I have a hypothetical scenario:

I have a hypothetical scenario:
1) Games Workshop somehow ceases to exist as an independent company. Maybe they file for bankruptcy, maybe they get bought out by another company (Hasbro?)
2) Whatever company ends up in control of the Warhammer license, decides not to continue Warhammer, 40K, or AoS. They may well exercise the license for video games, board games, comic books, or something weird like blindboxes of the Primarchs, just not tactical miniatures or the rulebooks for them.

What would this mean, specifically for the genre of miniatures gaming? Would WarmaHordes become the new giant in the room? Would there be a sudden burst of new games finding their own little niches they can survive in? Would many people abandon minis altogether because of their sunk costs in Warhammer?

It would mean I could finally bust out my 3rd edition army and rules and not have a bunch of autistic kids flip out and scream how only newest and official rules are good.
Might also see a resurgence of truly original and/or kit-bashed models.

Faggots riot.

Kings of War reigns triumphant.

>WarmaHordes
lol no

Infinity, malifaux or maybe.

Use the models for other games.

Life goes on.

40k isn't the king it used to be. 3D printing, indie rennaisance, tactical squad games, a lot has changed from the 90s.

The hobby survives, people reminisce on when 40k was actually fun.

3D printing hasn't done anything to hurt GW. The other things you mentioned yeah, but 3D printing hasn't done squat to GW.

Or you know it would just die because it is no longer officially supported and nobody will be able to agree one what rules to play with.
>Baw 3rd edition is the best
>Baw 5th edition is the best
>Baw 7th edition is the best

This. 3D printing is literally of no importance. The cost in order to actually print miniatures that don't look like shit greatly outstrips the value of doing those things. If you really want miniatures for cheaper recasting is objectively better.
>Don't need to buy an expensive 3D printer
>Don't need to make a 3D model for every single unit you want to print
>Can make several models or units at once

3d printing let's other games companies build prototypes and masters faster and with less expense. It opened up the market to new game companies, where before, the best a game company could hope for was to have neat rules and maybe convince a casting house to stock the range.

Without 3d printing, Spartan Games would not exist.

It has done plenty to manufacturing process. Both GW and its competitors have benefitted from the flexibility and cost effectiveness of CAD.

>What would this mean, specifically for the genre of miniatures gaming? Would WarmaHordes become the new giant in the room? Would there be a sudden burst of new games finding their own little niches they can survive in? Would many people abandon minis altogether because of their sunk costs in Warhammer?

it would be an end to international tournament standards probably, less people would be concerned about metas and list building online and instead they'd play whatever their local store played.

You'd see pockets of 40k, maybe Mantic would step up and produce a lot more 40k stand-in-models but you'd generally just see a de-centralization of miniwargaming in general.

The hobby would become a shadow of its former self, with popularity in the mid-west dying almost over-night.
TL;DR people would continue playing whatever they wanted in their individual hobby stores but on a global scale you'd see huge decreases


Things like X-Wing and CMoN board games would probably replace miniature wargaming almost entirely where GW styled wargaming with miniatures would become as niche as chit-based wargaming

>40k isn't the king it used to be.

I mean it is, GW is still killing it in terms of sales.

Warmahordes, malifaux and infinity have pockets of control in large urban centers but 40k still has a footprint all over north america.

And GW doesn't have a CEO who breaks down in tears going on about how he doesn't know if they'll be in business next quarter (privateer press)

This isn't a problem for non-autistic people. You just compromise on a game to game basis. Like what happened to fantasy.
Also 3rd IS the best. Streamlined but focused on small skirmishes the way 40k is supposed to be. Although anything pre-6th is fine.

>breaks down in tears

Of course GW's CEO doesn't have that, Arch-Daemons don't have that sort of emotional capacity.

I think realistically you'd see a big divide with Europe flocking to Kings of War and USA taking refuge in Infinity.

This.
Pewter recasting is easy and dirt cheap.

They may be evil daemons who hunger for the souls of the damned, but they do have financial stability

> breaks down in tears
Wait really? Damn son. I knew Warmahordes was shit, I didn't know it was THAT bad

>Baw

Wait what? When did this happen? It sounds fucking hilarious!

>USA taking refuge in Infinity.
Jeez. I hope not. I can't stand infinity. KoW and Malifaux are great though.