Quote Originally Posted by Grimnar42 View Post
I have been in this hobby for a long long time now and this is not the first time and wont be the last that GW has come down on someone. Personally I don't give a rats about the legal crap not like CHS is any threat is it morally I think GW is way over the line I mean not like they are squeaky clean about pilfering someone else's ideas is it. I hope you at least reach an agreement Jon because I for one want your products available to customize my gw models.
Morally, I think GW are spot on. As the whole purpose of a business is to make money for its shareholders.

Look, back in the day, GW were the cottage industry. They fought off Ral partha, TSR, FASA, whoever, and carved a niche. Then the scale of the thing meant they had to not have geeks in charge, and got in true corporate business types. Rules streamlined, target audience got younger.

Some of the oldies felt left out in the cold. Well unlucky - you want GW fluff, you want the firm to stand on its own 2 feet in a recession, thats what you've got. US gamers have US aspirations - read bill Bryson - you get 87 different types of vanilla ice cream. You want tourneys with prize support. You weren't happy with a plastic rhino and LR back in the day - you got Armorcast. You want little niche third party parts companies, you got 'em. But you can't expect you to have your cake and eat it - GW are a business first and foremost.

CHS is not a symbiotic relationship with GW like a bird stood picking tics out of rhino's ear. GW get nothing from them. You could argue 'why not make a seer council kit - GW aren't' Well GW are well within their rights not to license CHS to do this. This may be because to do it from GW parts it will bring them in an extra £100 - that is what GW is about. At the end of the day, you, the customer, can vote with your feet.

I seriously wonder if this was a US giant slogging it to a tiny Brit company, whether or not the attitude would be different here - this isn't some David and Goliath fairy tale, why did CHS not do what Pig iron does and just advertise as generic 28mm? Answer: they went for the quick buck. They may feel they are entitled to the scraps from under GWs table, but they are GW scraps - GW is entitled to dish them out or bin them willy nilly as they see fit.

I am not a GW nazzy. Most of my glues, paints, milliput etc are not GW. Some of my favourite miniatures are other companies with a bolter stuck on, or GW with a third company weapon. I was hoping to use some CHS parts myself.

But, this vexes me that people are trying to paint this as some morality tale - simply CHS flew too close to the candle and got their wings burned. The reason CHS weren't giving their product away was because they wanted profit. Not unreasonable either - their designs and materials cost. However this makes them a business, and what GW is doing is business, not good versus evil. After all, GW are entitled to their pound of flesh, particularly when kits like the Seer council quite simply only exist to fit exisitng GW designs.