The Miniature Wargame/Board Game Thread
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Speaking of Drama, the Warhammer community is currently experiencing a bit of a seizure lately and a lot of misinformation is running around out there.
So in the run up to launching their own multimedia service (I'd call it "streaming" but it kind of isn't since it also involves access to phone apps and OOP lore materials), Games Workshop approached many popular and successful fan creators and offered them a fan creator's ultimate dream - to have their material be legitimized and work with the company itself to produce more.
This was met with hesitation from the community at large, fearful of what that would mean to creative freedom. One such creator, Sodaz, agreed to work with GW and subsequently pulled down all their Warhammer related content from YouTube. Another - AbsolutelyNothing - declined the invitation to be part of GW due to educational commitments as well as ultimately just not liking the job offer. His material was kept up but demonetized and the Patreon associated with creating 40k exclusive content was shuttered. Again, the fandom grew restless. They saw this as evidence GW was giving people an ultimatum, and became afraid for what that meant for the future.
Fast forward to July 16th. Sodaz puts out a statement revealing they have decided to no longer work with Games Workshop and indeed are leaving the sphere of Warhammer animations behind them entirely due to harassment received.
July 21st, Games Workshop updates their Intellectual Property guidelines to include zero tolerance wording in regards to Fan films and animations, that they are to only be produced under license.
July 29th, the much beloved fan series "If The Emperor Had A Text To Speech Device" (commonly abbreviated to TTS) announces an indefinite hiatus to the series in the wake of Games Workshop's new policy guidelines. Nothing is taken down nor demonetized and the creator sees his own Patreon skyrocket from around $8,000 a month to over $20,000 a month in an outpouring of support (as of 9/7, it is at $19,883). This results in the fandom going basically thermonuclear with a "mass" exodus to Battletech.
August, amidst the carnage and infighting of the community, a prominent Lore channel by the name of Luetin09 reveals that a fellow Loretuber (Common belief is this was 2+ Tough) had contacted Games Workshop's legal department directly to ascertain if his channel's contents (and by extension, other channels of a similar nature) violated GW's IP guidelines. He was given the thumbs up that everything was above board.
In September, Games Workshop has put out an ad for basically someone whose job it is to locate infrigements on their Intellectual Property online. This also comes on the heels of the subreddit r/Printedwarhammer being made private and its MEGA server filled with illicit STL files of Games Workshop miniatures being shuttered. This has lead to a transformation among those who claimed to be leaving for other wargaming/hobbies into open endorsement of piracy, with a bombardment of images of clearly home printed models on principle Games Workshop subreddits and forums, as well as people openly passing around vast files of STLs for individual use and sharing.
And that's where we are today. A vocal section of the fandom has hoisted the Jolly Roger against the "evils" of Games Workshop. If you browse the various subreddits there are tales of desolation. Scorched earth where once verdant fields of fan animations once stood (Note, all fan animations - including Sodaz's - can be found with a simple YouTube search. TTS remains up and monetized. Lore channels continue to produce content on a regular basis). The idea that Games Workshop is some vast, predatory bird that stole the creator of TTS in the night and devoured him whole (He's being actively courted by Paradox and is proceeding to create a parody series based in the World of Darkness setting that Paradox holds the rights for). Basically a lot of hyperbole and hysteria not really grounded in reality. Asking to cite examples of GW overeach, or even of animations entirely scrubbed from the internet as a whole, are met with nothing but silence and down votes. Though sometimes not silence. Sometimes you get called a corporate shill and bootlicker instead.
Basically, things have gotten so "loud" that I think a very critical portion of this story is overlooked. Sodaz got harassed out of the community in its entirety. Now I'm not sure what passed through their inbox, but it wasn't a few days later that GW's IP guidelines updated to include the term "Zero tolerance". While Sodaz never actually produced anything under GW, they had signed what was for all intents and purposes a job offer. They were a Games Workshop employee if in name only. And I have to believe Sodaz shared the messages in question with them. And then they brought a hammer down on the whole enterprise of fan content...at least officially.
TTS remains up. Remains monetized. It pulls in thousands of dollars a month. Even the creator in his video declaring his intention to go on hiatus remarks there's no way GW isn't aware of the series and is instead opting to turn a blind eye. Hell, after the video he proceeded to release what was "in the can" and had been available for Patreon supporters for months. Still nothing from GW. Now it's possible GW isn't doing anything because he'd already said the series was effectively done. But as this goes on, I don't think TTS was ever an issue. Fan creations were never an issue.
The fandom is the issue. A fandom that drove a creator out of the community wholesale. Who have escalated the situation to such an extent that the common phrase "Hug around and find out" is going to be applied in the not to distant future (GW has already shuttered multiple servers sharing STLs. I don't see it taking too long until actual legal action is taken against those who persist in sharing these files). It's feeding into their persecution complex of ultimately not getting something for free.
I got Warhammer+, ultimately what kicked off this whole affair. It's a fine service for what it is, but yeah if you are just buying it to watch animated shows it's not worth the money right now. But even then...it's $60 a year. $60 for 12 months in a hobby where one kit can cost that much (oh and those that are subscribed for a year get an exclusive model kit, so basically this is just a preorder with bonuses attached to it). It's not really ludicrously expensive even compared to other streaming platforms and the content isn't exclusively shows. The OOP lore was my biggest draw and that's been a lot of fun browsing.
Long and short of it, this is a bunch of sound and fury signifying nothing and I wish those who did make the honest exodus to Battletech all the best. Competitive Spreadsheets was never my jam, and I'm curious how long Catalyst Games' allowance of 3D Printing will last after the production/distrobution bottlenecks brought on by COVID cease. But going back through this tangled situation I found it interesting that while the fandom will cite the policy change as the big "overreach" by GW, you'll rarely get any commenting on why that policy change occurred.
So in the run up to launching their own multimedia service (I'd call it "streaming" but it kind of isn't since it also involves access to phone apps and OOP lore materials), Games Workshop approached many popular and successful fan creators and offered them a fan creator's ultimate dream - to have their material be legitimized and work with the company itself to produce more.
This was met with hesitation from the community at large, fearful of what that would mean to creative freedom. One such creator, Sodaz, agreed to work with GW and subsequently pulled down all their Warhammer related content from YouTube. Another - AbsolutelyNothing - declined the invitation to be part of GW due to educational commitments as well as ultimately just not liking the job offer. His material was kept up but demonetized and the Patreon associated with creating 40k exclusive content was shuttered. Again, the fandom grew restless. They saw this as evidence GW was giving people an ultimatum, and became afraid for what that meant for the future.
Fast forward to July 16th. Sodaz puts out a statement revealing they have decided to no longer work with Games Workshop and indeed are leaving the sphere of Warhammer animations behind them entirely due to harassment received.
July 21st, Games Workshop updates their Intellectual Property guidelines to include zero tolerance wording in regards to Fan films and animations, that they are to only be produced under license.
July 29th, the much beloved fan series "If The Emperor Had A Text To Speech Device" (commonly abbreviated to TTS) announces an indefinite hiatus to the series in the wake of Games Workshop's new policy guidelines. Nothing is taken down nor demonetized and the creator sees his own Patreon skyrocket from around $8,000 a month to over $20,000 a month in an outpouring of support (as of 9/7, it is at $19,883). This results in the fandom going basically thermonuclear with a "mass" exodus to Battletech.
August, amidst the carnage and infighting of the community, a prominent Lore channel by the name of Luetin09 reveals that a fellow Loretuber (Common belief is this was 2+ Tough) had contacted Games Workshop's legal department directly to ascertain if his channel's contents (and by extension, other channels of a similar nature) violated GW's IP guidelines. He was given the thumbs up that everything was above board.
In September, Games Workshop has put out an ad for basically someone whose job it is to locate infrigements on their Intellectual Property online. This also comes on the heels of the subreddit r/Printedwarhammer being made private and its MEGA server filled with illicit STL files of Games Workshop miniatures being shuttered. This has lead to a transformation among those who claimed to be leaving for other wargaming/hobbies into open endorsement of piracy, with a bombardment of images of clearly home printed models on principle Games Workshop subreddits and forums, as well as people openly passing around vast files of STLs for individual use and sharing.
And that's where we are today. A vocal section of the fandom has hoisted the Jolly Roger against the "evils" of Games Workshop. If you browse the various subreddits there are tales of desolation. Scorched earth where once verdant fields of fan animations once stood (Note, all fan animations - including Sodaz's - can be found with a simple YouTube search. TTS remains up and monetized. Lore channels continue to produce content on a regular basis). The idea that Games Workshop is some vast, predatory bird that stole the creator of TTS in the night and devoured him whole (He's being actively courted by Paradox and is proceeding to create a parody series based in the World of Darkness setting that Paradox holds the rights for). Basically a lot of hyperbole and hysteria not really grounded in reality. Asking to cite examples of GW overeach, or even of animations entirely scrubbed from the internet as a whole, are met with nothing but silence and down votes. Though sometimes not silence. Sometimes you get called a corporate shill and bootlicker instead.
Basically, things have gotten so "loud" that I think a very critical portion of this story is overlooked. Sodaz got harassed out of the community in its entirety. Now I'm not sure what passed through their inbox, but it wasn't a few days later that GW's IP guidelines updated to include the term "Zero tolerance". While Sodaz never actually produced anything under GW, they had signed what was for all intents and purposes a job offer. They were a Games Workshop employee if in name only. And I have to believe Sodaz shared the messages in question with them. And then they brought a hammer down on the whole enterprise of fan content...at least officially.
TTS remains up. Remains monetized. It pulls in thousands of dollars a month. Even the creator in his video declaring his intention to go on hiatus remarks there's no way GW isn't aware of the series and is instead opting to turn a blind eye. Hell, after the video he proceeded to release what was "in the can" and had been available for Patreon supporters for months. Still nothing from GW. Now it's possible GW isn't doing anything because he'd already said the series was effectively done. But as this goes on, I don't think TTS was ever an issue. Fan creations were never an issue.
The fandom is the issue. A fandom that drove a creator out of the community wholesale. Who have escalated the situation to such an extent that the common phrase "Hug around and find out" is going to be applied in the not to distant future (GW has already shuttered multiple servers sharing STLs. I don't see it taking too long until actual legal action is taken against those who persist in sharing these files). It's feeding into their persecution complex of ultimately not getting something for free.
I got Warhammer+, ultimately what kicked off this whole affair. It's a fine service for what it is, but yeah if you are just buying it to watch animated shows it's not worth the money right now. But even then...it's $60 a year. $60 for 12 months in a hobby where one kit can cost that much (oh and those that are subscribed for a year get an exclusive model kit, so basically this is just a preorder with bonuses attached to it). It's not really ludicrously expensive even compared to other streaming platforms and the content isn't exclusively shows. The OOP lore was my biggest draw and that's been a lot of fun browsing.
Long and short of it, this is a bunch of sound and fury signifying nothing and I wish those who did make the honest exodus to Battletech all the best. Competitive Spreadsheets was never my jam, and I'm curious how long Catalyst Games' allowance of 3D Printing will last after the production/distrobution bottlenecks brought on by COVID cease. But going back through this tangled situation I found it interesting that while the fandom will cite the policy change as the big "overreach" by GW, you'll rarely get any commenting on why that policy change occurred.
A few people have pointed out that GW has always had the ability to shut channels down and just clarified language. Pretty sure Doug from 2+ Tough did explicitly state that he verified lore channels are fine (but I'd need to rewatch). One thing to note is that this does seem to be exponentially more a 40K thing than an AoS thing. Granted, outrage as a whole seems more of a 40K thing than an AoS thing.
I'm passing or at least heavily delaying getting Warhammer+. Due to a heavier interest in AoS, doesn't seem like the service offers much at the moment. Though I must ask, what all lessons are on Masterclass so far?
I'm passing or at least heavily delaying getting Warhammer+. Due to a heavier interest in AoS, doesn't seem like the service offers much at the moment. Though I must ask, what all lessons are on Masterclass so far?
Current lessons on Masterclass are Painting Faces - Pale Skin, Wet Blending, and Black Armour.
And yeah, right now there's not a lot for the AoS fan to enjoy on the platform. One Battle Report using the Dominion box and the Vault has all the Underworlds lore (Shadespire, Nightvault, Beastgrave, and Direchasm), the AoS Painting Guide, and Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Mighty Battles in an Age of Unending War: The Lore.
And yeah, right now there's not a lot for the AoS fan to enjoy on the platform. One Battle Report using the Dominion box and the Vault has all the Underworlds lore (Shadespire, Nightvault, Beastgrave, and Direchasm), the AoS Painting Guide, and Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Mighty Battles in an Age of Unending War: The Lore.
Well, watching the first episode of Loremasters...
We don't have to worry about the risk to the Youtube loremasters.
It's not that this is a bad show - I'll definitely keep watching it. Good production values, good narrator, great sound design...but nothing in here we don't already know. I kinda expected the show called "Loremasters" created by Games Workshop itself to add some never-before-seen/heard clarifications on events and characters. Maybe it's because Abbadon is a dime store knock off of Archaon, but there's nothing really thrilling in this episode. Just reads like a timeline of the character's events rather than clarifying anything. They mention his demon sword fought the Emperor and he bound it to a Custodes and sent him fleeing into the Webway...but no clarification of how Abbadon came to possess it or what happened to the Custodes.
....okay, pretty bitching unique CG animation of Abbadon at the end. Wonder if it was done by the guy who did Astartes?
We don't have to worry about the risk to the Youtube loremasters.
It's not that this is a bad show - I'll definitely keep watching it. Good production values, good narrator, great sound design...but nothing in here we don't already know. I kinda expected the show called "Loremasters" created by Games Workshop itself to add some never-before-seen/heard clarifications on events and characters. Maybe it's because Abbadon is a dime store knock off of Archaon, but there's nothing really thrilling in this episode. Just reads like a timeline of the character's events rather than clarifying anything. They mention his demon sword fought the Emperor and he bound it to a Custodes and sent him fleeing into the Webway...but no clarification of how Abbadon came to possess it or what happened to the Custodes.
....okay, pretty bitching unique CG animation of Abbadon at the end. Wonder if it was done by the guy who did Astartes?
Soooo.... I got into 40K around the time the Lord of the Rings movies were new and fell out about when the Transformer movies were new. Played maybe 2 actual games, hated painting the minis, absolutely LOVED building them. Games Workshop at the time was heavily encouraging all sorts of wild-ass kitbashes (check out the site on the Wayback Machine sometime), as were the Tyranid, Chaos, and Ork fandoms, which left the impression that if you weren't sawing parts in half and abusing the hell out of plastic glue you were doing it wrong. Naturally, I'm a bit dismayed to find that insane passion has cooled in recent years.
Anyways, I'm not sure if I really shared my stuff on the old site outside a couple of photos. Y'all can cheat and see them over at DakkaDakka now, but I'm gonna start uploading them here.
Hive Tyrant out of a Carnifex
Tyrant Guards out of Warriors and various other bits (those Carnifex head carapaces sure are handy)
Tyrant Guard Guarding Tyrant
Old One Eye -- I always liked the concept, but neither of the official takes really did it justice
Dakka Warriors
Back in the day Tyranids had this mutation rule where some bugs could just be psychic or have acid blood or a different weapon, or be gigantic. I thought it'd be funny to have a Giant Ripper (using a Cavern Worm from Reaper Miniatures). He'd be relevant again when Nidzilla Army Lists became a thing (that is, 2 Hive Tyrants, 6 Carnifexes, and Rippers filling out the ranks).
Anyways, I'm not sure if I really shared my stuff on the old site outside a couple of photos. Y'all can cheat and see them over at DakkaDakka now, but I'm gonna start uploading them here.
Hive Tyrant out of a Carnifex
Tyrant Guards out of Warriors and various other bits (those Carnifex head carapaces sure are handy)
Tyrant Guard Guarding Tyrant
Old One Eye -- I always liked the concept, but neither of the official takes really did it justice
Dakka Warriors
Back in the day Tyranids had this mutation rule where some bugs could just be psychic or have acid blood or a different weapon, or be gigantic. I thought it'd be funny to have a Giant Ripper (using a Cavern Worm from Reaper Miniatures). He'd be relevant again when Nidzilla Army Lists became a thing (that is, 2 Hive Tyrants, 6 Carnifexes, and Rippers filling out the ranks).
those look really good No Idea, i like the tyrant guard especially. I just started on some Circle Oroboros cavalry for Hordes and have discovered I hate painting goats
I don't like painting in general. Intricately detailed miniatures add extra annoyance. Granted Tyranids in particular are on the easier end, it's just I've already gone through two color schemes which I don't like and I've lost interest before making a third attempt. One of these years...
And to completely change topics: Kroots! Always loved these guys, despite having no interest in the Tau.
Kap'n Kroot!
Initially these guys were all built rather plainly. Later on I got into Chaos Marines and decided to rework the Kroots as their allies, which was a lot of fun. Especially since it provided the perfect excuse to use some cool Marine bits I otherwise couldn't find a use for.
And to completely change topics: Kroots! Always loved these guys, despite having no interest in the Tau.
Kap'n Kroot!
Initially these guys were all built rather plainly. Later on I got into Chaos Marines and decided to rework the Kroots as their allies, which was a lot of fun. Especially since it provided the perfect excuse to use some cool Marine bits I otherwise couldn't find a use for.
im normally the same zamuel,, but these just aren't fun to paint. theyve got a lot of leather straps and armor trim that's in awkward positions.
New batch of McFarlane figures: Reivers, Genestealers, and Orks! There's actually three different variants of the greenskins, while the Tyranid has an alternate Ymgarl sculpt (which unfortunately is an unpainted "artist proof"; hopefully they do a painted release down the line)
I don't think anything can beat the Flayed One's still-bleeding rags of skins looking like silly putty.
So I pulled the trigger on the Knight-Judicator with Gryph Hounds model despite not playing Stormcast or having any real interest in playing Stormcast. (Okay so I might have side eyed the Stormcast Vanguard Start Collecting box a time or two)
Mostly because the model, while in my care, will become a Vanari Regent Lord on Foot.
Mostly because the model, while in my care, will become a Vanari Regent Lord on Foot.
Chaos! An opportunity to go absolutely hogwild on each and every mini. Which magnified my joy of kitbashing and my disdain of painting...
As you can see, I went with a space pirate theme here, because Pirates of the Caribbean and Metroid Prime were all the rage back then, and I liked the idea of my guys being small-time schmucks and not the ten-thousand-year terrors that turned on Terra.
So GenCon just revealed a upcoming Black Templar "army box" (13 miniatures. 12 new sculpts + a Dreadnought for flavor), which has the community abuzz because thus far a major leak from earlier in the year is playing out beat for beat.
What this potentially means for the future:
A Custodes vs Genestealer Cult box in December (WHELP!)
Eldar range refresh in 2022
Squats!
What this potentially means for the future:
A Custodes vs Genestealer Cult box in December (WHELP!)
Eldar range refresh in 2022
Squats!