April the 1st Comes Early?

Of all the strange things that have been happening as of late, here’s another. Yesterday it emerged that the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), in the UK, had written to the Games Workshop CEO, Kevin Rountree, asking that the miniature war-gaming brand ban 'fur' garments from all Warhammer characters.[1] They go on to claim “while we appreciate that they are fictional, draping them in what looks like a replica of a dead animal sends the message that wearing fur is acceptable – when, in fact, it has no more place in 2017 than it would in the year 40,000.”[2]

This is not satire.
Source: PETA

Before I continue I should point out my personal stance on animal rights issues. I believe animals should not be treated as commodities or exploited. I live in vegan household and the majority of the time I follow a vegan lifestyle (and when I’m not, I’m vegetarian). I believe that conversations need to be had about our relationship with the other species that we share a planet with. I also believe ill thought out actions and attention seeking publicity stunts by people like PETA benefit only PETA and undermine the serious and hard work people are doing to raise awareness and promote active change.

So back to Warhammer 40K. I have no intention of getting deeply into the lore, as I've been out of the loop for some time. I'm more Quorn than Khorne these days but even so, I’m pretty sure there isn't any active promotion of the exploitation of animals within the game worlds of the Games Workshop. To be honest what they’re targeting exactly seems a bit of a muddled mess. Are beast races in fantasy setting included or indeed the fantasy setting as a whole? What about historical miniatures made by other companies?

And then there’s the target audience of the Games Workshop. Are they more likely to wear fur or condone the wearing of fur after seeing these miniatures? I would say not, the war gaming audience doesn’t exactly strike me as big wearers of fur. I’d like to see some genuine, actual research, from PETA along such lines. Do plastic figures dressed in fur make people less compassionate towards animals? If such research took place and showed a link, then I’d be prepared to listen (and write a retraction to this whole post).

In the midst of all this PETA miss some genuine issues which they could have picked up on. As I mentioned before, things get missed in clamour for attention. Such as, animal products within items like paintbrushes, or the environmental impact of microbeads in textured paints and the plastic production itself. These are issues and criticisms which could have been legitimately raised to the Games Workshop but now will mostly likely be missed in the ridicule which is sure to follow this empty gesture.

And just so I'm not completely hating on them, their recipes section is pretty good, do go check that out.


References

 1. PETA UK (2017) PETA Asks Games Workshop to Ban 'Fur' from Warhammer Characters. [Online] Available from: PETA UK [Accessed 31 January 2017]

 2. PETA UK (2017) Why is PETA Asking Games Workshop to Make Warhammer Fur-Free? [Online] Available from: PETA UK [Accessed 31 January 2017]

Wayne England

I was saddened to hear today that the artist Wayne England has died.

When I talk of the "good old days" of Warhammer and Warhammer 40K Wayne's art was part of that world and continued to be right up until the present day. The White Dwarf covers below perfectly encapsulate the feel of Warhammer 40K in the late 80's.

Space Marines - White Dwarf 110 (1989)

Terminator Badge - White Dwarf 112 (1989)

As well as Games Workshop products he was also well known for his work on many other ranges, including Magic the Gathering, D&D, Avatars of War and Fantasy Flight Games.

Citizens Of The Imperium - Inquisitor in 28mm Scale

It's been a while since I last posted because I'm taking a short break, this is partly because I'm hoping to visit a model show soon. Rather than start another project I thought I'd wait and see what I inevitably buy while I'm there and then start a new project afterwards. In the meantime I was looking for something else to occupy my time.

This break gave me a chance to think about miniature painting again, and while I was thinking I was reminded of the Games Workshop specialist game, Inquisitor, that was released just over 10 years ago. For those of you who are not familiar with it, it was a 54mm scale role-playing game featuring small groups of characters. For me that was exactly why it appealed, the focus was on character models and I'd always enjoyed painting characters in 28mm scale. Of course small groups of figures meant this was never going to be commercially appealing to the Games Workshop and sadly the game disappeared after a short run, the models lasted longer but are now no longer produced. I held on to many of my models for years but eventually I decided sell almost all of them and re-invest in scale models.

I imagine now you're wondering what was I thinking about? Well I was thinking about painting character models in 28mm scale, in-between scale model projects. My first thought was to paint simple Warhammer 40K themed characters, citizens of the Imperium if you like. This train of thought eventually led me to thinking about converting 28mm Inquisitor themed models. The 40K universe has (or had, I'm not so up to date on it these days) such a rich background, for me it was typified in the works of John Blanche and the Inquisitor themed Eisenhorn and Ravenor series of novels by Dan Abnett. Further research led me to discover that there's an active community of 28mm Inquisitor players out there. While I'm not look at playing any more, just painting, it was very interesting to see that the game lives on in this form and people have long had this idea before I got round to thinking about it.

Of course when I was at my painting and converting peak you used to be able to buy individual sprues and parts from the Games Workshop. These days you can't and the cost of buying a box set just for a few parts makes converting prohibitively expensive. This was one of the main reasons I stopped buying Games Workshop products.

So, ordinarily that would mean I'd have to rely heavily on my ever dwindling (and mostly Warhammer Fantasy) spares box. There was a time when I would only use Games Workshop parts or sculpt them myself, partly because I had aspirations of entering the Golden Demon and the use of any third party parts would lead to a disqualification. But since then things have moved on, there are plenty of good quality third party parts out there. If the Games Workshop can no longer deliver what I need then I have no choice but to go elsewhere, and as I said, my spares are getting less and less.

So how did I pass my time? This is a first attempt, a young Eisenhorn as featured in the Dan Abnett novel, Xenos.

The model was actually made from Games Workshop parts and green-stuff. A mix of parts including, the head of a classic 90's plastic Chaos Warrior Champions, a body from the Empire militia set, a pair of Imperial Guard legs and a bit more sculpting than I was comfortable with if I'm honest!

Overall I'm quite pleased with this one. When I get more spare time I may well revisit this project and do a few more.
 

The Demise of White Dwarf (and the Games Workshop?)

There’s been a fair bit of talk recently about the Games Workshop’s decision to cease publishing its monthly magazine, White Dwarf. This comes not long after the magazine recently underwent a dramatic change in format and content, a change which it appears hadn’t had the desired effect.

A lot of criticism seems to revolve around the magazine basically being nothing more than a catalog for new releases and sadly I feel this is the case. The content of hobby related articles certainly has certainly declined, somethig I touched on here when I wrote about their painting guides.

I first came across White Dwarf at a time when I was playing more and more Games Workshop games. I’d started out with MB Games Heroquest and Space Crusade before moving on to Advanced Heroquest and Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Naturally I wanted to read more and so I picked up my first ever copy of White Dwarf, issue 132, promptly followed by plenty of back issues.

Issue 132 - December 1990

This magazine was read from cover to cover. It featured experimental rules, modelling projects, scenery projects (a dwarf mine, which I did try and build) and of course articles showcasing painting. Back then it had a true hobby feel, it engaged the reader, much like many of the scale modelling magazines of today.

Sadly today the thought of the Games Workshop publishing an article on building something not using products they sell is unthinkable and maybe there’s a general reluctance to even publish anything that not Games Workshop corporate standard. I feel the spirit of those days is missing now. Back then the company was build and run by people who were the age I am now. People who could write, who could create an evocative living world, one which I think no other company has come close to doing since. 

As far as miniature companies are concerned Games Workshop are unique in their longevity and I think this is a real difficulty for them. They have new younger followers, and they have older followers like me who both want differing things from the hobby. As a result they are having real trouble identifying their target audience. Do you sell vast amount of kits to kids who will play with them until they move onto something else, or do you cater to mature modellers who have more specialist needs? Which it is will decide on your magazine content and recently they’ve been going for the sale brochure content and it hasn’t worked.

So what will the future bring? There will be a new monthly magazine called Warhammer : Visions and a weekly White Dwarf magazine. I had a quick conversation with the guys from my local store and they weren’t a 100% sure what the content would be but suggested that the monthly magazine will be more hobby based, the weekly magazine more gaming based. I really hope this is the case and I’m approaching this change positively, if the monthly magazine is hobby based then it certainly looks like good move from my point of view.

One final thing I will say is that the Games Workshop would do well not to neglect their older followers. I’ve left the both the miniatures hobby and the scale model hobby and then come back to them both. It is people like me that will pass the hobby on to our children. As things stand at the moment and despite the Games Workshop being a key part of my formative years, I imagine in the future I would most likely be teaching my children to build that other great British institution, the Airfix kit, long before I introduced them to the current Games Workshop range.