put the freely downloadable PDF rulesets back on the website and have the “new studio” produce/market the minis – now that would be an interesting move.
Yeah that’s probably how it will work out. Free PDF rules for these games (would be a reason why they haven’t reprinted all of the SBG books?) and then just continue with ‘finecast’ or plastic models for the ranges.
With Forge World involved I would assume resin.
BoW Ben
It was like that a while ago… If they’re getting back to it, it could be interesting…
At the time I downloaded every single PDF from their Specialist Game page… Even those I didn’t play to have a look at the rules…
Fist thing that popped into my head when reading this was “These sausages are overcooked.”.
The second thing was “If this is true, I wonder if somewhere down the line WFB might make a reappearance as a specialist game.”
I thought that myself but that would really aplit the AoS playerbase. To the point that the older gamers might ignore it completely.
Well I certainly know people who if they could would buy Epic 40k right now off the shelves… Would I?? Honestly I dont know, I lost interest in workshop games a while ago now and frankly am not sure if I would return to their games even with a re boot of the classic specialist games. If it turns out to be true well that’s good news for the long term communities that have kept those games alive in that they will have an easier supply for minis and updated rules..will GW draw me back into the fold…i really don’t think so
A store manager just said, that there might be some thruths to this and he will get more information during their next meeting.
big if on whether this is a outsider joke from someone borrowing fb gw store account (like it was left open on the store computer) and seeing how far it can go with people getting excited with this
the more i read it, the less realistic it seems as it cristalize the sum of people years dreams for years… its classic formula because even if rationnally people know it cannot be true (remember gw strategy for years, their annual report statements…), people so much dreamed of it that they are ready to dismiss hard facts for the possibility the dream come true.
to me it so much looks like the last statement when hasbro was buying out gw just after buying wotc.
Blood Bowl with the old poly molded pitch please!
Of course its easy to get everybody happy when you relieve a “ban” on popular products. But they created this mess and made myself and many others to migrate to other games, sorry GW – been there done that, doesnt mean I wont be back but for now my sheves are filled with
Bolt Action, FoW, Dust, Infinity, Dropzone and Firestorm among others. But perhaps, if they actually do this and keep it going, there is a chance I´ll be back in GW stores, but it feels like going back to an ex partner – lots of history, good and bad but in the back of your head you have that feeling telling you: Dont you remeber why we broke up? xD
Sorry GW I might like what I know your tricks 😉 If they reforged Epic 40k though…
2 bad for them that i’ve bought some firestorm armada and just backed for DFC!^^
maybe in the next life! Also i’d wait like 6 month b4 getting more than a box for gw specialist’s game to see if it’s supported or not! sorry but you can’t cancel years of bad customer relationship in one announcement!^^
This seems too good to be true. Of course I wish it’s true but I am not having my hopes up.
When I got back into gaming I realy wanted to play some ‘Blood Bowl’ or ‘Warhammer Quest’ or ‘Space Hulk’. But they were nowhere available at a reasonable price.
I moved on from that. Dungeon Saga is arriving soon! I found out I have not the time to play as many games as I wanted but if I wanted a sports game now I would start DreadBall. And although I don’t think that DwarfKing’s Hold is mantics Space Hulk it defenetly fills my need for a good 1vs1 game.
To late GW. I’m a mantic fanboy now.
P.S.: I still hope that this is true. Competition on a market is a good thing!
On the balance of the available evidence, this looks reasonably credible – after all, GW managers deliberately posting fake rumours on the official Facebook pages for their stores would seem like a great way to get yourself fired – why would they do it, and how could they hope to get away with it? It is impossible to be 100% sure until we see an official announcement on GW’s own home page, but the odds that this is legit are favourable at this time.
Assuming it is true, this has the potential to be very good news indeed if handled properly. The Specialist Games are a very important aspect of the GW range that was, and when they were axed it impoverished the GW gaming landscape significantly. This is a chance to rectify that.
For myself, I would be most interested in the return of Epic and Battlefleet Gothic (though Necromunda, Bloodbowl and Mordheim are all incredible games as well). Epic allows you to see war in the 40K universe the way it is described in the fluff and novels and let’s you ‘zoom out’ even further than Apocalypse games to see what an entire battlefront looks like on the tabletop. It also brings Titans into the realistic reach of ordinary gamers budgets ad affords the possibility of seeing entire Titan Battle maniples do their thing.
Battlefleet Gothic brings in the spaceship engagements that are so important in the fiction and game setting, which themselves offer entirely different forms of game play – (all ahead full and damn the) torpedoes, boarding actions, maneuver rules, arcs fire for broadside and prow mounted weapons, all offer new gaming options along with new modeling and painting techniques to convey effects you probably wouldn’t see in the course of 40K games.
If you combine all three systems into a linked series of games then you could convey all levels of a 40K combat operation, from the fleet operations in orbit and the resultant orbital insertion via drop ships/pods/spores/teleportation and so on, through the mass combat of the main terrestrial combat engagement with air support, massed conventional units and Titan formations, to zooming right in on a critical assault or firefight depicted in an Apocalypse game, or a vital commando raid to (for example) spike the enemy big guns, destroy an orbital defence network, or take out a terrestrial based shield generator on a forest moon – all at the same time in a multi-board game. The possibilities are vast.
Used to love playing linked campaigns of epic, 40k bfg, space hulk (ship boarding) and necromunda for skirmish
I wonder if an AoS version of Warmaster might be on the cards? Could we also finally see a return of games like Man ‘O War with anew spin?
Probably too much to hope for, but then again many people assumed that there was no possibility we would never see any Specialist Games again either…
Unintentional double negatives – a curse upon commenters who don’t proof read carefully everywhere… 🙁
And all just we start over with Epic… ^^ Can´t wait for it…
Thing is im really puzzled by why epic 40k is regarded so warmly these days? Was met with a lukewarm at best reception when it launched and i really struggled to find people to play the new rules with, generally ended up playing the original epic instead….
Where I am epic was huge. Maybe it’s because we were all 6mm WW2 and modern Gamers as well. I think about 10 of us got heavily involved in it
Dont get me wrong, plenty of people played epic by me, just very few liked or played epic 40k, it was very much the AoS of its day for us, and probably the reason my entire reaction to AoS was “meh, they done it before, not crying over this one”
It’s a whole new landscape now from when these games were first introduced. All these old games were launched pre-internet.
@andz internet or no, imho epic 40k was a backwards step from epic…
We as a group played all the versions . It would a close call if Space Marine or Epic 40k was the better game though they both tried to do very different things rules wise
just hoping for warhammer quest. if they remake warhammer quest i will buy 10.
That and necromunda are the two things i hope this to be true for, still when the dust settles and the truth emerges, there will always be frostgrave and dungeon saga to play instead 🙂
It will be Ao$ Quest now 😉
There are some very valid points both here, and on the forums. The big one that stands out is, if this is true, why has the announcement not come from GW Headquarters? And why have none of the stores in the UK said anything about this yet?
If this is a hoax, wouldn’t you think that GW would have been pretty quick to stop it, though?
Thinking about it, I don’t know if I should believe this or not. As I said in an earlier post, I’m taking this with a trukk full of salt. I’ll sit here and see what happens.
Quote: If this was a hoax, wouldn’t you think that GW would have been pretty quick to stop it, though?
I don’t think GW have ever responded to a rumour / hoax before something was officially announced. Note; I don’t think this is a hoax, but if you’re using this reasoning as to why this is all true, then you’re making a mistake.
Although I still have Mordheim, Bloodbowl and Necromunda, I much prefer Deadzone and wouldn’t go back. I am about to embark upon Dreadball too but would play Bloodbowl.
I hope for diehard fans that they do get a lifeline.
Um. As a grump grognard who has been spewing hate and anger at GW for these past 8 or so years … (before that I was drinking the coolaid and LOVING IT) … I am … looking for the cool-aid again. Really a full scale return of epic, BFG and warmaster … would pretty much pull me back to the motherland that GW once was for me. I might use old rules, I might use, other ranges mixed in, etc. (things I’d never have done back in the day) but they’d have me as a pretty loyal customer again if they produce enough models and manage to just keep them at somewhat current GW price points (I wont pay $5 for a single 6mm marine for example).
FINGERS CROSSED!!
I’ve been told by one of my local stores (UK) that this is true and they’ll be under the Forge World banner. Some may make it to stores depending on demand.
If they are under Forge World, then this means resin. Got no problem with that, but it will give the products a high price point, which will be a barrier for some.
There’s something about this a swell which says to me “no boxed games”. Part of me says the products will be either a hard copy or downloadable rulebook, and minis/accessories range.
It could just be that any game without store distribution as standard is branded ‘Forge World’
With you on this, my GW has been enquiring all day and seems the rumour is true, to what degree they don’t know but it’s not a hoax.
I just had to check the date, it is not April 1st. Hmm…
Epic for Heresy ? And For T K ? Would be great.
Blood Bowl would be sweet too, if its set in the Old World.
I was always under the impression that Blood Bowl always took place in a different world to the old WH:F.
It doesn’t make sense that Blood Bowl takes place in the Old World; the Empire population refuses to believe in Skaven yet is quite happy to play a ball game with them every so often? Etc…
Don’t try to apply hard logic on the worlds of GW, it will only lead to disappointment.
Warmaster??? I hope it comes back…
If this is true it will make an enormous amount of people happy, however, sadly, I see it not being true. I can’t see how they would take the specialty warhammer products off their online store, their warhammer village pieces off the store and then bring back the specialty items. I do very very much hope it is true because if it is there are quiet a few Inquisitors who are going to get undusted!
We should all drop out other specialist games and start to donated money blindly to GW.
GWzinga!!
https://youtu.be/G8vtW8Aq_aY
We just started an Inquisitor RPG at my local store. Might be nice to see a new rulebook, or at least a republishing. All our documents are falling apart!
I couldn’t be bothered….
Lots of other games from other companies. My only gripe is that they are holding on to the Middle-earth licences based on the films.
I suspect that its absolute nonsense, unfortunately!
Too little too late, people have cried out for years about GW giving up on specialist games, then they turn round like some benevolent overseer that’s trying to convince us of what a good idea they’ve had that no one had previously thought of….. Wouldn’t surprise me if Necromunda and Epic were coming up to some kind of IP timeout so they need to produce something quickly to keep hold, then this super special department will fold for 10 more years.
Ok, I’m hearing that it is indeed on the cards but won’t be up and running for 18 months or so. Apparently the Australians got a bit over excited and broke cover a bit early!
I don’t know if this could be real in its full context. But here’s some food for though I don’t see people brining up:
Mordheim just officially got its video game released. Gothic has its first game on the way, blood bowl has 2 games out now, and the battle for Armageddon game is very “epic” style in its presentation.
This might be gw waking up to the possibilities of these games making a come back as most of these video game adaptations are either successful or highly anticipated.
Wishlist***Epic 30k cmon!!***wishlist
Please please please let it be real. says myself
Oh no… .oooooh no…. ooooh no says my credit card 😀
It is legit. Confirmation from GW via their app is doing the rounds. Not sure how to upload it here but if anyone hasn’t seen it yet, @tresilliian has uploaded it to the forum thread on this topic.
I have seen the confirmation over on War of Sigmar and Faeit. It seems that GW have confirmed this is happening via their official App. Here are the links:-
http://natfka.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/gw-confirms-specialist-design-studio.html
http://war-of-sigmar.herokuapp.com/bloggings/349
It’s legit, it’s on the Warhammer App news.
Hmm can’t edit my last note, bugger. What I meant to finish saying was the app mentions “the first of many new boxed games” in relation to HH:BaC, but could be inferred to mean that all those properties may or may not be released in new formats as well.
Tasked with “Bringing back and re-vamping” could mean anything. Regardless, I can’t wait to see some of the unreleased Lotr miniatures, and I’ll be high as a kite if we get BFG and Necromunda back.
Epic in plastic… now, that would be like printin money!
So over joyed that this is happening. Seems like we have a wait, and I’m sure GW can find a way to mess this up. But it is like a dream come true. My epic space marine chapter may get an army to face, new titans, Plastic Necromunda gangs. The possabilities are endless and all involve me giving money to GW.
Same here, this has got me excited about GW again. You’re right, and I don’t think anyone is under an impression that things will happen straight away. From a recent forum post, it sounds like they need to recruit the team first, then they can begin!
As RuPaul says:
“Good luck, and don’t @&#% it up!”
Please…. oh please!!!!!! This should be a thing!
its as if a million Ebay scalpers cried out in pain, and were suddenly silenced
Silenced by an Imperial Commissar, for showing disloyalty to the god-Emperor.
Best news of the year….. From GW but I’ll fully believe the day I see it
It all seems to be officially confirmed. Details are definitely a bit vague but to be getting any kind of long-term announcement from GW (planned or not) is a change for the better.
I’m absolutely buzzing at all this. I had some of the games when I was younger but they were never appreciated and others (Blood Bowl, Mordheim, BFG) I always regretted not getting into. Blood Bowl and BFG are pretty cheap games to take up. Low model counts and scarcity (or complete absence) of scenery really bring the budget down. Mordheim is scenery heavy but I’ve been looking at boards to build for Carnevale and I was hesitant to spend too much due to the fact that it wasn’t a game that I plan on investing much into (It has a pretty small range). But now I can double up.
And I’m not worried by the talk of limited editions or unsupported box sets. If that was the plan then GW would simply release the games themselves. They had no difficulties with Space Hulk or Execution Force. I’f they’ve gone to the trouble of setting up a new division of the company then they’ve serious plans.
HOLY F**KING CRAP. No way wicked awesome, BFG coming back yes my God you are so good to us poor buggers yes you are. 🙂
Has anyone noticed Armageddon is spelt incorrectly in the flyer, and that there is no announcement of this on the GW webpage. I hardly think that they would announce this info out to the stores without making some hint that is was coming in WD or on their webpage. What makes it even harder to believe is the support for Lord of the Rings … If I am wrong I will happily stand corrected but I think it is unlikely to happen.
If it does happen I suspect you would be seeing Forgeworld prices on games and figures. The more I see from GW the less interested I feel. They nearly had me back with AoS until I saw the price of some of the stuff here in AU, and that was it .. the last nail was driven into a coffin I never really wanted to close.
Nothing on the webpage but apparently is has been announced on the App. I haven’t room on my phone to download it and confirm.
This has already been confirmed by GW. The errors on the ‘flyer’ are because a store manager knocked it together for his store’s FB page.
The idea of Forgeworld making new Necromunda and Mordheim minis makes me a very very happy man 🙂
A bunch of new jobs linked with this news have gone up
http://jobs.games-workshop.com/category/vacancies-by-country/uk/
Exciting news – would be nice to see some up to date models for these games. I’ve been bodging together models for Mordheim, Would be nice to see some shiney new stuff.
Wow those job posting are interesting.
I’ve never believed the Internet math was quite right on the Tolkien License expiry date, but this almost suggests that GW is going to keep pushing forward with supporting it even further. Modeler, Product manager and Writer for Middle Earth??
That makes me very happy 🙂
Wow, I thought Age of Sigmar was doing poorly, but I didn’t realize THAT poorly. After all, I thought releasing a diverse and exciting series of games that bring in hundreds of dollars a year from veteran hobbyists was a terrible business move that would spell doom! That’s what all these very experience businessmen said, and that has to trump common sense doesn’t it?
(I’m surprised some up-and-coming gaming company hasn’t already scooped them on this, you could simply rerelease Blood Bowl with a different name, exact same rules, and an investment of about $100k in sculpts/art/design and make a hugely successful Kickstarter. Oh well.)
Seriously, there’s no pleasing some people.
Demanding no one notice how stupid you’ve acted for 15 years on the day you turn about face or else you label them as unpleasable, is not what any intelligent person would consider valid criticism. But thanks for the contribution anyway.
I read that list of games and find it hard to believe that this wasn’t published April 1st.
I don’t know how GW can go for so many years of neglecting then outright abandoning these fan favourite lines only to turn around and bring them all back in one go. The cynical part of my rain is screaming that this is a radical change in policy as GW attempts to revive interest in their product lines. From what I gather Age of Sigmar is not the stellar new success that they had hoped so they are digging deep into the back catalog instead.
So long as the old classics are restored to their rightful place, I am happy. I must confess that I don’t much care why GW makes the right choice, so long as they make the right choice. Even if the reason for all this is that the GW big wigs think the Emperor is speaking to them from the game and telling them to bring back Specialist Games then I would still be fine with that.
I am also unconvinced about claims that the return of Specialist Games must mean that AoS is failing. A massive relaunch/full re-envisioning of multiple games systems like this will cost plenty of money and still constitutes a substantial risk, at least in the minds of the GW execs who axed the games the last time around. If AoS was the disaster some people claim, then it would seem to be an odd move to take another huge risk with such a big and ambitious move as creating an entire new division of the company responsible for launching multiple systems.
The buy in will inevitably be significant even if old moulds are being reused. It is at the very least as credible a scenario (and to my mind rather more likely) to read this as a more confident GW, that believes that it is resurgent and on the upswing, taking the opportunity to capitalise on what it considers to be its momentum to get back into fields of wargaming it had abandoned, like different scales from 28mm heroic, space ship gaming, tabletop sports games, skirmish stuff and so on.
Whether what appears to be GW’s bullish and confident attitude is in any way justified is yet to be seen, but this doesn’t strike me as some kind of desperation measure. I think GW sees this as moving back into territory they had formerly essentially entirely ceded to games like Dropzone Commander, Dreadball, Infinity, and Firestorm Armada because now is the time when they feel they are able to do so credibly.
Either way, more competition in the industry in what are still pretty niche forms of an already niche hobby is a good thing for the wargaming public. Even if you can’t stand GW’s stuff, their increased presence should encourage other developers to up their game even further to try to attract our precious gaming pounds/dollars/preferred unit of currency.
One of the challenges is that we don’t have any insight into how many of those decisions had significant amounts of inertia against them, but someone, likely Kirby, managed to push them through regardless. See it every day in big corps, never ceases to amaze me the level of stupid that can be achieved because a VP or CEO has something on their corporate score card.
A radical change in policy isn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility, regardless of how well or not well AoS is doing (which incidentally my personal experience never seems to mirror my internet experience…) when there is a changing of the guard (even if it was seemingly loyal previously.)
I just want to play Battle fleet gothic again
it will all come down to the price.
Without GREAT starter sets…There are too many highly supported games now for them to build a proper fan base.
I’m cautiously interested to see if Warmaster makes it back. If the old molds exist, they can fill it with finecast for all I care. They’d likely still be the same gouging prices found on ebay but at least you wouldn’t have to spend months trying to gather all the units for an army! The alternative models out there in 10mm historic or fantasy sometimes miss the mark for me, the original sculpts were just too good.
I have heard from people who were sculpting bits and pieces for Warmaster that all the original moulds were destroyed