{"id":909,"date":"2026-04-27T09:15:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T08:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tesp.co.uk\/OHam\/WP\/?p=909"},"modified":"2026-04-27T09:15:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T08:15:41","slug":"man-o-man-lack-of-understanding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tesp.co.uk\/OHam\/WP\/2026\/04\/27\/man-o-man-lack-of-understanding\/","title":{"rendered":"Man O’ Man – Lack of understanding?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Okay, I’m kinda going to do something I don’t like to do, but… well, I feel like I want to and kinda think it’s a good idea to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I roughly remember when Man O’War<\/strong> came out. I more know it during it’s life span but was never greatly interested. Battles of little ships on the sea… pass. Not a huge interest in that, any more then Little tanks or many 10mm games. Kinda silly of me as It might have been of some interest and looks like it might be a fun little game but limited interest, some of the models looked okay but not fantastic compared to models of people and animals.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Man O’War Box cover. Art by Geoff Taylor<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

That said, as part of order with some bits, I ended up picking up a Man O’War ship which I thought looked okay and could be fun. And I decided to have a little more look into what I missed out on. And what turned up was something I’m not a huge fan of and points out one problem with things such as the internet.. and in fact, probably this blog itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To side track a bit more (but still related), anyone remember the Black and White boom<\/strong>? Back in the 80s, price of printing comic books and such came down, and it also companies in the USA noticed what Japan and Britain (with some others) were doing. Black and White Comics which were equally popular as full colour comics. So as this saved even more money, It became very possible for a company to set up with a little investment and make money with now Black and White comics. Tons of Companies shot up and with some of the new idea of ‘creator owned’ properties showing up as well, many a collage kid used their money to put whatever they had made into print and see it in the shops. I can’t say I would be against such thing as… I have had a minor experience of something of mine being in shops and being sold but that’s neither here nor there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happened was you got some nice works, or atleast works which lead to nice stuff but mostly, you had cheap rubbish. Writers who were their own editors, their own artists etc. Some had some talent but needed more experience, others had.. basically none of this. I could point some examples of this but… I think most people, depending on their interest, wrote or drew or both things when they were between 5 and 10 years of age… and that will probably give you a good idea of what most of it was. Just add big bulks of text where these people believed they were the next big thing and would be earning a fortune from there incredible work… mm.. probably like them kids again. Anyway.. Pretty much anyone could have a comic produced and sold and kinda get no sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well.. the internet is the same thing. You have a small price of entry (hell, you don’t even need that as some Cyber Cafes are still around and some library’s still give free computer access) and then you can put whatever you want up with little to no experience and expect to be the next big thing. And like the Black and White boom, places jumped up to give you pay-for-play advertising. They would take your stuff and make from that. Thought only smart people could write detailed information on a subject and get it seen? well, now you have wikia’s and stuff where ANYONE can edit the information and others can take it as gospel without checking facts. If you have the time, I recommend a site called.. unfortunately ‘The Daily Mirror<\/strong>‘ (or LA Daily Mirror<\/strong> depending on where on the site) where the author did a long and very interesting look into not only the death of Ted Healy<\/strong> (a well known Vaudeville Performer, mostly remembered for creating his ‘Three Stooges<\/strong>‘ and the style which they became famous with) but how Wikipedia had … data on it. Often one linking article gave the other article as ‘proof’ and some things were made up cause when you follow the citation it doesn’t say that at all.. well, you can start reading this at: https:\/\/ladailymirror.com\/2013\/04\/23\/wikipedia-murder-and-myth-part-1-2\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s a long read but entertaining into both how Wikipedia does stuff, but also a look into what happened to Ted Healy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Anyway.. I won’t name the site(s) I’m gonna talk about, though it’s not hard to find.. I’m not trying to declare war or anything, but… It was talking about Man O’war and when the game ended and.. with some ‘reasons’… As I read them I thought “I may not have a full understand of how things work but most of this is rubbish’. So lets look and see if we can learn something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, Man O’War was a side game of GW from 1993, it had 2 expansion sets (‘Sea of Blood<\/strong>‘, and ‘Plague Fleet<\/strong>‘), a bunch of miniatures released and then died after about 3 years with no new edition ever being created, though a couple of new attempts at the same thing were done. Nothing too new about that as 3 years is the average life span of a game in them days, and while I don’t think it’s alot, it’s pretty average and if the game is popular enough, normally they released a refresh or a ‘next edition’ version. Man O’War didn’t get this at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article gives some reasons and I’ll go through each one and my thoughts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

) The Line didn’t sell well so it was discontinued.<\/strong>
This is highly likely. Alot of the side games didn’t do that well and this happened. Some of the cheap ones were highly prone to this, like Mighty Warriors<\/strong>, but you also have games like Mighty Empires<\/strong>, Space Fleet<\/strong>, Dungeon Bowl<\/strong> (to a degree) etc. But this is the most likely reason for it not carrying on. However, GW (or atleast Citedel) was known for at times, trying really hard to push something, even past death, so it’s not a 100% sure thing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

) It was the normal life span.<\/strong>
This is kinda the same as the first one. If the game COULD make it self popular after the 3 (or so) year time span, they would carry it on and do new editions, but if it wasn’t, they didn’t. So why this is seen as a different point, I don’t know<\/p>\n\n\n\n

) 1993-1996 was a time when GW was in the middle of a policy shift where they only wanted to focus on the core titles.<\/strong>
This .. at first, kinda makes some sense but when you look at it, it falls down flat a bit. This time lead to Warhammer Quest<\/strong> (1995), Necromunda<\/strong> (1995), even Gorkamorka<\/strong> (1997). There are probably more but these are just ones which jump to mind. Apart from not doing as many unrelated games (like when GW was also a publisher of other peoples games), there doesn’t really appear to be a big time when they did just greatly streamline there products. Or atleast, not at this time. I would say more the early to mid 2000s was probably more this point. I guess you could argue that figures for them games were fully compatible with the core games, so it was more of a Citadel focusing on core lines but… yeah.. Do I think they would want to produce LESS figures to get people to buy more? nope. Oh and again, around the same time, the relaunch of Epic<\/strong> (1997) which hardly had compatible figures. And wasn’t that Fantasy Battle version of Epic around this time? War Master<\/strong>, or something…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

) Metal models wore out the moulds too fast<\/strong>
Now.. this is what made me write this article. This section is to me, but most rubbish. I won’t quote the text 100% but rewrite it but basically.. Citadel had been able to do plastic models for a while and their work and deal with MB games lead to them being able to produce their own plastics in bulk, though it wasn’t the cheapest thing in the world and they weren’t as detailed. But this did allow the Box sets to be a bit cheaper with alot of plastics, and then you could release miniatures in metal as expansions. Man O’War was like this with all the ships being in metal, apart from the box set ones, which were plastic. The theory states that because many of the ships in the rule books required squadrons of them, they had to make tons of duplicates, therefore wearing out the moulds much faster as they needed to be spun more then normal, which also means less were produced cause once the moulds became unusable, all they could do was remove the product from Sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sigh… where to start with what’s wrong with that… Lets just say Citadel used the standard mould size for metal spin casting. they could probably get about 6 – 12 of each ship on a single mould, much like with the WFB figures. Oh, that’s a point now isn’t it? Warhammer Fantasy Battle was a regimental game where you had large units of figures, often including multiple of the same ones. There isn’t much difference in this, apart from the ships squadrons are probably smaller, and more like the unit scale game like 40K (much smaller units and unit sizes then WFB, but bigger then a skirmish game). What about that second part, once the moulds became unusable all they could do was remove the product from sale… Citadel kept great care of there masters. the original sculpts mostly exist, and the ones that don’t (or got damaged in the original mould making) were replaced with master casts. These are basically casts taken from the first mould. If you want to do a mould which has 6 of the same figure, you need to make 6 casts of the original model, to be able to make this new mould. Even at this time, Citadel weren’t new to making new moulds up for older figures and did so a fair bit. Sometimes you can see some tweaks done to a model for a second mould, other times you can’t. But a Silicone mould, which is 95% what they would have used for a spin-caster, isn’t that pricey for a company which has a whole department (Citadel) which makes the moulds themselves, more then having to outsource it to a third party. In fact, I would be far more worried, at this stage, about the plastics. For a plaster figure, you pretty much need to use steel moulds. These are engraved with a CnC tooling machine and cost ALOT. When you buy a plastic toy, the main expanse if them plastic moulds. the price to make a Silicon mould is TINY compared to them. They do last much longer, but are very pricey to set up and even the casting stuff (well, injection moulding) is more pricey. This is one reason why, to get the most out of the investment, Citadel reused alot of excess plastic figures. When Advanced HeroQuest died, they still had alot of them plastics.. so add some new card (or in this case, print some old art on new card) and you get Mighty Warriors. Advanced Space Crusade died? reuse them figures for Tyranid attack (and Ultramarine I think). need to shift these plastics. Not like Metal where they could melt down old stock and cast up new figures. Of course, if the mould was worn out and there was NO demand (or atleast they didn’t think worth it demand) they wouldn’t make a new mould. But sometimes demand could just be staff members at times. So really, this is just weird.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now.. I tried to find a source for this information about it was due to mould wear out. Most of the information from what I’m taking about, is taken almost word for word from an article done by someone else. So I decided to check that as it appears to be the ultimate source for this information.. and well, it does expand a tiny but but also makes the same and some more problems. So far, apart from the plastic Masts, I haven’t seen any example of the metal ships with ‘frail features’. Well.. it also points out that it’s a “Common misconception” that new moulds can be created from the green stuff sculpts as it’s very likely the green stuff ‘prototype’ was destroyed in creating the master mould. Well.. Yes. Alot of Greens can be destroyed (or atleast broken up a bit) when the mould is made due to the heat, pressure and just it being too soft and bits just not holding together. However, we have, I believe, two issues of note in this. 1) “Master mould”. yep. That’s a key thing. You make a master. Depending on the situation,, you don’t Spin the master much. You spin copies. Like said before, you make a copy of the original model, so you can put multiples of the same figure on a mould. It happens alot with Record production too, not as much these days, but you don’t use the original master tapes much cause you would wear them out, You make a near perfect copy, then use that copy till it’s worn out, then make another copy. you are greatly increasing the life span of the original by doing this. The amount of spins it would have taken to completely wear out would have been pretty high. I doubt they made that many. The production mould is made after the Master mould. The production mould is what you make the 2) they try to claim this is beside of ’90s’ miniature production technology. Well, Alot of it hasn’t changed, or more there are alot of small timers who do it very much in the same style, sometimes with the same gear. OF course, even back then, there is also the method of remoulding. This isn’t favourable but basically, you take a cast metal and make a mould from that. How do they think that, even with ’90s tech’, models from the 70s and 80s could still be in production and used a fair bit? I’m not expert but I think I know enough to say the chance of a mould being worn out leading to no-hope of that model being back in production (or even, a replacement being sculpted, which is something else which happens) is pretty low. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, that is repeating alot of the same bits from the paragraph before but.. oh well. Also I was reminded that around this time, Citadel was swapping to using White Metal. This was a name for a newer non-lead based metal and it did lead to more damage on the moulds when they cast them. Though this would wear the moulds out faster, the same things apply with the masters and stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n

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I had (and still do) an Olivetti just like this Xana 53-120. Image originally from Alma De Herrero blog. It was a model from around 1996<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

) They couldn’t re-issue cause they lost all the computer files.<\/strong>
Huh? They claim when they moved to new offices in Nottingham, they didn’t back up the files on computer, so they lost them and couldn’t re-issue the game or make new stuff… they also claim this might be why GW is soo lax with bootlegged files online for it… oh, give me strength.. Lets say that’s true. They lost the original computer files. They wouldn’t have had to lose one thig.. even without backups, there would be the originals, the galleys and a master copy atleast. These days, GW are a bit iffy on there re-issues (like, to go back to an earlier point, many comic companies) where they just scan in copies of the final produce to recreate files which can be printed. Sometimes they do a good job, sometimes they need to ‘correct’ bits like small holes, and sometimes the work is soo sub-par its a joke. I’ve seen some comic book official re-issues where ‘the only copies we had were ones in a binder with holes punched in them and we couldn’t find another copy or get someone to art correct around the small holes’…. or more, they couldn’t be arsed. If the game was popular enough to make it worth the time, they had sectaries and copy writers whose job it would be to just retype the whole thing into a computer. Take a printed rule book, re-type all the text etc. Hell, if they were doing to do a second edition, alot of stuff would have bene reformatted and moved around anyway. While it might have saved some time to not have to retype it, it wouldn’t have been a death for something. Maybe in the 70s, but this is the mid 90s here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They did move to Nottingham in October 1997, though as Citadel did some of the development in there Nottingham offices, there were probably already digital copies in both sites. But again, even though this was still in the middle of the computer boom, there were paper copies, even if only the final printed versions, which they could have easily used to recreate the files from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the ‘way GW is soo lax’… yeah.. I’m sure the fact they ‘can’t be arsed’ to recreate the files is why they are happy to have what IPs and copyrights they have taken. They are losing enough of them with all the court rulings they you can’t copyright folklore and stuff nicked from other people, which is leading to soo many problems for them (or atleast, for the ones who want to own everything. Did you know Transformers<\/strong> don’t transform anymore? If they did, then Hasbro could lose the name ‘Transformers’ as its a description of what they do, and so any thing that did it could be called that. So Transformers Convert!… no relation to the ‘Convertors’ toy lines form the 80s of course. It’s kinda like how McVities lost the rights to the name ‘Jaffa Cakes<\/strong>‘… they are made from Jaffa Oranges, you proved they are cakes.. there for, you can’t register the name, it’s just what they are, so ANYONE can produce them and call them ‘Jaffa Cakes’, they don’t have to make a sound-a-like name like ‘Orange Cakettes’ or something. Citadel wants rights for there names.. So they have renamed things like the Eldar because of it… So I’m sure that just because it’s been out of print for a little while and they have ‘lost’ the files… sigh…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Well.. I may be completely off base with these, or some, or none. but it just came off to me like someone is trying to put on a ‘information database’ stuff which only makes sense if you don’t look at it. there are tons of places which do that. Hell, I can’t say I haven’t gotten out of a situation by, not lying, but giving only enough of the truth to pass muster to someone that doesn’t know much about a situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just for the fun of it, I check some prices for the moulds.. A cheap 9″ mould, low temp, about 100-150 spins on one place, \u00a3128.40 with Natural Rubber. Macrocosm (which is a good miniature company which also makes their own metal moulds) will do you a mould for \u00a3100 which is good for about 12 figures. If you have 1 figure, and can fit 12 of the same one on the mould, taking the 150 as a average, you can get 1,800 copies of that figure from one mould. Though I’m sure you could probably get more then 150 spins. A company the size of GW probably would have had more then once mould per model anyway. And it would be far cheaper for a big company with their own inhouse production side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyone want to add anything more to this? Personally.. I think the game was just not popular enough to keep it going. End of story. It had 3 years (or so) to prove it’s worth and didn’t. End of story. Models are worth a bit on the second hand market cause of collectors and the short time span it was out for, and with probably limited spins (I still doubt they even COULD have stocked there own stores with only 1 mould of each metal model). At this time, GW was still opening new store In the UK, USA, Europe, Canada and Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway. I’ll be happy to hear other peoples comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, I’m kinda going to do something I don’t like to do, but… well, I feel like I want to and kinda think it’s a good idea to. I roughly remember when Man O’War...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[164,149,219,220],"class_list":["post-909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gaming-comments","tag-citadel","tag-games-workshop","tag-man-owar","tag-rant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tesp.co.uk\/OHam\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tesp.co.uk\/OHam\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tesp.co.uk\/OHam\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tesp.co.uk\/OHam\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tesp.co.uk\/OHam\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=909"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.tesp.co.uk\/OHam\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":929,"href":"https:\/\/www.tesp.co.uk\/OHam\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909\/revisions\/929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tesp.co.uk\/OHam\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tesp.co.uk\/OHam\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tesp.co.uk\/OHam\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}