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A Blasted Past? - Dysartes | |
| Games Workshop, as a company, has been around for a long time - nearly 30 years. In that time they have become one of the largest wargamming companies in the world. In terms of sheer scale, there are very few competitors to it In that time, Games Workshop (GW) have produced some amazing figures and some that, shall we say, aren't that pretty. There are some figures available in-store that have been around for over a decade - the Eldar Rangers being one example of a set of figures that still look as good today as when they were originally released. On the other hand there are figures, and indeed entire armies, that are denied and written out from the histories of the games they were involved in. Squats. Zoats. Malal. Pygmies. Fimir. All of these used to figure in either Warhammer or Warhammer 40,000; in the case of Zoats, they used to be in both. Now, however, most of the developers at GW are unwilling to admit to their existance, at least as an element of the current games systems and their background. Now, Games Workshop has full creative control over their games systems and the universes in which they exist. If they wish to write a race out of existence, there is very little that can be done to counter this in an official sense. Asking questions to do with these lines has a habit of getting you ignored in seminars, and the mods on the GW message boards are loathe to let such a topic breathe its first breath. Unofficially, of course, it is a different matter, and many gamers are dedicated to keeping these areas alive. If you aren't playing in a tournament, you can get away with many things, even creating your own rules for units that no longer have rules - take Monkeigh Magic's Squat Auxilaries as a case in point. As long as your opponent has no problems with the rules, you can get away with a lot of things that the core of GW may not want to see again. Obsolete or Unwanted?There are three main reasons for models to become obsolete. Either a weapons combination becomes unavailable to the race, or a unit or race can be viewed as not fitting in with the designers view of the universe. Thirdly, it is also possible for the accountants to decide a range is not selling well and therefore shouldn't stay available - the Dark Eldar appear to be suffering from this, as the Squats did before them.a lot of figures available during the Rogue Trader period don't really fit with their current rules - Space Marines armed with Shuriken Catapults, Imperial Guard riding Jetbikes and Harlequins driving around in brightly coloured Land Raiders were all possibilities during Rogue Trader, and in some cases had models made for them. A lot of these options were due to the random equipment tables used in the main Rogue Trader rulebook, and successive army lists went some way towards standardising which weapons and vehicles were used by which army. Most of these erratic options were ruled out during the second and third editions of Warhammer 40,000, as the weapons available to a race gained their own cultural identities and helped to define each army as different to its neighbours. While the removal of weapons options have a low level of impact on the models available, when designers remove entire units or armies from the army lists, there is a much bigger impact on the gaming public. Take the 6th edition Empire army book for Warhammer - while highly diverse, it is much less so than the 4th edition army book. Many units vanished overnight - the War Wagon, Imperial Dwarves, Halflings and their infamous Hotpot, the Kislevite contingent, Engineer Outriders, amongst others. While a lot of these troops reappeared in either the Dogs of War list or the Kislev army booklet, many Empire players were disgruntled at the time. As they had spent a large amrount of money on their armies, they felt that GW had let them down by not providing rules for their units - after all, even back in the day the War Wagon didn't come cheap. I can understand this viewpoint, as I'd hate to have units I had no use for, especially when I'd spent time modelling and painting them. On the other hand, there are times when the removal of units is a prudent move. Who would honestly want to see Human Bomb's or Penal Legion units return, only to be used as a meat shield or to kill themselves? GW already has enough elements in its universes to leave itself open to attack by religious groups, and rereleasing figures that echoed to problems in Israel and Iraq would not be a sensible step for the company. There's nothing stopping you using the old models today, but they don't tend to appear that often. What To Do?While figures may no longer have rules, there is normally a way to use them - though Harlequin Land Raiders may be the exception to the rule, up until the point you repaint them. This is where the "Counts As" rule can come into efefct - taking one model and saying that it "counts as" another. An Imperial Guard Jetbike can be used as a Rough Rider. Space Marines with Shuriken Catapults or other non-valid weapons can be mixed into squads as either grunts with basic weapons or as special weapons troopers.This approach has been formailsed in the latest version of Epic, which featurea a guide in the back of the rulebook so that people with what are termed "Collector's Models" have a use for them, even thoguh they no longer feature in the tournament army list. The section even includes datasheets for the models, for use when cerating scenarios. This sort of approach is something that I think the main studio at GW could benefit from doing. The Chapter approved column in White Dwarf gives the Studio somewhere to publish addendum to the current army books, returning models like the Griffon, Exterminator and Vanquisher to the Imperial Guard list, and the Dreadnought and Razorback variants to the Space Marines. While this would be nice, it generates some problems. In order for the Design Studio to do this, it would detract from the resoources available for their other, more important projects, such as the new line of codecii for Warhamemr 40k, or the Wood Elf army book for Warhammer. In the case of the Wood Elves, they've had more than their fair share of delays already. What can we do about this, then? Well, assuming you own the figures that have gone AWOL, you can apply the "Counts As" principle to them - I plan on using my Squats as Guardsmen in competitive play, for instance. Of course, if you don't have the figures, then this isn't a problem. If you want to write and playtest rules for figures that don;t really have a counts as niche, then do so, and either send them to the Design Studio to show that people are interested still, and are willing to work on them, as it might just stimulate them to support the line again. Of course, it might not, in which case send them to us for hosting in the Trial Rules section. |
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