Reply To: If you were in charge of GW now

[cornishlee 205xp 3]

Hasn’t’ GW’s financial fortunes taken a big reverse in the last few months anyway?

I hadn’t heard this.

40K and Warhammer Fantasy’s history and lore – built up over decades – is what makes their primary audience: model collectors/painters come back over and over (rather than just picking models that take their fancy, which means competitors get a slice of their money). There is nothing like 40K and Warhammer Fantasy out there, they’re both unique despite being based on technically generic things (elves are generic) and copying (e.g. Dune), an incredible accomplishment.

This is absolutely true. Somebody recently asked me what was unique about Warhammer Fantasy compared to, for example, Terrinoth and why people loved one over the other – because they didn’t really know the world and hadn’t spent any time with it. I said they’d answered their own question – that it was a world built on thirty years of RPG, miniatures game fluff and 100+ novels. YEs, you could focus on the grimdark or the juvenile humour but people were invested in it because of their history with it and the remarkable way in which the world had been fleshed out. Its uniqueness came not from the setting but from the level of investment people had in it. The same can, I suspect, be said of 40k (even if space marines are distinctive and easier to protect the IP of).