Is the "evil company" really so evil?

[twjolson]

Well, I finally got pink foam, for terrian, etc. And of course I need a hot wire cutter. I check at Micheals, which usually is a bit higher then other places, and it was 11 bucks. I figure, ok, let's shop around. The only other place was GW......35 bucks. Boy those Games Workshop labels must be expensive, because a 4 dollar tape measure costs 20 bucks at GW.

[mooseyjoe]

I don't hold any remorse against GW's non-figure prices, I just pity the people dumb enough to pay them. There are obviously some thoroughly brain-washed wealthy gamers out the keeping GW alive.

[twjolson]

Ah! Pink foam! I can't find this stuff! What is it actually called (I'm not looking for "construction foam" here - most trade suppliers won't be calling it that, I'm guessing) - like, what is its brand-name? And, what is its chief commercial/industrial use (this would help to know when asking for it!)

 

If anyone knows, this'd be a help. Thanks guys!

 

Tommy.

My understanding. It's made of Polystyrene, which takes on many forms. This specific type is "(extruded) polystyrene or XPS". Any Home Depot, Menards, etc should have it. If you go in to any hardware store and ask for Pink Insulation foam, they'll know what you are talking about.

[Qwyksilver]

There was a discussion on the sheet foam for terrain building in the Craft Section HERE that should answer most of your questions Tommy.

[Eric Swiftblade]

There are obviously some thoroughly brain-washed wealthy gamers out the keeping GW alive.

Not quite true. An awful lot of those brain-washed gamers are 8-12 year olds who pester their parents into buying loads of stuff for them. Thats why GW has the Wish-List program. Get the kids to write down everything they want and give it to the parents to buy.

 

I really like GW fluff. I like their models, I hate their prices and I hate their method of operation.

 

Some Imperial Guard tanks were produced part plastic and part metal. Then they switched to all plastic - YAY!

And increased the prices...What The!

[smokingwreckage]

I think it's one-stop shopping for confused parents that does it. "He needs, uh, this thing here, and uh, that'd need glue wouldn't it? What KIND of glue... wait, this has GW on the label, it must be good for their models..." GW fosters this even though the staff know the superglue is **** for pewter, the drybrushes are **** for drybrushing, etc.

[mooseyjoe]

now that you mention it your right about the 8-12 year olds.

 

I'm sitting here with the most recent White Dwarf on my desk, and on page 2 there are 3 pictures of happy little groups of GW brain-washees. There are 2 bald adults (these look alot like the overly serious types that have been mentioned before). There is also a picture with 4 people who are all either overly fat or overly skinny (I'm thinkin these guys must be pretty standard gamer geeks). And finally a picture with about 50 screaming GW kids. These kids probably all have at least one 2000 pointish GW army, witch will cost a good $300-$500. Definately keepin GW alive.

 

Also with the wishlist program thing you have reminded me of my one trip to a GW store. I have only been to one, since there is not one near me. At the time I was 16, and I was also the oldest customer in the store by several years.

 

This said I would like to ammend my earlier comment

 

There are obviously a lot of thoroughly brain-washed gamers out there with wealthy, complient parents keeping GW alive

 

 

I am beggining to foster a very strong dislike for GW the company, but i have to admit their space marines still rock, even if i can't afford them and won't be buying anymore

[Darkstar]

My problem is with the companys lack of respect for their customers, I have never gotten a response to any of the letters/emails I've written them over the years. As a customer I feel unappreciated, and used.

That's the opposite for me, the 3 times I've contacted them about something, within a day or two at most I've had emails and contact from their Customer Service discussing my issue and offering their explanations. I'm in the US, I don't know if that makes a difference or not, but just for reference. I've been greatly impressed by the promptness and courteousness of their staff when I contacted them. Two of the three times I contacted them I was angry about something as well, the third time I just had a question about Games Day that no one could give me a proper answer to so I emailed their customer service department. The first guy who responded said that he didn't know the answer either and to expect an email from someone who did. Lo and behold a day later I got an answer from one of their promotions people giving me the complete low down on my question. Felt a little like they went out of their way to do that for me. I appreciated it.

 

Regarding their product, when I was first introduced to the minis they sold in stores I was taken aback by the concept of spending $15.00 on a plastic mini, the Space Marine Commander box, but quickly realized the actual benefit of this sort of thing. I eventually bought the box and ended up converting almost an entire squad with just the "extra goodies" that came in the box. I was able to make about 4 different minis by just adding legs from other parts and conversions as well. In fact, that was months ago and I still have some of the parts that came in that box! It's relative I guess to how you look at it in regards to their prices.

 

I have to say that I for one LOVE plastic miniatures as opposed to metal, I love combining the parts of the different plastic ranges to create my own unique miniatures. The tricky part is making them "legal" but that's part of the fun for me, seeing if I can not only pull off a great conversion, but also make it work within the framework of their rules system. I look forward to the day when every range and category of their miniatures is produced as plastic kits. It would be a converters dream. The ease of working with plastics as compared to metals, well, I'm sure most of you know what I'm talking about there.

 

Anyways, that's about it from me, and I'll sign off with a thought about how cool it would be if there were another company that was large enough to produce plastic kits, but focused on Fantasy like Reaper does...imagine having a "Crusaders" sprue or a "Darkspawn" sprue...and have all the parts interchangeable. :drools:

I know, I know, one could always use proxies from GW but it's not the same, their Orks don't work for Reven and their Dark Elves dont work for Darkspawn and their Bretonnians don't work for Crusaders etc...at least not for me they don't...I love the style of Reaper minis and I love the style of GW minis, but I don't think they work well together at all. Same scale, but totally different feel. But yeah, plastic minis from another manufacturer would rock...maybe one day, I know it's prohibitivly expensive, believe me, I've heard from enough internet pundits on the subject of why only uber companies can ever do that, but who knows, with technology moving as fast as it does, maybe a door will open somewhere that facilitates this. Who knows.

[twjolson]

Anyways, that's about it from me, and I'll sign off with a thought about how cool it would be if there were another company that was large enough to produce plastic kits, but focused on Fantasy like Reaper does...imagine having a "Crusaders" sprue or a "Darkspawn" sprue...and have all the parts interchangeable. :drools:

I know! That's what I've been saying for a while now!

 

Back on Topic though, I know for a fact that GW is evil. I went to their store the other day and I saw the fat comb-over nerd sacrificing a goat to Satan. Yup, they are evil.

[ugluk69]

Back on Topic though, I know for a fact that GW is evil. I went to their store the other day and I saw the fat comb-over nerd sacrificing a goat to Satan. Yup, they are evil.

 

That was no goat, they were killing beastman before it rampaged the paint rack.

 

Well speaking of beastmen I sold my Warhammer beastmen army on Ebay and some of the proceeds will go for Warlord figs, however I will keep my 40k Ork army and all of my LOTR stuff (even tho the rules for that game bite). I have to agree that plastics are very cool for the convertabilty of them. They are also cheaper, but not greatly so. I love the Brian Nelson orcs, but the Ben Siens orcs appeal to me just as much, however like Darkstar said they are not compatable but are equally cool.

 

But to keep on topic. I have always recieved great service from GW when ever a mini is missing parts or mis-molded etc I get replacements very easily and quickly. I have never experienced the Reaper cusomer service cause everything I've ever bought from reaper has been perfect which tells me that they have excellent quality control. One thing that never ceases to piss me off is paying more for a mini based on its stats. Reaper does not do this, but GW does....so I say that GW is "semi-evil"

[Ivarr]

And what was the last army to be made "obsolete"? I honestly would like to know...

 

All the metal Cadian Imperial Guard figures pre-current plastic/metal issue. Also, several imperial tanks.

 

"One Taste Worldwide" gaming!

 

Meh. I've bought their stuff now and again over the years - some of it good, some of it not so good, in the same way I've eaten at McDonald's now and again...

 

 

 

...and some time afterwards, wondered why.

 

Tommy.

You can still use your old-school miniatures... nothing says you HAVE to buy the latest minis.

 

As for the tanks... they're still available via Imperial Armour.

 

Either way, neither of those really fit the question. His statement was entire armies made obsolete. I think that was either Squats, or Harlequins

I'm not sure about whole armies made obsolete, but I just sold 140 lizardman skinks that are no longer allowed to carry shortbows...and the commanders for my cadian army who are no longer allowed to carry combi-weapons aggrivate me every time I head over to play at the GW store here...(as GW does have a standing rule that what a character carries/uses must be reasonably representedon the model) :grr ...mostly because the modelling on my bolter-flamers and bolter-grenade launchers ROCKS.

[SaintRigger]

I've also gotten really good replies on E-mails I sent to GW.

 

I actually have E-mail from Andy Chambers, Jervis Johnson and Rick Preistly as well as a few others in regards to questions I asked.

 

Plus, most of the shops and GW drones would simply say those aren't bows your skinks are weilding but "beating sticks" - and VOILA! They are legal again :) They understand that noone wants to buy whole units all over. (Actually just confirmed this with an employee)

[Eric Swiftblade]

...mostly because the modelling on my bolter-flamers and bolter-grenade launchers ROCKS.

Just say they are very ornate bolters.

 

Actually, I know a guy that has an army made of 1st Ed Imperial Guardsmen.

[Darkstar]

...and the commanders  for my cadian army who are no longer allowed to carry combi-weapons

 

Was the combi-weapon a combi-bolter? If so, combi Bolters like that have the option of firing their non-bolter-part once a game. That doesn't mean that you have to fire that weapon. You can always just use it as a plain bolter and just clip the combi part off. A combi bolter is basically just a bolter with another weapon type integrated into it, but the bolter part always functions as a plain old bolter.

 

For instance, you could just clip the little tank on the combi bolter/melta off and the nozzle part of the melta part, of the flamer nozzle of the combi flamer/bolter or whatever and call it a bolter. And as mentioned above, tweak the points cost if possible and take a mastercrafted option. I don't play Guard, so I'm not aware if commanders can take mastercrafted weapons or not, so that might not be an option.

 

If the guys at your local shop are saying that you can't field a Commander with a Combi Weapon that is modeled on the mini itself even though you clipped the parts off, then that truely is an annoyance. If that happened to me, honestly I would tell the guy to get on the phone and order me a new miniature from GW to replace my "defective" one. That's just ridiculous, a company revising their rules to make models they sell obsolete although their written official stance is that "Any model from any range from any time period, as long as it is produced by GW/Citadel/(Sometimes Forgeworld) is perfectly legal to incorporate into your armies to represent models for use in current edition tournament play as long as that model fulfills the WYSIWYG requirements to a certain extent." <----paraphrased from memory of the RT official tournament stance, but you get the picture.

 

Anyways, that's ridiculous for a company to make their own models incompatible with their new rules systems and expect the customer to not be able to use the old models as proxies for models using the new rules. For example, lets say that in old 3 ed. rules a Dread could have a Plasma Cannon right, then 4th ed. came out and said that Dread's could NOT have a Plasma Cannon, but your Dread has a Plasma Cannon, I think it should be fine to be able to field your unmodified model in a tournament and just say, "See that Plasma Cannon on my Dread? It's not a Plasma Cannon but an Assault Cannon" and have that be perfectly acceptable if the company is not willing to send out free Assault Cannons to replace their players outmoded models.

 

I'm sure they've thought of this, and I'm sure they have a reasoning behind it involving profit margins etc...and I wouldn't classify this as "Evil" per se, but more of an annoyance than anything. If in the next rules edition they said that Assault Cannons were illegal on Dreads, there would be no way in hell I would rip off the arm of my Dread that I spent like 25 hours painting and assembling to replace it with a new weapon, I would have to purchase a new model entirely...which probably belies some of the reasoning behind a company making these types of decisions, although on the surface they appear to be motivated by rules and balance considerations, if you look a little deeper perhaps you might see a "bottom line" somewhere if they refuse to let you use the old model as a stand in or proxy without being forced into buying a new model.

[Bodhi]

[ One thing that never ceases to piss me off is paying more for a mini based on its stats. Reaper does not do this, but GW does....so I say that GW is "semi-evil"

If I had a game were armies consisted of a certain number of "points" and the stronger figures had more points than the weaker figures then I would most certainly charge more for the stronger figures - regardless of profit thinking. That brings part of the "costs within the game" out into the "real world" and thus increases the feeling of realism.

I think it's brilliant!