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The future for E:A?

 Post subject: The future for E:A?
PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 4:53 pm 
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After reading through a number of posts about the developments at Forgeworld (checking their Epic moulds and potentially re-releasing some of their old stock) and suggestions that GW may be releasing some of their older games (like Warhammer Quest) after the huge success of the recent Space Hulk 3rd edition, I was wondering what people's thoughts are on the future of Epic: Armageddon. Will GW ever fully support the system again? Will they do the decent thing and re-release Epic Tyranids and give all the other races a good splash release? Or is it all just a pipe dream and more a case of yearning after something which will realistically never happen? Is there money in it for GW if they did begin to fully support the specialist games again?

I've yet to see a good argument as to why GW don't licence out Epic; maintain the rights but allow another company to support the system by releasing new minis. Does anyone have an insight into this?

I've recently sent an email to the GW about this very issue - I've yet to receive a reply, however. Last time I wrote to them (about the extortionate cost of Vampire Counts Blood Knights - £50!), I did hear back from them with some justification, so here's hoping for a reply about this. Surely they can't ignore their 'veteran' gamers altogether?


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 Post subject: Re: The future for E:A?
PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 5:21 pm 
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Evil and Chaos had extensive discussions with GW about licencing-out epic; the answer was a resounding no.

I'd LOVE to hear their justification for the Blood Knight price...


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 Post subject: Re: The future for E:A?
PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 5:29 pm 
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I would also like the hear the blood knight justification :D

also, please linky to FW maybe bringing back some of the epic line?

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 Post subject: Re: The future for E:A?
PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 5:50 pm 
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To G/W & F/W Epic is almost dead ... on life support ... This has come up before ... WE here will keep Epic/6mm Sci-fi alive here. We do it all here, as I have said, before, "Who needs G/W ?" ;D A lot of good 6mm Sci-fi models and rules out there too ...

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 Post subject: Re: The future for E:A?
PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 7:28 pm 
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A third party company that supported Epic would do very well; The market is just waiting there to see a sign of support (And some modern model releases).

But no matter how you bait the hook, GW won't licence the game out... which is a pity, because Epic is cool. :-)

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 Post subject: Re: The future for E:A?
PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 8:06 pm 
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The online community support for E:A is great but with Tyranids selling on ebay for fantastical amounts I sometimes wonder what it would be like to walk into a GW store circa 1995 and pick up everything that is no longer available. It's bizarre that GW have licenced out some board games to Fantasy Flight but won't with Epic.

Here is the link to the interesting article I found on BOLS about a possible future for E:A:
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2009/06/ ... found.html

And here is the reply I received from GW when I queried them about their inflated prices (and in particular the Vampire Counts Blood Knights):

Many thanks for your letter regarding the price of some of our recent products. We always aim to provide excellent value for our customers within the necessary constraints of manufacturing costs, some of which have risen very significantly in recent years. If I may address your specific points I hope you’ll find the following helps to explain how we go about these things.

I’m afraid that the rising cost of metal and of manufacturing in the UK really has grown enough to justify not only the prices you mention but far greater. This is a genuine concern to us – as you might imagine – and for this reason, wherever possible, we plan to make as many of our larger, bulky and multi-part models as plastic kits. Unfortunately we did not have the resources available to fulfil our original intention and make the Blood Knights in plastic. These are very heavy multi-part models – individually equivalent to elaborate character pieces – and realising the necessary compromise we set the price as low as we could. However, we accept that this is far from ideal and a better compromise might well have been not to have made them at all. It is very unlikely we will make large metal cavalry in the future.

In the case of plastics there is plenty of good news in terms of the cost of individual models – as models that are currently available only as metal become available as plastic. To make this happen faster we are in the process of standardising our tool design and layout. Some of your observations about plastic sets reflect this change. Our plan going forward is to design tools to produce 10 multi-part infantry models or 5 cavalry – which will have a standard price – provisionally £12. This compares with the older style tools which can have anywhere from 12 to 16 infantry on a frame and which generally sell for £18 in the UK. We think this is a fair and consistent approach overall. Note that had we realised our ambition of making the Blood Knights as a plastic kit they too would have been £12. We have just made a new plastic kit of Chaos Knights – and the price has been set at £12. I think you have to agree this represents tremendous value.

I’m afraid comparing our prices to the overall official government rates of inflation doesn’t really address the steep rise in our manufacturing costs. We remain committed to manufacturing in the UK despite this, and remain loyal to our work force of many years. We believe that the skills and experience needed to produce a quality product like ours cannot be sourced in, for example, the cheaper economies of the Far East. The day may come when large volume manufacturing in the UK becomes impractical for us as for many industries; however, we are not there yet. In the meantime we will push ahead with making more models in plastic, and, as always, to find ways of making great product that offers great value to our customers.

GW
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 Post subject: Re: The future for E:A?
PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 8:13 pm 
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Quote:
Here is the link to the interesting article I found on BOLS about a possible future for E:A:
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2009/06/ ... found.html

Hey, guess who organsied that particular effort. :-)

I later edited the text (Removed various "info" type stuff) and put out the pictures because I thought it was a shame people would never see them. Then BOLS's Groover picked it up. :)


Funny how that GW reply talks about plastics being cheaper, when these days GW policy is to price new plastic releases at similar levels to the metal models they replace.

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 Post subject: Re: The future for E:A?
PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 8:38 pm 
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So what was the response from GW about those minis? They look superb and they appear to be really missing a trick by not using the talent available. I guess I just want to be able to collect any epic army of my choice without having to watch eBay and take out a mortgage to do so. Bah humbug!


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 Post subject: Re: The future for E:A?
PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 8:46 pm 
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Quote:
So what was the response from GW about those minis?

"They look pretty; Sorry, not interested."

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 Post subject: Re: The future for E:A?
PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 8:49 pm 
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doomdiver wrote:
So what was the response from GW about those minis?


A clear and resounding "we're not interested".


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 Post subject: Re: The future for E:A?
PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 11:13 pm 
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Nice try Doomdiver ... you are not the first to go that route ... Trying to work with G/W is a large waste of time and in some cases, effort. WE here will do our best to keep Epic going ... but with all the other companies and rules being produced for 6mm Sci-fi, I think we will morph more into a 6mm Sci-fi site that includes all ... Not that we don't do that now, but even more so, in the future. If you want G/W stuff, here, Bartertown and eBay is you best place to look for it. ;D Don't depend on G/W support ... for anything ... They are the last guys I want covering my flanks ... ;D

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 Post subject: Re: The future for E:A?
PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 11:34 pm 
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When you consider how many players Epic has world Wide compare that to 40K and you'll understand why Epic doesn't get any love. It's just not a financially stable idea for GW. I think a vague sense of things can be seen by going to Wiki War and looking at the file galleries for the army lists put out by people here. Even the most popular and long standing lists have at most around 400-1000 downloads and even then that comes over a lengthy period of time. Those numbers, even if every download was a single person only d/l'ing once, shows (to me at least) that the number of players is miniscule compared to the masses of fantasy/40K players. While we're all very keen players of Epic here on Taccomms etc. the rest of the gaming world really isn't. It's sad but I think painfully true.


Last edited by Dobbsy on Mon Sep 20, 2010 12:31 am, edited 2 times in total.

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 Post subject: Re: The future for E:A?
PostPosted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 12:23 am 
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Another comparison can be made by comparing TacComs and Warseers member counts. TacComs has a bit over 2200 registered users at this point. Warseer has over 68,000. Unfortunately, the things that make Epic a great game (balance, tactical complexity, stability) are not well aligned with the things that make GW money (codex/model count creep, sucessive editions, and adherence to 'the rule of cool' over gameplay and, let's face it, common sense).

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 Post subject: Re: The future for E:A?
PostPosted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 12:32 am 
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You mean "lack" of common sense right?:D
Nevermind mis-read what you wrote! :-[


Last edited by Dobbsy on Mon Sep 20, 2010 12:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: The future for E:A?
PostPosted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 12:35 am 
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"adherence to 'the rule of cool' over gameplay and, let's face it, common sense)."

Makes perfect sense, lose the comma'd "let's face it" and you have

"adherence to 'the rule of cool' over gameplay and common sense"


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