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Games Workshop Goes After Fan Site

Posted by Soulskill on from the don't-anger-your-base dept.

mark.leaman writes "BoingBoing has a recent post regarding Games Workshop's aggressive posturing against fan sites featuring derivative work of their game products. 'Game publisher and miniature manufacturer Games Workshop just sent a cease and desist letter to boardgamegeek.com, telling them to remove all fan-made players' aids. This includes scenarios, rules summaries, inventory manifests, scans to help replace worn pieces — many of these created for long out of print, well-loved games...' As a lifelong hobby gamer of table, board, card and miniature games, I view this as pure heresy. It made me reject the idea of buying any Games Workshop (read Warhammer) products for my son this Christmas. Their fate was sealed, in terms of my wallet, after I Googled their shenanigans. In 2007 they forbid Warhammer fan films, this year they shut down Vassal Modules, and a while back they went after retailers as well. What ever happened to fair use?"

37 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. No respect for intellectual property... by puroresu · · Score: 4, Funny

    Games Workshop have every right to go after this kind of flagrant IP violation. After all, the company spent countless hours and huge amounts of money inventing orcs, elves, vampires, zombies and dwarves. They should be able to benefit from their creative efforts without some "fan" treating it as if it were in the public domain!

    1. Re:No respect for intellectual property... by Moryath · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You're joking, right? I can see, MAYBE, on the distributing of scans to keep games in service, but even that pushes the limit when you're talking about games with write-on-and-throw-away tracking sheets.

      Games Jerkshop have no love from me on the storefront area either. You know what they do to regular game shops, right? If you want to carry their "product" and have gamedays/tournaments, they demand 60% of your shelf space, have a list a mile long of "competing products" that you have to agree never to stock, insist you carry a certain dollar-amount of product on shelf at all times and never hold a sale.

      Then, when YOU the game store have built up the community, they plop down an "Official Games Workshop" store half a mile down the road, undercut you by selling everything at a 10% discount (remember, YOU are contractually obligated not even to hold a sale), and deliberately do their best to put you under so that nobody in the area is selling anything but GW games. Hell, at one point they actually tried to put Reaper Miniatures and D&D Miniatures on their "products you will not sell" list.

      I for one think it would be best for the world if Games Jerkshop were to fold tomorrow and their IP scatter to the four winds.

    2. Re:No respect for intellectual property... by navygeek · · Score: 3, Informative

      That whooshing sound you hear is the sarcasm of his post over your head...miles and miles over your head.

    3. Re:No respect for intellectual property... by Moryath · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I've seen them kill five stores this way.

      The trick is, they have enough of a player base to seem lucrative (and indeed the store sometimes does make money initially)... UNTIL they deliberately undercut you by plopping down the "Official GW" store half a mile down the road.

      And unless you know that this is what they're going to do ahead of time (none of the stores did, unfortunately) how would you know not to sign the contract? It "looks like" a great deal. You "look like" you're going to get a product monopoly on a product with known interest within a certain area, steady ability to supply the gamers, all the incentive stuff (prizes, ongoing campaign/tournament support, etc) from GW. For the first 2-3 years, the game stores made money on GW merch.

      Then GW smiles broad, stick the knife in your back, and twists. The "Official Games Workshop" store opens up half a mile down the road, and you're stuck holding $40-50k (or more) worth of merch that you can't sell because GW (the same company you signed a contract with!) is undercutting your prices, and cuts you off for prize/tournament support at the same time so you have far less traffic in your store.

      What was really hilarious is that after GW did this to the stores, they closed down half of their own. There's only 2 "Official GW" stores left in my area, because the other three were only there long enough to fuck the existing brick-and-mortar stores that stocked "competing" products. Once the stores were dead, GW left too and directed the gamers to the other "Official" stores 10-20 miles away if they wanted to keep playing at all.

    4. Re:No respect for intellectual property... by jamesbulman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      (full disclosure, I worked for GW for a year back in 1995)

      I don't disagree that their behavior is shady and underhanded, but if you're signing a contract with all these restrictions surely alarm bells should be going off. It's only sensible then that you should do some research into what you're getting yourself into.

      It just sounds like classic selling your soul to the devil for short term gain.

    5. Re:No respect for intellectual property... by Abreu · · Score: 3, Informative

      According to Tolkien himself:

      The word Orc is Old English for Foreigner, Monster, Demon and was used to refer to the Normans invading the English in 1066

      Of course, he was the one who popularized the use of that word in relation to sallow-faced, hunched, warlike humanoids...

      --
      No sig for the moment.
  2. Fair use is a legal right... by calmofthestorm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    meaning you have to fight for it in court which, in the American Legal System means you need to have deep pockets. Most people don't have the cash/want the hassle and so they just fold, even in extremely clear cut cases on their side.

    Fortunately, once ACTA passes we won't have to worry about protecting fair use anymore.

    --
    93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
    1. Re:Fair use is a legal right... by broken_chaos · · Score: 2

      This doesn't even seem to be fair use to me. It doesn't really fit the criteria. Maybe "teaching" or "research", but you'd have to kinda stretch it – and fight it out in court, as the parent mentioned. Fair use is a lot more specific than "anything I think doesn't hurt them", after all – it, and fair dealing, have quite specific categories that the usage of a copyrighted work must fall into, as well as being fought in court if challenged on the reasoning.

      Yes, it's stupid of them (since it's just going to piss off their customer base), but it hardly seems like an incorrect usage of copyright law. Stupid, yes. Unethical, maybe. Incorrect, not likely.

    2. Re:Fair use is a legal right... by abigsmurf · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Fair use is a legal right.
      This is not fair use.

      They're scanning and posting Games Workshop's art, judging from the article, it's all the art relating to games like Space Hulk. They've revived Space Hulk in the past, it's not unthinkable they'll revive it again. Regardless, they're an active company, you don't have the automatic right to almost completely reproduce their work.

      They rely on stuff like codexes and boxed games for a large portion of their income. Given the traditional fantasy nature of their products, it's incredibly important they protect their IPs and trademarks.

      Think they're over-reacting? Look at Warcraft. That was originally going to be a Warhammer game. Their legal team fell asleep on the job, didn't sign a properly binding agreement and Blizzard decided that they'd just remove the GW branding, give the game a slightly different name and keep all the royalties. To rub salt into the wound, they then released Starcraft which again was more than slightly familiar to GW fans.

    3. Re:Fair use is a legal right... by Sockatume · · Score: 2, Informative

      Games Workshop is a British company.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    4. Re:Fair use is a legal right... by JosKarith · · Score: 2, Informative

      They recently (as in about 3 months ago) revived Space Hulk with a new edition...

      --
      'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
  3. Talk about Idiots by DiSKiLLeR · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Talk about Idiots.

    I know someone will step in with the proper history... but did you know, Blizzard was originally meant to make Warhammer games for Games Workshop?

    After they had a falling out and denied blizzard their IP, blizzard modified it sufficiently and renamed it into Warcraft, releasing the original "Orcs and Humans" game. Needless to say, they've had nothing but the most immense success with Warcraft 2, Warcraft 3, various expansions, and now World of Warcraft and its Expansions. As well as giving it a Sci Fi twist and coming up with Starcraft 1 and 2.

    I've always hope Games Workshop was kicking themselves hard over their stupidity for losing blizzard to make their own even more successful franchise when games such as Warhammer Online are a total flop.

    But I guess they haven't really learned anything going by their current behaviour.

    --
    You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
    1. Re:Talk about Idiots by Asmor · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Giving Warcraft a sci-fi twist?

      I think you mean "Doing to Warhammer 40k what they did to Warhammer Fantasy."

      It's pretty obvious that Terrans, Zerg and Protoss are analagous to Space Marines, Tyranid and Eldar respectively. They barely even filed off the serial numbers.

    2. Re:Talk about Idiots by DiSKiLLeR · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Thought I'd add:

      Blizzard of course doesn't go after Fan Art, Fan made movies, and even some of the very questionable stuff that goes on over at darknest (such as model and skin edits in the live game!) not counting all the nude warcraft art.

      I'm not a little happy about the way blizzard sometimes reacts (bnetd, glider, etc) but they certainly give their customers and fans a lot of freedom. I wish other companies weren't so bloody stupid. Why hurt your customers?!

      --
      You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
    3. Re:Talk about Idiots by Asmor · · Score: 4, Informative

      They don't just give the fans freedom, they very actively encourage fans to use their IP (not for profit, of course). They hold regular contests for Warcraft comic strips, feature fan art on the website which ranges from decent amateur to professional quality, they encourage machinima, and of course they're always giving out loads of references to the community. For example, there's a gnome named Breanni in Dalaran who runs a pet store, and she's a direct reference to the founder and maintainer of warcraftpets.com.

      And who can forget their response to the complaints that early Diablo 3 screenshots didn't look dark and gritty enough?

    4. Re:Talk about Idiots by Rogerborg · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Meh, strategy? I gave up on GW products many years ago, when they figured out that the big money was in selling high priced hero figures, with accompanying game-winning special powers.

      You can have fun games of WHFB / 40K / Epic, but they're all horribly open to abuse by anyone who buys to win. I doubt they even playtest most of their stuff any more.

      Still, I guess that is actually "strategy", in the resource management sense.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  4. Wouldn't want that now would we? by Datamonstar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wouldn't want to have people actually using our products now would we? Just keep buying the ones we tell you to buy, or else we'll punish you for not wanting to change to our mindset. It's why I stopped playing D20 games. After 4.0 came out with NO open content, I turned and never looked back. I've always stopped by their stores and thought HOW in heavens they keep afloat. A dedicated shop front for a hobiest game cant be all that efficient. Besides, there's just no way I'd drop that much cash on figurines just to play a game, but then again it's not my kind of hobby. I do play P&P PRGs, after all, and that require quite a bit of pricey dice and books, so who am I to talk? Seeing this now, I'll be pretty glad to see them going out of business soon.

    --
    The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
    1. Re:Wouldn't want that now would we? by Asmor · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's why I stopped playing D20 games. After 4.0 came out with NO open content, I turned and never looked back.

      Well, that's certainly stupid.

      What exactly do you mean by open content? If you mean you're pissed because they didn't allow people to republish WotC's rules and content verbatim, then I suppose that's a legitimate concern.

      But they certainly have opened 4.0 up, and there are plenty of 3rd party products available for it.

      I'm curious, which games do you play, since having an open system is so important? Off the top of my head, the only non-d20 game I can think of which has a semi-open license allowing 3rd parties to publish content is Savage Worlds. And their license, while free, is relatively restrictive in that you must specifically get permission from them.

      If you want to sell your work, you must contact us at PEGShane@gmail.com with your plan and some samples of your work. We'll work with each company on a case-by-case basis. Once we grant your company the license, you can make whatever you want without submitting it for further approval, as long as you follow the guidelines below.

      Be aware that we're looking for HIGH production values--meaning great art, trade dress, and professional layout--as much as we are great content.

      I think BESM had some kind of license, but that game is long defunct. All the other stuff I can think of (True 20, Mutants & Masterminds, Pathfinder, SpyCraft) are d20-based.

      So I can only think of one current, non-d20 RPG with an open license. You've stated that you play RPGs (plural) and that you no longer play d20-based games. You also implied that you only play games with open content, whatever twisted definition you might have for that term. So what are the other games you play?

  5. F'ed over the RPG crowd too by Asmor · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A while back there was much gnashing of teeth in the RPG community because GW's book publishing arm, Black Industries, decided to cancel the RPG (which, by most accounts, had a reasonable level of popularity and success) so they could focus on the novels. This came right around the time I was tentatively getting into Warhammer, and after they did this I went to the GW store at the local mall and asked the manager there to relay the message to his corporate overlords that they'd lost a customer over there actions. And before you start yelling at me, I was polite and I know it wasn't his fault; I just felt that was the best way for me to personally send a message.

    Then a few weeks (or months?) later, Fantasy Flight Games got the license to produce the Warhammer RPGs. Of course, by then I'd already gotten the WH bug out of my system. Which in retrospect was good, since the GW store actually shut down not too much later, meaning if I had gotten into it I wouldn't have had a place to play anyways. /Cool story, bro

    1. Re:F'ed over the RPG crowd too by KermodeBear · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I used to be involved in WarHammer table-top games. The books never did much for me, but the tabletop game was great. I never owned my own stuff; always played with a friend who had quite a lot, so I never needed to.

      Well, he moved away at some point, and I decided that I should get some of my own stuff. That ended very quickly when I found out just how much I had to pay for a single piece of cheap, unpainted plastic.

      --
      Love sees no species.
  6. Re:Warhammer? by polar+red · · Score: 3, Funny

    I would've replied 'where did you live the past decades ? in your basement ?' but ...

    --
    Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
  7. Open Source Gaming by Dartz-IRL · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How long before somebody finally gets frustrated and motivated enough a GNU project for wargames? Call it OpenWarfare, and start with the basic Tenant of the Free Earth Federation,-v- The Corporate Aquilan Empire. Then build from there. All the IP is open, the ruleset is open and independent of any miniatures line. If anybody wants to add to the IP pool,. they can... provided they allow others to make changes. If anybody wants to sell compatible miniatures, they can. Sourcebooks.... Even build their own proprietary IP universe on top of the ruleset if they want.

    How long?

    Probably never, but it'd be a cool idea.

    Damn... I might have to give it a go over Xmas.

    --
    So there I was, scribbling down some notes off the PC screen by hand, when I reached for the keyboard and Ctrl-S'd.
    1. Re:Open Source Gaming by slim · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'm reliably informed by the colleague sitting next to me, that there are "loads" of free wargame and RPG rules out there.

      I Googled, and he's right. Sample hit: http://www.miniaturewargaming.com/index.php/mwg/category/Rules%20Universal/

      Do we have the technology for Open Source miniatures to work? It's certainly easy enough to make a lossy reproduction of a suitably designed miniature, by making a mould and melting some lead. 3D printing could become mainstream soonish. It just needs enough people to be interested.

  8. Surely this is the topic where... by williamhb · · Score: 3, Funny

    Surely this is the topic where the moderation ought to be "+1 Troll".

    (And if it's a troll, I'm guessing it's +1 to the strength stat.)

  9. Space Hulk by sapphire+wyvern · · Score: 4, Interesting

    BGG's game ranking charts are quite influential in the board-gaming world. A lot of local hobby stores have them up on the wall as a quick guide to some excellent games. Until quite recently, Games Workshop's new edition of Space Hulk was in the top ten games. It's now dropped to number 170.

    Well, I guess that's what happens when you value greed more than public relations or your fan base (although BGG isn't really oriented towards GW's bread-and-butter of miniatures wargaming).

    1. Re:Space Hulk by LDoggg_ · · Score: 2, Informative

      You're wrong.

      It went from #7 to #170 in 3 days following the cease and desist. It had nothing to do with availability and everything to do with the reaction to Game Workshop's actions.

      --

      "If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
    2. Re:Space Hulk by LDoggg_ · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'm not misinformed about this. The discussion didn't have anything to do with any sales chart. It was the game ranking on boardgamegeek.com which is based on how well liked a game is, not how well it is or was selling.

      I know very well that the game was limited print run, I made sure to pick up a copy before it sold out.

      abigsmurf is wrong about why it fell on the game rankings chart. The game was #7 three days ago which was already well after most places have sold out. Had it not been for the cease and desist, it would have remained highly ranked for quite some time.

      --

      "If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
  10. GW by Turn-X+Alphonse · · Score: 3, Informative

    GW have become the biggest problem in Wargaming, their game systems are terrible and their approach to making profits is "Jack up prices to make up for less customers". They keep releasing new editions which dumb the rules down and then they release army rulebooks where there is no balance (in Fantasy there are 3 tier 1 armies, you play 1 or you lose to them, in a game of 15 factions or so), but little kids buy into GW as the gateway drug. They are only just starting to release nice models, but you need so many of them it becomes insanely expensive to build any sort of real army.

    If you're a wargamer and wish to play a good game and support a good company then get into Warmachine/Hordes. It's a more mature game with better quality miniatures, with balanced rules and a company that supports it's fans. Privateer press are updating to a MKII version for January, in doing so they have released the rules for every model and the main rulebook for MKII for free on PDF. They also consider fan feedback in balancing things, they are currently running a fieldtest for the beta rules for Hordes MKII, fans get to play the game and they can give feedback on how to buff/nerf a model if they wish. PP take this into consideration and did fix issues with Warmachine MKII models.

    Privateer also support their game systems. They started out making D20 books but moved onto Wargaming (and now boardgames) and intend to return to the roleplaying side of things where possible, but in their bi-monthly Magazine you will always find 5 pages dedicated to a new scenario for the roleplaying, as well as about 10 pages of solid fluff for the Iron Kingdoms, some examples are alchemist guilds famous through out the land to how humans discovered magic and the secret society that grew up from that. To supplement this, their roleplaying books are now out of print, so they have put them up as PDFs for people to download from several E book sites.

    Privateer press are not perfect and maybe in the future they will become the new GW, but as a wargamer I am happy to support a company that tries to support the community around it. One example that sticks out in my mind is there was a new faction released recently, on the forums people were discussing what their robots were made out of, no one was quite sure and one guy requested some official word. 20 minutes later the lead writer had posted with at least an A4 page's worth of text explaining every possible detail you could wish on the subject. PP isn't a small company and yet it's staff members still do things like this and get "into the trenches" with the fans.

    Disclaimer : I play PP games, I don't work for them in any way. I dislike GW because I see what a mess they make and yet they keep selling people their personal brand of crack, which restricts the wargaming industry and does more harm than good in general.

    --
    I like muppets.
    1. Re:GW by Sockatume · · Score: 3, Informative

      They keep releasing new editions which dumb the rules down

      I keep hearing this, but I got into 40K on the second edition (first if you don't count Rogue Trader) and it was an unplayable mess if you went in with more than a dozen miniatures and two players. It was a great skirmish game as Necromunda showed but it was an utter dog in the large-scale games it was originally designed for. Dumbing down the rules to allow actual strategic play instead of 2 hours of dice rolling per turn was essential. That was accompanied by a shift towards good, cheap, plastic miniatures for army-building (likewise in Fantasy Battle), which hugely improved the ability to actually build an army. I got out shortly afterwards, but from what I can see, GW's games are cheaper and more playable than they've ever been. That's not to say that they're cheap, or playable, but they're a sight better than they were in my day.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    2. Re:GW by nosferatu1001 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Huh?

      GW keep wargaming alive, as they bring in new players. Hence the term "Gateway drug" - PP would die a death as it tends to attract people who already play WG. THey also have the money to invest and actually innovate - like the washes, foundation paints, full 3D rendering and production of HIGH cost plastic moulds (you say they are "cheaper plastics" - only once you have paid for the mould, at £30k per avg sprue, £90k for the Baneblade sprues. Still think theyre cheap? Or you still talking out of your arse?) - that PP et al cannot hope to match. Never mind the gaming boards, spray paint that actually undercoats without losing detail (noticed how the non-GW has changed recently? GW have licensed this out...) and without streaking / bobbling, and the other innovations. they don't do everhything perfectly (seriously, vac formed blast scapes? Thats worthy of a lesser company, they moved from vac form crap years ago for everything else) - least of which is writing a tight set of rules witihni every army book. However they stilld o far more good for the community?

      "Keep releasing new editions" - once every 6 years? Care to supply how many Warmachine versions there have been in the last 5 years, and how many reprints? Oh wait, that would undermine your point! PP is also 1/3rd owned by GW....

      They have also stated they write *1* FAQ to avoid the horrible mess you had in the past. But again, you dont know that, or choose not to mention this as it undermines your point. Again.

      40k 5th ed is a vastly more tactical game than warmachine or 4th ed 40k, yet you won't know this. You jsut claim, without proof, that the game has been dumbed down - yet I was 12 when I picked up 2nd ed, and 12year olds pick up 5th ed now. The exact same market has been targetted for the last 20years, ever since retail opened - or are you too /. ignorant to understand that?

      Disclaimer - I don't work for GW, my bd used to and left because, sadly, the people side of GW is run atrociously. However the quality of the miniatures has never been higher (waiting for Blancheites to counter, to which the counter is look at new skaven, theyre modelled off original artowrk...) and the actual products they sell are very high quality.

  11. While we are mentioning fan projects GW shut down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Might as well mention the fan-made video game Space Hulk ... former Space Hulk that is. After getting threatened by GW and stalled for a long time they apparently pulled a Blizzard and rebranded the game with their own scenario.

    It's called Alien Assault now: http://teardown.se/ No more free PR for Games Workshop I guess. Instead, lots of negative publicity all around gaming sites :D

  12. Re:The downward spiral. by sapphire+wyvern · · Score: 2, Informative

    You're thinking of Wizards of the Coast, publishers of Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering.

  13. Lesson of TSR by markov23 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We used to have a company called TSR that behaved this way -- they sued all of the their fans that tried to keep D&D alive and didnt understand the economics of this type of community. When wizards got the license -- regardless of all of the harping on this forum about them -- they embraced this type of community and created the OGL. Their discussion with publishers was we can either fight over each piece off the pie or try and make the pie bigger. It was a completely different approach and it worked amazingly well. GW will figure that out at some point -- or go away like TSR. GW has every right to protect their ip -- it is theirs and they spent a lot of money developing it -- it just may be bad business to go about it the way that they are. And Im sure ill get abused for this next comment -- but with all of the slamming of wizards in this forum about them not being open -- you are confusing open for free. Open is important for the community -- free is not. If free is the most important aspect of a gaming system -- stay away from rpgs -- I play them and I want professional content created by talented people -- and those people like to get paid.

    1. Re:Lesson of TSR by Remus+Shepherd · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Of course, the company that invented the OGL has now abandoned it.

      Which means one of two things. Either they have learned the opposite lesson -- opening your IP is not good for profits -- or every generation of managers forgets the lessons learned by the ones that came before.

      Either way, it doesn't look good for GW's future.

      --
      Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
    2. Re:Lesson of TSR by WWWWolf · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Of course, the company that invented the OGL has now abandoned it.

      My gut feeling tells me the abandonment of OGL was Hasbro's doing, not WotC's. Hasbro is the type of company that isn't concerned about people actually using the products for anything at all, just that people shut up and pay for that stuff. (And yeah, I'm feeling a bit weird defending WotC, who itself believed in gutting money from people with their cardboard crack. =)

      But yeah, I'm fairly certain that somewhere, somehow, there was a change in management and a new boss forgot to figure out all good things that the old boss had done right. And in GW's case, those who forget the history are doomed to repeat it.

    3. Re:Lesson of TSR by BobMcD · · Score: 2, Informative

      From http://www.seankreynolds.com/misc/howIgothiredatTSR.html:

      In 1995, TSR was really clamping down on web sites with fan-created AD&D material ...

      I remember it also, but thought I'd find you some sort of a source. Google has more, I'm sure.

  14. Re:Typical Games Workshop by habig · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They've also introduced, with great fanfare, and then eliminated a whole lot of games. What are some of GW's best games? Mordheim (discontinued), BloodBowl (discontinued, though I expect it will come back now they've got a computer version), Battlefleet Gothic (discontinued)...

    Blood Bowl is actually a post-GW success story, independent of the computer game. The rules have been updated continuously by the player base, which has really cleaned the rough edges off what was already a pretty good game (google on Blood Bowl Living Rulebook). There's also an active tournament scene out there, with an international governing body (NAF) and ladder rankings. One can still buy the basic boxed set from GW (along with packs of team minis), download the current rules .pdf from the net, and play. Or, go buy any of the high-quality 3rd party miniatures out there, download the rulebook, download board-making instructions, and play without giving the Evil Empire a penny. I guess it's hard to sue people for making football-themed fantasy miniatures.