On Specialist Games: as a gamer, I think I’d actually prefer them bringing back the old games polished up (ie the rules corrected to bring them in line with the errata/FAQ, a few of the clunkier rules streamlined, etc) than going into new avenues. I’m probably in the minority, but I’d far rather play the last itteration of Mordheim than play Malifaux or Warmahordes; it’s partly down to more familiarity with the fluff, partly down to the miniature aesthetics and partly down to the mechanics feeling more comfortable/natural. I think that’s partly why a lot of Fantasy Flight games haven’t appealed to me that much – you’re still rolling dice with them and there’s not really anything different to rolling standard D4s, D8s, etc but it feels counter intuitive to have symbols on them rather than numbers even though it’s no different to rolling a standard die and then looking up the result in a table.

Putting myself in the position of a GW executive…I think that it’s need to strike a balancing act between nostalgia and innovation. If you completely overhaul the mechanics into something unrecognisable rules wise and slap the old name on it then it kinda feels like why not just make it a completely new game? The only reason for slapping on the old name is to draw in the nostalgia crowd, but when they find out that it’s not the game they loved you risk backlash. On the other hand, as @warzan says, you can’t rely entirely on nostalgia as people who don’t have the nostalgia glasses on will probably be unimpressed and see it as nothing new. Back to the first hand though, GW’s strength lies in their IP, so unless they can think of something truly engaging for new games/IP, then it’s better to draw on the existing stuff to draw people in.

I think what might be of benefit is if some thought is put into tying the games together, whether it’s via campaign play or something that lets you play say two games simultaneously or sequentially that impact each other. Eg for 40k/30k you have Kill Team which is a variant of the Necromunda rules that lets you play small scale commando squad type games, then you have 40k/30k which is the standard battle level, then you have Epic which is the large scale/mass battle system which focuses on whole army engagements (and possibly have a variant/supplement focused on dogfighting) and finally you have BFG which is the starship combat game. If you could develop some way of tying these together you’d more easily get people to move from one to the next. It’d probably be easiest to do this via campaign rules, eg standard games would be 40k/30k, but amassing enough forces allows you to play an Epic game to truly reflect the enormity of such an action, meanwhile the Kill Team games represent surgical strikes such as assassinations and sabotages and BFG reflects the support assets (fleet actions to move troops, assault planets, etc). Depending on what game you play has an effect on the others, eg you play Kill Team to attack a power plant, success means that in the BFG game that immediately follows your enemy’s planetary defences are down making it easier for your fleet to attack and land troops, or a 40k/30k game where you attack a heavy artilliary emplacement represents the van guard trying to take out the enemy big guns and the result determines how many turns you get hit with an artilliary barrage in the subsequent game of Epic where you attack an enemy fortress.

Obviously people can do that anyway, but I think GW actually tying them together will encourage more people to do so and thus make them more likely to expand into the other games.

And it’s not limited to 40k/30k. Bring back Fantasy as one of the specialist games and then you have Warhammer Skirmish (a Mordheim variant) as the small scale adventuring party and scouts, Fantasy Battles as the main game, Warhamster as the mass combat game, and Man o’ War (full fleets not a dozen character ships like Dreadfleet) as the naval support game.

I suppose the issue then becomes, how much to keep the same and how much new mechanics/innovation to introduce. The danger you have is probably best showcased by the Star Wars Prequels – lots of hype before hand and nostalgia was almost certainly responcible for the bulk of the money Ep1 made, but the changes disillusioned the nostalgia crowd which negatively impacted the success of the next film; adding new mechanics to the existing games or replacing them outright but keeping the name risks the same thing happening :/

After that ramble, onto the Kickstarters. Arcadia Quest looked somewhat interesting, but not enough to get me to bite, especially as I have Dungeon Saga so don’t really feel the need to branch out into another dungeon crawler. The others are meh. Like Warren, I don’t find the RPG one engaging. As for the other two I’m not that keen on card games to be honest; I don’t mind cards as a supplement to a miniatures game, but a whole game just on cards doesn’t interest me to be honest. Something silly and quick like Flux is okay, but otherwise they don’t really grip me. Shame as the artwork for the last one you showed looks really nice.