There was some really useful information from the warlord open day, both in-person and what’s been shown in the video clips.

I have a love-hate relationship with Warlord, they do great things for the historical side of our hobby and for many are that gateway out of GW into historical gaming. On the other hand, some of their products are poor on occasion (either just bad or old and dated) and their pricing strategy is very much in the GW vain, sporadic, sometimes having different costs for effectively the same thing, and in others being expensive vs their competition.

A basic summary from what I heard and what s been in the video (please verify this yourself if it concerns you):

• Warlord work in 3 year cycles for product development
• Warlord is going to focus on two key systems, Bolt Action and Black Powder
• They’re going to rationalize their ranges by dropping “active support” for some of their game systems
• They might clear out a few items from some product lines

Firstly warlord working in 3 year cycles was interesting though not unexpected, basically, they plan out products and releases in 3-year chunks so most likely whatever is coming out in the next few years has already been planned out, there was an interesting note to some cases where John says let’s do this and it gets made (I think he mentioned cruel seas).

The biggie, there going to focus on two systems, this makes perfect sense to me, I think bolt action has always been the jewel in warlords crown, it’s popular, has a tournament scene, and is a natural competitor to GW’s games. No doubt it’s been the best-supported games system they do, though some fans are always after the latest rules or releases or complaining of germans not being good enough etc., I think that’s a bit of a GW player mindset hangover, but overall it sees good support and I expect this will continue pretty much as is.

Black powder getting more focus I think is good, its one of their decent rulesets and covers so much historical gaming, warlord have a pretty extensive range (though some of it is poor) and its also manufacture agnostic, which for us gamers is good, warlord offer plenty but theres no harm going to The Perrys, Victrix or anyone else for that matter. The open day had at least 10 or so Blackpowder release previews so its clear there’s renewed support, and there’s supplements in the works, including one for the 1813 campaign. There also the question of their Epic range that uses black powder currently, we will get a napoleonic version (soon) and ECW was also mentioned. Pike and shotte hasn’t had a release in ages, and frankly doesn’t need one, the range covers just about everything and if it doesn’t you can go to third parties equally as easily.

So where does this leave other games? Well, I think mostly the other games are here to stay, I think the change is warlord won’t really be doing anything new for them with any regularity and they might move to direct order only, or you’ll not see them pushed in brick and mortar stores or they may go nade to order only. I think we might see some games slowly leave warlord, the licensed games for example, unless they are big money spinners, we’ve already seen some go (test of honour). I think gates of antaes is going to fall in the camp of just being a game they sell, minimal new releases but not going anywhere.

Lastly, there was a passing comment on clearing out some product lines, this makes sense to me, holding stock is expensive and some miniatures they sell are slow sellers or dated in their sculpting and quality. I cant see this being a sweeping change, maybe just a small clearout, and maybe replaced by newer miniatures, or going made to order only.

You might have noticed warlord have a “clearance” sale on, mainly cruel seas and SPQR, i think this is the start of their realization. SPQR clearly hasn’t sold well, and is a pants ruleset, so there clearing off stock, will they drop the game in its entirety? maybe, to be honest i doing think it will be missed. Cruel seas is more interesting, John specifically mentioned it being a candidate for ratalisation, and i think you can see they are selling stock off, but i think the game will stick around, its is somewhat unique, pretty easy to made to order and they also invested in plastic tooling for it, so i cant see it going.

Overall, i think there going to start tidying up their range, we might see things go direct order only and maybe a few games will get dropped, but i think the established stuff is here to stay, it might just continue to be sold rather than have regular releases.