So GW blew up the WH fantasy world....

I mean literally- they destroyed it, and created a new world of pocket realms, do get away from large armies and move to a skirmish game. They said it was to renew and reboot, but:
- Fantasy sold about 10-15% of 40K
- had a loyal, but small and invested older fanbase (read: few new customers)
- they couldn't trademark words like elf, dwarf and orc, so they changed them to Aelf, Duardin and Orruk to control the IP in the new game.
- in business news, its widely seen as a trainwreck of a company- no braintrust, just a 'milk the IP' with high prices attitude
- they are suffering as they priced themselves out of the growing market
- they chained themselves to long term leases at the end of the shopping mall era, losing a ton of money

They still produce beautiful figures, but other companies are catching up fast, with whole games with dozens of figs for the cost of one GW one. Still, sad to see the company that had such an influence on the industry in a tailspin.

Bizarre - it's like GW is the the Microsoft of the miniature war-gaming world.

Warhammer Fantasy's appeal was two-fold:

1) Strong iconic/archetypes: OD&D's monsters and world were always ill-defined and this was not a bug but a feature, Gygax wanted to give just enough of a frame-work so you could recreate whatever fantasy novels you were reading. This meant that the illustrations in the first MM (that were done independently of Gygax's descriptions) had a huge influence. Gygax's kobolds were another type of demi-human, it was Sutherland's illustration turned them in the reptile-dogs beloved today. There is an old Dragon articles showing the wide varity of 'orcs' minatures in that era - they were everything from deformed humans to pig-faced beastmen to large ogres.

GW's fantasy world was far more consciously crafted. There is no debate what a GW 'ork' looks like - big, green, muscular, tribal, yelling. It was the GW ork that set the template. The icongraphy that Warcraft would distribute across the globe was almost all GW's versions. I just read about Pathfinder's 'iconic' goblins but they seemed to basically be GW's anarchist goblins. I suspect that 80% of what people mentally picture for 'standard fantasy' is more GW than D&D.

Part of this success was they were making a 2000AD/laddish clone of D&D. This is not some auteur's vision of weird and unique races (like Talislantia or Skyrealms of Jorune), this is the standard elfs/dwarfs/orcs done in full-color comicbook style with a dash of punk.

2) That dash of punk... - Gygax's vision was ill-defined but still identifiable. His D&D had it's roots in the core of much US fantasy: the Western - and also the US occupations of 'mystical' Asia (Japan/Korea/Vietnam). So D&D is all frontiers and orientalism. The fact TSR would also publish Boot Hill and Oriental Adventures is no mistake.

GW has the unmistakably European whiff of old dense cities and decaying empires.

John Blanche wrote:"To me our fantasy is much darker than American High Fantasy, certainly more violent, and more oppressive. But it's also very real. I didn't see fantasy being occupied by shiny characters, it was all very Dickensian. Fantasy denizens to me all look like Fagin. Everybody has an eye-patch and a wooden leg, dirty fingernails, and worn clothes. And thereby lies the strength of it. It is evocative, there is so much background there, the universes are so strong."

Gygax was a kid of the 1930s and his tastes ran to jazz and B/W movies. The GW staff were younger and their tastes more current. Both D&D and GW took Moorcock's "Law/Chaos" metaphysics but D&D slathered it in Christianity and got chaotic demons/ lawful devils. GW took this concept and applied it to heavy metal (Khone) and glam-rock (Slannesh), evil conspiracies (Tzeentch) and crusty punks (Nurgle) and devoted whole books to it.

The GW were both closer to the source of fantasy (i.e Tolkien and Moorcock were English) and more cutting-edge in their influences. OD&D reminds me of a cover to a pulp novel, GW of a 2000AD comic. There is a generational gap there and it took me longer to understand D&D's roots because of this.

But now that's over with. It's all IP concerns and market share.
And with that the deep current of counter-culture and black parody that was so essential to the early days of GW is gone. 

This was a company that once titled a supplement with the same phrase Margret Thatcher used to attack the mining unions.







In fact they published a whole scenario based off of that pivotal coal miners strike of 1984 where "police and Government are cast as evil oppressors, orcs and wicked magicians, whilst the miners are the stalwart dwarves"! (And lest we forgot Gygax was once described as an "anti-war cleric" for his vocal religious opposition to the Vietnam war).

The problems with all parodies of fascism and authoritarianism is that if the parody is lost you are just left with fascism and authoritarianism.... as Poe’s Law states: Without a blatant display of comedy, it is impossible to create a parody of extremism or fundamentalism that someone won’t mistake for the real thing.

Warhammer 40k is blatantly anti-fascist (a lot of anti-fascist media came out of the UK in the mid- to late 80s…wonder if that could possibly be related to Thatcher?), but it messes around too much for that condemnation to carry any weight among people who don’t want to hear it.

When you completely disengage your critical thinking, it becomes very easy to embrace Warhammer 40k’s fascist architecture.

I’m not suggesting they change anything major—remember, I do love this game—but as I watched the electoral results with mounting horror on Tuesday night, I found myself wandering into some of the more aggressively awful spaces I’ve explored for research, to see how they were taking the news. They were naturally jubilant, and at one point I once again came across that picture of Trump, his face photoshopped onto the God-Emperor’s radiant body.

I snapped my laptop closed in disgust (as I did several times that evening) and my eyes were drawn to the Imperial Knight I had been painting that morning to take my mind off the election, sitting on my desk. I was briefly seized with the urge to hurl it across the room. Luckily the urge passed because it’s an 140 dollar miniature...

https://www.themarysue.com/warhammer-40k-fandom-fascism/

What kind of people stage make-believe wars with armloads ofSpace Marines? A lot of the time, it’s real Marines. Games Workshop’s U.S.-based outreach manager estimates that 20 to 25% of Games Workshop’s American customers are active members of the military. If you include veterans, she says, that number jumps to about 40%.

Warhammer 40,000’s geeky shell hides a militaristic soul. In 40K mythology is less important than victory. “My whole goal is to kill you,” explains Charles Pope, a former Army sergeant. “I don’t want prisoners.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/gaming/2012/09/warhammer_40k_why_american_troops_love_to_play_a_game_featuring_orks_necrons_and_space_marines_.html

also see:
https://roadtonowhere.forumotion.org/t125-cyber-farmer-convicts-in-china

I find this fascinating, because it lays bare why my preferences are what they are. The GW stuff is technically superb and beautiful, but it always left me cold because as you say, the world was an old one, in ruins and decay. In the various fantasy worlds of TSR, the worlds were equally old, and in flux/decay and turmoil, but it didn't feel that way.

I think for me it came down to two things: Artwork and fiction.

The TSR artwork was clean and focused, very corporate in its approach. As you said, pulp novels covers. The GW art is more edgy in technique and content, it is filled with images that remind me of the Durer engravings for Dickens books about London, as well as Bosch and other medieval artists that pushed the boundaries.

The fiction worlds brought D&D to life for me- I haven't read Tolkien, so it was Gygax and Co. that formed my view of fantasy- they created the archetypes, even though they were adopting Tolkiens and Moorcocks. The Frontierism is at the core of my view as well- exploration and such of world that are wide open, and not especially dangerous- or at least in a much less graphic way. GW just seemed vastly more lethal, gory and filled with conflict. I guess for me TSR stuff = fun, GW stuff = danger. Not to me, just to characters.

Not being a music person, its interesting about the musical connection- Things with certain British/industrial/chaotic aesthetics never appealed to me. The GW art, Hard Boiled (the GN) is by all accounts a great book, but opening it to me is like reading 'wheres waldo?' because its so busy. Same with music that doesn't have a strong melody to follow. I get lost easily and its unsettling. Ditto for 2000AD.

With Howard and Lovecraft, I am in and out- they have a lot of the frontierism, but also (Lovecraft in particular) the UKism as well.

I guess at the root of it, the 40K tagline says it all- in the grim darkness of the far future there is only war. Even the fantasy world had an air of hopelessness, despair and nihilism. The TSR stuff always had a optimistic heroic vibe, where heroes could change the world.

It also explains a lot of the GW appeal to military folk. Which is a bit concerning. I remember when we saw Starship Troopers, and some people loved it for hoo-yaw jingosim, or hated it because they took it seriously- they didn't see the satire. I still think its brilliant and use 'would you like to know more?' in my classes.

Interesting to self-examine preferences.