Funny anecdote: When someone saw the upcoming steampunk dwarfs for AoS, he didn’t think of a Fantasy release but thought, GW brings back the squats :o
What has this to do with Merret? As a layman in IP, he thought, the only way to protect GW IP in Fantasy is to kill everything that is too generic, starting with (historic) Bretonnia first, then killing every classic Fantasy race. Therefore the weird initiative to add random letters to classic names like Aelfs, Oruks or Ogors and hoomains (okay, I made that one up ;)). Therefore the initiative to make every race look like 40k close combat troops (as Merret probably thought that this design is genuinely GW), introducing Fantasy Space Marines living in an orbital station (<-no joke). He wouldn’t have stopped until all races lost their traditional Fantasy appeal.
All this was a panic reaction to the Chapterhouse lawsuit, when GW higher management was confronted with the fact, that you can’t keep other companies from making miniatures compatible with GW products. They thought that they needed to make every product super-specific to save GW IP, they thought they had to destroy Warhammer Fantasy to save it more or less. To add insult to injury, GW celebrated 30 years of a rich Warhammer Fantasy universe months after completely eradicating it.
Of course these are reactions, only a person not familiar with IP law and not familiar with miniature games can make (like Merret and Kirby and Wells <-Shampoo manager). For people like us and the design team it is clear, that you just have to make high quality miniatures and good rules plus setting to stay on top of the business, that cross-inspiration among companies strengthens, not weakens the business. And in the special case of Chapterhouse: That for every 1$ SM shoulder pad from them, you have to spend 5-10$ on GW products. It is basically in self-defense, when small companies arise to fill the needs, GW doesn’t want to fill for years (e.g. Blood Bowl teams, Tervigon, Thunderwolves, female Farseer etc). But try to tell that to a second grade lawyer or accountant who hasn’t played a single game.
Yeah, Alan Merrett was almost single-handedly responsible for the decision to run with AoS, and has now cough resigned cough and not at all been pushed out due to AoS being a complete failure, no, not at all, that’s a complete coincidence. I never got on with him on a personal level either - not that that means I wish him ill, or anything, but let’s just say that his complete inept incompetence as GW’s “protector of the IP” combined with a personality clash means I for one am not shedding any tears that he’s decided to do the honourable thing. (I wondered if something was up when the spectacularly good Genestealer Cultist models appeared recently. Merrett always hated GSCs and refused to let anyone do anything with them. I guess his influence was already waning).
Rountree isn’t particularly well-liked within GW itself AFAICT, but looking at what GW are doing from the outside since he became CEO, they’re definitely heading back in the right direction IMO. Not that it seems to be making much difference to their financials just yet, but there is, I think, a growing appreciation among the general public that GW are at least trying not to be pure unfettered evil nowadays, unlike a year or two ago. We’ll see what happens. I have a small amount of hope, and I honestly thought hope had died as far as GW is concerned.
Thank you kindly for the very good summary, Firehammer!
Merret’s distaste of Genestealer Cults was renowned. Even I somehow know of it. I can understand it from a background level, though, but the new models themselves win the argument. 40k is better off with Genestealer Cults.
However, for the sake of completeness, is there anything particular known which you would put on his positive account? He was involved in the Visions of Heresy project according to White Dwarf, so is it possible that Merret as long-time head of GW intellectual property was instrumental in the company’s succesful venture into what previously was vaguely mythic 30k?
Also, on the issue of GW’s sculpting style drift, I believe the shift to AoS has largely been just a jump along the curve which GW was already heading down, apart from the dose of 40kifying and bizarre attempts at IP-uniqueness such as reptile-riding Dwarf slayers. Just look at the steamhorse, monowheel Dark Elf Chariot and the 8th edition Squat models, namely the Gyrocopter/-bomber and engineer Burlock Damnison. It is not what you would call classic fantasy miniatures.
@Admiral: 1.) I can’t understand why Merret didn’t like Genestealer Cult. They are among the oldest Tyranid miniatures, first released 1990 in a Space Hulk supplement, 3 years BEFORE 2nd edition. When Bob Olley made his metal sculpts, the Genestealer Cult sculpts were more numerous (and maybe better) than the other Tyranid sculpts of that time. They fit the Genestealer background perfectly and have been well liked by Tyranid fans since then, being present in 2nd Edition Codex and having a semi-official Genestealer Cult list. 2.) In decades of work with GW, it is difficult to be always wrong. Merret didn’t like Tau Titans and Imperial Knights AFAIK. Not for lore reasons but because he thought, they wouldn’t sell enough. I think, they are nice and popular but belong to Apocalypse size games only, making game balance very difficult. 3.) “Modern” Skaven and Dwarfs were released late, when Harry and Hastings were giving us AoS rumours already for a year. So they are part of that plan. If a Fantasy army fits the general image of that army, it is too generic and not enough copyrightable for Merret’s taste. So every new AoS release is intentionally made to destroy the classic look. If you like classic Fantasy armies, AoS is definitely not for you.
@Bitterman: Where exactly does your forum’s name come from
