They did it again...

The heart of a Mordheim gamer, who has seen his favourite game being dropped and left for dead, is a soft one, and easily broken. You might know about the affection I got in the recent year(s) for Warhammer Historical, a sub-division of GW. Now the wargaming news sites (TMP, TGN) are spreading news from a leaked email from Rob Broom, former head of Warhammer Historical:

Quote :

Apologies for this group email but it has to be done this way to communicate a message.

On Wednesday morning I was made redundant from Games Workshop and am now in a consultancy period with the company. If a suitable position is available I can remain or else join the many job seekers. I apparently am not required to return to work apart from meetings with Human Resources.

The WHW business will now be moved to Forgeworld. I can’t answer any questions because I know nothing beyond that at this time.

Again, apologises I cannot contact everybody personally but dealing with the different time zones alone is a big enough trick.

I am still contacting people so its probably prudent to not discuss this publically until the weekend, as I have many friends and acquaintances world wide and want to tell them myself, and just sorting through the address book is a pretty big job.

Finally my thanks for your support over the years, looks like i will be joining the ranks of “play tester” soon although, with Barbara and myself having our own small business (Scarab Miniatures) entering the world of publishing might be a option.

Source: Tabletop Gaming News


Rob was a nice guy who did a great job with Warhammer Historical. Despite all the resentment, frustration and disappointment that the "older" gamers have towards Games Workshop, Warhammer Histrocial has been pretty well respected. It was about rules and playing games - not about selling miniatures and considering rulebooks a necessary evil to achieve that. Since GW doesn't produce historical miniatures the focus was on the producion of good rules. Other manufacturers were embraced and featured and the gamers were broadening each others tabletop horizons. It was a position 100% contrary to what GW did with their core games and what they are doing in their stores. Especially for people like me, who comes from a typical Warhammer background, Warhammer Historical has been the door to what lies beyond the realm of Games Workshop.

I don't know what is about to happen to Warhammer Historical now that it has become a division of ForgeWorld. I mean, ForgeWorld?! Do the powers that be at GW even know what ForgeWorld is doing? Firing Rob Broom surely is not a first sign for that this is going in the right direction in any way.

I have been pretty loyal to GW when they dropped Mordheim and showed that they didn't care to support the players of niche games. To me Warhammer Historical has been the light in the darkness of GW marketing. Wiith their recent steps I think the last bit of loyality I had for this company has finally been eradicated.

Free at last.

That's a paraphrase of Lily Tomlin's Telephone Company comment. As THE Monolithic Entity of the Gaming World, it is sadly the attitude that GW has embraced over the last decade or so. Remembering way back when GW was one of the new kids in the mini business, it was SO different. They at least gave the impression of being into the whole thing for more than the money. It is sad to think that a company that had such great potential for the good of the Gaming Community & the miniatures craft has so totally perverted that potential.

My condolences on your & our loss, cianty. But FREE AT LAST!

concerning their we don't give a .... attitude:

Last weekend (at the end of the meeting) we strolled into my local GW, and explained them about the meeting, they seemed enthousiast but for the side note... HOW IS THIS MORDHEIM FOR NONE OF US EVER PLAYED IT! - I couldn't believe that you can work in a GW store for years, and not ever have played their best game!? - specially since rulewise it is so related to their major games....

If this is indeed the path they want to take... so be it, I'm just really glad the Internet commuities have helped us around so many questions concerning rules. for we need not expect any help from the stores anymore...

Ezekiel wrote:

concerning their we don't give a .... attitude:

Last weekend (at the end of the meeting) we strolled into my local GW, and explained them about the meeting, they seemed enthousiast but for the side note... HOW IS THIS MORDHEIM FOR NONE OF US EVER PLAYED IT! - I couldn't believe that you can work in a GW store for years, and not ever have played their best game!? - specially since rulewise it is so related to their major games....

If this is indeed the path they want to take... so be it, I'm just really glad the Internet commuities have helped us around so many questions concerning rules. for we need not expect any help from the stores anymore...

Yeah, hurray for internet communities!

If you look what's been going on online, fans managed to do almost everything better than GW. There a great tutorials on painting and modeling you can easily follow, there are fanzines (more or less frequently published) that offer great material, there are cool battlereports with nice pics and well-written stories (thank you, Flame On!) and fan written add-ons that easily match the qualitiy put out by GW. Nowadays, it's stupid to buy a White Dwarf, as you can get much better stuff for free.

And even though the GW staff in the stores can only say "Ah, right, heard of it..." when you tell them that you play Mordheim, the game is more alive than ever.

Even though, it still sucks that they are scrapping yet another game. I wonder what kind of company they aim at Certainly, it cannot be that expensive to give a little support to the mature gamers who prefer an in-depth gaming experience over 4000€ apocalypse armies?

Well, they are not scrapping Warhammer Historical. They are "restructuring" it.. I have no idea what this means but firing someone who has done a great job running that branch, and who has two kids to feed, just shows how they don't care for the people - be it customers or even their own. That is really sad. From what I've read Warhammer Historical will continue to exist but I fail to see any sense in needing to fire the WHH manager because the branch becomes a division of a miniatures branch that is occupied with sculpting.

I wish Rob all the best of luck for his future - wherever that may be. Personally, this gives me even more enthusiasm to work on my own projects instead of abiding by GW's games.

It might just be that.... the internet communities provide so much, and often much better support than GW could offer, as everyone shines his/her light on the topic at hand, and more often than not go with house rules, experimental rules or new fanbased additions... .

Perhaps GW is coming to terms with the fact that they lost their products to the world and the gamers.
Time to abandon your copyrights GW! we now own the game! and rights to republish books!

What a damn shame. As for Warhammer Historical going to Forgeworld...? Well, it seems an odd move. I mean, how are they going to re-write all the history books to include Tyranids and Space Marines. Really, when was the last time Forge World did anything beyond 40K (not to knock 40K)?

What a shame.

It's always the same, when a product is not WHB, WH40K or LotR, it will disappear, perhaps it will take a long time, but it will... That's the GW's philosophy

Now, firing someone who's done a lot during many years for this game is completely non-human, a non-sense, and a shame...

Forgeworld, and why not Black Library too ? They're more concerned with "historical" stories

This is very disturbing news indeed. I do like to play WFB and 40k. I was really looking forward to getting into the LotHS or the Western genere. Might have to try some different rule sets out there I guess or just pick up a copy and stick with it. I like GW products (in some cases) but its disturbing when this happens. The Titan is falling and making a last ditch effort to focus on its big money makers is my guess.

Well whatever the case may be, I wish him well and pray that many more doors open up to him.

Wow! Most shocking but then again doesn't surpise me with GW. I do feel for Rob and hopefully Scarab games will work for him.

This is what happens when businessmen run a hobby.

Businessmen are BASTARDS! Present company excluded, of course.

NEWS FLASH! GW Historical NOW has a new web site & a price DECREASE. For details http://theminiaturespage.com/news/752687/ . Cool, huh?!

I don't like their new site (all the additional material is missing), but the special deals are great (if I didn't already have all the LotOW supplements).