I'm off....

[Mike the Pike]

Huh, did you go somewhere?
Reading the title, I thought this thread was about personal hygiene

[Primarch]

Well, I am rested and refreshed after all that travelling, so I guess it is time to start posting up some holiday snaps.
During my trip to the UK I dropped into Warlord Games and Warhammer World in Nottingham and the two couldn't have been more different.
At Warlord I was greeted at the door by Kristen, one of the Warlord sales team and given a guided tour of the offices, studio and factory. All of Warlord are ex-GW staff, some of them still being big on Warhammer and the like. As Kristen told me though, all of the staff who left (rather than being pushed out), did so because they felt that the company was lying to them about it's goals. Apparently the company line in GW is that they are a customer focussed company and that they do everything they do as a service to gamers. This is obviously a bare faced lie and something that irritated the people working there. Kristen said "They are a big multinational company with shareholders and investors, they could at least be honest enough to say 'we want to make money.'"
After the factory tour and a couple of cups of coffee, I was given a model as a souvenier and managed to get some time to talk with two of the Warlord writing staff.



Alessio told me all about his latest project, a joint venture between Warlord and Osprey Publishing. He has written up a set of rules for a 28mm scale WW2 game that sound pretty interesting. The scale would be close to 40k with several squads a side and a couple of vehicles in support. Rather than having each player taking a turn or alternating activations, each player places a number of coloured order dice into a hat equal to the number of units that they have. The dice are drawn out one at a time and the owner of each die gets to activate 1 unit. E.g. The Russian player has 10 units, the German player has 8. 10 red dice and 8 grey dice are put into a container, shaken and then 1 die taken out. If it is Red, the Russian player activates a unit, if grey, the German player gets to go. It sounds like a cool system.



I chatted with Rick Priestley about how he got into designing rules and things eventually led on to talking about his time in GW. Amongst other things he said that he kind of lost interest in Warhammer (not sure if he meant 40k, Fantasy or both) about 10 years back as he felt that the system needed a complete revamp, but GW said no. He also said that when he was working there he got a 50% discount and still felt that the minis were far too expensive. So there you have it folks. Games Workshop, NOT cheap at half the price!

After a great time at Warlord, I asked Kristen to call me a taxi to take me to Warhammer World nearby, but instead she offered to drive me there herself. Awesome stuff. So off I went to WHW for a totally different experience.

Upon arriving at GW's HQ I was blown away by the sheer size of the place. This is obviously somewhere they have invested a lot of money in.


Sadly, stepping through the door was the only time I was to be impressed by WHW. The display cases were full of cool models from the 'Eavy Metal team, but it was nothing that I hadn't seen before. The cases showing the older models were limited to one or two entries, whilst about 90% of the area was given over to the current production stuff so I was pretty disappointed on that end of things. When I went into the store located at the back of the gaming arena I found the staff to be welcoming enough but a little too eager to sell me stuff. "What army do you play? Do you have one of these?" etc. Compare that to Warlord where the guy who works in the despatch office remembered my order from Christmas time and the level of service at WHW was somewhat lacking.

Since I had some orders to fulfill for people here in Japan, I looked around the store for a few minutes before finally approaching the staff and asking where the models actually were. Turns out that GW's flagship store in the centre of their facilities, next to the factory DONT stock metal models either. I had to order them into the store from the factory. Bearing in mind that the factory was nearby, it took 3 hours for them to be sent over. That is 3 hours where I had to sit and wait and do nothing. Great!

So with nothing better to do I went up to Bugman's for some lunch and a drink. I think I paid about 10 pounds for a hamburger and a cola. The burger* was ok I guess. I also picked up a souvenier model for M_i_J which set me back another tenner. At Warlord they gave me one for free. Obviously WHW gets a lot more visitors than Warlord but still I felt that they were having a laugh with their "Why not take home an empty wallet as a momento of your visit" policy.

So, all in all, Warlord was aces and Warhammer World was a bit poo. Kind of what I expected really.

* When I went to WHW, they had just launched a new range of breadbuns for their burgers called 'FineBread'
As you can see, there were a few quality issues.

When I complained about the holes in the bun the staff offered me some 'Liquid Breadstuff' to fix it with for only 4 pounds more.

[Mike the Pike]

Awesome stuff prim!
Sounds like Warlord was a lotta fun. Your visit to really confirms what most of us already suspected (knew?) about GW vs. just about anyone else. Too bad.

BTW Did you knee Alessio in the nuts for ruining the Chaos Codex?

[Admiral-Badruck]

Nice one man thanks for saving me a trip to England now if I go I will just see the normal sites. GW warhammer world seems like a sucky place really.

[me_in_japan]

Blimey. Says it all, really. Humongous geek props for chatting with allessio and RP also, humongous PR props for them taking the time to chat to you. Big up nuff respec' to the warlord posse

Oh, and you mentioned a souvenir pour moi? I'm all a-quiver...

[job]

Sounds like you had a very special and very worthwhile experience. Good to you, man.

Warlord does sound like a really nice place. Certainly your experience with them makes me ever more excited and think about supporting their range of historics.

But, as for Alessio also working there... I'd second MtP's wish, but if the codexes that followed were written in the same vein, I'd have no trouble with the book he pushed into publication. The question in mind is if Mr. Priestly and Alessio are both at Warlord, Chambers is at Blizzard, Thrope on his own, who's left at GW from the group of developers from years ago?

[Spevna]

RP is a god amongst men. Your visit is further proof that GW are a bunch of whoremongers. The Spevna feels the need for a pilgrimage to Warlord.

[Primarch]

But, as for Alessio also working there... I'd second MtP's wish, but if the codexes that followed were written in the same vein, I'd have no trouble with the book he pushed into publication. The question in mind is if Mr. Priestly and Alessio are both at Warlord, Chambers is at Blizzard, Thrope on his own, who's left at GW from the group of developers from years ago?

Alessio was a great guy to talk to, so sadly you and MtP wont be getting your revenge anytime soon. Though he does visit Japan fairly regularly, so if you watch the airports closely.....

As for GW, Jervis is still there, but I dont think he is the lead designer or anything. Chambers is also currently works for Fantasy Flight Games doing stuff for Dust Warfare and the 40k RPGs. Gav Thorpe did the rules for Cutlass and is writing fiction for GW as a freelancer. Alessio has his own company Riverhorse Games and does freelance work for Warlord, Mantic and others.

[job]

I don't disagree with the way Alessio wanted to take the game. Actually I think I would have liked it, but the way things went afterwards, it left the CSM codex and several others kind of sad looking on their choices.

Hopefully Alessio enjoys this country as the rest of us. Maybe someday he can swing by Nagoyahammer.

Hearing that most of the original group has left kind of seems sad. Almost sad enough to desert the game entirely. (Hearing those sharp words reported by you from the ex-GW staff makes your fears about GW's management hit home.) Of course, I may just waffle on this once they dance pretty new miniatures in front of me.

[ashmie]

Wow Just found this post! Awesome is indeed the word. You met Priestley? That's like the Elvis of the hobby right. Bloody brilliant. Good job you went to Warlord! Was it fairly close to WHW? Same trading estate? The WHW gaming tables look impressive. You have the same look on your face at Warlord that I had when I found the Back to the Future Delorian at USJ. My favourite film.
Well worth the trip mate. Seriously well done on some excellent reportage. Will you post this on Warlord site too? I think you should.