Games Workshop Online Community

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The US Games Workshop Official Forum.
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The US Games Workshop Official Forum.[1]

The Games Workshop Online Community refers to the registered members of any internet fora or websites specifically for the Games Workshop miniature wargames: The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Warhammer 40,000. The Official Games Workshop community has well over 300000 registered users, and growing .[2] At the end of 2005, the official fora 2700 forum posts per day, and this had increased to 3000 by November 2006.

In addition to the official website, "Community" inately implies Games Workshop's fan base, and in the past the company has recognised the work of unofficial fansites (notably for their participation in the Worldwide Campaigns, giving them credit in White Dwarf magazine).[3] In fact, when the official Games Workshop forum closed in November 2006, the company forced discussion onto fansites dedicated to the hobby - partly to cut costs, and partly because other sites offered a better forum service.

Contents

[edit] Worldwide Campaigns

The promotional "Gimli on Dead Uruk-hai" miniature, released for The War of the Ring Campaign.
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The promotional "Gimli on Dead Uruk-hai" miniature, released for The War of the Ring Campaign.

Games Workshop has run numerous Worldwide Campaigns for its three core game sysyems. In each campaign, players are invited to submit the results of games played within a certain time period. The collation of these results provides a result to the campaign's scenario, and often goes on to impact the fictional and gameplay development of the fictional universe. Although in the past, campaign results had to be posted to the United Kingdom to be counted, the more recent campaigns have allowed result submission via the Internet:

These Campaigns have been highly successful; the War of the Ring Campaign, for example, had 3007 registered participants, with 27239 recorded wargames.[3] Other unofficial campaigns have been run by smaller fansites, such as the Campaign of LoTRs, run by The Dark Council and Cheeseweb.

[edit] Wider Community

[edit] The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game

There are a large number of unofficial websites and forums for Lord of the Rings players. Although primarily concerned with the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, many of these sites attempt to encompass all gaming to do with The Lord of the Rings (the main interest being upon the books by J.R.R. Tolkien and the movie trilogy directed by Peter Jackson). Discussion often also covers The Lord of the Rings computer games (such as Battle for Middle-earth produced by EA Games) and other miniature wargaming manufactuerers and fansites (such as Ebob Miniatures).

[edit] The Last Alliance

"The Last Alliance" (commonly abbreviated as "TLA") is the largest online community for the Lord of the Rings SBG, with over 10,000 registered members. It was founded on 1 February 2003, although it traces back to the older "Mithaearon's Lord of the Rings Battle Game Site" of 2002.[4] The site has grown considerably, with some of its members even credited in the official Games Workshop Supplements; in the past, Games Workshop has also reported on the site's activity in White Dwarf, saying at the time that it had a "huge wealth of material".[5] The site won the title of "Best LoTR Website" in the 2004 LoTR Online Awards. It is estimated that there are over 1000 articles on TLA, ranging from painting guides to step-by-step terrain making guides.

[edit] The One Ring

"The One Ring" has over 2400 members. The website was founded by Gordon Bain ("Silverscott") in 2002[6] (making it older than The Last Alliance[4]) and is run on PhpBB. It consists of an online forum, gallery and article system. The article system has a more comprehensive submission guideline than that of The Last Alliance and other such sites, producing a higher quality article library.[7] There is also the seaonal One Ring Awards (a competition covering various aspects of the hobby), with prizes that usually consist of a box of miniatures.

[edit] The Palantír

"The Palantir" is an online community numbering over 2500 members, originally started out as an e-zine and its subsequent online forum community. However the e-zine soon came out of production as interest dwindled. The current site is run on vBadvanced, and is noted for its running of opinion polls on the homepage.

[edit] Fan Supplements

As of September 2005, the rules for Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game are in their fourth edition. In addition to the official rulesets, Games Workshop has also encouraged the writing of unofficial "house rules" by wargamers.[8] As such, the online community has been responsible for the release of a number of unofficial fan Supplements and other supplementary material on the internet, including:

[edit] Warhammer Fantasy Battles

[edit] Elf Websites

Druchii.net is the largest and most well known Dark Elf-themed website, with almost 11000 members. It has produced a huge number of articles, as well as an e-zine, The Druchii Herald.

Other sites themed around the various Warhammer Elves include Asur.org, based around the Warhammer High Elves, with over 4000 members. Another site, The Asrai, is a large Wood Elf site with almost 2000 members.

[edit] Da Warpath

Da Warpath is the largest community based around the Warhammer Orcs and Goblins, having over 3000 members. It has its own bi-monthly e-zine, and runs modeling and painting contests. Their members were successful in turning the orc faction into a decisive edge [1] during Storm of Chaos Online Campaign, against the Games Workshop [2] plan for the Orcs to be a random wildcard fighting both the defending forces and the marauding Chaos during the in Storm of Chaos Online Campaign in 2005.

[edit] The Underempire

The Underempire is the largest Skaven-themed forum, with over 2600 members.

[edit] The Round Table of Bretonnia

The Round Table of Bretonnia is the largest Bretonnia-themed forum, with about 900 members.
It has a Forum, Galleries and Articles sections.

[edit] Warhammer 40,000

[edit] WarSeer

"WarSeer" is an online forum community numbering more than 15,000 registered members. They host an e-zine called FireBase, which is being created by and for the communities' members containing information about the Warhammer 40,000 game. It is the offspring of an older forum, Portent, and was apparently founded by the members when Portent finally closed its doors in 2005.

[edit] Dakka Dakka

"Dakka Dakka" is an older online forum community. Generally its members are older gamers, and there is less tolerance of "noobs" and trolls. Prominent members include several Golden Demon winners, and non-Games Workshop employees who have had articles published in White Dwarf.[9]

[edit] Bolter & Chainsword

"Bolter & Chainsword" is a Space Marine, Chaos Space Marine, Inquisition and Adeptus Mechanicus-specific community that has been in existence since 2000. It is strictly limited to those armies and threads on other 40k topics are usually closed. It has about 22,900 members. Prominent members include several Golden Demon winners, and non-Games Workshop employees who have had articles published in White Dwarf.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game forum page, as at November 14, 2006.
  2. ^ this has been pointed out by some as being just under 0.005% of the world population, and equal to that of Iceland
  3. ^ a b UK White Dwarf 312 - "Victory for the Free Peoples", by Alessio Cavatore.
  4. ^ a b History of The Last Alliance.com
  5. ^ UK White Dwarf 300, UK White Dwarf 282
  6. ^ The One-Ring.org, answer #7
  7. ^ Article Submission Guidelines:
    *The One-Ring.org Guidelines
    *The Last Alliance.com Guidelines
  8. ^ Games Workshop Intellectual Property:
    "We encourage fellow hobbyists to invent rules that work for them. There is no need to stick precisely to the published rules. However, if you are thinking about making your own Codex [eg.] for your Space Marine chapter (in addition to following the other guidelines in this policy), please avoid making it look official as this may confuse gamers and amount to a challenge to our trademarks. Also, do not copy our official publications or documents."
  9. ^ List of White Dwarf articles by Dakka Dakka members

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] The Lord of the Rings SBG

[edit] Warhammer Fantasy Battles

[edit] Warhammer 40,000

Lord of the Rings SBG Articles

BGiME | White Dwarf | Games Workshop Online Community |
War of the Ring Online Campaign | All at Sea | more...
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