No more new Warhammer Forge

[Wildeybeast]

Sorry Mystery, but I think you are being wildly optimistic. We are talking about several years to get through the HH, and they aren't going to simply stop when they have covered all the legions. As long as the money keeps rolling in, they will keep producing books, and people are going to want campaign books to fight with their shiny new legions. They battle for Terra will be a massive money spinner. I wouldn't expect any redistribution of resources to Warhammer in the foreseeable future.

[Chronowraith]

I agree with Wildey. The Horus Heresy will take at least 2-3 years and they could potentially milk it for much longer. The first book came out almost 2 years ago and so far the story of the heresy hasn't moved very far (still on Isstvan). They still have a myriad of topics they *could* cover before they move on to the Siege of Terra.

If Horus Heresy sales slow down, the first step will be to return to publishing Imperial Armor books, not Warhammer campaign books. Why? Because 40k sells better (unfortunately).

My best guess is that *if* Forgeworld does go back to making Warhammer stuff with a dedicated staff of more than 1 person and publishing books it will be a minimum of 5 years. I'll gladly let Forgeworld prove me wrong but unless 9th edition WFB proves a massive success that causes Fantasy to eclipse the popularity of 40k I don't see them coming out with anything more than they have. So we might see two to three models per year if we are lucky.

[eldargal]

Yup and WF was already on life support with just monster released. Basically it is dead and maybe in a few years they will relaunch it is what we can hope for. Wouldn't be so cranky if they hadn't promised HH wouldn't affect WF and Ia at all.

[Wildeybeast]

I assume they never expected HH to be so popular and had every intention of keeping that promise, otherwise why bother making it. Though if HH is doing so well, you would think they could afford more staff for it.

[eldargal]

They said they were taking on more staff to help with HH to avoid what has happened so while I don't doubt they were sincere they still made a decision to focus all their efforts on HH after assuring everyone they wouldn't. Understandable in the sense that HH is a huge cash cow but it still means they lied.

[DWest]

It may also be that Brooks' Law- "adding more manpower to a late project makes it later" applies in this case. While Brooks was specifically talking about computer science, the problem he was referring to was that the task at hand was so complex that anyone who hadn't been there from the beginning had to be walked through the entire logic of the project step-by-step, eating up the time of someone who otherwise would have been working on it. While sculpting isn't computer science, I suspect that there's a similar hand-holding period as they make sure the newcomer gets dialed in to the aesthetic they're trying to create, in order for that person's pieces to blend in with the rest of the line. Again, not absolving them of lying, but we might see more being done once whatever new talent they've taken on are blended in to the workforce at large.

[Metacarpi]

I assume they never expected HH to be so popular and had every intention of keeping that promise, otherwise why bother making it. Though if HH is doing so well, you would think they could afford more staff for it.

Why would you hire more staff though? From a business point of view, if WHF isn't generating income the most sensible thing to do is to transfer those working on it into the areas of the business that are generating income - in this case the Horus Heresy stuff.

It makes me sad, because some of the WHF models are absolutely beautiful - I have several Plague Toads, a Greater Daemon of Nurgle, Curs'd Ettin, Kazyk the Befouled, and plan on purchasing several more (really tempted by a Carmine Dragon to use as a mount for a tooled up Chaos Lord - only problem is that he'll weigh in at a HUGE amount of points, meaning I'd need to be playing 3,000 points to realistically field him).

One thing I am thankful for is that Daemons are cross-system. Hopefully this means that their fantastic greater Daemon models (and hopefully stuff like the Plague Toads/Orges etc) will continue to survive if they should ever choose to finally pull the pluf on the WHF life-support.

[eldargal]

It wasn't generating income because they stopped producing things like conversion kits that people would buy a lot of and focused on large monsters which people would only buy one of. Tamurkhan was popular and people were really excited for more campaign books and then it just stopped even though we saw some quite far along work for the new campaign book Battle for Blackfire Pass. They mishandled WHF and then lied about transferring resources from it, that's really the problem.

[tiamat79]

Wonder if they will put all the fantasy items on a sale to get rid of them then?

[miteyheroes]

I suspect that if Rick Priestley hadn't left, things would be different. It was Rick who had the passion for the grand over-arching narrative, the 4 Chaos Lords (one for each God) all invading bits of the world in different directions, with Tamurkhan as the first and hitting the Empire. And that over-arching narrative was the whole point of Warhammer Forge, the thing that was going to drive their sales and direction. Rick leaving was a sad day.