Games Workshop, I'm done.

I've had a lot of fun with GW games over the years. Without them, I would have been blissfully ignorant of Wargaming. For nearly 20 years I played both Fantasy Battles and 40k and to greater and lesser extents I enjoyed each. In total I amassed 15 armies across both systems, some I enjoyed, some I never got to grips with, some are still on sprues.

My enthusiasm has waxed and waned over the years, but had always held firm.

Until now. At least as far as Games Workshop is concerned. Whilst many have baulked at the ever constant price hikes, I had always felt that the hobby has always been expensive and that I would just need to be more selective with my purchases. Even with the great Games Workshop exodus of 2010, when I began to really get into Hordes I wasn't ready to forego My first love.

I think there are a few reasons for this: very few of my gaming friends were ready to forego Games Workshop entirely, many didn't even start playing Warmachine and Hordes, and of those that did, not all stuck with the new system (and that's fine obviously). Another reason is that the community is much more established for GW. With not just tournaments but also more thematic campaign weekends, due to the number of years head start they had, GW have almost settled into their events more than their competitors. As such, since I've neither the inclination nor the skill to be highly competitive, I'm not too fussed about attending a Warmahordes tournament just yet.

I think that the main reason though is quite simple. I still love the background to both systems.

However, there is only so much I'm going to put up with and these days GW are really grinding my gears.

Their kits are becoming stupidly overpriced for much less value, they are trying to make certain 'must haves' direct only items and this latest move towards supplements is really the final straw.

One of the strengths to GW is aside from the main Rulebook is that if you buy a Codex or Army Book, you have all the rules you need for that army. Sure there are other supplements like Apocalypse, City Fight, Planetstrike etc, but they are optional. But this move towards 'buy this book here, but wait, you need this one too and it costs just as much, then there is this one and this one and you can't play properly without this one' attitude is more than I can bear.

As such, I'm calling time on Games Workshop. I've much more desire to play Warmachine and Hordes than I do Fantasy or 40k anyway, so I'm not too fussed.

Now I'm not going to forego my armies entirely, after all I've spent a lot of time and money on them, however fifteen armies are a lot of shelf space for what is now a secondary set of games at best. As such I am intending to downsize my collection dramatically and shall be putting many of them up for sale.

It's sad that I've come to feel like this about them, but I do feel that Games Workshop's greed and desperation have driven me to this.