Future Specialist Game releases a la Space Hulk and Dreadfleet.

[magickbk]

The tricky part to all of these suggestions is that almost all of them have been tried before, but were ultimately unsuccessful. Here's a quick rundown on things that happened:

1. When GW was cranking out 'Secondary' games, they received full in-store and White Dwarf support. BFG, Mordheim, Blood Bowl, Inquisitor, Gorkamorka. 1 of the tables in the store would usually be set up for the newest game all the time as an intro, and there were nights to come in and play. Once the full range had been released, they would let it ride for a few months and then released an expansion. All this support from the 'regular' rules and miniatures designers meant that months would go by with little in the way of releases for Warhammer and 40K. Complaints about lack of support for the main games ensued.

2. After Inquisitor had quieted down, GW realized that all this work on the secondary games had caused the main games to become stagnant. Armed with new vision from work on Inquisitor, the studio wanted to go in a more grimdark direction with the universes. They pushed many of the old designers onto different projects to scrub their silly side of the game out. Jervis was 'promoted' to head the Fanatic division. With the main designers and model sculptors back on the main games, the apprentices and other random staff did a poor job of adding to the Fanatic games. Sales tanked as models with strange proportions and horribly unbalanced rules abounded, and the Fanatic lovers complained.

3. With Fanatic having gone into a death spiral, the entire direction was changed. Support was turned over to an old White Dwarf editor. This is when all the rules became 'living', which was to say that you could download a copy of the Living Rule Book for the games online. The rules tended to change rapidly in response to complaints from the populace, then change back, and so on. When you would play a game, it became difficult to make sure everyone was using the same set of rules. A few updated editions of rules were printed, which caused immediate and chaotic confusion as to whether the living rules were still valid. Complaints were voiced.

4. After all this mayhem, GW decided the games had been better off on their own, left to exist as they were so people could enjoy them when they wanted, if they wanted, like the old GW board games. The final versions of the rules were made available as a PDF, most of the confusing stuff was ignored as if it had never existed, and all support was removed, cementing in the Specialist Games section of the website as we know if today.

Some other things scattered in there were the Specialist mags, Citadel Journal support, rules development web sites, etc.

Those games were put through so much that almost no one bothered with them any more. Some players followed every single change and play with the latest rules revision nowadays, while others ignored the changes and play with the original rule book as if there had been no others. This makes it difficult to run events and tournaments.

I love the Specialist games, and still play some of them at various times with different people. It gets difficult, because within my loose gaming group, everyone has a different favorite, and I'm the only one who plays all of them. Having run through a Necromunda campaign about 2 years ago, we tried to use the new edition of the rules, and found many portions missing. We had to improvise from the old rulebook where we found gaps. Worked out fine for us, but made it difficult to add in players from outside the group.

Where I'm going with all this is that I would rather the games be either left to sit as-is for anyone to play the way they are, or re-done as one off board games (if you can call Dreadfleet a re-make of Man 'O War, which I'm not sure you can but is what it is). I think we'll see some make come-backs, and others go away entirely. I'd predict something like Mordheim or Necromunda sits as-is for now, where-as something like Blood Bowl is screaming for a one-shot release, with two opposing teams of Good guys and Bad guys, a cool roll-out pitch, and some other goodness. It may not be what everyone wants, but almost everything possible has been attempted at various points, and none of it has really worked out. The terrain also gets tricky. I may have built modular cities for both Mordheim and Necromunda, but not everyone will or can. It seems more likely that GW will release games where everything needed is included, or that can be played on 'standard' terrain that is what gets used for the other games. I really wish GW would do SOMETHING with the games, but not if that means we have to wait an extra year or two for updated Warhammer Armies books and the like.

[bobrunnicles]

That terrain is garbage.

"But Dooly" I say, "surely that's just your opinion? The fact that it's out of stock at many places and gives people an affordable way to use full colour 3D multilevel terrain with a minimum of work means *something*, no?".

I've been a Worldworks fan for many years now, and use their stuff extensively for roleplaying. I think that the Terraclips packs are a great idea, especially if you consider that a lot of people can hardly find the time to paint their FIGURES, let alone a large amount of urban terrain. Is it as good as true 3D terrain? Of course not! Is it a more than acceptable substitute that also looks pretty cool when it's all assembled? I would say yes.

[wittdooley]

"But Dooly" I say, "surely that's just your opinion? The fact that it's out of stock at many places and gives people an affordable way to use full colour 3D multilevel terrain with a minimum of work means *something*, no?".

I've been a Worldworks fan for many years now, and use their stuff extensively for roleplaying. I think that the Terraclips packs are a great idea, especially if you consider that a lot of people can hardly find the time to paint their FIGURES, let alone a large amount of urban terrain. Is it as good as true 3D terrain? Of course not! Is it a more than acceptable substitute that also looks pretty cool when it's all assembled? I would say yes.

My quote was unfair. The new terraclips terrain is LOADS better than their first try last year at GenCon. Now THAT stuff was garbage (way too thin, really prone to warping, etc).

And I'll expand. I'd actually the terra clips stuff if, instead of those silly clear clips, they did them Mordheim style and did molded plastic corners and accent pieces. I Appreciate that one of the selling points is that it is modular and changeable, but there is a big portion of the community that they're missing by not allowing that. Now, if they somehow read my post and decide that they're going to do that, I'll buy a few boxes for sure.

Now that I rambled about it, it's not the terrain I hate. It's the clips.

Those clips are garbage

[bobrunnicles]

Yeah, the prototype last year was allegedly garbage (only say that because I didn't actually see it myself, just read about the problems online) but that was one of the reasons they pulled it immediately and reworked the materials. Now as you say it's much better.

Regarding the clips, I mostly agree with you, some more 'architecturally interesting' ones would be nice to see, kinda like the doors and buttresses we saw in Necromunda (and perhaps might be seen down the road, could be something that a third party might be interested in putting together?). For general varied use, though, the existing ones work well and quickly become transparant in play....well, for me anyway

[GeordieGenius]

Warhammer Quest makes me dribble!!!!