What is the current status on GW support of Epic? I read earlier this year what seemed to be mixed news, anything more current?

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MadMagician
Epic Tyranids

Well, they haven't officially disavowed it yet.

That's about it. They have no particular interest in producing more stuff (entire complete ready-to-be-produced armies have been offered to both GW and Forge World. No dice.) We show the rules to them occasionally, and sometimes they care. That's about it, AFAIK.

One day, someone will work out that making people buy another game system likely leads to them dropping more money than just making them buy more of one game system. Ah well...

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Actually, it doesn't. And to make the most of plastic, they have to sell a lot of the stuff, so they need to concentrate. As much as I hate the fact, GW is probably doing it right regarding business logic.

I'd love to have an updated official range and all, but I don't think it's coming.
Many designers at GW are probably as saddened as us by this (JJ for example), but I think the only "non-core" release we'll see will now be one-off self contained games, like the Space Hulk 2009 re-edition. Alas, such great game as Necromunda, Mordheim or even Blood Bowl wouldn't fit the bill as they have extensive range (numerous teams/bands/races), let us consider ourselves luckyy that they still have a corner in the on-line store.

I guess we'll see Talisman make a come back.

I am considering making a "Gorkamorka 2011" update using 6mm miniatures

Talsiman has made qa come back released by fantasy flight games.

Gorkamorka in 6mm would be a great idea - I didn't like it the first time round.

Status -
The rules are free.
The models are expensive. And often not that good (I've been counting through over 2000 chaos plastics the last couple of days and let me tell you I hate the awful lack of getting the scale consistent and for that matter the slightly cartoonish CSM models).
Other companies provide proxies at reduced cost. Which are often better.

I do question that statement due to the recent results that showed GW sales were still declining. I'm not sure what the exact figure was but I seem to remember it was around the 10% mark. So, if my statement is correct, whatever they are doing it's not being done right if they are loosing sales by that amount!

As for SG in general, I don't like how the Mordeheim and BFG Armada books have recently disappeared. I have sneaking suspicion that they may not be doing any more print runs of the SG books (Blood Bowl probably being the exception).

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More of a current misconception which seems to be that every army in Rogue Trader consisted of 2 squats with toughness 15 force fields and homing autodestructive 50" blast vortex missiles on jetboards...

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Sales are remaining roughly static, as they have done for ~3 years.
Accounting for inflation and currency fluctuations GW's sales are on a mild downwards trend, which is much better than the huge drop-off they saw ~5 years back.
At the same time, profits are actually rising, due to efficiency savings (They fired half their frontline staff, and a lot of studio people too).

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I stand corrected! Though it's still not a good picture to be in.

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More of a current misconception which seems to be that every army in Rogue Trader consisted of 2 squats with toughness 15 force fields and homing autodestructive 50" blast vortex missiles on jetboards...

My (rarely) updated hobby blog

Its all to do with returns. You have to get more than x percent (5? 6?) of money back on your investment as pure profit to make operations worthwhile, otherwise you would just invest the cash and make more (unless you are in it for the love of business as many small businessmen are). So even though your turnover increases with a more diverse range if that margin drops too low you are actually losing money compared to what you could get for it elsewhere.

However I think they are nuts for not licencing niche games with markets seperate to the core.

I would in a second spin off blood bowl on a five year contract as the player set is entirely seperate to the core GW market. The background is stand alone and merely linked to fantasy battle. I would ban it from shops to further limit cross contamination any falling margins. Something like a 6 monthly approval process for new teams, models and background (every 6 months present to office for approval/rejection) to maintain quality and grow the IP at no cost, with everything reverting to me (including the moulds and masters for control purposes) on completion of the contract. Fee per year set at profit from current line with a persent of sales on top (so can't lose financially). Tough but at same time we know some bloodbowl fan would agree to it and sign up!

does it make a difference if they support it or not? as stated earlier, the rules are free. sure we don't have all the armies represented, but that's fine. now we have a say in how the armies are created.
for example, GW made the ork army. there are at least 5 units that do not get used. would that of happend if all of us on this sight were discussing the pros and cons of that unit? sure it would of taken longer, but i don't think it would happen.
as far as new pieces, who cares if they aren't sold by GW. go to the 6mm thread on this sight for tons of new pieces to use. if you still want GW pieces they are sold pretty cheap on ebay.
in the end, i think we are all thankful that they came up with incredible rules for a great game. but as far as support, we aren't doing a bad job on our own

Considering how much this goes on ebay, I'm suprised they're not sneaky enough to have a back stock of this and slowly releasing them on ebay and earning a big buck in their back pocket. Slow income, but possibly 90% profit!!

Imagine if they did a limited edition of Epic Box Set containing Tyranid Army vs another (most likely popular Space Marines). If say it contained 10 old Tyranid sprues that go around £7+ per sprue on ebay, that would be £70 on ebay already for half the minatures. Imagine how many people would see that as an investment and bulk buy the box game.

I guess my biggest concern is that certain armies have no proxies available, Orks, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Sisters and Chaos, to name a few. I am not a sculptor or 3D CAD guy and even my Tyranid Army is pushing the limits of kitbashing and proxies.

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MadMagician
Epic Tyranids

I can certainly do w/out the codex creep and having to start my army from scratch every time a new book w/ BETTER AND IMPROVED UNITS THAT YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED TO BE COMPETITIVE comes out.

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Good proxies are available for most things from most of those armies.

Space Hulk is historically Terminators vs Genestealer, even if rules were produced for many other things. Space Hulk can be sold as a one-off, self-contained and self-sufficient game. Releasing an epic game in the form you describe would look a lot like releasing a "starter set" to me, rather than a complete game.

Games like Gorkamorka or many mini games of old ("bombers over da Sulphur river" for example) may still be played using existing miniatures (ork models and vehicles for the first one, SG or FW/AI planes for the second).

The price of the stuff on ebay would simply not be the same if the game was available. Sad thing, but I'm not hurried to buy new miniatures when I know they're available.

For example, I have an order to place for SG miniatures to complete my Marine army (something like 100 or 150£). It's been like 4 years, and I never put it. If they announced me that they were discontinuing the line, Hell ! I'll suffer, because I would have to buy those before they go, but I couldn't collect many of the other models I'd like to get (There are some quite some other models I'd like to get). I wouldn't have bought them at their price right now, indefinitely postponing the time, but I would pay more than that on ebay... go figure.

I am in love with epic since forever, but actually, in these last years, I have spent several hundred £ on FW AI models, a few Battlefleet Gothic models, a lot of proxy models, some terrain, a lot of modelling/painting wares and still nothing since i bought the bulk of my eldar force, in... 2005 ?

before i phased out of the hobby around 2005, I bought quite a large amount of chaos infantry on ebay. Probably a 100£ of the stuff. I never got say, 2 boxes of their re-released infantry since then, much more reasonably priced than on ebay, even since i always intended to pick at least 2 boxes.

I promise I'll get that order before Christmas. After all, I DO like the newer bikes and speeder model, those "new" whirlwinds, I need some Land raider to morph into crusaders, and the modern vindicator minis. But since E:A release, I just never bought these... I certainly believe GW when they say SG players are very dedicated people, loving the game, often ready to dedicate time into supporting it themselves ("fanatics" indeed), but who don't actually buy a lot of minis.

Really? Because there's a point where I won't buy more 40K, but I'll buy more of another game system because it does something different. Likewise, there will (some day) come a point where I won't buy more Epic - but will still buy more Warmaster. And so on.

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The Apocrypha of Skaros 1.1
Rogue Trader Expedition 0.4
The Horus Heresy 0.5
Night Lords 0.1
My Trade Thread