Great Unclean One

Hey folks, Macca here, and today is something quite different to the recent posts about Legion vs Legion, and how Games Workshop is a few cans short of a 6-pack. Today I'm showing off my recently repainted Great Unclean One. I simply love this miniature, it's one where Forge World captured the feel spectacularly.

  

The key element in painting this guy was corpses. When I originally painted him, he was more of a brown skin tone, and in hindsight, I needed to go pale, we're talking Twilight pale but without sucking as hard as Twilight. Also, being Nurgle, I wanted to use slime all over the place, to really add to that corrupt feeling. Slime in the mouth, in the large gaping wounds, slime on the sword, in his boils, mmmmmmm yeah, that's ma' Nurgul!

The boils are designed to look like they would on a real person, large and weeping over red blistered flesh. The flesh itself if bruised and swollen around the wounds, whilst it's dark and filthy around his flab rolls, with blues used to great effect.

His actual eyes are a flat white. This is to represent the decayed, cataract  look of an old corpse. Disgusting stuff, but I feel it works.

Nurgles rot anyone? I'm gonna go with poisoned attack here, just got a feeling on it....

The base itself is a Secret Weapon swamp base, embellished with their kit for it. It's hard to see in the pictures as the body of the Daemon creates a lot of shadow over it, but the water is about 2mm deep, with swirls of his Daemonic slime coiling throughout.

Overall, this was a fun project as I got to paint something that wasn't power armour for the first time in a long, long time. It was fast too, only taking me a few hours one night, and it now gives me a fun model I can use in the Calth missions from Book V: Tempest.

~Macca

Games Workshop is out of touch? No way!

A week or so back, I gave you all my opinion on where the Games Workshop plastic Horus Heresy kits were headed. (find that article here). Well, I recently took the time to read through their end of financial year fiscal report. Needless to say, I found a few lines hilarious, and I thought I'd share a few of them here. You can read through the PDF yourself here.

WARNING: EXTREME LANGUAGE

Yes, I'm cynical. Yes, a little butthurt, but as always I will use my business mind to interpret their report and turn it from shareholder wank into actual English. This opinion is, as always, wholly my own, I'm making no accusations, threats or defaming them, I'm just saying how I personally read it, and if it happens to defame or accuse the writers, well, they should have made more of an effort not to confuse me...

So, on with the show!

On why they are losing money:

"One bit of the GMP remains stubbornly unrealised– sales growth. We knew that the huge infrastructure changes we have been making these last few years (and are still making, we have just signed off on a new ERP system) would be disruptive, so we are not surprised that many trade accounts across Europe no longer trade with us. Nor are we surprised at the amount of work we have to do to get great managers in all our stores following the move to one-man operation. Our efforts, unfortunately, have coincided with truly dreadful trading conditions and, for the first time in our history, a year when the pound was strong against the euro and the dollar simultaneously. Our natural hedge hasn’t been one this year. You can see the effects of our lack of sales growth in our gross margin, cost-savings in the maintenance of our net margin, and currency everywhere."

Read this as: "We lost money, we think it's because of the economy, and because we keep making our stores smaller."

What I see: We don't realise that we have competition such as Privateer Press, Fantasy Flight games, Mantic etc. Not only this, but we don't seem to understand that small stores located down dark side streets in the cities of the world don't draw in new blood to the hobby, in fact, the only people hanging around some of our stores are wearing suspicious trench coats.

On their market:

"Our customers tend to be teenage boys and male adults with some spare money to spend and time to enjoy hobbies. I'd like to think our Hobby- modelling, painting, collecting, gaming -is for any one. Our customers are found everywhere. Our job is to, on a day to day basis, find them, commercially, wherever they are."

Read this as: "We think teenagers are the crux of our hobby. We also think that these people are everywhere despite our incredibly high buy-in cost."

What I see: GW honestly thinks that teenagers are their heart and soul. Yes, whilst some hobby centers would see a lot of teen activity, this is more likely due to adults mostly hanging around their FLGS and trying to stay away from the GW stores as they feel uncomfortable there. This isn't a dig at the staff I will add, but to be the only other adult in a store full of teenagers with nothing but hobby in common isn't an inviting atmosphere. Also, I want to know how many fucking teenagers are buying Titans, I'm willing to bet not a single Warlord was picked up by a teenager at the last Open Day. If you're a teenage nerd, you can get 2 brand new Xbox or PS games for the cost of a starter set, and that's before glue, tools, paints etc. They're going to get 5-10 years out of their console, so what looks like value to them?

On price structuring:

"Secondly  I will review our product range. We believe this is long overdue: it is time for a resetting of the ranges. Not tweaking here and there but a top down reassessment. I expect to update you further at the half year. We will aim to continue to deliver outstanding product and customer service, maintain our Group gross margin and continue to improve our Group stock turn. To be absolutely clear I will not be reducing the RRP of our products: they are premium priced for their premium quality. I will, however, be looking to offer a broader range of price points. This is exciting and is for the long term, so I'm not promising when you will see a change. We have already started the brainstorming in our monthly strategic product meetings. It is early days,but I can already foresee some busy times ahead."

Read this as: "We aren't sure what is selling or why. We want to see if we can change our prices and make more profit."

What I see: We are changing prices. Well, paint me blue and call me a smurf, but if they won't go down, well, what other direction do they go? Also, reviewing the product range means 'don't need those armies because they don't sell'. This I believe is because GW thinks miniatures only sell based on their aesthetics (I can prove that point next) so when they see Bretonians don't sell it cannot be because they haven't had any rules in a decade.

On quality control:

"Product quality

This is an indicator of the effectiveness of our design studio and our continuous improvement in design to manufacture. We measure this by looking at sell through. If the product is great we sell a lot, if not we sell very few."

Read this as: "We think people only buy good quality kits. Thus, if they sell, they must be good quality."

What I see: People buy kits for their looks. These would probably be in the minority, but lets just call them half anyway. Did it occur to nobody working at head office that maybe, just MAYBE, if a kit has really good rules, it will sell, but if it sucks, it can look good but hardly sell? Let's see, how many Wave Serpents do I think sold in 6th ed compared to in the past? How many Vypers sold in 6th ed? Personally, I think the Vyper is a sexy miniature, but its rules have been a bit so-so since the craftworld dex of 3rd ed. I'm pretty sure they weren't a big seller. To me, quality control is how many unsatisfied customers you have. This goes hand in hand with feedback, GW is not a fan of hearing from the people, the standard response to an email is more or less 'fuck off' unless you're a share holder. For those who brave the process however, if you're not happy with something, they will replace it (re: all of finecast).

On why Australia gets charged so much more for the hobby:

"He also manages our three main distribution hubs in Nottingham (UK), Memphis (USA) and Sydney (Australia). A personnel manager and our Academy personal development and skills training ensure we take our people  recruitment and development seriously."

Read this as: "There are 3 warehouses that hold almost all of our stock in the world, we MUST ship to them before other countries."

What I see: We (GW) have no excuse for ripping off Australia, we just charge what we feel like, based on a favourable exchange rate we picked when their economy sucked. Shipping has nothing I repeat NOTHING to do with it, otherwise prices would only rise from having to further ship the models to more countries outside of Oz. (Wait, if you're a Kiwi, nevermind, they do go up. Fuck You, sincerely, GW) Also, I am aware of taxes, and how much they must sell for to make a profit, blah-di-blah. End of the day, these sprues cost like 12c to make each, they sell for around $70 on average, and only cost about $200 per ton to ship.

Warhammer branding:

"Warhammer branding

We have taken the decision in the year to rebrand our stores ‘Warhammer’ . It is what our customers call us. This will be rolled out progressively, as and when we open new or refurbish our existing  stores. At the year end we had 13 Warhammer branded stores."

Read this as: "We think we can get more brand recognition."

What I see: Actually, I totally agree, but what I find hilarious is that at a time when they are pushing the name "Age of Sigmar" with Warhammer as more of a background term, it's like naming your child "John" then telling everyone he is called "Bob", people are gonna refer to the kid as Bob! Maybe this one is just me. Or Bob.

The Wrap Up:

I could go on and on and on, just picking through the dribble and looking at GW as a company, but that's not what I was going for here. I wanted to show why I am a bit cynical about GW handling things like the Horus Heresy, because clearly, the people running the company aren't focused on the right things. They just want money, and the first places they look are raising prices and removing stores/staff.

Here's a fucking thought, make your game affordable so you SELL MORE. You tell me, what's better, sell 24c of sprues for $72, or sell 48c of sprues for $40 each ($80)? Sure, if you drop the cost of a sprue and only sell the same amount, you're going to lose money, but when people want a big shiny army, they will not be buying just one sprue, they will want to buy the extra sprues! They might even catch their eye on some new paints and buy those too. Business 101 people, you think China sells their recasts at GW costs to make a profit? Hell no! They make a profit by selling more, for a tad less, honestly, it's the simplest approach on Earth!

In the end, to summarise, GW thinks that we all:

a) buy models just for looks
b) will keep buying no matter how much they raise their prices
c) are all teenagers and the occasional neckbeard
d) all have heaps of time to play, so fuck our kids, screw the spouse it's hobby time at GW!
e) can justify the cost of their hobby against others
f) buy their products regardless of the rules

Now, honestly, do you have to ask why I have a hard time trusting these people?

~Macca

A Galaxy In Flames Battle Report: Inferno III Round 3 Iron Hands vs Iron Warriors

So, as promised, here is the second battle report from Inferno III, this time between the Iron Warriors, and Age of Darkness' Nate. This was the 3rd and final game, and despite having known each other for years, it was the first game we ever played against one another.

The setup was simple, Dawn of War deployment, kill points, 2VP per infantry unit, 1VP per vehicle, with the standard secondaries, as well as bonus VP's for the player with the most units left alive at the end of the game. Nate won the deployment, however, his Force Org chart forced him to take second turn, so no seize roll was required.

Due to a lack of enclosed tables, we played on a relatively open table. With the Iron Warriors on the offensive, poor Nate proceeded to be violated, repeatedly, and without lube. The Graviton Cannon Rapier battery proved throughout the tournament to be an ungodly powerful AT platform. Once combined with the Tyrants and the Deredeo, well, turn one saw the loss of 2 Sicarians and 2 hull points from a Predator before Nate even could retaliate.

Nate's turn one consisted of moving his remaining armour into positions where he could draw a good LOS to my RAPEier batteries (no political correctness here, these guns were committing a crime), as well as crying into a small cup as half of his firepower was already dead.

He fired his Cerberus Super Heavy (crewed by Castramen Orth!) into the Contemptors, and where possible, any spare shots were channeled into the Rapiers.

Turn 2 for the Iron Warriors saw a full 5-model Vorax unit led by a praevian, all with tank hunter, move on from the right flank. The Gravitons finished off almost all of the armour on the left flank before proceeding to swivel towards the right flank as the Tyrants advanced (spewing an ungodly amount of frag missiles all the while).

Turn 2 for Nate saw him trying to kill the Graviton cannon rapiers, as well as targeting the Vorax with whatever shooting he had, backed by a Gorgon Terminator charge.

Sadly, as turn 2 was ending, the Gorgons charged the Vorax, and despite having to make only 5 invuls, Nate managed to fail all 5 in an excellent display of dice rolling (Danny and I have begged him to burn those dice numerous times), meaning that the Gorgons died without causing any damage.

Turn 3 saw the Vorax take out the Spartan, and the Gravitons destroyed Orth's superheavy, which ironically blew up and killed 7 out of 10 members of one of the Iron Warriors tac squads and netting Nate more kills in that explosion than in the whole match thus far... For Nate's turn 3, he tried to shoot down the Vorax and repositioned his Sicarian Venator to shoot the Tyrants, as well as castling up with his surviving armour.

By turn 4, the Iron Warrior Siege Tyrants had reached the back lines, and it was all but over. The rest of turn 4 and 5 was spent mopping up the remaining Iron Hands and taking the last hull points off the Sicarian Venator.

Nate, I'm so sorry. So very, very sorry.

We joked at the time that I would have to censor every photo of the game as the images were 'too graphic' to be shown. This was the unfortunate result of matching up a defensive anti-tank force (Iron Warriors) against a mechanised armoured company. I for one blame the Loyalist General for the match up, Tim from the Eye of Horus!

All of this aside, Nate and I had a good laugh, and it was a really relaxed game, we basically knew after turn one that it was over so we weren't playing for sheep stations. It was one of those games where we just let the other player tally up the wounds on their own units from blast templates, and overall we mostly just sat around all game talking smack. It's a shame that we couldn't play on a table which had a far more dense terrain setup, however being assigned our game late in the round meant all the tables were taken which we wanted. On the bright side, this has lead to four days of the traitors making jokes about loyalist tears, with Danny managing to make loyalist after loyalist cry for 3 tournaments (ask him about his "Toughness zero list", go on, I dare you). Also, I got a lift to the event with Nate, so needless to say, I wasn't offered a lift home :P

Thanks for the game Nate, next time out, we'll make it a balanced one.

~Macca

A Galaxy In Flames Battle Report: Inferno III Round 2 Imperial Fists vs Iron Warriors

G'day folks, boy what a weekend! I have been 1500KM North, spent some time with some great mates, and made my way back home all to bring you some photos and talk Heresy. So where to begin?

I played my mate Michael from over at the Eye of Horus Podcast in round 2, so I thought I would make a battle report out of it. Needless to say, with two powerful armies, and two good generals, we were set to have a great game.

A little history leading into this, Michael and I had last played more than two years ago, where my Death Guard in 40k beat his 40K Salamanders, so Michael had some pride to restore today.

The mission we rolled up, depressingly, was the Relic. This is one of those missions I groan at, especially made worse because I didn't take note of the revised 7th edition rules for it (having hidden under a rock when it comes to 40k missions for over a year lol) which only came back to bite me repeatedly! Deployment was diagonally.

Michael being the cheesey yellow bastard that he is, set up a nice little gun line, with a bunker on the left (manned by a BS5 twin-linked, tank hunter lascannon dev squad... argue that cheese Michael!) and a sweet Vindicator on the right flank.

The Iron Warriors were definitely on the worse side of the table, so I had to do what I could to limit the carnage. His lascannons could see everywhere due to Michaels excellent placement, so I had to use cover in the few places I had it, or, in the case of my Tyrants, deploy a single inch outside of his lascannons range, lest they die on turn 1.

The Relic itself was some Imperial Fists geneseed. Our armies were just dudes looking for dudes 'seed'. Sadly, I had incredibly limited Line of Sight to the relic, whilst Michael had the only open side. Again, the bastard sure picked the right side of the table!

Turn 1 saw a general advance from the Imperial Fists, our Contemptors (being almost identically armed and used) sticking to opposite sides of the relic terrain. The Vindicator was out of range, however the Lascannon devs in the bunker all but shredded the IW Deredeo.

The IW turn one was a pathetic whimper, with my entire army queefing, merely taking 3 of the 4 hull points off the bunker (despite 3 graviton cannons and 20 krak missiles) and a single hull point off the Spartan, and leaving haywire blasts in a lot of places.

Turn 2 for the Imperial Fists saw the Spartan dump a ton of dudes onto the relic. The unit was buffed by a pimped Praetor and a Primus Medicae, both in Cataphractii armour, making them as tough as nails. The IF promptly killed one dreadnought, and left the last Contemptor on a single hullpoint, but able to move and charge next round. The only solace was the Vindicator imobilising itself in the haywire patch safely away from the rest of my army.

The 2nd turn for the IW saw some interesting moments. The Bunker was knocked out, and the tyrants elected to use frag missiles on the devestator unit, causing 24 wounds on the Devs and 33 wounds on a squad of breachers. Michael frustratingly failed very few saves on his breachers, however the dev squad was almost crippled (corpses may be seen on the far left top corner). My contemptor was a lazy 5" from Michaels Spartan, but I rolled a 1 for dangerous terrain and sent it to the graveyard, ending my turn. (I should point out, hilariously, that I had failed every single invul save on both the Contemptors and Deredeo as well as 1 of 2 saves on the Tyrants. I was shedding manly tears.)

At this point, the Imperial Fists got into their Spartan and proceeded to drive away. I promptly realised that 7th ed had changed the relic mission. From this point, the game really slowed down, with weapon range and a lot of LOS blocking limiting the casualties on both sides to a mere handful for the next few turns.

The stalemate broke when on turn 4 the Praevian and his Vorax entered play. The Vorax unleased lightning guns and rotor cannons into the visible breacher unit, but due to their Primus medicae and their toughness of 5, they laughed and lost only 3 men out of 13, not even enough to force morale.

As the game ran out of time, Michael wisely assaulted my Vorax from the Spartan, and with a 'killing blow' armed commander managed to cut down 3 of my valiant praying mantis automata. The game ended with said squad in assault, holding the relic on his turn 5. I got a single VP for linebreaker, and he got 3 for the relic and 1 for first blood. A win to the Imperial Fists!

Aftermath

Wow, what a game. If a few things had gone differently, it would have been a very different game. The LOS blocking terrain between my units and the relic hurt me to no end, and the Contemptor dying to dangerous terrain was a game changer (his 5 chainfist attacks on the charge against his already down to 4 HP Spartan would have changed things dramatically). Michael has his vengeance, we are now at one game each and I'm happy about it. Yes I lost, but material wise, I came off better. My defensive gunline was poorly equipped for a mission of this nature, whilst his multi-tasking army got the job done spectacularly.

By the way Michael, you're still a jerk for going all GTA in your Spartan.

~Macca