Nasty Hobbitsess

The companions to the dwarves in the last update, a host of hobbits!

These are all old oop classic citadel halflings.

A real joy to paint. One of the things I like about painting commissions is that I get to paint things I otherwise wouldn't, like a bunch of hard to find miniatures! It really had me thinking, and not for the first time, what is wrong with GW? I swear that their decisions can only adequately be explained by a desire to socially condition gamers:

GW exec "They want what? Squats? Zoats? Fimir? New Blood Bowl sculpts? Man O'War? Hell, I haven't seen a fimir around here in ages, we stopped making them and all the rest of that stuff. Why? To make more shelf room for Space Marines that's why! Yeah yeah, I understand shelf room doesn't matter much in the age of internet orders, but it's Space Marines, they'll love em! What? Well maybe they'll stop loving that other stuff once they forget about them- just keep showing the new, limited range we're plugging: that'll do the trick.  Yeah yeah, I know the other stuff would sell, but not as well as the big dogs we push, if we continue to remove that other stuff they'll have no choice but to buy what we want them to buy!"

Really, it's all I can think of: Space Marines & certain items, like 40k in general have a greater profit margin, so there must be a belief that eliminating the *less* profitable choices will increase sales in the *more* profitable.  Nonsense.  Just because something sold is less profitable, doesn't mean it isn't worth selling- if it does sell, then they made money, and expanded the customer base & customer happiness, which will create more & more loyal customers as time goes on.  It seems completely illogical to think that if people can't buy a new GW Blood Bowl team, or new (or old classic they chose to stop making) Epic armies that instead these folks will just play 40k instead.  Some might, but I'm guessing most won't: they'll head to Impact minis, Greebo, Willy, Gaspez-Arts, Neomics, convert their own, or more for Blood Bowl, or maybe pick up Dropzone Commander for their small-scale fix.

What if all businesses did this?  Should Coca-Cola stop producing Dr.Pepper simply because it doesn't sell as much as Coke? An absurd idea. Without the choice of Dr.Pepper some may choose Coke, but many might chose a replacement that isn't something they produce.

I'm just a small unimportant little business, much like a hobbit, so far from me to know everything that goes on in the concerns of the 'Big People' but my common hobbit sense says people will be happier with your stew if it has potatoes, onion, celery, and tomatoes in it, rather than just load it with nothing but potatoes just because it's the favorite and it's easier to plant nothing but potatoes.

A lot of the new stuff GW has come out with recently is great, but people still want these classic sculpts, as well as other things, and I can't help thinking GW is crazy for not continuing to make them available and maintain and expand the older games many still love.

And this is sometimes where my mind wanders as I paint some great classic sculpts that are out of production and can't for the life of me think why they should be.

Mental meanderings /off.

... Hobbits!

Click for larger:

The fancy guard was missing his weapon, so I supplied him with a spear.  

So much character in these sculpts, hard for me to pick a favorite, but I'm leaning toward the one at the upper right corner.