I suggest combining the modern Forge, GW, and Citadel sets and displaying them inside Games Workshop.
Forge used to have a separate website, and people couldn't just buy the sets in stores; they were for connoisseurs, not a mass-market product.
Now they have one website, everything together, except that Forge sets are labeled “for experts.” Everything is becoming simpler, it's easier for people to perceive everything as a single list, and how everything is organized within the company is the company's business.
In the current catalog on our website, these are different companies, different catalogs. Looking at one, you won't accidentally come across sets from the other. I don't see the point in the paints being released under the Citadel logo; everyone perceives them as just GW paints.
Maybe it's worth combining all modern sets under the GW umbrella?
- Leave Citadel for old sets (before 2005-2010?).
- Specialist - for old Specialist sets.
- Forge World - for old Forge World sets (before 2005-2010?).
- And GW - everything that is currently sold and manufactured, including Citadel paints, Forge sets, etc.
I think this will be easier to understand. Yes, we may have some “transitional” problems with sets that appeared a long time ago but are still being sold. And now the GW website periodically posts “mail to order” items - old models in metal, and they often come out under the same numbers as the old sets, but we can track these and make modern duplicates with links to the old ones.
What do you think, community?
We still have the problem of old and new names for factions. GW came up with a new name for each faction so that it could be registered, since you can't get the rights to “Orcs,” which means you can't demand that others not use that name. And all the old factions were what they were. If the old and new sets are in one place, it will be a terrible mess of different factions, because 40k didn't change its name. This is another plus in favor of keeping the old sets, factions, and others under the old company names.
I completely agree with taking the Paints out of "Citadel" and putting it with GW proper. No one thinks of these things as separate companies anymore.
Anytime I've been adding very old models to the system is I notice the product codes dramatically change around 1992/1993 when the miniatures were pulled more into the GW system versus the Citadel company.
When it comes to Warhammer 40k/Fantasy Battle, you actually don't have a ton of the old sets on here. Lots of the old metal sculpts aren't around, so I think it would be cool to have legacy factions. They changed all the product codes when they changed the names anyway, so we can easily differentiate this change on the database.
I propose doing the same. They changed the name of the Fantasy Battle Factions when they released Old World, so I propose updating the Old World to reflect this.
I think Specialist Studio should be folded into GW as well, no one really can see a difference in an outward way anyway and it will make organization easier.
Forge World is technically still going strong and all my new kits still have the Forge World logo on them still. So, for a collector of Forge World it might be useful to have those still stay a separate thing? I'm on the fence about that. Everything else folding into GW just makes sense though.
So, the paint issue is settled: we'll clean up today's Citadel and transfer everything to GW. It's logical and simple. The question is, what do we transfer to Citadel from the old one? How do we determine that? Changing the IDs of miniatures is not the most important factor here; rather, there should be a logical and clear division.
Specialist games - I agree, they can be kept in GW as old games.
Forge World - I think they will soon change the current situation with the name and logo. There is no longer a visual separation on the website. How many people collect Forge World specifically, without GW sets of the same faction? It seems to me that most people buy something for their army, rather than just buying something for their shelf. And then it makes sense to see all the options for your faction in one place.
With FB, OW, and AoS, everything is clear in general, and they can really be left in GW—almost all the sets there are different now, they can be separated visually, they are different lists of miniatures, and they don't mix.
But what to do with 40k? Almost all factions there have kept the same names (perhaps this will change in the future). A common list of very old miniatures and new ones - is that logical?
To be honest, I don't know a real defining line other than the ID's changing for citadel. Most of the citadel stuff just got reprinted with GW product numbers anyway. The only things that got left behind were their old licensed prints, such as stuff for Dungeons & Dragons. But does it really matter to keep those separate as Citadel? Probably not at the end of the day. Realistically old 40k/Fantasy Battle can more easily be seen housing it all under GW.
If we do that, the only distinction we could sort of set is using the old Faction names in 40k vs. the new ones. We could use that as a more defining line, because that's also when a lot of stuff switched from metal to plastic as well. I don't think that will disrupt the collector view that much and it might be a cool nod to the history?
So, here's my theory with Forge World. I think Forge World is being phased out. They are clearly starting with Horus Heresy, where they're taking a LOT of the Forge World stuff away and replacing it with plastic kits. To me, it sounds like the Forge World thing will solve itself over time. The only things left might be Necromunda and Old World at this point, if they even bother to keep up with that over the years.
What I meant with Old World vs. FB, is the faction names. Old World is somewhat different game and in FB they had thing like "The Empire", but now it's "The Empire of Man". So Old World factions should be different. It is kinda like the faction issue with 40k. I'm pretty okay with the having factions being our way to organize GW products/history rather than Company organization like they used to do haha