I don’t think that’s true at all, and I’m risking coming across as a bit of a fanboy here (and to be perfectly honest, would it matter if I was?). There’s a lot of people who are excited about this and who are excited at the potential that the game has – myself included. Nobody has, as yet, called it a success myself also included. I think you’re also being a little unfair on Betrayal at Calth and Execution Force (I haven’t played Deathwatch or Lost Patrol so can’t comment) when you say they’re “shallow”. Betrayal at Calth and Execution Force are both enjoyable games in their own right and Betrayal at Calth has some interesting mechanics you can play with. The rules are simple but that’s not necessarily a bad thing and, of course, the miniatures are re-usable in warhammer 40k (as are those in Deathwatch and Lost Patrol).

I had quite an interesting discussion with a store manager yesterday and he was saying that circa 2 years ago there was very much a lack of emphasis on games and much more emphasis on models and that is essentially why Rick Priestly parted ways with Games Workshop. However under the new CEO, there has been a much bigger emphasis on the games designers and creative elements of the company and he acknowledged that hiring James M Hewitt and, more specifically having him head up the specialist games team, was part of the change in focus. He was very candid about his opinion of where his employer sat in the market place and the competition they now face and that GW head office are actually responding to that. Not all of their games will be to everyone’s tastes and there is definitely an element of “buy this bundle of miniatures for 40k and we’ll throw in a free game” to some of their releases (the new Knights game for example). That isn’t true for every game, Deathwatch was written as a game and miniatures re-use was sort of an after thought with rules being published in White Dwarf although the ability to reuse your miniatures in other games will likely be a feature of future release via the same mechanism. In my opinion this is a positive thing, even Mantic are doing that with Deadzone and Warpath and with Dungeon Saga and Kings of War.

So while Warhammer Quest is by no means a success yet (it hasn’t even been released) I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that it will be a steaming pile of shite (personally think recent offerings suggest the opposite) and I don’t think that there’s any reason to think that it won’t be a success. I also think, and I hold my hands up and freely admit to speculating, that Warhammer Quest will receive long term support in a way that perhaps Betrayal at Calth has not (although there are rumours of sequels to Betrayal at Calth and it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that GW are angling to introduce a larger plastic 30k range via the boardgame route).