I'm sure Fantasy would had been a giant success of a game system with how nu-GW is handling things. (And is not like they have done anything incredible: Remember the recent price increases, like sc! boxes going from 65€ boxes to 110€ patrols, etc... and the across all ranges price increases. But a little bit of fanbase-engagement and BOOM. Profit! Who would have tought?!)
The proof is that AoS, a complete mess of a game at release has become a great success.
Theres nothing inherently flawed about Fantasy that made it impossible to economically work. It worked for nearly 30 years. And even as early as the 2000-2008 it was bigger than 40k in Spain for example.(Then the crisis came and... yeah)
chaos0xomega wrote:Its absolutely not trolling - its people quite rightly wondering how GW intends to profit off of something that they didn't consider to be profitable enough to continue to support not even 5 years ago, and rationally extrapolating that if GW wants to profit from it they will have to drive sales of new miniatures vs allowing people to repurpose existing figures/figures from their competitors.
The most immediately logical way to do that would be to change the scale, as it prevents people from reusing their existing fantasy minis collections and also prevents GWs competitors from profiting from sales of their own cheaper sub-par 28mm fantasy lines. Theres very little in the way of decent small-scale fantasy miniatures out there on the market currently, and exactly 0% of it is in plastic, whereas everyone and their mother imagining themselves to be the next James Workshop is trying to sell 28mm fantasy plastics that would otherwise work in the old WHFB setting in a pinch. Hell, there are now *tons* of plastic 28mm historical minis that people can and do use as the basis for cheaphammer fantasy armies too. GWs other games all have decent "moats" that have limited the ability of outside entities to market decent alternatives to GWs own minis, 40k proper having the weakest moat of them all - but even then the best alternatives cost more than GWs own minis do, so you're not buying them to save a buck so much as you are because you want something different. Otherwise, other manufacturers haven't really been successful in producing popular alt-minis that you commonly see popping up on tables everywhere the way you started seeing mantics undead standing in for vampires/tomb kings, and historicals based conversions for empire armies, etc. the way you did towards the end of WHFB.
See below on getting people to buy minis.
On the profitability: it wasn't the people who are running things now's idea. The people who decided to scrap The Old World where quite obviously not very good and also appear to have been wrong.
On the scale: it sounds utterly ridiculous to me.
As a person who started wargaming with 15mm ancients (an umbrella term for historical wargames set before the advent of gunpowder) and played that for a decade before touching a GW miniature; 15mm just isn't that popular and GW can not make the insane models that sets them apart at that scale.
There is a reason that pretty much all fantasy and Sci-Fi games are in 28mm; it's the scale you use if cool aesthetics and models are important. 15mm is the trade off if you want a decent amount of detail and nice "figures" to work with, but still want it to look like an army because you are concerned with simulating a battle. 15mm is great for historical, especially ancients.
Models that look awesome on their own? Models that capture the look and feel of a fantasy (or Sci-Fi) setting? 28mm is what you want.
His Master's Voice wrote:Much like a player that does not spend a dime on a free to play game is not a loss for the developer, you would not be a loss for GW.
There are new players out there ready to buy WFB, there are vets that will drop a grand on a new project. And then there's you, with an army ready to play, letting the newbies and vets with new, shiny toys find a game that much easier.
This is just it. Taking Kings of War as an example; (I realise it's not as big as Warhammer, but it is currently a growing game with an active global community).
When AoS happened Mantic released a book to accommodate those old Warhamer armies. The community grew, it was the shot in the arm that Kings of War needed. It is still acceptable to use minis form whatever company for Kings of War (as long as they look the part), that leads to people getting in to Kings of War with miniatures they like.
Mantic is not suffering from not selling those people miniatures. They wouldn't have sold them anything if they had to use Mantic minis to play, but they did (and still do) make the community bigger. It is now common to see people in the community (many of whom only tried Kings of War because they didn't need to buy new minis) start all Mantic armies simply to support the company (the recent releases from Mantic really help too though).
Wargames become more successfuland grow more easily the more people play. That's part of what keeps people playing GW games despite.
Those people who don't need new minis? They're an instant player base for people who do need an army to join. If they enjoy the game and get into it them we all know how many miniatures is enough. There will be new "Old World" minis in their pile of shame before long.
Yeah, I've been using facebook/reddit for a while as informal market research, but it has its pitfalls. You'll also notice discrepancies in numbers between facebook pages and groups.
Unfortunately its hard to know how much "fidelity" there is in the numbers pulled from social media sources. Not everyone is on facebook/reddit, and not everyone who is on facebook/reddit is a member of the relevant groups/pages/subreddits, etc.
I suspect to some extent there is an age skew to the data, with reddit trending younger and facebook trending a bit older (hence why Mordheim only has 4k subs on reddit but 14k on facebook - young whippersnappers are less likely to know about Mordheim or to have experienced it or hold it in any particular regard vs older gamers who view it through their nostalgia goggles). To some extent I suspect that this makes data collection somewhat perilous for two reasons:
1. Age thresholds for social media use - there is some unknown age threshold (I'm sure you can figure it out with some google searching though) after which older users become significantly less likely to be on facebook, and those who are on facebook become significantly less likely to be "engaged users" (i.e. following pages or joining groups). Lets put this, arbitrarily, at the age of 50. So those gamers age 50 and older (im being generous, I suspect the number is really somewhere between 35 and 45) are underrepresented in the facebook user population as a whole, and this is compounded because they are also underrepresented in group.page affiliation.
One might argue that this trend is manifesting in the data by way of smaller membership for WHFB groups - if we assume that WHFB peaked in the early 2000s, then its logical to assume that the average age of its player base as of the year 2000 (the year 6th released, apparently the edition that started the downward trend if rumors and hearsay is to be believed) was probably about 35 years of age (which seems to be roughly the "falloff age" at which people seem to start dropping the hobby in the greatest numbers).
These were people who hopped on the bandwagon in the late 80s and through the 90s as teens or twenty somethings and rode the popularity wave to its crest before real life got to them and they moved on to more adult things (like working overtime and having families). Add 20 years onto that and you're looking at the average WHFB player skewing towards the older end of the pool at about 55 years of age, so the average WHFB fan isn't necessarily on facebook to begin with, AND if they are might not be engaged with the community via that platform. Millennials (such as myself) trended overwhelmingly towards the 40k end of the pool and were mostly post-peak newcomers to WHFB if at all, so there aren't necessarily a lot of us in that community.
As far as games like Kings of War and other similar "WHFB revival" type games, I suspect the data is mixed - I think theres a large number of older WHFB players that aren't being captured in this data, because they likely aren't online or engaged with the game community via facebook. The flip side of that is that Kings of War and others are more recent games, so you're likely seeing the older age groups absence being made up for by millennials and younger gamers who picked up Kings of War to try to keep their WHFB collections valid or who were introduced to the game post-End Times, etc (many of whom likely joined Facebook later on during its growth phase and thus wouldn't have had an obvious reason to sign up for a Warhammer fantasy group, as the game was already behind them).
2. Age relevance. As I alluded to already, I think "WHFB Revival" games trend overwhelmingly towards older age groups, just as more recent games might draw in younger followership, etc. Its logical to assume older IPs that are past their heyday will trend towards older fans (Babylon 5, for example), and younger IPs that are fresh will trend towards younger fans (Infinity for example, has more fans on Reddit than on Facebook), and IPs that are "current" (continuously supported and updated ala 40k) or "revolving" (IPs that come and go through lulls and busy times, like Star Wars which has had fits and bursts of activity every 10-15 years or so followed by relative lulls, or perhaps Necromunda which was really popular like 20 years ago and then dead for the last 10-15 years until the relaunch) will see fanbases spread out over a wider age range with some "clumping" depending on when they were at peak activity periods, etc.
This is further compounded by target age groups of the material itself, something like Star Wars is fun for all ages, for example, whereas Game of Thrones isn't necessarily kid friendly (hence why theres 8k members of the ASOIF group which trends towards millennials and older vs 3k in the subreddit which will trend more towards teens and young twenty somethings who might not have watched Game of Thrones on tv).
So, how do we get 30k Warhammer Fantasy members on Reddit vs like 5k on Facebook? I credit a combination of Total War and the Old World announcement with the natural growth trends of reddit as a platform. Thanks to handy sites like frontpagemetrics we can see subscription counts over time:
The takeaway here is that the subreddits popularity only came relatively recently. Total War released May of 2016, the subscriber count was about 2800. When the sequel released in September 2017 it was 3700. In November of 2019, right before GW announced TOW it was 10.7k (which makes sense, Total War has been a slow-burner in terms of popularity, or maybe its been a slow-burner in terms of the transition of newcomers from the game over to interest in the minis, either/or it took some time before I started noticing people coming into the hobby with a total war pedigree, and most of the interest seems to have been funneled towards Age of Sigmar or 40k due to the unavailability of WHFB). Since then, subscribers have basically tripled - in terms of age demographics, we can assume that people playing Total War trend towards the younger end of the population and the IP captured their interest and led them towards the warhammer sub. Likewise, the Old World announcement might have captured the interests of younger GW fans who might have been too young to know or care about WHFB 5-10 years ago.
So all of that is to say that these are helpful open-source data collection resources, but not necessarily accurate ones, and are subject ot all sorts of most likely fairly predictable data collection errors that are kind of baked into them by nature.
chaos0xomega wrote: If you want to talk about garbage arguments, this is it. The majority of the old WHFB range is presently available, its just rebranded "Age of Sigmar" and comes with round bases instead of square. Theres a handful of kits from across the range that are no longer available (mainly the entirety of Bretonnia and Tomb Kings), most of which went "Last Chance to Buy" (which as one of the guys explained at one of those event days, often means the molds are being retired and/or destroyed, though sometimes they are just put into storage - given the age of the Bretonnian range, I doubt the molds are still kicking around).
Without counting I'd be surprised if even half the old WHFB range is available now. Some armies got lucky (Lizardmen I think almost everything is still there except maybe some characters, even though Saurus Warriors are very old and crappy models that desperately need an update). But other armies were so heavily culled that a viable army isn't really possible (even if it's technically possible to make a legal one).
I doubt plastic moulds have been destroyed. With resin and metal moulds, they're cheap to make, made from soft materials and the moulds need to be frequently remade and occasionally the master also needs to be remade. Plastic moulds are made from metal, are expensive to produce and don't destroy themselves nearly as rapidly. Destroying them just doesn't seem like a logical thing to do, it's not like they take up a massive amount of space relative to the storage and manufacturing space GW currently need for their operations. Companies that aren't GW often release plastic kits that are decades old, though I think with modern CNC machining getting more affordable that's become less common as making a new mould has gotten easier.
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DarkBlack wrote: On the scale: it sounds utterly ridiculous to me.
As a person who started wargaming with 15mm ancients (an umbrella term for historical wargames set before the advent of gunpowder) and played that for a decade before touching a GW miniature; 15mm just isn't that popular and GW can not make the insane models that sets them apart at that scale.
There is a reason that pretty much all fantasy and Sci-Fi games are in 28mm; it's the scale you use if cool aesthetics and models are important. 15mm is the trade off if you want a decent amount of detail and nice "figures" to work with, but still want it to look like an army because you are concerned with simulating a battle. 15mm is great for historical, especially ancients.
Models that look awesome on their own? Models that capture the look and feel of a fantasy (or Sci-Fi) setting? 28mm is what you want.
I doubt GW will make it anything other than 28mm, saying I want 15mm is just my wishlisting. There's not really any good (at least that I've found) 15mm fantasy models on the market. Some 15mm exist, but they're not great, with detail levels more comparable to 10 or 6mm models. There's only a couple of historic ranges that hit the potential of 15mm models (some of the Flames of War plastic infantry looks good for example).
But yeah, I doubt they'll do it because GW like doing centrepiece models, and 15mm isn't good for that. 15mm is great when you want to represent something that looks like an actual battle with hundreds of models on each side.
One might argue that this trend is manifesting in the data by way of smaller membership for WHFB groups - if we assume that WHFB peaked in the early 2000s, then its logical to assume that the average age of its player base as of the year 2000 (the year 6th released, apparently the edition that started the downward trend if rumors and hearsay is to be believed) was probably about 35 years of age (which seems to be roughly the "falloff age" at which people seem to start dropping the hobby in the greatest numbers).
One item also to consider with the beginning of the decline, the Fellowship of the Ring came out in 2001 starting the whole LotR spike for GW. While I never saw any anyone from the local playgroups move to LotR, new players stopped coming in. They were likely diverted to LotR. Why play this other fantasy game when you can play a game actually based off the movies you just saw. It starved WHFB of new players for several years. Plus, most the older players who stayed around already had armies, so new purchases were not as common.
I didn't see a new wave of players till 8th edition and it was a large group. Sadly GW didn't then release anything for WHFB for almost an entire year and most those players quit due to lack of interest.
6th Edition didn't see a decline in the games playerbase, it was more that during this time you had LOTR release (which caused the infamous "LOTR bubble") and 40K had Dawn of War. With a new game hyped up by successful movies and another game seeing a giant influx of new players because of a video game, the biggest problem with WHFB was that it was basically staying the same, or if it was growing it wasn't as much.
The real decline began in 7th and accelerated in 8th.
6th saw a big growth as it finally was a game that could be used without extensive house rules and was more about units and less about heroes
this lasted until the 7th edi Demon book was released
until that point, most mistakes done by GW (or the lack of doing anything, the famous "we don't need a FGAQ/Errata because we don't make mistakes" statement instead of correcting simple typos) was compensated by the community and a lot of house rules again and were the RAW VS RAI thing started, as a simple typo was taking as "RAW" by some and caused arguments that GW is always right no matter how clearly wrong things are (like having the right value in 2 out of 3 places in the book)
this was also the time people started looking into War of the Rings (with the cheaper models) and also 40k as it was the better rule set by that time
with 8th a lot of people took the chance and quit, as they saw that the bad things of Warhammer continued/growed while the good things were declining and there was no chance that GW would make a turn by that time
(and they were right as it took the new Game to fail hard to finally realise mistakes and turn it around with 2nd Edi AoS, and would Warhammer have seen the same support during 7th as AoS had during start of 2nd Edi, like taking input from widespread used House Rules) Warhammer would have grown as well
chaos0xomega wrote: If you want to talk about garbage arguments, this is it. The majority of the old WHFB range is presently available, its just rebranded "Age of Sigmar" and comes with round bases instead of square.
one problem here is that we don't know which models were still made for Warhammer and which for AoS that are still available
we know that a brand new miniature line takes 3-4 years to release so Sigmarines were already a thing by the time 8th started
we heard arguments from people working at GW by that time that the final game was not decided until short before release so not sure what the models we see during 8th were made for
but what we can see from models is that if a model does not fit its base and is impossible to be used in R&F units, it was not designed to be used that way but for something different
the new Dwarf models we saw were way to big for 20mm Bases and the question why GW made the models larger but did not use 25mm Bases for the Elite units like with other factions did came up a lot and was answered with AoS and we saw 25mm round bases and a Skirmish game
same with the new Witch Elves that were impossible to be used in anything but 5 wide units were the most effective way was 7 or 10 wide
we always see the argument "designed with the new edition in mind" for rules/army books, but it is much more true for models than for rules
hence there are not many models left made for Warhammer, like State Troops or Dark Elves Warriors
kodos wrote: we know that a brand new miniature line takes 3-4 years to release so Sigmarines were already a thing by the time 8th started
I think that 3-4 years might just be the typical, but with a drive to get things done faster they can likely be done faster, especially if GW moved more manufacturing in house. I imagine within that 3-4 years there could be direction changes also, maybe sigmarines were intended as an elite unit for the Empire originally then morphed into what we have.
kodos wrote: but what we can see from models is that if a model does not fit its base and is impossible to be used in R&F units, it was not designed to be used that way but for something different
the new Dwarf models we saw were way to big for 20mm Bases and the question why GW made the models larger but did not use 25mm Bases for the Elite units like with other factions did came up a lot and was answered with AoS and we saw 25mm round bases and a Skirmish game
same with the new Witch Elves that were impossible to be used in anything but 5 wide units were the most effective way was 7 or 10 wide
we always see the argument "designed with the new edition in mind" for rules/army books, but it is much more true for models than for rules
hence there are not many models left made for Warhammer, like State Troops or Dark Elves Warriors
I'd say as early as 6th edition GW were making models that didn't rank up well. The standard bretonnian knights only rank up if you match the heads and bodies correctly with the model in front and behind. I remember my friend moaning many years ago that his Skaven didn't rank up well.
The transition from "practical for gaming" and "display shelf that's useless for gaming" started quite a while back. Even in 40k where you don't have ranks, getting models into combat can be a pain in the arse (Genestealers come to mind).
kodos wrote: we know that a brand new miniature line takes 3-4 years to release so Sigmarines were already a thing by the time 8th started
I think that 3-4 years might just be the typical, but with a drive to get things done faster they can likely be done faster, especially if GW moved more manufacturing in house. I imagine within that 3-4 years there could be direction changes also, maybe sigmarines were intended as an elite unit for the Empire originally then morphed into what we have.
kodos wrote: but what we can see from models is that if a model does not fit its base and is impossible to be used in R&F units, it was not designed to be used that way but for something different
the new Dwarf models we saw were way to big for 20mm Bases and the question why GW made the models larger but did not use 25mm Bases for the Elite units like with other factions did came up a lot and was answered with AoS and we saw 25mm round bases and a Skirmish game
same with the new Witch Elves that were impossible to be used in anything but 5 wide units were the most effective way was 7 or 10 wide
we always see the argument "designed with the new edition in mind" for rules/army books, but it is much more true for models than for rules
hence there are not many models left made for Warhammer, like State Troops or Dark Elves Warriors
I'd say as early as 6th edition GW were making models that didn't rank up well. The standard bretonnian knights only rank up if you match the heads and bodies correctly with the model in front and behind. I remember my friend moaning many years ago that his Skaven didn't rank up well.
The transition from "practical for gaming" and "display shelf that's useless for gaming" started quite a while back. Even in 40k where you don't have ranks, getting models into combat can be a pain in the arse (Genestealers come to mind).
Dwarf warriors didnt rank up well either, at least the shield and axe ones.
I think that 3-4 years might just be the typical, but with a drive to get things done faster they can likely be done faster, especially if GW moved more manufacturing in house. I imagine within that 3-4 years there could be direction changes also, maybe sigmarines were intended as an elite unit for the Empire originally then morphed into what we have.
you can speed up some things by adding more resources, but back in the day GW had not the production capacity they have now and changes in direction are a big problem for sure
and it is different to just make some models for an existing line or to design something new
making new Marines is kind of easy as the basic design does not change and we also see a lot of Copy&Paste in the basic design (same reason why most heroes and big models, in AoS and 40k have the same pose)
but making something that was not there before takes more time and also more time to cast the whole line-up for a world wide release (instead of just 2 or 3 boxes), a reason why we see smaller factions in AoS and more multi-unit kits
I'd say as early as 6th edition GW were making models that didn't rank up well. The standard bretonnian knights only rank up if you match the heads and bodies correctly with the model in front and behind. I remember my friend moaning many years ago that his Skaven didn't rank up well.
The transition from "practical for gaming" and "display shelf that's useless for gaming" started quite a while back. Even in 40k where you don't have ranks, getting models into combat can be a pain in the arse (Genestealers come to mind).
yes that problem started earlier, yet with multi-pose models you could arrange them to fit
with mono-pose plastics, that changed and GW did not really cared about it any more (and models designed for R&F are different from those that need to look good if standing alone on the shelf)
Some of the really multi-part kits of the early 00's didn't line up well, and this is why subsequent plastic kits for WHFB ended up being a lot more static. It was a trend that started with Chaos Warriors and continued from then on.
But the decision to nuke everything and start over as a Skirmish game can definitely be identified and dated when certain kits came out that went back on that design decision.
If indeed that is what they're releasing, I would much prefer a skirmish game, border patrol was one of the best little rule sets they dropped in the compendium.
Plus I know from personal experience the devilish nature of clan rat tails that there's always been problems with keeping Warhammer R&F
AllSeeingSkink wrote: maybe sigmarines were intended as an elite unit for the Empire originally then morphed into what we have.
I think that was originally the plan, considering there's the one piece of Blanche art floating around.
I still hold that AoS was less about Fantasy being a 'failure' so much as Sigmarines not fitting in the setting, so it had to go. It was all about Sigmarines - because Marines sell - and doing whatever they had to in order to make it work, even if that meant killing the setting.
I think that 3-4 years might just be the typical, but with a drive to get things done faster they can likely be done faster, especially if GW moved more manufacturing in house. I imagine within that 3-4 years there could be direction changes also, maybe sigmarines were intended as an elite unit for the Empire originally then morphed into what we have.
you can speed up some things by adding more resources, but back in the day GW had not the production capacity they have now and changes in direction are a big problem for sure
and it is different to just make some models for an existing line or to design something new
making new Marines is kind of easy as the basic design does not change and we also see a lot of Copy&Paste in the basic design (same reason why most heroes and big models, in AoS and 40k have the same pose)
but making something that was not there before takes more time and also more time to cast the whole line-up for a world wide release (instead of just 2 or 3 boxes), a reason why we see smaller factions in AoS and more multi-unit kits
When did GW move mould production in house? I thought it predated AoS?
But I'm sure the 3-4 year design cycle includes a whole bunch of back and forth between artists and decision makers and round tables for moving concepts forward, and a whole heap of planning as to where a new product will sit within the release cycle of everything else that is planned to be released. That sort of stuff can be accelerated if necessary, then the raw design work, mould cutting, production run, boxing and shipping can be done much quicker if the will is there to do it.
I'm sure if the poop hit the fan for some reason and GW needed to completely change tack, they could do it in less than 3-4 years with the resources they have (or had) and could bring in if necessary. I imagine it's more of a 3-4 year plan, which doesn't necessarily mean it takes 3-4 years to get something done.
EDIT: Not saying AoS wasn't in development for 3-4 years, I just don't think having a typical 3-4 year design cycle is proof that it must have been in development that long, but maybe it was.
Kalamadea wrote: People keep talking about popularity of games with anecdotal popularity of their local groups, the closest thing I could think of to any kind of real metric would be members of game-specific Facebook Groups or Subreddits
Spoiler:
Facebook Groups Warhammer 40K: 67K members
Age of Sigmar: has 2 similar sized groups of 24K & 23K members, I'd assume most of the members overlap between both groups
Lord of the Rings: 11K members
Warhammer Fantasy (any/all editions, but AoS discussions specifically not allowed): 5K members
Warhammer Fantasy 6th edition: 4K members
Warhammer The Old World: 13K members in a group just based on the announcement of WHFB returning
Kill Team: 2 similar sized groups of 19K and 16K members, lots of overlap now but the 16K group started as a Heralds Of Ruin fan-made rules Kill Team group
Warcry: 10K members
Underworlds: 2 similar groups of 10K and 9K members, probably lots of overlap
Mordheim: 14K members
Blood Bowl: 24K members
Necromunda: 16K members
Kings of War: 11K members
Oathmark: 3K members
Conquest: 153 members of the US group, 128 for a UK group
Infinity: 8K members
X-Wing: mostly regional groups, largest is an 8K member general group, but there's a 14K member trading group and a 10K member painting group
Legion: 18K members
ASoIaF: 8K members
Reddit Warhammer (generic all-things-warhammer group) 198K members
Warhammer 40K: 352K members
Age of Sigmar: 70K members
Lord of the Rings: 14K members
Warhammer Fantasy: 30K members
Kill Team: 33K members
Warcry: 10K members
Underworlds: 12K members
Mordheim: 4K members
Blood Bowl: 21K members
Necromunda: 14K members
Kings of War: 4K members
Oathmark: only 105 members (although Frostgrave has 4K)
Conquest: 77 members
Infinity: 10K members
X-Wing: 1.5K members
Legion: 16K members
ASoIaF: 3K members
40K is pretty much more popular than everything else combined (no surprise), but AoS is hardly chump-change by comparison. And yet there's clearly still a LOT of people who are at least discussing WHFB. I don't know how much is related to Total War keeping the IP alive and how much is merely nostalgia, but there's very much a large amount of people that still love The Old World even if they now play AoS or have moved on to KoW or others, and there's more interest in WHFB/ToW, a dead OOP game, than the currently produced LotR (which is sad, LotR is great and should be more popular). There's more people interested in a dead OOPWHFB game than the currently produced Kings of War, Conquest, Oathmark and ASoIaF. If LotR is still popular enough to keep the entire line in production (even if much of it is mail-order) then so long as GW makes WHFB/ToW accessible it will be a success. Certainly the interest is more than the 4% of total sales that GW quoted when they killed WHFB, it's just a matter of GW making the game intro-friendly like they have with 40K and AoS
That is quite interesting, though disheartening, thanks for compiling it. I can't think of better data either.
I wonder why the discrepency between Reddit and Facebook for some games? I don't use Reddit so I'm not sure what about it might affect a community preferring it.
That is a lot less than I expected for Conquest. It is rather new, but that is low even then.
I'm not a guru in FB, but while the FB Conquest group has 1070 members (as of just now), Para-Bellum as a company has over 10K followers on FB. I'm not 100% sure how that can be used to measure popularity, but it helps to keep in mind that they only make one game.
I also think it's worth noting that the game released in July(ish) 2019, so the majority of the time that the game has been out they've been growing their brand during the pandemic.
I feel like I'm defending their lower numbers, and I guess I am. It's a great game and while there are some things that I feel could be improved, I feel like it's genuinely more solid than WHFB was, which I was and still am a huge fan of.
I really don't see how this project would make much sense if it had some sort of significant change from what WHFB was, either in terms of the scale or just being limited to a few human factions.
While there hasn't really been any specifics they've shown square bases and gone on about it being a return to the iconic setting, talking about it in a way that gives no indication at all of it being something vastly different. To hype it up like that, showing the old miniatures, the video games etc while saying "Remember WHFB? It's coming back, get excited!" only to omit any indication of something huge like...it won't be anything close to WHFB in terms of the game style, or that a majority of things from the setting aren't relevant because it's very limited in scope? That would just be baffling and likely cause a bit of commotion.I'm not expecting every faction at launch, but this is a big project that they've said will do for AoS what the Horus-Heresy is like, which suggests a narrative-based thing that'll be added to over time.
chaos0xomega wrote: If you want to talk about garbage arguments, this is it. The majority of the old WHFB range is presently available, its just rebranded "Age of Sigmar" and comes with round bases instead of square. Theres a handful of kits from across the range that are no longer available (mainly the entirety of Bretonnia and Tomb Kings), most of which went "Last Chance to Buy" (which as one of the guys explained at one of those event days, often means the molds are being retired and/or destroyed, though sometimes they are just put into storage - given the age of the Bretonnian range, I doubt the molds are still kicking around).
I doubt plastic moulds have been destroyed. With resin and metal moulds, they're cheap to make, made from soft materials and the moulds need to be frequently remade and occasionally the master also needs to be remade. Plastic moulds are made from metal, are expensive to produce and don't destroy themselves nearly as rapidly. Destroying them just doesn't seem like a logical thing to do, it's not like they take up a massive amount of space relative to the storage and manufacturing space GW currently need for their operations. Companies that aren't GW often release plastic kits that are decades old, though I think with modern CNC machining getting more affordable that's become less common as making a new mould has gotten easier.
Metal molds usually get ground/melted down and used in the production of new metal slabs for the production of new molds, as recycling the metal drastically reduces the production costs. And metal molds do take up a fair amount of space (especially if you're using a proper slide-out mold storage racking system), as their weight generally requires them to be spread out over more shelves, etc. Older kits especially take up more space as the older kits tend to be spread across a larger number of individual molds than more recent kits are, as well as usually being comparatively over-engineered relative to more recent CNC molds (i.e. the molds themselves are physically larger due to tolerancing and factors of safety, etc.) As far as GW is concerned, space was a big issue for them, they invested millions into expanding their facilities because they ran out of space - that was a stated reason as to why they started pushing things to last chance to buy and made to order, because they no longer had space available to hold on to everything and maintain production of older products. Doesn't mean everything is gone - I'm sure the more recent Tomb Kings kits like the Necrosphinx and stuff were retained, but some of the older tomb kings and bretonnian kits (amongst others) kits would be over 20 years old at this point. Hell, the newest Bretonnian plastics (unless I'm missing something) are from 2004.
As for kit re-issues from other manufacturers, they aren't always done using the original tooling. Often times they re-engineer the molds to refurbish/refresh them (and sometimes they recut the molds from the original masters if they still have them available, more recently over the past 10-20 years some manufacturers have figured out ways to reverse engineer the molds from production samples as well, but I'm not 100% sure how common that is) before putting them back into production, though it depends on the condition of the molds. I have some kit reissues that have the plastic stamped with the original year of the molds, and some reissued kits that have more recent dates stamped on them, it really varies and different manufacturers have different policies about it.
One item also to consider with the beginning of the decline, the Fellowship of the Ring came out in 2001 starting the whole LotR spike for GW. While I never saw any anyone from the local playgroups move to LotR, new players stopped coming in. They were likely diverted to LotR. Why play this other fantasy game when you can play a game actually based off the movies you just saw. It starved WHFB of new players for several years. Plus, most the older players who stayed around already had armies, so new purchases were not as common.
I didn't see a new wave of players till 8th edition and it was a large group. Sadly GW didn't then release anything for WHFB for almost an entire year and most those players quit due to lack of interest.
Yeah I've been curious as to how much of an impact LOTR had on WHFB. I've seen some people say none whatsoever and others (like you) attribute it to the decline. If LOTR killed WHFB then it kind of makes you wonder what might happen to Age of Sigmar as a result of The Old World. I would assume GW is aware of the risk to itself at this point, so I can only imagine that the approach they intend to take with The Old World is one that mitigates and minimizes any potential harm to Age of Sigmar, be it a separate scale or limited product releases/support, etc. In any case, I imagine that WHFB fans will not be entirely satisfied with what GW gives them.
I think that was originally the plan, considering there's the one piece of Blanche art floating around.
Oh? First I've heard of this, do you have a link to the Blanche Sigmarine artwork in question?
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Mentlegen324 wrote: I really don't see how this project would make much sense if it had some sort of significant change from what WHFB was, either in terms of the scale or just being limited to a few human factions.
While there hasn't really been any specifics they've shown square bases and gone on about it being a return to the iconic setting, talking about it in a way that gives no indication at all of it being something vastly different. To hype it up like that, showing the old miniatures, the video games etc while saying "Remember WHFB? It's coming back, get excited!" only to omit any indication of something huge like...it won't be anything close to WHFB in terms of the game style, or that a majority of things from the setting aren't relevant because it's very limited in scope? That would just be baffling and likely cause a bit of commotion.I'm not expecting every faction at launch, but this is a big project that they've said will do for AoS what the Horus-Heresy is like, which suggests a narrative-based thing that'll be added to over time.
I mean, they did basically say that when they announced it. They said that (as of November last year) the only work they had done on the project was designing a logo and they still needed to do basically everything else (game design, miniature design, artwork, etc.). Likewise they outright said that The Old World would be to Age of Sigmar as The Horus Heresy is to Warhammer 40k. The Horus Heresy is a limited scope project, thats why there are no Eldar, Orks, etc. in the main game, nor are there any Ork or Eldar titans in Adeptus Titanicus. If GW is comparing it The Old World to Horus Heresy, then its logical to conclude that the will take a similar approach as to the scope of the range. On that note, the existence of multiple games under the Horus Heresy umbrella (so far just the main HH game and AT, with rumors of a Horus Heresy Battlefleet Gothic game in the works) implies the potential for the same under The Old World umbrella - the time period they chose for it arguably indicates the intent to bring back Mordheim at some point, I would think.
If GW is comparing it The Old World to Horus Heresy, then its logical to conclude that the will take a similar approach as to the scope of the range. On that note, the existence of multiple games under the Horus Heresy umbrella (so far just the main HH game and AT, with rumors of a Horus Heresy Battlefleet Gothic game in the works) implies the potential for the same under The Old World umbrella - the time period they chose for it arguably indicates the intent to bring back Mordheim at some point, I would think.
Not convinced - if so why not have the primary setting as around 2000 (Imperial Calendar) allowing both Mordheim and the Vampire Wars to slot right in rather than 200 years later?
The era seems to be a relaive lull in the big events with bickering over the imperial throne but some time before the Great War against Chaos.
They have been focussing on Kiselv, spent alot of time sorting out the map of Norsca and now adding specific Elf settlements in Bretonnia.
chaos0xomega wrote: Metal molds usually get ground/melted down and used in the production of new metal slabs for the production of new molds, as recycling the metal drastically reduces the production costs. And metal molds do take up a fair amount of space (especially if you're using a proper slide-out mold storage racking system), as their weight generally requires them to be spread out over more shelves, etc.
Are you speaking from experience, or just generally? Because I could see that being the case for a company that mass produces large injection moulded items (like furniture), but I doubt that would be the case for moulds that are used for wargaming. Are you sure you're not getting confused with melting down unused metal models? That's definitely something they do, bits get thrown back into the pot to be melted down and made into new models.
But the moulds themselves? GW wouldn't have the facilities to melt/grind down blocks of steel or aluminium and turn them back into billet for re-machining, so they'd be just sending them off to a recycler for a much lower price than they paid and in the grand scheme of things, I doubt there's THAT much metal as to make it worth while (even if it was a high grade when you bought it, you likely aren't selling it back to recyclers for high grade prices). We occasionally buy steel and aluminium billet at work, and in the context of a bloke in his backyard it might be expensive, but not in the context of a multi billion dollar company.
In terms of weight, over here and I imagine in the UK commercial workshop floors are built for 500 to 1500kg per square meter (depending on what it's going to be used for) and you can buy shelving to suit. The moulds I've seen for plastic kits generally aren't a hell of a lot wider / longer than the sprue they make, and maybe a couple of inches deep, some quick calcs and yeah, you aren't going to be buying a very tall storage unit with 10's of shelves, but I don't think the space you'd need to store a few armies worth is hugely excessive.
GW seem to be playing with the timeline a bit, IIRC the names of the four Empire characters aren't all contemporaries, nor are any of them contemporaries with Louen Orc-Slayer. Magritta was born in 1979 IC, Louen was a monarch as of 2201 IC. Obviously these are two people who shouldn't co-exist, yet here they are. Sigismund died somewhere between 1705 and 1750, Wilhelm and Ludwig died somewhere between 2051 and 2058.
All of which is to say I suspect that they are reworking/retconning the timeline a bit so Mordheim and the Vampire Wars might fall within the same period covered by the game.
I also wouldn't put the cart before the horse, they showed us some Kislev concept art - but you will note that Kislev's faction symbol is not present on the map they showed us (nor is Praag or any of the cities or towns of the country, they reference the Oblasts as regions but thats about it). Compare/Contrast with 4 Empire factions and 14 Bretonnian factions, and Wood Elves which all have clear faction symbols on the map. For all we know, Kislev is going to be 2 or 3 units that can be taken as an ally in an Empire or Bretonnian army or something. Likewise High Elves have settlements but don't seem to have a specific faction symbol either.
What we know for certain is that Empire and Bretonnia are in the game, and it seems that those two factions are going to be subdivided into a number of feuding subfactions - this mirrors Horus Heresy's 18 space marine factions. We will get flavoring of a few others no doubt in the same way that Horus Heresy has Mechanicum, Talons of the Emperoro, and Solar Auxilia, but it seems the main focus will be on humans.
If GW is comparing it The Old World to Horus Heresy, then its logical to conclude that the will take a similar approach as to the scope of the range. On that note, the existence of multiple games under the Horus Heresy umbrella (so far just the main HH game and AT, with rumors of a Horus Heresy Battlefleet Gothic game in the works) implies the potential for the same under The Old World umbrella - the time period they chose for it arguably indicates the intent to bring back Mordheim at some point, I would think.
This is the biggest fan induced misinterpretation with the old world.
They mention Horus Heresy purely to say that it was in the past and that was the foundation of 40k retroactively.
The Old World is to Warhammer Age of Sigmar, as the Horus Heresy is to Warhammer 40,000. The bedrock of lore from which mortals rose to godhood and legends were forged. And like the Horus Heresy, seeing those mythic heroes in action has an undeniable appeal, as does re-creating the glorious armies of a previous epoch
So what they actually said in that article was not "it's going to be a skirmish game like the Horus Heresy. People seem to have gone oh well the mentioned HH so it's going to be like that. And for some reason plenty of people have now run with that, like Ork machinery and weapons don't work except by Orky psychic powers. Which is also bollocks.
We know absolutely nout about the game system yet beyond pure conjecture.
chaos0xomega wrote: Metal molds usually get ground/melted down and used in the production of new metal slabs for the production of new molds, as recycling the metal drastically reduces the production costs. And metal molds do take up a fair amount of space (especially if you're using a proper slide-out mold storage racking system), as their weight generally requires them to be spread out over more shelves, etc.
Are you speaking from experience, or just generally?
Both. I can't speak to GW's exact business practices, but its becoming standard in the plastics industry to recycle unneeded molds. Steel molds don't last forever, if you maintain them properly you can stave off corrosion, but wear and tear from use eventually catches up to them and you either need to recondition them or dispose of them as they are otherwise functionally useless to you. Its becoming popular to have them recycled into new molds, to be honest I'm not sure how the process works exactly, from what I understand the mold gets ground down into smaller pieces and then melted and re-forged.
But the moulds themselves? GW wouldn't have the facilities to melt/grind down blocks of steel or aluminium and turn them back into billet for re-machining, so they'd be just sending them off to a recycler for a much lower price than they paid and in the grand scheme of things, I doubt there's THAT much metal as to make it worth while (even if it was a high grade when you bought it, you likely aren't selling it back to recyclers for high grade prices). We occasionally buy steel and aluminium billet at work, and in the context of a bloke in his backyard it might be expensive, but not in the context of a multi billion dollar company.
GW isn't a multibillion dollar company, its a ~$380 million dollar company with a grossly overinflated stock value. As far as I know, GW doesn't even cut their own molds in house, from what I was told they basically do everything but - their in house staff does the design and engineering work and then sends them out to another company to have the molds cut.
In terms of weight, over here and I imagine in the UK commercial workshop floors are built for 500 to 1500kg per square meter (depending on what it's going to be used for) and you can buy shelving to suit. The moulds I've seen for plastic kits generally aren't a hell of a lot wider / longer than the sprue they make, and maybe a couple of inches deep, some quick calcs and yeah, you aren't going to be buying a very tall storage unit with 10's of shelves, but I don't think the space you'd need to store a few armies worth is hugely excessive.
GW has something like 600 distinct plastic kits in production currently. Thats a lot of molds, and doesn't include any of the more recent kits that they have rotated out of production. I'd say the amount of space they need for mold storage is pretty excessive before you even begin to account for stuff they haven't shot plastic into in 5+ years.
If GW is comparing it The Old World to Horus Heresy, then its logical to conclude that the will take a similar approach as to the scope of the range. On that note, the existence of multiple games under the Horus Heresy umbrella (so far just the main HH game and AT, with rumors of a Horus Heresy Battlefleet Gothic game in the works) implies the potential for the same under The Old World umbrella - the time period they chose for it arguably indicates the intent to bring back Mordheim at some point, I would think.
This is the biggest fan induced misinterpretation with the old world.
They mention Horus Heresy purely to say that it was in the past and that was the foundation of 40k retroactively.
The Old World is to Warhammer Age of Sigmar, as the Horus Heresy is to Warhammer 40,000. The bedrock of lore from which mortals rose to godhood and legends were forged. And like the Horus Heresy, seeing those mythic heroes in action has an undeniable appeal, as does re-creating the glorious armies of a previous epoch
So what they actually said in that article was not "it's going to be a skirmish game like the Horus Heresy. People seem to have gone oh well the mentioned HH so it's going to be like that. And for some reason plenty of people have now run with that, like Ork machinery and weapons don't work except by Orky psychic powers. Which is also bollocks.
We know absolutely nout about the game system yet beyond pure conjecture.
Its logical extrapolation. If The Old World is being marketed as a historical "background" product line in the same vein as the Horus Heresy is for 40k, its logical to assume that The Old World will see similar levels of support. Certainly, I would not expect GW to pony up a half dozen factions for us to play with on release day. If nothing else, it would be silly to assume that a "background" product would see more support than the core product lines, GW doesn't drop a half dozen factions on release day for 40k, let alone Age of Sigmar - they aren't going to do it for Warhammer Fantasy either. It's realistic to assume that on launch the game will probably encapsulate no more than two distinct factions (Bretonnia and The Empire). Its even more realistic to assume that it will really be only one faction with a number of subfactions (Empire that can be played 4 different ways or Bretonnia that can be played 14 different ways, etc.). It's realistic to assume that GW might release up to an additional two or three factions over the course of a year after the games release. Its unrealistic to assume that you are going to get more than within that same period of time.
Beyond that, at this point I believe (IIRC) we have had it indirectly confirmed that the Old World is a specialist/forgeworld-led product line, which should tell us something as well.
Yeah I've been curious as to how much of an impact LOTR had on WHFB. I've seen some people say none whatsoever and others (like you) attribute it to the decline. If LOTR killed WHFB then it kind of makes you wonder what might happen to Age of Sigmar as a result of The Old World.
don't think that we will get anything official to that but for the wider local community, the Warhammer scene consisted of 4 kinds of players (roughly)
those who liked Warhammer, those who liked Fantasy, those who liked Rand&File and those who liked events/tournaments
Warhammer was the main event game, it was the main Fantasy game and the only non-historical R&F game and therefore cheaper (most things plastic to the all metal armies)
the Fantasy players looked away, Confrontation and Warmachine/Hordes and Lord of the Rings became a thing, the event players changed to 40k which therefore saw more and bigger events therefore getting more people attracted to the system
and the R&F gamers looked into historicals and Kings of War as the change to plastic on that market made those armies more affordable and cheaper than Fantasy
so depending the reasons why people play AoS, it is possible that there will be a similar decline if TOW gets big
Mentlegen324 wrote: I really don't see how this project would make much sense if it had some sort of significant change from what WHFB was, either in terms of the scale or just being limited to a few human factions.
While there hasn't really been any specifics they've shown square bases and gone on about it being a return to the iconic setting, talking about it in a way that gives no indication at all of it being something vastly different. To hype it up like that, showing the old miniatures, the video games etc while saying "Remember WHFB? It's coming back, get excited!" only to omit any indication of something huge like...it won't be anything close to WHFB in terms of the game style, or that a majority of things from the setting aren't relevant because it's very limited in scope? That would just be baffling and likely cause a bit of commotion.I'm not expecting every faction at launch, but this is a big project that they've said will do for AoS what the Horus-Heresy is like, which suggests a narrative-based thing that'll be added to over time.
I mean, they did basically say that when they announced it. They said that (as of November last year) the only work they had done on the project was designing a logo and they still needed to do basically everything else (game design, miniature design, artwork, etc.). Likewise they outright said that The Old World would be to Age of Sigmar as The Horus Heresy is to Warhammer 40k. The Horus Heresy is a limited scope project, thats why there are no Eldar, Orks, etc. in the main game, nor are there any Ork or Eldar titans in Adeptus Titanicus. If GW is comparing it The Old World to Horus Heresy, then its logical to conclude that the will take a similar approach as to the scope of the range. On that note, the existence of multiple games under the Horus Heresy umbrella (so far just the main HH game and AT, with rumors of a Horus Heresy Battlefleet Gothic game in the works) implies the potential for the same under The Old World umbrella - the time period they chose for it arguably indicates the intent to bring back Mordheim at some point, I would think.
I don't see how the Horus Heresy is "limited in scope", it features who it was expected to feature. The whole premise of the conflict in the first place was Space Marines and other loyalist forces VS Chaos Marines and traitors, and that's what the miniatures have covered - several dozen kits of upgrades for Space Marines/Chaos including their Primarchs, along with Solar Auxilia, Mechanicum, Daemons, Custodes Imperium Militia etc. It's not like it was something that we knew should have heavily featured Orks or Eldar but they just decided not to include them because it was too much, they just don't really have much of a place within it. That's not to say they couldn't have included them if they really wanted to, but it's not like it's some sort of glaring omission. That's not so much the case with The Old World where most of the factions would still be quite heavily active within the setting, and are already established as an iconic part of the world where leaving them out would be quite a noticeable gap both in the lore and for players.
As for the comparison they gave with saying it was similar to the Horus Heresy, that was to do with the basic idea of the whole thing, in that it's a prequel that tells the story of a bygone era that serves as part of the foundation of the setting, it was within a paragraph that was talking about the lore side of things.
I don't think LOTR killed off Fantasy - although it may have contributing to balkanising the "fantasy playerbase" so 40k became the top dog once third edition hit its stride. To a degree though I think its that fantasy grew stale, while 40k was running very hot.
The real issue though was just that GW made a succession of bad choices. I didn't like Cavalry Hammer - but I don't think *sales* of Fantasy though were down until 2010 and later into 8th. It was in this era that GW finally experienced some competition from games like X-Wing and Warmahordes in FLGSs all over the place. The practices that had worked fine (or at least they'd been able to get away with) a decade earlier now seemed outmoded. The game wasn't balanced and its rules were actively unpleasant to play in a conventional manner.
Even then the End Times brought a lot of people back to fantasy, because here was GW setting the scene for a new edition, where the issues could be fixed. But those hopes were dashed, and this at least in part contributed to why the reaction to AoS was so hostile.
I don't see how the Horus Heresy is "limited in scope"
Clearly you do:
It's not like it was something that we knew should have heavily featured Orks or Eldar but they just decided not to include them because it was too much, they just don't really have much of a place within it. That's not to say they couldn't have included them if they really wanted to, but it's not like it's some sort of glaring omission.
You spelled it out pretty clearly here.
That's not so much the case with The Old World where most of the factions would still be quite heavily active within the setting, and are already established as an iconic part of the world where leaving them out would be quite a noticeable gap both in the lore and for players.
I disagree. They are setting The Old World at a point in history thats seemingly relatively quiet, pretty deliberately during a point in time in which The Empire is wracked by a civil war. I have no doubt that other factions are going to come up, but the decision to focus on a "civil war" event, just like the Horus Heresy, seems pretty telling with regards to what the main focus of the game will be, at least as far as launch and the early releases. It seems pretty likely that at launch your options are going to all be human flavored - if we're lucky you'll get knightly humans vs renaissance humans, if we're not then it'll be red and white Altdorf humans vs blue and white Middenheim human or whichever of the other 2 empire factions are present. Other factions will follow, but be realistic about the release schedule. The Sisters of Battle release and the recent Necron release seem to be about the maximum extent of what you can realistically expect GW to put out in plastic as part of a major release - both of them were considerably larger than other comparable releases like the launch of the Lumineth, Idoneth, and Gloomspite Gits. Even the upcoming Slaanesh release doesn't look like it'll be more than a half dozen or so new kits when all is said and done. What do you realistically expect GW to give you on release, keeping in mind that this is a product supposedly being developed under the specialist/forgeworld umbrella and thus not considered a core product the way AoS, 40k, and LotR are? What do you expect follow-on releases to look like, and how quickly do you expect to get them, keeping in mind that games like Necromunda, Titanicus, Aeronautica Imperialis, and Blood Bowl basically get one release slot per quarter?
Thats not to say that one day The Old World won't have all dozen or so of the original WHFB factions playable in it - just that it probably won't be in the next decade.
chaos0xomega wrote: If you want to talk about garbage arguments, this is it. The majority of the old WHFB range is presently available, its just rebranded "Age of Sigmar" and comes with round bases instead of square. Theres a handful of kits from across the range that are no longer available (mainly the entirety of Bretonnia and Tomb Kings), most of which went "Last Chance to Buy" (which as one of the guys explained at one of those event days, often means the molds are being retired and/or destroyed, though sometimes they are just put into storage - given the age of the Bretonnian range, I doubt the molds are still kicking around).
I doubt plastic moulds have been destroyed. With resin and metal moulds, they're cheap to make, made from soft materials and the moulds need to be frequently remade and occasionally the master also needs to be remade. Plastic moulds are made from metal, are expensive to produce and don't destroy themselves nearly as rapidly. Destroying them just doesn't seem like a logical thing to do, it's not like they take up a massive amount of space relative to the storage and manufacturing space GW currently need for their operations. Companies that aren't GW often release plastic kits that are decades old, though I think with modern CNC machining getting more affordable that's become less common as making a new mould has gotten easier.
Metal molds usually get ground/melted down and used in the production of new metal slabs for the production of new molds, as recycling the metal drastically reduces the production costs. And metal molds do take up a fair amount of space (especially if you're using a proper slide-out mold storage racking system), as their weight generally requires them to be spread out over more shelves, etc. Older kits especially take up more space as the older kits tend to be spread across a larger number of individual molds than more recent kits are, as well as usually being comparatively over-engineered relative to more recent CNC molds (i.e. the molds themselves are physically larger due to tolerancing and factors of safety, etc.) As far as GW is concerned, space was a big issue for them, they invested millions into expanding their facilities because they ran out of space - that was a stated reason as to why they started pushing things to last chance to buy and made to order, because they no longer had space available to hold on to everything and maintain production of older products. Doesn't mean everything is gone - I'm sure the more recent Tomb Kings kits like the Necrosphinx and stuff were retained, but some of the older tomb kings and bretonnian kits (amongst others) kits would be over 20 years old at this point. Hell, the newest Bretonnian plastics (unless I'm missing something) are from 2004.
As for kit re-issues from other manufacturers, they aren't always done using the original tooling. Often times they re-engineer the molds to refurbish/refresh them (and sometimes they recut the molds from the original masters if they still have them available, more recently over the past 10-20 years some manufacturers have figured out ways to reverse engineer the molds from production samples as well, but I'm not 100% sure how common that is) before putting them back into production, though it depends on the condition of the molds. I have some kit reissues that have the plastic stamped with the original year of the molds, and some reissued kits that have more recent dates stamped on them, it really varies and different manufacturers have different policies about it.
One item also to consider with the beginning of the decline, the Fellowship of the Ring came out in 2001 starting the whole LotR spike for GW. While I never saw any anyone from the local playgroups move to LotR, new players stopped coming in. They were likely diverted to LotR. Why play this other fantasy game when you can play a game actually based off the movies you just saw. It starved WHFB of new players for several years. Plus, most the older players who stayed around already had armies, so new purchases were not as common.
I didn't see a new wave of players till 8th edition and it was a large group. Sadly GW didn't then release anything for WHFB for almost an entire year and most those players quit due to lack of interest.
Yeah I've been curious as to how much of an impact LOTR had on WHFB. I've seen some people say none whatsoever and others (like you) attribute it to the decline. If LOTR killed WHFB then it kind of makes you wonder what might happen to Age of Sigmar as a result of The Old World. I would assume GW is aware of the risk to itself at this point, so I can only imagine that the approach they intend to take with The Old World is one that mitigates and minimizes any potential harm to Age of Sigmar, be it a separate scale or limited product releases/support, etc. In any case, I imagine that WHFB fans will not be entirely satisfied with what GW gives them.
I think that was originally the plan, considering there's the one piece of Blanche art floating around.
Oh? First I've heard of this, do you have a link to the Blanche Sigmarine artwork in question?
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Mentlegen324 wrote: I really don't see how this project would make much sense if it had some sort of significant change from what WHFB was, either in terms of the scale or just being limited to a few human factions.
While there hasn't really been any specifics they've shown square bases and gone on about it being a return to the iconic setting, talking about it in a way that gives no indication at all of it being something vastly different. To hype it up like that, showing the old miniatures, the video games etc while saying "Remember WHFB? It's coming back, get excited!" only to omit any indication of something huge like...it won't be anything close to WHFB in terms of the game style, or that a majority of things from the setting aren't relevant because it's very limited in scope? That would just be baffling and likely cause a bit of commotion.I'm not expecting every faction at launch, but this is a big project that they've said will do for AoS what the Horus-Heresy is like, which suggests a narrative-based thing that'll be added to over time.
I mean, they did basically say that when they announced it. They said that (as of November last year) the only work they had done on the project was designing a logo and they still needed to do basically everything else (game design, miniature design, artwork, etc.). Likewise they outright said that The Old World would be to Age of Sigmar as The Horus Heresy is to Warhammer 40k. The Horus Heresy is a limited scope project, thats why there are no Eldar, Orks, etc. in the main game, nor are there any Ork or Eldar titans in Adeptus Titanicus. If GW is comparing it The Old World to Horus Heresy, then its logical to conclude that the will take a similar approach as to the scope of the range. On that note, the existence of multiple games under the Horus Heresy umbrella (so far just the main HH game and AT, with rumors of a Horus Heresy Battlefleet Gothic game in the works) implies the potential for the same under The Old World umbrella - the time period they chose for it arguably indicates the intent to bring back Mordheim at some point, I would think.
Masters of the Universe.
Transformers.
G.I.Joe
Playmobil
Just a FEW toy lines where 30+ year old molds were pulled out and used to press out fresh copies of the toys. Year before last my wife picked up a fresh copy of the AMT Star Trek model kit from the 60s that had the phaser, tricorder, and communicator so my daughter could explore.
Given that Revell release of 40K models I mentioned previously, there's no reason to think GW simply scrapped every mid player they've had that isn't in current production.
I don't see how the Horus Heresy is "limited in scope"
Clearly you do:
It's not like it was something that we knew should have heavily featured Orks or Eldar but they just decided not to include them because it was too much, they just don't really have much of a place within it. That's not to say they couldn't have included them if they really wanted to, but it's not like it's some sort of glaring omission.
You spelled it out pretty clearly here.
Thats not to say that one day The Old World won't have all dozen or so of the original WHFB factions playable in it - just that it probably won't be in the next decade.
What I meant is that the Horus Heresy was not something they took and then limited in scope to something that left out significant aspects of what was expected. That it doesn't really involve certain factions was just part of it in the first place due to the nature of the premise rather than an arbitrary limitation like what's being suggested with The Old World.
chaos0xomega wrote: Its logical extrapolation. If The Old World is being marketed as a historical "background" product line in the same vein as the Horus Heresy is for 40k, its logical to assume that The Old World will see similar levels of support.
I'd hesitate to draw that parallel, if only because HH was developed, gained popularity and peaked mostly during Kirby era. I'd imagine current GW would have treated the property differently, had they the chance to direct it from the very start.
Having said that, I still think it's going to be Empire vs Empire for the starter
I think it's healthiest to assume a split human starter at initial release. A follow up could be Orcs and Bretonnia because the named king was partly responsible for smashing a ton of orcs and creating the more modern Bretonnia.
You could easily have a beastmen/wood elves expansion later as well.
But I do think it's best to temper what you expect to get out of this and to view it like a normal specialist release with a bit more depth. Now look at the first few months of Bloodbowl, Necromunda, and AT. Assume they'll go slightly larger than those releases but not by much. The most initial bang for buck is two human factions unless this is a warband style game. But that's also good because solid baseline humans can be used as templates for Bretonnia, Kislev, Vampire Counts, and Chaos because it's some CAD changes to your base models and you're off to the races.
To my knowledge at least two of the toy lines you just mentioned are actually completely new sets of molds designed to look like the originals but with slight modifications to the design. The Masters of the Universe Origins line of action figures (which I assume you are referring to) feature 16 points of articulation.... the originals from the 80s only had 6.
Likewise the Transformers Vintage Reissues aren't actual reissues of the original. They are mostly based on modified variants of the early 2000s era Transformers Collection toys, but modified to meet modern toy safety standards and to try to more exactly duplicate the look of the originals. Transformers do one of these reissues every 10 years or so with a new set of redesigned/re-engineered toys designed to look like the originals. The last time Transformers definitively reissued the toys straight from the original molds was the Classics release in 1991 for the Asia/Pacific market - but even then they had re-engineered the tooling prior to the release in order to make some modifications to the designs (mainly in order to omit the rubsigns and to block out the original date and location of manufacture). There was another reissue from the original molds in the mid 2000s as part of the Takara Collectors Edition but they were mixed with non-original redecoes and some of the supposedly original reissues appear to be modified in various minor ways. Likewise, the late 2000s Gen One Commemmorative Series also had similar shenanigans going on. Anyway, point is, unless you're referring to another reissue series I'm unaware of, the Transformers line also isn't reissues from the original molds.
A quick google search suggests that the GI Joe Retro Collection figures fall in the same category as the above - new toys from new molds designed to look like the old ones:
"These 3.75-inch figure stays true to that iconic first line of figures but features some new design and detail. Three solo figures were announced and the return of a classic GI Joe vehicle. Destro, Roadblock, and Scarlett return once again all with updated mold and corresponding accessories."
Generally speaking, toy reissues are rarely "actual" reissues, whereas model kit reissues really depend on the kit and the manufacturer. Aurora kit reissues, for example, are always (or almost always, there might be an exception I don't know of) from the original molds. Revell/Monogram reissues can be hit or miss, since they had molds for the same kits in different places for different markets that sometimes had differences and were sometimes identical. The reissue you're buying in these cases may be from *an* original mold but not necessarily *the* original mold, nor even the same mold that produced the kit that you bought as a kid. Revell (IIRC) also had a tendency to recut their molds for reissue as new product as well - Revells Flipper the Dolphin kit was recut into Ensign Darwin the Dolphin from Seaquest, for example, rather than making an entirely new set of molds for it.
So, I think you kinda torpedoed your own argument there, at least to some extent. The AMT kit is, in fact, the same set of molds from the 70s, so you got that going for ya, but a number of the other AMT reissues are not.
Hulksmash wrote: I think it's healthiest to assume a split human starter at initial release.
I'm _really_ dubious about that, unless you mean split between Empire and Brets or Empire and Kislev.
It would limit the scope of sales (people with no interest in a human faction don't like getting told to feth off out of the gate) and if its Empire Civil War time its way too easy to buy multiple starters and build up a force. Which weakens sales of additional kits in favor of the less profitable starter, which is something GW doesn't really want. They want people do go buy $60 kits on top of the starter, not just buy a couple starters thinking they can get by without the additional investment.
Hulksmash wrote: I think it's healthiest to assume a split human starter at initial release.
I'm _really_ dubious about that, unless you mean split between Empire and Brets or Empire and Kislev.
It would limit the scope of sales (people with no interest in a human faction don't like getting told to feth off out of the gate) and if its Empire Civil War time its way too easy to buy multiple starters and build up a force. Which weakens sales of additional kits in favor of the less profitable starter, which is something GW doesn't really want. They want people do go buy $60 kits on top of the starter, not just buy a couple starters thinking they can get by without the additional investment.
No, I fully expect Empire A vs. Empire B. There will be some item that separates them that can be used to make them "A vs. B". I expect this will be a similar box to AT and limited on initial release. They'll then release the actual sets along with some additional items for these initial factions. Then in the next release slot (which might not be long) you might see Kislev as they try to muscle in on certain Empire territories. Same for Bretonnia potentially. My expectation is 4 factions within the year of release if this is a 28mm game with maybe one of those not being humans (i.e. wood elves/beastmen/orcs).
Ah. I don't expect that at all.
AT is weird, because the Titans are the thing and the only thing, but they can be customized. It also has precedent in the old Epic games. So while some grumbling about the lack of Gargants and eldar titans happens, no one is terribly surprised by the lack of expansion.
Old World has... expectations. Unlike the HH, there just isn't enough nostalgia for Empire: the Civil War to focus a game around it. People want their other factions back at least as much (probably more) than they want the HRE with wizards.
Plus, further, I've no idea why they'd waste time on preview articles for Kislev and Brets if the focus is on a fairly random Empire civil war.
The kind of box you're suggesting would cause much table flipping and kill a lot of interest in the game right at the start.
Its also pretty contrary to what GW wants out of their properties. Without a major, major shift in design, its very hard to make the Empire look like a uniquely GW Warhammer IP. They're really going to want something distinctively Warhammer in the Old World starter box (and Golden Compass bears and Frozen ice witches in Kislev doesn't do that either). A pure or even strong human focus is just doesn't fit with GW's tendency to strengthen their IP, and the Old World definitely lacks a Space Marine equivalent to push sales by focusing on a primary faction- and the simply can't do it by focusing on (not) the Holy Roman Empire
Hulksmash wrote: I think it's healthiest to assume a split human starter at initial release.
I'm _really_ dubious about that, unless you mean split between Empire and Brets or Empire and Kislev.
It would limit the scope of sales (people with no interest in a human faction don't like getting told to feth off out of the gate) and if its Empire Civil War time its way too easy to buy multiple starters and build up a force. Which weakens sales of additional kits in favor of the less profitable starter, which is something GW doesn't really want. They want people do go buy $60 kits on top of the starter, not just buy a couple starters thinking they can get by without the additional investment.
No, I fully expect Empire A vs. Empire B. There will be some item that separates them that can be used to make them "A vs. B". I expect this will be a similar box to AT and limited on initial release. They'll then release the actual sets along with some additional items for these initial factions. Then in the next release slot (which might not be long) you might see Kislev as they try to muscle in on certain Empire territories. Same for Bretonnia potentially. My expectation is 4 factions within the year of release if this is a 28mm game with maybe one of those not being humans (i.e. wood elves/beastmen/orcs).
Not sure - humans just don't stand out very much in the crowded as opposed to say Skaven so its a harder sell.
Marines are Marines and Titans are Titans and so relatively unique - quasi 16th century Empire dudes hitting each is not going to look very unique - the Warcry Chaos warbands work well in this respect.
Betrayal at Calth and Burning of Prospero were both quite literally Marines vs Marines, with the entire contents usable by a single player for their army (although Burning of Prospero had specific space wolf and thousand son character HQs, and included 5 Custodes and 5 Sisters of silence, but thats whatever, everyone was buying those boxes for 30 MkIII space marines and 5 Tartaros Terminators a box, everything else was just gravy on the side).
As it stands, people already do exactly what you describe with the two player starters - single faction starters like the Horus Heresy boxes or a proposed Empire vs Empire box are arguably more profitable, as people would be buying multiple copies for themselves, whereas the general trend with two faction boxes is for two people to each buy one box and then split the contents between them - having everything in the box be immediately usable by a single consumer disincentivizes splitting and makes it more likely that GW will sell more copies to begin with.
And it doesn't really weaken sales of additional kits at all. In the case of Horus Heresy, most people buying multiple copies of those boxes then turned around and bought forgeworld upgrade sets in order to kit out their stuff with custom heads, shoulder pads, torsos, etc. as well as weapons and wargear that you didn't get in the box. Buying two copies of Indomitus didn't stop me from also buying 2 Eradication Legion and 2 space marine battleforces. Nor did it stop me from buying a Convergence of Dominion, some Lokhust/Hexmark/Ophidian Destroyers, a couple Canoptek Doomstalkers, Szarekh, and the Void Dragon.
If we imagine a hypothetical Empire vs Empire box, I can see it containing something along the lines of a Captain/General, 20 Spearmen, and a Cannon versus a Warrior Priest, 20 Swordsmen, and a pair of Demigryph Knights. Nice mix of stuff, but even buying 2 or 3 boxes of this you're still going to have some holes you're going to want to fill. GW will get its pound of flesh by selling you 2 or 3 boxes of Empire Knights, a couple boxes of Greatswords, a couple boxes of Handgunners/Archers/Crossbowmen/Halberdiers, a Steamtank, a dude riding a Dragon or something, and a terrain piece thats a giant shrine to Sigmar on wheels.
I mean, look at Necrons - nobody is buying Necron Warrior kits or Skorpekh Destroyers, everyone is buying more copies of Indomitus or one of the three actual starter sets instead. GW knows this, and doesn't care. No different when the starter set was Dark Imperium or for the Age of Sigmar starter sets where people just defaulted to buying multiple copies of the starter set and avoided buying standalone kits of the units found in the box - but they did buy other standalone kits for things that *weren't* in the box, lots of them.
Hulksmash wrote: I think it's healthiest to assume a split human starter at initial release.
I'm _really_ dubious about that, unless you mean split between Empire and Brets or Empire and Kislev.
It would limit the scope of sales (people with no interest in a human faction don't like getting told to feth off out of the gate) and if its Empire Civil War time its way too easy to buy multiple starters and build up a force. Which weakens sales of additional kits in favor of the less profitable starter, which is something GW doesn't really want. They want people do go buy $60 kits on top of the starter, not just buy a couple starters thinking they can get by without the additional investment.
No, I fully expect Empire A vs. Empire B. There will be some item that separates them that can be used to make them "A vs. B". I expect this will be a similar box to AT and limited on initial release. They'll then release the actual sets along with some additional items for these initial factions. Then in the next release slot (which might not be long) you might see Kislev as they try to muscle in on certain Empire territories. Same for Bretonnia potentially. My expectation is 4 factions within the year of release if this is a 28mm game with maybe one of those not being humans (i.e. wood elves/beastmen/orcs).
This is basically what I imagine, but I only see it being three factions within a year. Empire, Bretonnia, and one non-human (Wood Elves or Orcs are my guess). Kislev I'm willing to bet are treated as a merc faction that tag along with Empire or something, until they release an expansion 2 years down the line that makes them a full on standalone army with a full roster of units. I think High Elves get the same treatment, but as allies for the Wood Elves (or maybe Bretonnia? Who knows). I think ~3-6 months after release we will also see a conversion kit that lets some legacy WHFB minis that are being used for AoS be backdoored into The Old World, but it will be limited to one-off ally/filler units rather than filling out complete army lists on its own, and will probably be limited only to those minis that started life in the WHFB setting.
as it was already said, this is going to be either much bigger or much smaller than most people think
a box with humans only that can be used as 2 player set or for 1 faction alone, as the HH plastic sets or AT is the most likely from all the information we have (infantry, melee+ranged, cavalry and 2 different heroes)
a box with humans vs orcs is possible as well, using AoS models
or it is going to be big, using up the 40k capacity and being the new main game with 4-6 new full ranged factions in the first year
Voss wrote: Ah. I don't expect that at all.
AT is weird, because the Titans are the thing and the only thing, but they can be customized. It also has precedent in the old Epic games. So while some grumbling about the lack of Gargants and eldar titans happens, no one is terribly surprised by the lack of expansion.
Old World has... expectations. Unlike the HH, there just isn't enough nostalgia for Empire: the Civil War to focus a game around it. People want their other factions back at least as much (probably more) than they want the HRE with wizards.
Plus, further, I've no idea why they'd waste time on preview articles for Kislev and Brets if the focus is on a fairly random Empire civil war.
The kind of box you're suggesting would cause much table flipping and kill a lot of interest in the game right at the start.
Its also pretty contrary to what GW wants out of their properties. Without a major, major shift in design, its very hard to make the Empire look like a uniquely GW Warhammer IP. They're really going to want something distinctively Warhammer in the Old World starter box (and Golden Compass bears and Frozen ice witches in Kislev doesn't do that either). A pure or even strong human focus is just doesn't fit with GW's tendency to strengthen their IP, and the Old World definitely lacks a Space Marine equivalent to push sales by focusing on a primary faction- and the simply can't do it by focusing on (not) the Holy Roman Empire
Generic orcs, generic elves (in wood and high flavors), etc. don't exactly make the setting distinctive or unique from an IP sense either. Literally does nothing to "strengthen to IP" to copy generic fantasy tropes that are already widespread across the industry in all of GWs main competitors.
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a box with humans vs orcs is possible as well, using AoS models
I don't see that happening. GW is going to want to maintain the distinctiveness of its IPs and brands and not allow them to bleed over to one another for a few reasons, chief amongst them is that it wants to sell you one pool of miniatures for Age of Sigmar, and a separate pool of miniatures for Warhammer Fantasy (the only obvious exception to this being the Daemons range, which GW has allowed to be virtually omnipresent across its games). The risk of making the new Warhammer Fantasy Battles Orcs look too much like your Age of Sigmar Orruks, or allowing your Age of Sigmar Orruks to show up in your Warhammer Fantasy armies is that it encourages those who are frugal and thrifty to buy fewer minis and repurpose their existing minis for multiple systems, rather than getting you to go out and buy a whole new army soup to nuts.
Arguably, the shift to Primaris marines in 40k strengthened Horus Heresy as a distinct brand, as it helps reinforce a separation in the space marine miniatures range between the two settings along that same logic.
The other concern though is that Age of Sigmar is a *very* distinct IP overall, to the extent that its pretty hard for competitors to produce large collections of third party minis that will easily fit the aesthetics and stylings of the setting, etc. Introducing those miniatures into a significantly more generic IP like WHFB, absent significant rework of the WHFB brand identity, risks the Age of Sigmar aesthetic becoming more approachable and generic itself, as it creates a bit of a door/conduit for those 3rd party designers to slowly start styling miniatures that blend the old aesthetic with the new.
To be honest, I almost wonder if maybe GW wants to get rid of the Cities of Sigmar stuff in AoS or rebrand that faction with a completely revamped minis range, since its a bit of a hodgepodge odd duckling that doesn't really fit but might otherwise piss off the last WHFB holdouts who were just barely enticed into giving AoS a chance.
Voss wrote: Ah. I don't expect that at all.
AT is weird, because the Titans are the thing and the only thing, but they can be customized. It also has precedent in the old Epic games. So while some grumbling about the lack of Gargants and eldar titans happens, no one is terribly surprised by the lack of expansion.
Old World has... expectations. Unlike the HH, there just isn't enough nostalgia for Empire: the Civil War to focus a game around it. People want their other factions back at least as much (probably more) than they want the HRE with wizards.
Plus, further, I've no idea why they'd waste time on preview articles for Kislev and Brets if the focus is on a fairly random Empire civil war.
The kind of box you're suggesting would cause much table flipping and kill a lot of interest in the game right at the start.
Its also pretty contrary to what GW wants out of their properties. Without a major, major shift in design, its very hard to make the Empire look like a uniquely GW Warhammer IP. They're really going to want something distinctively Warhammer in the Old World starter box (and Golden Compass bears and Frozen ice witches in Kislev doesn't do that either). A pure or even strong human focus is just doesn't fit with GW's tendency to strengthen their IP, and the Old World definitely lacks a Space Marine equivalent to push sales by focusing on a primary faction- and the simply can't do it by focusing on (not) the Holy Roman Empire
Generic orcs, generic elves (in wood and high flavors), etc. don't exactly make the setting distinctive or unique from an IP sense either. Literally does nothing to "strengthen to IP" to copy generic fantasy tropes that are already widespread across the industry in all of GWs main competitors.
There's some truth to that. But there is a distinctive style to GW orcs and even elves (not to mention chaos) that is more memorable than HRE Germans. Not including _any_ of the things that make Warhammer Fantasy memorable would be a really odd approach to Warhammer: the Old World.
I mean, to me the most memorable aspect of the setting are steampunk renaissance humans fighting medieval knights and vampiric undead more than anything to do with various flavors of elves, dwarves, or orcs. If anything Chaos Warriors and Beastmen are the two factions that I think most deserve to be in the game at launch alongside some flavor of human, I think going with Dwarves, Orcs, or Elves first would be a mistake and a missed opportunity more than anything else.
chaos0xomega wrote: I mean, to me the most memorable aspect of the setting are steampunk renaissance humans fighting medieval knights and vampiric undead more than anything to do with various flavors of elves, dwarves, or orcs. If anything Chaos Warriors and Beastmen are the two factions that I think most deserve to be in the game at launch alongside some flavor of human, I think going with Dwarves and Orcs first would be a mistake and a missed opportunity more than anything else.
Why are people thinking they will release two separate sets of empire minis when you can just release one set and then they can be from whatever faction of empire you like?
It is nice to see the map of the dearly missed old world, like seeing an old friend after many years apart.
Will be interesting to see how GW approach this, the market has a lot of very good rank and file mass combat games now. It would be very nice if GW were to learn from those currently available and produce a fresh set of rules, as opposed to a slight modification of a previous WFB edition.
My expectations are set low, just so I don't get disappointed.
chaos0xomega wrote: I mean, to me the most memorable aspect of the setting are steampunk renaissance humans
The steampunk crap was a really late addition to the game. I'd be extremely disappointed if they brought that back at an earlier time period.
It was present in some elements quite early - but more Dwarf related than human and it was always that the Empire was moving from the standard fantasy world in to more of a rennaisance technolgy base - especially Nuln
Olthannon wrote: Why are people thinking they will release two separate sets of empire minis when you can just release one set and then they can be from whatever faction of empire you like?
Ehh...one of the more unique bits about the Empire in my opinion easily plays into how it could be done.
You had the more 'backwards' rural provinces like Stirland, whose real contribution to Empire armies were their huntsmen and scouts while the more 'civilized' ones like Altdorf had the trained soldiery and knights.
Having the 'peasant army' and the 'soldiery' as their own unique kits(which were big complaints about the last iteration of the Empire soldier kits BTW) would add some variety there...and in Age of Sigmar for the Freeguild as well.
Personal hopes with regards to Wood Elves is that we'll see some revisiting of the stuff removed from sale for AoS. Glade Guard, Glade Riders, Wardancers, etc were all really showing their age despite still being nice kits...but also the look they had was extremely generic. There's some gorgeous art that's been with us for awhile of Wood Elves wearing leaf-scale mail over top of leathers. If we get that look? Oh hell, I'm in trouble.
Another bit to make a comment of regarding a detrimental factor for the 'big armies' of WHFB of old:
Assembly.
Painting things could definitely be a drain on people's excitement, but the newer style of 'prematched' kits? In my experience they don't seem to have the same draining effort that the older multi-parts had. I don't feel as burnt out working on the newer infantry or cavalry as I used to.
I built 100 Namarti in the same time it took me to build 25 Glade Guard--and could have built more if the kits weren't so dang expensive on the Namarti side of things!
You also have the growing industrial powerhouse of Nuln and the cosmopolitan but Ulric worshipping Middenheim so I guess you could look to make them more unique
I feel it's hard to really guess what GW's plans for initial release are when we don't even know the exact reason and exact market for this revamp.
If it's trying to appeal to the new fanbase that has exploded because of Total War, then yanking the timeline back so that the Empire has no gunpowder, no Wizards and none of the popular and now memeable fan favourites like Karl Franz and Gelt seems kind of questionable.
Indeed, it doesn't exactly bode well for appealing to old players either because The Empire was arguably the most popular faction and if they're going to strip away a lot of its appeal then that's also a potential problem.
As for the steampunk, imo its what helped make the setting more distinct from the typical fantasy drivel, can't see them moving away from it. TBH your feelings towards that is how I feel abiut Bretonnia, I liked it better when Bretonnia was a spoof on the decadence of 18th century france with nobles wearing powdered wigs and makeup to hidevtheir various poxes and mutstions. Would love it if they could find a way to reconcilethe two interpretations.
Olthannon - Thats literally the point, its one big Empire army or teo small Empire armies depending how you want to build them, no different than how the Horus Heresy boxes were either one large army or two small ones.
Adeptus Titanicus uses 40K-style round bases, so couldn’t a similar scale (6-8mm) game make use of square bases - for ranked troops rather than single models?
Deathwolf wrote: Adeptus Titanicus uses 40K-style round bases, so couldn’t a similar scale (6-8mm) game make use of square bases - for ranked troops rather than single models?
Yes, but you'll be swiftly murdered or told you're a fool just by mentioning it. Best to just nod and smile and wait. Personally I still think 10mm is the best way forward with it but we'll see how it goes.
Kalamadea wrote: People keep talking about popularity of games with anecdotal popularity of their local groups, the closest thing I could think of to any kind of real metric would be members of game-specific Facebook Groups or Subreddits
Also, IIRC the way UK copyright law works, as it was explained to me by another dakkite some years ago, requires that GW maintain usage/currency of its copyrights. i.e. if GW doesn't release anything further with the "Warmaster" label on it then the name goes up for grabs for a competitor to use after something like 10 or 15 years, etc. This was supposedly part of what led to the flurry of video game releases based on GWs older product lines and discontinued specialist games lines a few years back, as titles needed to be kept "current" before GWs rights sunsetted. Warlord branding its new 15mm plastics as "Epic Battles" might be the result of one of those copyright lapses.
Just to correct a small thing, you're referring to trademark law, not copyright law. Copyright protects content and lasts for something absurd like 75 years after the author's death. But trademarks protect things like names and logos and last only as long as a product is in production (maybe a few years more, or even longer if the trademark holder wants to put up a fight and the challenger doesn't). This is why other companies have been able to make things call Space Crusade and Hero Quest (with varying levels of success) or I could launch my Trolls in the Pantry kickstarter tomorrow
GW could easily protect their Warmaster trademark by putting the rules PDF online and saying 'here! we are making Warmaster!' Alternately they could claim other uses of the term like in the Horus Heresy count as using the trademark. So I doubt they would relaunch it just to protect the name.
Mr Morden wrote: You also have the growing industrial powerhouse of Nuln and the cosmopolitan but Ulric worshipping Middenheim so I guess you could look to make them more unique
But that kinda goes with what I was saying--you have the more 'civilized' parts and the 'rural' parts.
The gubbins on the shields and armor might be wolf heads or ravens or antlers instead of twin-tailed hammers and the knights might wear wolf capes or hooded tabards and have hammers or scythes...but they were way closer than Stirland or any of the huntsmen or militia styled units would look.
That's how I would do things if I were GW. Set the box up to have a limited number of 'state troops' and then a number of 'militia' units. Give a huntsman character and a general/captain, then have at it with a peasant uprising!
Bosskelot wrote:I feel it's hard to really guess what GW's plans for initial release are when we don't even know the exact reason and exact market for this revamp.
I get the feeling that GW themselves are as unsure about the whole thing as we are.It's possible that decisions on scale, scope and other basic things hadn't been made when "The Old World" was first announced. Perhaps it's only now after studying the initial reactions from the fans that things are being finalized ahead of production.
I'll be frank and say that even though I have a nice sized death army, I would quit AoS if they kicked out Cities of Sigmar, my second army, I would not play the game. The book for that itself while having good rules is sparse with details and lore and feels so TM that there is barely any unique named units to model besides the color swap on the different cities.
This was a chance for the world of AoS to be further fleshed out and it missed the mark.
I think the community embrace of that book will save it. It does seem like a stopgap for the lost toys but the amazing armies it's inspired are a real triumph of the open narrative of AoS.
I could see it changing form over the years getting new fantastical kits (possibly even inspired by the more impressive community creations) and having the legacy kits retired or moved over to TOW if the game is compatible.
chaos0xomega wrote: To my knowledge at least two of the toy lines you just mentioned are actually completely new sets of molds designed to look like the originals but with slight modifications to the design. The Masters of the Universe Origins line of action figures (which I assume you are referring to) feature 16 points of articulation.... the originals from the 80s only had 6.
Likewise the Transformers Vintage Reissues aren't actual reissues of the original. They are mostly based on modified variants of the early 2000s era Transformers Collection toys, but modified to meet modern toy safety standards and to try to more exactly duplicate the look of the originals. Transformers do one of these reissues every 10 years or so with a new set of redesigned/re-engineered toys designed to look like the originals. The last time Transformers definitively reissued the toys straight from the original molds was the Classics release in 1991 for the Asia/Pacific market - but even then they had re-engineered the tooling prior to the release in order to make some modifications to the designs (mainly in order to omit the rubsigns and to block out the original date and location of manufacture). There was another reissue from the original molds in the mid 2000s as part of the Takara Collectors Edition but they were mixed with non-original redecoes and some of the supposedly original reissues appear to be modified in various minor ways. Likewise, the late 2000s Gen One Commemmorative Series also had similar shenanigans going on. Anyway, point is, unless you're referring to another reissue series I'm unaware of, the Transformers line also isn't reissues from the original molds.
A quick google search suggests that the GI Joe Retro Collection figures fall in the same category as the above - new toys from new molds designed to look like the old ones:
"These 3.75-inch figure stays true to that iconic first line of figures but features some new design and detail. Three solo figures were announced and the return of a classic GI Joe vehicle. Destro, Roadblock, and Scarlett return once again all with updated mold and corresponding accessories."
Generally speaking, toy reissues are rarely "actual" reissues, whereas model kit reissues really depend on the kit and the manufacturer. Aurora kit reissues, for example, are always (or almost always, there might be an exception I don't know of) from the original molds. Revell/Monogram reissues can be hit or miss, since they had molds for the same kits in different places for different markets that sometimes had differences and were sometimes identical. The reissue you're buying in these cases may be from *an* original mold but not necessarily *the* original mold, nor even the same mold that produced the kit that you bought as a kid. Revell (IIRC) also had a tendency to recut their molds for reissue as new product as well - Revells Flipper the Dolphin kit was recut into Ensign Darwin the Dolphin from Seaquest, for example, rather than making an entirely new set of molds for it.
So, I think you kinda torpedoed your own argument there, at least to some extent. The AMT kit is, in fact, the same set of molds from the 70s, so you got that going for ya, but a number of the other AMT reissues are not.
The Masters of the Universe reissues happened in the early to mid 2,000s with a short release during the turn of the millennium.
So yes, they did a straight reprint of the toys. Was the plastic identical? Possibly not. But the exact molds were used.
One "torpedo" down...
Now Transformers? That one's near and dear to my heart as I've been collecting them since the beginning of the 90's. The Transformers Commemorative reissues, which tied in with the Takara book reissues a, only altered molds that were damaged or necessitated a change for safety regulation changes. For instance, the changes made to the Starscream mold were relegated to the missiles, while the Srstscream in Japan came with retooled accessories, including a Prime fist that could hold the small gun Megatron accessory.
Regardless, the original molds WERE used, even if repair work had to be done.
Is it still a 30 year old mold dusted off with fresh copies rerun, verifying that the notion is at least POSSIBLE with old GW kits?
Damn, no torpedoes hit...
Ultimately it comes down to how many molds GW held onto and I'd they still have the machines that run those particular plates. If they DO have the dies, then reissues are minimal investment releases.
Do you think they scrapped the molds for square bases?
BlackoCatto wrote: I'll be frank and say that even though I have a nice sized death army, I would quit AoS if they kicked out Cities of Sigmar, my second army, I would not play the game. The book for that itself while having good rules is sparse with details and lore and feels so TM that there is barely any unique named units to model besides the color swap on the different cities.
This was a chance for the world of AoS to be further fleshed out and it missed the mark.
I disagree. I found it to be extremely good for setting up the lore of the various cities, how they interacted with each other and the threats around them and especially how the various races interact and deal with each other on a daily basis.
I disagree as well. I see the setting of AoS still more a trampoline of attraction, bouncing the 12 year old off and possibly breaking their financial arm.
Well, I think it's somehow going into be rank and file minis.
Like, GW has two large Battle games(AOS and 40k) several skirmish, it has a dogfight one, a sport one, someday BFG will come out and be their naval game, they have their giant monster game.
Really the only one they are missing is rank and file, and they may want their piece of pie for it.
My guess is still 10mm
We're all grownups here, we know there's only a few ways this can play out. From my chair in beautiful sunny Cairo in year of our Lord 2021 I see some general directions that are realistic:
Big launch - 5-6 factions, multiple kits for each taking about a year for the first wave. Basically a Sisters of Battle level launch every two months for a year. It would suck up a lot of shelf space in stores, a lot of time and release windows, not to mention molding and development costs. All of which are resources that could go into a big Imperial Guard relaunch This would be a tremendous gamble and I'm not too sure it's likely.
Small launch - 2 factions (or just one if the Empire civil war is the direction) and a few kits on a limited release.
Rerelease - A few new kits, maybe Kislev and Chaos for a the starter, but most of the game is a rerelease of old Fantasy kits, most probably mail order only. This is a safer bet, but as others have noted a lot of the OOP kits are showing their age and new kits is what drives sales.
Something different - Mordheim, Warmaster, Man O War whatever. This would feel like a bait and switch to a lot of fans, but might bring in new players who don't have a whole closet to devote to a new game and want something that will fit in a shoe box.
Vaporware - This almost a conspiracy theory idea, that GW is just throwing some stuff out there to scare off competitors or generate buzz. And will or won't follow up depending on what they hear.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: We're all grownups here, we know there's only a few ways this can play out. From my chair in beautiful sunny Cairo in year of our Lord 2021 I see some general directions that are realistic:
Big launch - 5-6 factions, multiple kits for each taking about a year for the first wave. Basically a Sisters of Battle level launch every two months for a year. It would suck up a lot of shelf space in stores, a lot of time and release windows, not to mention molding and development costs. All of which are resources that could go into a big Imperial Guard relaunch This would be a tremendous gamble and I'm not too sure it's likely.
Small launch - 2 factions (or just one if the Empire civil war is the direction) and a few kits on a limited release.
Rerelease - A few new kits, maybe Kislev and Chaos for a the starter, but most of the game is a rerelease of old Fantasy kits, most probably mail order only. This is a safer bet, but as others have noted a lot of the OOP kits are showing their age and new kits is what drives sales.
Something different - Mordheim, Warmaster, Man O War whatever. This would feel like a bait and switch to a lot of fans, but might bring in new players who don't have a whole closet to devote to a new game and want something that will fit in a shoe box.
Vaporware - This almost a conspiracy theory idea, that GW is just throwing some stuff out there to scare off competitors or generate buzz. And will or won't follow up depending on what they hear.
There is a notable loop hole here, and that is by going back in time in the warhammer universe they not only change the settings, but the aesthetics of the soldiers. It's much easier to see many of the humans being able to use a common "men at arms" style box that has rather generically styled infantry and cavalry to form a core all the human factions buy from.
That is after all, the best true analogy to the Horus heresy: A small number of kits that most player's factions will be buying, plus upgrade kits.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: Rerelease - A few new kits, maybe Kislev and Chaos for a the starter, but most of the game is a rerelease of old Fantasy kits, most probably mail order only. This is a safer bet, but as others have noted a lot of the OOP kits are showing their age and new kits is what drives sales.
Something along these lines feels like the most likely, and there are a bunch of variants possible.
Some ranges or kits may return to production as normal. If they can still sell 20-year old Skaven Night Runners or VC Zombies, there is no reason they couldn't bring back figures that are only 10 years old and much better looking.
A starter set would likely contain updated/new figures indeed, although even that isn't a given - the latest Middle-earth starter had exactly 2 new figures, and was mainly just a very financially attractive set of figures that were still kind of nice anyway. Seemed pretty popular with existing and new players alike. Those two possibilities would of course make it focus on two very different pairs of armies: either those in need of an update, or those with some of the best looking existing core units around. It could even be a combination of existing figures and some new ones. Even disregarding this aspect, what armies would indeed be the most iconic to put in such a set, or which would be the most exciting to draw in the players? For instance, Kislev would be a very interesting choice, with some fairly iconic units despite never being a major part of the game. Maybe fighting against new Norse Marauders? Could even see the inclusion of the recent Warriors/Knights of Chaos, but not sure how well those would rank up on square bases... On the other hand, simply reprinting Island of Blood might sell fine too (the Elves are nice, the Rat Ogres still better than the current lot), but that wouldn't inspire much confidence in the new game, so I'm expecting 100% new.
They may also simply create temporary rules for the old factions (like they did at the start of AoS) for people with existing collections to use, then slowly release the new figures (and/or re-release some of the old ones). To what extent the "no model = no rules" idea applies is fairly inconsistent with GW, before anyone brings that up. My Sisters of Battle codex may not feature anything GW doesn't produce (down to the exact wargear options on the Canoness), but my Necromunda and Middle-earth books contain all kinds of things for which no models exist or appear to be in the pipeline any time soon.
In addition to the above, they can do made-to-order waves for different armies. GW likes limited releases, and it seems a practical way to go about it. A bunch of kits every month, probably focussing on 1 or a few factions at a time, with 2-3 waves covering everything you need for an army. Less financial risk for GW, more sales as the limited time period will drive people to buy for fear of missing out later. This strategy isn't mutually exclusive with the above, just like they re-release old Blood Bowl teams temporarily when the plastic replacements are due at some point, but not soon.
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On an unrelated note, a little reference to someone in the Model of the Year page on WarCom:
Returning to the galaxy with cold ambition in his eyes, Szarekh, The Silent King made his entrance known to the world with the stunningly ornate Dais of Dominion as his chariot.*
Thinking about it, a starter set with new Tomb Kings infantry/cavalry/chariots would be great (simply re-releasing the newer big critters alongside them for a pretty complete range already). Imagine them against Bretonnia, the two original dropped armies. That'd be quite the relaunch.
Id be very very surprised if they re-release the old kits. A lot of them look terrible compared to new ones. My hope is that we at least have 4 armies at release, cause otherwise, this will get very boring very soon
That is after all, the best true analogy to the Horus heresy: A small number of kits that most player's factions will be buying, plus upgrade kits.
I think people are reading into the Horus Heresy statement a bit much. They probably just meant it as, "it's set in the past" and no real connotations beyond that.
As for what's out at launch, I do think we'll get shared Empire armies to start with, followed in the future by unique units and upgrade kits to differ them from the other States/Emperors/whatever. But I don't necessarily think it will be Empire vs Empire in a starter box, as Greenskins vs Empire and Warriors of Chaos vs Empire is such an iconic image to the franchise. Kislev vs WoC keeps the 'good guy human' side of the box and the iconic Warriors of Chaos featuring. Remember that this isn't 40k/30 - the Empire was popular, but High Elves and Warriors of Chaos were arguably more so, and WHFB never had the 'dominantly most popular' thing Space Marines/the Imperium does in 40k.
That said, I do think it will only be a small number of factions to start with - definitely the Empire, maybe Kislev, maybe Greenskins, maybe Chaos - but they will rather quickly move to introduce others. My logic behind this is we know GW has been pushing for a very intense release schedule, because they know keeping up momentum and not giving the customers (especially whales) time to 'think', just see the New Shiny and buy one. Release multiple, large ranges all at once and chances are the impulse buyers will pick one and stick to it. Release several over a short-to-medium timeframe and "Oh wow I just started painting my Imperials, but those Bretonnians look too cool to resist!" repeat until the basic range is fleshed out over several years.
I could see them also doing something akin to Indexes, wherein you get very basic 'Legends' rules for the 8th edition ranges and using your old models until the new stuff lands and completely supersedes it.
> There will be a massive, beautifully presented, *expensive* “Ravening Hordes” book as part of the initial release that will include nearly all the rules and points etc. for players to use their existing armies. The lists will be generic enough, and may not even include named characters from the World That Was (because different timeline), and they will be notably underpowered compared to the new hotness. There *may* be lists for current AoS armies too
> Any re-releases of old figures/kits will be very limited, or strictly made-to-order
> heavy focus on new armies. My guess is Kislev vs. Norse raiders in the initial launch, perhaps different sets of factions every 6 months or so to go with specific campaign books.
> New models WILL come with square bases... but everything will be a shade bigger than before. I reckon 20mm squares will be gone, and everything will correspond with current rounds i.e. smallest size will be 25mm, then 32mm, cavalry will start at 65x32 rectangle etc. Models will potentially be provided with both squares and rounds, and movement trays for both will be available too.
>Diorama base-sets might be a thing, or indeed regiments might be posed in 5/10/20-model mini dioramas
(No, that’s just wishful thinking, ignore me...)
For all that big projects take 18months+ (or whatever) from initial concepts to saleable product, I’m pretty sure GW are flexible enough to be able to sit on CAD designs and rules decisions (for example) until quite late in the game i.e. they may well be taking their time to gauge what the customers want/are willing to pay for by combing the forums and checking out the competition.
I sold all of my WFB models many moons ago, and the teasers (such as they are) are giving me the itch to put an army together in advance of Old World finally dropping... but before I commit to a FireForge Not-Brettonian army I’ll finish my 2nd edition 40K space marines
I read people saying how popular space Marines are and that’s why fantasy went away, it didn’t sell as much as a whole game as Marines.
Yeah could be a reason.
But then those same people who are arguing it must be a human vs human starter, use the argument that they did it with Marines so precedent is there, it makes sense etc.
Surely you can’t ever compare another faction to Marines, as per argument one?
Particularly humans from fantasy, the plain ol’ regular guys, and I’m an Empire player!
Also I can’t remember who said they expect 4 factions for year one, three of which likely humans.
I mean, I agree maybe starting with 4 seems possible/likely.
But I can’t see how only one would be non human?
If Empire, Kislev & Bretonnia are all at launch, then I’d think there will be 6 factions, alongside the IRC’s and elves perhaps.
It could be Empire, Bretonnia, Chaos Warriors (technically a human faction!) and Orks.
Kislev might get rolled into the empire release, and maybe we'll get some kind of fun minor faction rolled into Bretonnia. (Not likely, but it would be cool)
Chaos was always there and Beastman played a big role during times of war
an Empire Book, Middenheim Book, Talabecland, Marienburg Book etc
GW would give a way possibilities to earn a lot of money if they make it just one book for all
Kislev itself and the northern lands of the Empire are similar and just the special units being different
so having a generic "man of the north" kit that also can be used as militia/peasants, state troops, elite infantry, knights, resin upgrade kits for White Wolf, Norse, Kislev, Marienburg, Bretonnia
dan2026 wrote: I hope we finally get some new Skaven.
They need a big revamp.
years too late, at least for me and I am not sure I would prefer new-GW style rats over the Mantic ones
Danny76 wrote: I mean, different provinces and wars in faction I could see sure.
But it would still be one faction book I’d have thought.
Kislev I think are too different appearance wise to come from empire kits.
What were Chaos up to around this era?
It’s been too long since the Old World, I’ve pushed a lot of history out of my head..
In general:
* The Age of Three Emperors, sometimes called the Time of Three Emperors, was a centuries-long period of civil war in The Empire. It began technically in 1547 and ended officially with the election and crowning of Magnus the Pious in 2304. The three are normally based around Middenheim, Talebheim and Altdorf.
* 2173 The Keeper of Secrets N'kari rampages across Ulthuan, attempting to find and eliminate all of Aenarion's descendants. At the Shrine of Asuryan, N'kari and its daemons are defeated by a High Elf host, led by Teclis and Tyrion.
* 2201 The Errantry Wars: King Louen Orc-Slayer of Bretonnia declares the Errantry Wars to rid Bretonnia of Orcs. Countless Greenskins are put to the sword, and they are temporarily driven out.
* 2205 The Battle Black Falls: Dwarf High King Alrik mortally wounds Warboss Gorkil Eyegouger, who pulls the King over the edge of the falls. Alriksson takes leadership of the army and routs the Greenskins.
* 2231 Ariel weeps as Morghur is reborn into the world once more, this time in the Forest of Arden. The Wood Elves attempt to kill his fifth incarnation as a babe, but are repulsed.
Although I am skeptical they would change the scale from 28/32, if they were to do it, I'd put my money on the same scale as the LOTR miniatures. The contract GW has regarding the IP, dictated that they needed to be at a different scale than their mainline Warhammer games. A little birdy has suggested that clause runs out in 2023.
Hollow wrote: Although I am skeptical they would change the scale from 28/32, if they were to do it, I'd put my money on the same scale as the LOTR miniatures. The contract GW has regarding the IP, dictated that they needed to be at a different scale than their mainline Warhammer games. A little birdy has suggested that clause runs out in 2023.
But wouldn’t the renewal of LotR also renew that clause if so?
But yeah I too would be skeptics.
Everything they’ve shown us suggests it’s the same.
Everything they haven’t shown us yet, suggests it could be any scale.
WHFB kits in significantly less exaggerated proportions would certainly be interesting, not the least for how it would make kitbashing easier, but the heroic style is kind of pretty heavily baked into what Warhammer in general has been for thirty years now. It's the Citadel house style.
That's not to say I find the suggestion utterly improbable but I'm not going to believe it until I see it. Would be nice, though.
Nothing they've shown us suggests anything about the scale. Warmaster used the same bases as Warhammer Fantasy Battle (IIRC they were all on cavalry bases, so not exactly "square" so much as rectangular), and concept artwork is concept artwork, it doesn't point to any specific scale.
Anyway, if I was GW the first factions out of the gate would be Warriors of Chaos, Kislev, Bretonnia, and Tomb Kings. Bretonnia and Tomb Kings because theres the most fan support for them (in the same way as Sisters of Battle). Warriors of Chaos are easily back-ended in via Age of Sigmar as most of their range is still available (though again I think GW doesn't want to sell us the same minis we already have), but also the design studio considers Chaos Warriors to be the fantasy equivalent of a Space Marine and amongst the most iconic and unique aspects of the setting. No way they reboot WHFB without Chaos Warriors. Kislev has become a meme within the Total War community, release a miniatures line, get a bunch of pc nerds hooked into the tabletop game, and then release an expac for the PC game featuring them afterwards - GW will make millions.
You still need some glue to bind those 4 factions together, so you release Empire, which sits smack dab in the middle of them. With clever art and miniatures design, an Empire range also gets you minis easily usable for Bretonnia and Kislev as well, so its kind of a win/win and the Empire was the central "good guy" faction of the setting, hard to do a reboot without them. Empire also easily allows you to bring back Vampires which are a much beloved army that don't exist as a cohesive whole in Age of Sigmar - rumors abound of Vampirates coming for AoS, which is great, but its not the same. While I'm at it, if you're doing generic Empire minis, you can easily get Estalia, Tilea, and Border Princes in too.
So those are the factions that I would expect to see if I were doing the game: Warriors of Chaos, Kislev, Bretonnia, Tomb Kings, Vampires, and Empire + non-Empire human factions.
To me, Wood Elves and High Elves are a trap, as are Orcs. I don't doubt GW will stick them in the game, just that I don't think they make sense, at least not before the others I listed.
But wouldn’t the renewal of LotR also renew that clause if so?
there are some big "if" here
if they get the same license, if the renew it at all, if GW wants TOW to be compatible with AoS or not, if they want Mass-Battle R&F or not etc
of course, going with 25mm instead of 32mm could add the possibility for lower price of models while units are bigger than in AoS and making it something on its own so most newer models cannot be used
there are some advantages here also to get 3rd party models out of the way
As someone (along with my normal group) who had been introduced to WHFB through Total War and instantly fell in love with the setting, we were very disappointed to find that the entire TT setting was nuked a few years prior to us discovering it. We looked into Age of Sigmar and were thoroughly unimpressed so we decided to go with 8th. After months of collecting dozens of boxes of older minis still available on GW's storefront (greatswords, dreadspears, skelies, kemmler/krell etc) and those now discontinued elsewhere (the guy putting together a Stirlander army almost had a stroke when he saw the prices of empire archers on ebay), we thought we were in a pretty good place after hearing about the "Old World".
Needless to say, we hope there are no major changes to scale. If so, we'll just go back to our original plan. No harm, no foul.
IMO - the base assumption about the game should be "We don't know anything at all about it and its foolish to start collecting an army of legacy miniatures to play with the game before we have any real details whatsoever", followed by "the game is probably 28mm, but not guaranteed to be".
Any deviation from that is just asking for trouble.
> There will be a massive, beautifully presented, *expensive* “Ravening Hordes” book as part of the initial release that will include nearly all the rules and points etc. for players to use their existing armies. The lists will be generic enough, and may not even include named characters from the World That Was (because different timeline), and they will be notably underpowered compared to the new hotness. There *may* be lists for current AoS armies too
> Any re-releases of old figures/kits will be very limited, or strictly made-to-order
> heavy focus on new armies. My guess is Kislev vs. Norse raiders in the initial launch, perhaps different sets of factions every 6 months or so to go with specific campaign books.
> New models WILL come with square bases... but everything will be a shade bigger than before. I reckon 20mm squares will be gone, and everything will correspond with current rounds i.e. smallest size will be 25mm, then 32mm, cavalry will start at 65x32 rectangle etc. Models will potentially be provided with both squares and rounds, and movement trays for both will be available too.
>Diorama base-sets might be a thing, or indeed regiments might be posed in 5/10/20-model mini dioramas
(No, that’s just wishful thinking, ignore me...)
For all that big projects take 18months+ (or whatever) from initial concepts to saleable product, I’m pretty sure GW are flexible enough to be able to sit on CAD designs and rules decisions (for example) until quite late in the game i.e. they may well be taking their time to gauge what the customers want/are willing to pay for by combing the forums and checking out the competition.
I sold all of my WFB models many moons ago, and the teasers (such as they are) are giving me the itch to put an army together in advance of Old World finally dropping... but before I commit to a FireForge Not-Brettonian army I’ll finish my 2nd edition 40K space marines
My guess would be rules to accommodate existing and old models along with two new armies in a starter at launch.
Like they did with AoS, sort of how they would have done if they released 9th edition instead of AoS.
GrosseSax wrote:As someone (along with my normal group) who had been introduced to WHFB through Total War and instantly fell in love with the setting, we were very disappointed to find that the entire TT setting was nuked a few years prior to us discovering it. We looked into Age of Sigmar and were thoroughly unimpressed so we decided to go with 8th. After months of collecting dozens of boxes of older minis still available on GW's storefront (greatswords, dreadspears, skelies, kemmler/krell etc) and those now discontinued elsewhere (the guy putting together a Stirlander army almost had a stroke when he saw the prices of empire archers on ebay), we thought we were in a pretty good place after hearing about the "Old World".
Needless to say, we hope there are no major changes to scale. If so, we'll just go back to our original plan. No harm, no foul.
Why not try Kings of War while you wait? You can use the models that you have and the basic rules are free from here with a free list builder here
Overread wrote: So far we've no hint at a scale change - its purely the result of people chatting and wish-listing/dreaming on things they'd like.
I don't see how it would make any sense for them to announce a big project with part of the initial reveal being "Here's a square base, remember These and The Old World setting? We're gonna return to them, get excited!" only to a long while later go "Oh, we meant Warmaster, not WHFB!" or "This is a small scope game just for for those of you who played human factions", either of those suggestions would just be absurd and be like another slap in the face to WHFB fans.
GrosseSax wrote: As someone (along with my normal group) who had been introduced to WHFB through Total War and instantly fell in love with the setting, we were very disappointed to find that the entire TT setting was nuked a few years prior to us discovering it.
I don't think there is any better example of how badly thought out the launch of AoS was than the fact that they did it just before the release of the biggest and most anticipated video game based on their IP.
Overread wrote: So far we've no hint at a scale change - its purely the result of people chatting and wish-listing/dreaming on things they'd like.
I don't see how it would make any sense for them to announce a big project with part of the initial reveal being "Here's a square base, remember These and The Old World setting? We're gonna return to them, get excited!" only to a long while later go "Oh, we meant Warmaster, not WHFB!" or "This is a small scope game just for for those of you who played human factions", either of those suggestions would just be absurd and be like another slap in the face to WHFB fans.
Yet some people really have it stuck in like its 50/50.
I mean, yes we don’t know 100%.
But it’s 95 28mm fantasy as before, 5% unknown/different scale..
more that I (and it looks like many others) just can't see how GW can do a large scale rank and file game at 28mm (or 32mm if we're looking at todays sculpting scale) without hitting the same 'too expensive to make a decent sized army, and too tedious to paint even if you do afford it' which was one of the reasons WHFB started dying
and as well as making it more viable in terms of cost and army size (and time needed to paint said army) dropping the scale would also keep it clearly separate from AoS (and LoTR),
remember they flirted with having connections with WHFB and Rogue Trader/40K in the beginning but decided to abandon the idea. They've already got a connection between the world that was and AoS so easiest way to keen them well separated is a different scale
(i'd love to be wrong as I don't care for smaller scales,)
Just making it square based isn't going to be enough to differentiate it from AoS. They'd also have to change the aesthetic from the old miniatures and look to maintain their TM on Bretonnians, etc.
A smaller scale also allows them to potentially use the same system for a Battle of Five Armies relaunch, to to something similar for the Silmarillion or other LOTR offerings, and then to have it for TOW.
Them showing a square base could mean anything. Are there even any models remaining that ship with square bases? "Square Base" could be reference to "rank and flank" much like square bashing, etc.
Like I said before, they have several years to develop it, and who knows what changed or changes between the original announcement, and when (if) they finally release something.
more that I (and it looks like many others) just can't see how GW can do a large scale rank and file game at 28mm (or 32mm if we're looking at todays sculpting scale) without hitting the same 'too expensive to make a decent sized army, and too tedious to paint even if you do afford it' which was one of the reasons WHFB started dying
and as well as making it more viable in terms of cost and army size (and time needed to paint said army) dropping the scale would also keep it clearly separate from AoS (and LoTR),
remember they flirted with having connections with WHFB and Rogue Trader/40K in the beginning but decided to abandon the idea. They've already got a connection between the world that was and AoS so easiest way to keen them well separated is a different scale
(i'd love to be wrong as I don't care for smaller scales,)
I think the solution is changing the basing, either like KoW or ASOIAF, or something new, so that blocks of units require less models.
Cruentus wrote: Just making it square based isn't going to be enough to differentiate it from AoS. They'd also have to change the aesthetic from the old miniatures and look to maintain their TM on Bretonnians, etc.
Trademark is to do with logos, names, symbols etc, its to identify or associate something with a specific brand/source so you can differ them from other similar things and tell which is which - the Trademark for Bretonnians has absolutely nothing to do with the models themselves. The aesthetics of them doesn't matter regarding that at all and won't make any difference in terms of "defending" it, they just have to use the trademark to do that. It's copyright that can involve aspects of appearance, identity, portrayal etc but having lsomething ike the aesthetic style or theming of a miniature be protected under copyright is more difficult, as they can't really own the general idea underlying them.
It isn't a requirement for them to change the look and style of any of the old miniatures to "defend" them.
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: remember they flirted with having connections with WHFB and Rogue Trader/40K in the beginning but decided to abandon the idea. They've already got a connection between the world that was and AoS so easiest way to keen them well separated is a different scale
They still had clear references to 40k in the WHFB Albion campaign ("magic" items that were basically 40k wargear), and linked the fluff as recently as the End Times (the Wood Elf Araloth encountered someone presumed to be Kaldor Draigo in the Realms of Chaos, and the Skaven had a phone call with the Eldar). Not to mention the continued shared daemons of course. Besides, why would they want to separate them? Daemon kits do double duty. Genestealer and Chaos cults exist in Necromunda. Warcry figures work in AoS and vice versa; even Underworlds warbands have rules in AoS. For some things, GW likes selling people 2 things instead of 1, but having partial overlap is also a good gateway from one system to another.
more that I (and it looks like many others) just can't see how GW can do a large scale rank and file game at 28mm (or 32mm if we're looking at todays sculpting scale) without hitting the same 'too expensive to make a decent sized army, and too tedious to paint even if you do afford it' which was one of the reasons WHFB started dying
and as well as making it more viable in terms of cost and army size (and time needed to paint said army) dropping the scale would also keep it clearly separate from AoS (and LoTR),
remember they flirted with having connections with WHFB and Rogue Trader/40K in the beginning but decided to abandon the idea. They've already got a connection between the world that was and AoS so easiest way to keen them well separated is a different scale
(i'd love to be wrong as I don't care for smaller scales,)
If you look at modern 40k or even most AOS armies they're absolutely gigantic at 2k points. In fact when you think that basically GW and the community encouraged 2.5k games for Fantasy to the exclusion of all else this idea that you "needed" too many models in the system is kind of false. Fact of the matter is, during 8th Edition 40k people were putting more models on the table than ever before, many of which approached or exceeded 2.5k games of Fantasy, and yet the game thrived and grew and grew and grew. And it's not like many of those armies were any less tedious to paint either. And it's not like price increases have kept up with average earnings: GW is more expensive nowadays, even accounting for inflation. 40k and AOS are not skirmish games, they are massed battle games without the rank and file.
What is important is scalability and initial buy-in being easy and relatively cheap. This is something that was eroded in Fantasy from 7th onwards, reaching an absolute peak in 8th where unless you had a giant block of 80 elite foot soldiers that could tank a few Purple Suns and still have enough models in afterwards to get rank bonus then you may as well not have been playing. Like I said on a previous page, you could make somewhat viable and effective regiments from the regiment boxes back in 6th because 4x4 was a valid size. With the change to width becoming 5 in 7th Ed a ton of boxes suddenly became worse overnight and then forced people into buying 2x of them. Added to this is that in the last two editions of the game, smaller ways to play were basically dropped and discouraged whereas in 6th there was much more support for 1k or 1.5k games, you even had the skirmish rules in the back of the rulebook. And this isn't even getting into some of the later sets that were unplayable from a physical point of view, where they literally didn't even fit on their tiny square bases much less rank up together properly. Who the feth is gonna buy that?
If you make initial buy-in easy, if you have proper scaling and support for multiple levels of play and if you sell basic products that are usable within your game system from the get-go, then there's no reason why a massed battle rank and file game at 28mm can't be successful.
Overread wrote: So far we've no hint at a scale change - its purely the result of people chatting and wish-listing/dreaming on things they'd like.
I don't see how it would make any sense for them to announce a big project with part of the initial reveal being "Here's a square base, remember These and The Old World setting? We're gonna return to them, get excited!" only to a long while later go "Oh, we meant Warmaster, not WHFB!" or "This is a small scope game just for for those of you who played human factions", either of those suggestions would just be absurd and be like another slap in the face to WHFB fans.
well, this would mean GW had a full plan when doing that and not just tried to mock Kings of War
by that time we also should have Squads back in 40k, as hints and "remember those" stuff is posted for years now
but by seeing what GW is doing and not knowing how armies of the current edition should look like 2 years in advance or changing the mind on how their game should look like in the middle of an Edition
I don't see them to have thought ahead on doing anything specific by showing the picture and still don't know what they should do
GrosseSax wrote:As someone (along with my normal group) who had been introduced to WHFB through Total War and instantly fell in love with the setting, we were very disappointed to find that the entire TT setting was nuked a few years prior to us discovering it. We looked into Age of Sigmar and were thoroughly unimpressed so we decided to go with 8th. After months of collecting dozens of boxes of older minis still available on GW's storefront (greatswords, dreadspears, skelies, kemmler/krell etc) and those now discontinued elsewhere (the guy putting together a Stirlander army almost had a stroke when he saw the prices of empire archers on ebay), we thought we were in a pretty good place after hearing about the "Old World".
Needless to say, we hope there are no major changes to scale. If so, we'll just go back to our original plan. No harm, no foul.
Why not try Kings of War while you wait? You can use the models that you have and the basic rules are free from here with a free list builder here
+1
if you come from Total War, Kings of War is the perfect way to spend the time until GW delivers something
the rules are model agnostic and the armies fit the themes of the old Warhammer armies
Overread wrote: So far we've no hint at a scale change - its purely the result of people chatting and wish-listing/dreaming on things they'd like.
I don't see how it would make any sense for them to announce a big project with part of the initial reveal being "Here's a square base, remember These and The Old World setting? We're gonna return to them, get excited!" only to a long while later go "Oh, we meant Warmaster, not WHFB!" or "This is a small scope game just for for those of you who played human factions", either of those suggestions would just be absurd and be like another slap in the face to WHFB fans.
Something you need to understand is that "The Old World" refers very explicitly to one particular continent, and not the entirety of the world that continent belonged to (now known as the-world-that-was). From the moment of the announcement there should have been an expectation that not all factions would be present in the game (and most of the factions that would be in it would be human ones).
As for square bases - the reason people want square bases is because they want a rank n file game as opposed to the skirmish combat covered by all of the other games GW releases. If GW gives us minis in a different scale that fulfill the criteria of a rank n file game then they still gave us what they marketed.
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: Hardly wish listing for many I'd think, more that I (and it looks like many others) just can't see how GW can do a large scale rank and file game at 28mm (or 32mm if we're looking at todays sculpting scale) without hitting the same 'too expensive to make a decent sized army, and too tedious to paint even if you do afford it' which was one of the reasons WHFB started dying
Probably the same way they got people to buy HH armies full of expensive resin kits.
chaos0xomega wrote: Something you need to understand is that "The Old World" refers very explicitly to one particular continent, and not the entirety of the world that continent belonged to (now known as the-world-that-was). From the moment of the announcement there should have been an expectation that not all factions would be present in the game (and most of the factions that would be in it would be human ones).
While I'm all for tempering expectations, "The Old World" is as much a name of a land mass as it is a term describing Ye Olde Warhammer.
I don't think it's particularly unreasonable for Delves, Lizzies or Khemri players to expect some attention directed towards their factions of choice down the line.
Overread wrote: So far we've no hint at a scale change - its purely the result of people chatting and wish-listing/dreaming on things they'd like.
I don't see how it would make any sense for them to announce a big project with part of the initial reveal being "Here's a square base, remember These and The Old World setting? We're gonna return to them, get excited!" only to a long while later go "Oh, we meant Warmaster, not WHFB!" or "This is a small scope game just for for those of you who played human factions", either of those suggestions would just be absurd and be like another slap in the face to WHFB fans.
Something you need to understand is that "The Old World" refers very explicitly to one particular continent, and not the entirety of the world that continent belonged to (now known as the-world-that-was). From the moment of the announcement there should have been an expectation that not all factions would be present in the game (and most of the factions that would be in it would be human ones).
This is something that seems a bit unclear, really.
Within the WHFB setting, "The Old World" referred to a particular part of the planet, the continent where Bretonia, the Empire etc was.
But within the context of this project and how they've referred to things, it does not sound limited to that continent:
"...Archaon destroyed the world. Classic Archaon.
Everything we knew of the Old World collapsed into a void of Chaos and infinite possibility."
"From the reforged primordial soup and etheric energies of the Old World rose wonders we could never have imagined "
If you’re itching to jump into the Old World right now, you can! There is a fantastic selection of computer games, such as Vermintide and Total War: Warhammer, offering a chance to engage in the enduring appeal of the setting.
They're talking about in a way that implies it's not just that one continent within The World That Was, but rather just using the term applied to the setting itself.
None of that points to "The Old World" as a planet vs "The Old World" as a region. Given that the announcement, and every WarCom post since, has *only* ever featured a map of that specific continent, it would be silly to assume they mean anything else.
chaos0xomega wrote: None of that points to "The Old World" as a planet vs "The Old World" as a region. Given that the announcement, and every WarCom post since, has *only* ever featured a map of that specific continent, it would be silly to assume they mean anything else.
It's using the term "The Old World" in a context that implies it's not just a small part of a larger setting, but the setting itself. They're sentences where it would make far more sense to use "The World That Was" instead, it comes across as a bit odd by using The Old World - The Old World wasn't what got reforged and lead to "armies of ghosts, fleets of aether-powered aircraft, Greenskin brutes the size of horses, and flying sharks", it was the entire planet/setting that was. It's either using the term to refer to the whole setting, or referring to the continent in contexts where it doesn't have particular direct relevance to the sentence.
Overread wrote: So far we've no hint at a scale change - its purely the result of people chatting and wish-listing/dreaming on things they'd like.
I don't see how it would make any sense for them to announce a big project with part of the initial reveal being "Here's a square base, remember These and The Old World setting? We're gonna return to them, get excited!" only to a long while later go "Oh, we meant Warmaster, not WHFB!" or "This is a small scope game just for for those of you who played human factions", either of those suggestions would just be absurd and be like another slap in the face to WHFB fans.
well, this would mean GW had a full plan when doing that and not just tried to mock Kings of War
by that time we also should have Squads back in 40k, as hints and "remember those" stuff is posted for years now
but by seeing what GW is doing and not knowing how armies of the current edition should look like 2 years in advance or changing the mind on how their game should look like in the middle of an Edition
I don't see them to have thought ahead on doing anything specific by showing the picture and still don't know what they should do
GrosseSax wrote:As someone (along with my normal group) who had been introduced to WHFB through Total War and instantly fell in love with the setting, we were very disappointed to find that the entire TT setting was nuked a few years prior to us discovering it. We looked into Age of Sigmar and were thoroughly unimpressed so we decided to go with 8th. After months of collecting dozens of boxes of older minis still available on GW's storefront (greatswords, dreadspears, skelies, kemmler/krell etc) and those now discontinued elsewhere (the guy putting together a Stirlander army almost had a stroke when he saw the prices of empire archers on ebay), we thought we were in a pretty good place after hearing about the "Old World".
Needless to say, we hope there are no major changes to scale. If so, we'll just go back to our original plan. No harm, no foul.
Why not try Kings of War while you wait? You can use the models that you have and the basic rules are free from here with a free list builder here
+1
if you come from Total War, Kings of War is the perfect way to spend the time until GW delivers something
the rules are model agnostic and the armies fit the themes of the old Warhammer armies
Its been on our radar for a while and we've heard pretty good things about it on the various forums on which we lurk.
Thanks fellas, will definitely check it out.
As far as waiting for GW delivering - we have mostly everything we need to play without GW's support. I can't speak for anyone else, but if GW wants to put out a product that I want, I don't have a problem buying it on day 1 (despite the obnoxious pricepoints), if not, its not a big deal. Aside from reading a couple White Dwarf issues in the 90's and some purchases off the storefront over the last year, I really haven't had enough interactions with GW to get upset or expect anything. Ultimately, as a potential consumer, I remain optimistic about these announcements.
chaos0xomega wrote: None of that points to "The Old World" as a planet vs "The Old World" as a region. Given that the announcement, and every WarCom post since, has *only* ever featured a map of that specific continent, it would be silly to assume they mean anything else.
It's using the term "The Old World" in a context that implies it's not just a small part of a larger setting, but the setting itself. They're sentences where it would make far more sense to use "The World That Was" instead, it comes across as a bit odd by using The Old World - The Old World wasn't what got reforged and lead to "armies of ghosts, fleets of aether-powered aircraft, Greenskin brutes the size of horses, and flying sharks", it was the entire planet/setting that was. It's either using the term to refer to the whole setting, or referring to the continent in contexts where it doesn't have particular direct relevance to the sentence.
Hard disagree. If you read carefully you will note that they also refer to "the world that was", which reinforces the idea that these are two distinct terms - "And of course, much of the lore of the Mortal Realms has its roots in the world that was – with some of its most venerable denizens being the very same that fought across those war-torn kingdoms (along with a small selection of choice magical artefacts.)". Its amazing what happens when you take something out of context. These aren't three discrete quotes - this is a continuous narrative that need to be read together to ensure proper contextualization of the message:
For those of you who don’t know, in 2015, Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles changed forever, in so far as Archaon destroyed the world. Classic Archaon.
Everything we knew of the Old World collapsed into a void of Chaos and infinite possibility.
From that tumultuous storm came the Mortal Realms, heralding a new dawn of unending war in the Age of Sigmar. From the reforged primordial soup and etheric energies of the Old World rose wonders we could never have imagined – armies of ghosts, fleets of aether-powered aircraft, Greenskin brutes the size of horses, and flying sharks! The heroes, villains, warriors and monsters of Warhammer Age of Sigmar represent the best range of fantasy miniatures in the world, beloved of a passionate, global gaming community. And over the past four years, Warhammer Age of Sigmar has become by far, the most successful fantasy game ever.
And yet, the Old World whispers from ages past with its siren song. We grow misty-eyed at the memory of long-lost heroes and glorious kingdoms laid to ruin and of mighty champions whose sagas are sung no more.
And of course, much of the lore of the Mortal Realms has its roots in the world that was – with some of its most venerable denizens being the very same that fought across those war-torn kingdoms (along with a small selection of choice magical artefacts.)
The Old World is to Warhammer Age of Sigmar, as the Horus Heresy is to Warhammer 40,000. The bedrock of lore from which mortals rose to godhood and legends were forged. And like the Horus Heresy, seeing those mythic heroes in action has an undeniable appeal, as does re-creating the glorious armies of a previous epoch – an exciting proposition for hobbyists and gamers alike. And now, we have a dedicated team in the Warhammer Studio beginning the work of bringing all that awesome back to the tabletop.
Put in other terms:
"For those of you who don't know, the entire Warhammer Fantasy setting (i.e. the world) was destroyed in 2015 as part of a big fluff event.
Everything we know of the subject of this entire post (i.e. the Old World) got tossed in a blender as a result of that.
From that blender we got Age of Sigmar. The subjects raw material was part of the blending process and was incorporated into it to make all sorts of cool new stuff.
And yet, we yearn for the subject and are nostalgic for it.
And it wasn't just the subject that got turned into Age of Sigmar, the *entire world* was part of that rich and luxurious blend that got turned into an Age of Sigmar milkshake.
So, we're bringing the subject back in a brand new game!"
The fifth paragraph in all of this is key - if "The Old World" is being used to refer to the whole world, and the 2nd and 3rd paragraph inform us that The Old World was tossed into a blender and turned into Age of Sigmar, then it makes little sense for the 5th paragraph to say the same exact thing. That paragraph exists to remind us that it wasn't *just* "The Old World" that was used to create Age of Sigmar, but in fact the *entire* world that was.
You're putting far more thought into GW's words than they do with the "Old World" vs "World That Was" thing. It is safe to assume that this release will be what it seems to be.
It's a marketing campaign not an fething infernal contract.
GrosseSax wrote: As someone (along with my normal group) who had been introduced to WHFB through Total War and instantly fell in love with the setting, we were very disappointed to find that the entire TT setting was nuked a few years prior to us discovering it. We looked into Age of Sigmar and were thoroughly unimpressed so we decided to go with 8th. After months of collecting dozens of boxes of older minis still available on GW's storefront (greatswords, dreadspears, skelies, kemmler/krell etc) and those now discontinued elsewhere (the guy putting together a Stirlander army almost had a stroke when he saw the prices of empire archers on ebay), we thought we were in a pretty good place after hearing about the "Old World".
Needless to say, we hope there are no major changes to scale. If so, we'll just go back to our original plan. No harm, no foul.
Felt the same same when I saw the prices on Ebay for Bretonnian Men at Arms. Not to mention anything else that isn't 5e Archers and Knights of the Realm.
GrosseSax wrote: As someone (along with my normal group) who had been introduced to WHFB through Total War and instantly fell in love with the setting, we were very disappointed to find that the entire TT setting was nuked a few years prior to us discovering it.
I don't think there is any better example of how badly thought out the launch of AoS was than the fact that they did it just before the release of the biggest and most anticipated video game based on their IP.
Was it even announced at the time?
A smaller scale also allows them to potentially use the same system for a Battle of Five Armies relaunch
You mean Warmaster. (its the same basic ruleset, just slightly modified).
Them showing a square base could mean anything. Are there even any models remaining that ship with square bases? "Square Base" could be reference to "rank and flank" much like square bashing, etc.
This was almost certainly the message. Square bases on their own are almost completely meaningless, nobody (that I know of) is a square based fetishist because they get their jolly from having corners on their bases, the desire for square basing is so you can position your troops in neat ranks and files, specifically and explicitly so you can maneuver and fight in such formations.
They still had clear references to 40k in the WHFB Albion campaign ("magic" items that were basically 40k wargear), and linked the fluff as recently as the End Times (the Wood Elf Araloth encountered someone presumed to be Kaldor Draigo in the Realms of Chaos, and the Skaven had a phone call with the Eldar). Not to mention the continued shared daemons of course. Besides, why would they want to separate them? Daemon kits do double duty. Genestealer and Chaos cults exist in Necromunda. Warcry figures work in AoS and vice versa; even Underworlds warbands have rules in AoS. For some things, GW likes selling people 2 things instead of 1, but having partial overlap is also a good gateway from one system to another.
You will note, however, that in almost all the examples you've listed (Daemons notwithstanding), cross-functionality was not a "day one" feature. Genestealers and Chaos Cults took what, 1-2 years to show up in Necromunda? Warcry figures got day 1 rules in AoS (as basic as they were) but it took months before AoS minis got support for use in Warcry. Underworlds untis did not initially have AoS rules, that came some weeks/months after they began releasing them. Quite frankly I think the timing is intentional and manipulative. The goal is to get people to buy stuff. It took forever for GSC and Chaos cults to get Necromunda support because GW wanted you to buy its new range of Necromunda minis. Only after Necromunda had been on the market did they start making allowances for proper 40k factions to be utilized, that was because at that point they figured that if you hadn't already bought the Necromunda minis you weren't going to, though maybe they could sucker you into playing a game or two with your existing minis and if you liked it enough maybe you'd pick up that Cawdor gang you were on the fence about.
Warcry figures got AoS rules on launch because they were new minis that GW wanted you to buy. AoS minis didn't get Warcry rules on launch because they really wanted you to buy the new Warcry minis first instead of using your existing AoS minis, they only gave the AoS minis rules after release because at that point if you hadn't jumped into the Warcry pool you weren't going to, but just like with Necromunda, maybe if you played a game or two you could be convinced to buy a box of The Unmade or The Corvus Cabal...
If you look at modern 40k or even most AOS armies they're absolutely gigantic at 2k points. In fact when you think that basically GW and the community encouraged 2.5k games for Fantasy to the exclusion of all else this idea that you "needed" too many models in the system is kind of false. Fact of the matter is, during 8th Edition 40k people were putting more models on the table than ever before, many of which approached or exceeded 2.5k games of Fantasy, and yet the game thrived and grew and grew and grew.
The rules indirectly encouraged larger games though to the point that its not really "false" to say that you needed too many models, I don't really know that thats the communities fault (but it is GW's). If the rules contain mechanics for something called "Hordes" that you can't really meaningfully take advantage of until your units hit 30 models each, then its reasonable to assume that you're going to want to play a game where that rule comes into play. That wasn't the only rule that encouraged larger unit sizes, etc. mind you - there was quite a bit in the rulebook that pointed in that direction. The community merely adopted a standard that enabled players to meaningfully engage and interact with the rules as written. Could people have played smaller games? Yes, but then they would be leaving rules on the table. Sociologically/psychologically speaking, gamers are overwhelmingly similar to horders - they want everything they can get their hands on, every mini, every mechanical advantage, everything. If theres a rule for something, you can expect your players to use it unless it serves no meaningful purpose. From a designers standpoint - if you put a rule for something into a game, you can reasonably expect your players to want to use it. In short, 2.5k games were unavoidable without a change to the rules.
The real problem here though is that the game played differently at low points values compared to high points values, because at lower points those "big unit" rules didn't come into play. The armies were clearly balanced around making full use of those rules and thus not having them in effect would have an impact on how the game played. By extension, playing smaller game sizes would produce a different experience which wouldn't necessarily be comparable to the experience of a full size game which limits their value as a way of "escalating" players to larger game sizes if the game felt significantly different at 2.5k points compared to 1k points.
You're putting far more thought into GW's words than they do with the "Old World" vs "World That Was" thing. It is safe to assume that this release will be what it seems to be.
It's a marketing campaign not an fething infernal contract.
I agree. They named the game after one specific continent in the setting and keep showing us maps of that one specific continent and absolutely no other parts of the world map. Clearly, its safe to assume that the game is going to be exactly what it seems to be - a game centered around that one specific area of the setting.
chaos0xomega wrote: Nothing they've shown us suggests anything about the scale. Warmaster used the same bases as Warhammer Fantasy Battle (IIRC they were all on cavalry bases, so not exactly "square" so much as rectangular), and concept artwork is concept artwork, it doesn't point to any specific scale.
Anyway, if I was GW the first factions out of the gate would be Warriors of Chaos, Kislev, Bretonnia, and Tomb Kings. Bretonnia and Tomb Kings because theres the most fan support for them (in the same way as Sisters of Battle). Warriors of Chaos are easily back-ended in via Age of Sigmar as most of their range is still available (though again I think GW doesn't want to sell us the same minis we already have), but also the design studio considers Chaos Warriors to be the fantasy equivalent of a Space Marine and amongst the most iconic and unique aspects of the setting. No way they reboot WHFB without Chaos Warriors. Kislev has become a meme within the Total War community, release a miniatures line, get a bunch of pc nerds hooked into the tabletop game, and then release an expac for the PC game featuring them afterwards - GW will make millions.
You still need some glue to bind those 4 factions together, so you release Empire, which sits smack dab in the middle of them. With clever art and miniatures design, an Empire range also gets you minis easily usable for Bretonnia and Kislev as well, so its kind of a win/win and the Empire was the central "good guy" faction of the setting, hard to do a reboot without them. Empire also easily allows you to bring back Vampires which are a much beloved army that don't exist as a cohesive whole in Age of Sigmar - rumors abound of Vampirates coming for AoS, which is great, but its not the same. While I'm at it, if you're doing generic Empire minis, you can easily get Estalia, Tilea, and Border Princes in too.
So those are the factions that I would expect to see if I were doing the game: Warriors of Chaos, Kislev, Bretonnia, Tomb Kings, Vampires, and Empire + non-Empire human factions.
To me, Wood Elves and High Elves are a trap, as are Orcs. I don't doubt GW will stick them in the game, just that I don't think they make sense, at least not before the others I listed.
Warmaster was on 20x40mm flat stand bases, not even remotely the same as cav bases.
more that I (and it looks like many others) just can't see how GW can do a large scale rank and file game at 28mm (or 32mm if we're looking at todays sculpting scale) without hitting the same 'too expensive to make a decent sized army, and too tedious to paint even if you do afford it' which was one of the reasons WHFB started dying
and as well as making it more viable in terms of cost and army size (and time needed to paint said army) dropping the scale would also keep it clearly separate from AoS (and LoTR),
remember they flirted with having connections with WHFB and Rogue Trader/40K in the beginning but decided to abandon the idea. They've already got a connection between the world that was and AoS so easiest way to keen them well separated is a different scale
(i'd love to be wrong as I don't care for smaller scales,)
If you look at modern 40k or even most AOS armies they're absolutely gigantic at 2k points. In fact when you think that basically GW and the community encouraged 2.5k games for Fantasy to the exclusion of all else this idea that you "needed" too many models in the system is kind of false. Fact of the matter is, during 8th Edition 40k people were putting more models on the table than ever before, many of which approached or exceeded 2.5k games of Fantasy, and yet the game thrived and grew and grew and grew. And it's not like many of those armies were any less tedious to paint either. And it's not like price increases have kept up with average earnings: GW is more expensive nowadays, even accounting for inflation. 40k and AOS are not skirmish games, they are massed battle games without the rank and file.
What is important is scalability and initial buy-in being easy and relatively cheap. This is something that was eroded in Fantasy from 7th onwards, reaching an absolute peak in 8th where unless you had a giant block of 80 elite foot soldiers that could tank a few Purple Suns and still have enough models in afterwards to get rank bonus then you may as well not have been playing. Like I said on a previous page, you could make somewhat viable and effective regiments from the regiment boxes back in 6th because 4x4 was a valid size. With the change to width becoming 5 in 7th Ed a ton of boxes suddenly became worse overnight and then forced people into buying 2x of them. Added to this is that in the last two editions of the game, smaller ways to play were basically dropped and discouraged whereas in 6th there was much more support for 1k or 1.5k games, you even had the skirmish rules in the back of the rulebook. And this isn't even getting into some of the later sets that were unplayable from a physical point of view, where they literally didn't even fit on their tiny square bases much less rank up together properly. Who the feth is gonna buy that?
If you make initial buy-in easy, if you have proper scaling and support for multiple levels of play and if you sell basic products that are usable within your game system from the get-go, then there's no reason why a massed battle rank and file game at 28mm can't be successful.
I don't recall 40k games getting up to those sizes on a typical basis, at least not around these parts. I myself have a Tyranid army and despised playing large games with 100 or so models as half the day would be taken up doing the movement phases, whereas my WHFB O&G army weighs in at about 170 to 200 models.
But yeah I agree on the scalability thing. I recall in earlier editions it was a valid tactic to run several smaller units with a couple of big blocks for achors to gain a movement advantage over armies running only big blocks, but that tactic died out in later editions as they'd just be swept away.
Derek H wrote: Whatever they do we are just not going to be able to get GW's new style figures to rank up on old WHFB sized bases.
I recently got the new start collecting box for chaos warriors and had a really plesant surprise at the size of them. They are basicly the size of an old Empire human in heavy armour -their weapons are of a more realistic scale rather than the absurd bloat of gigantic axes, flaming swords or magic effects flying all over the place.
Without loosing any of the menacing and dominating appearance they are actually sleeker and more nimble than ever. The bare heads, if you want them, are as small as the lord of the rings range.
They would fit great in a generic old world setting
I dont expect the new game to use the same base and unit sizes as the old one. Wouldnt be surprised if they went a bit along the KoW route and use movement trays/multibase for units and not count each individual model in a 30+ man unit.
This would allow them to have overlap between AoS and TOW and also let them have the new more "artistic" style without the problem of 0 models able to actually rank up well.
In 7th you had 5x5 units for a 100x100mm unit if they were on 20mm bases. If going for round 25mm bases it would be possible to go for 4x4 with special movement trays and keep the 100x100 for an infantry unit.They might instead go for 120x120 as the basic size and allow some flexibility to how you rank them. 6x6 on 20mm if you can manage it or 4x4 on round 25 with a movement tray with some space or anything in between. Or it would be slightly wider if they base it on 32mm round bases. I have no idea of the base size of AoS so they might go for that instead.
Monsters, warmachines and skirmishers could still be the same just that they increase the size of the square base by a level. Like a monster on a 40mm round base would be a 45-50mm square base so you could use extensions.
It all depends on if they want overlap of their games or not. If they have in mind to make the new game be on the same level as old WFB and stand on its own in the future then they probably wont make it too easy to use the models for both systems. But if it instead is more on the likes of their specialist games and they wont support it at the same level as 40k or AoS then lots of overlap wont really hurt or be able to kill their main game AoS so why not go for it to draw in the players that right now are looking at KoW or other systems. Having overlap will help increase the playerbase at the beginning and help the game take off.
I never played whfb but as I'm building Bestigors right now, which were designed for rank'n'file, I can't tell you how much I hope they up base sizes across the board, so the models can have more than one "I hold my weapon right in front of me" pose.
more that I (and it looks like many others) just can't see how GW can do a large scale rank and file game at 28mm (or 32mm if we're looking at todays sculpting scale) without hitting the same 'too expensive to make a decent sized army, and too tedious to paint even if you do afford it' which was one of the reasons WHFB started dying
and as well as making it more viable in terms of cost and army size (and time needed to paint said army) dropping the scale would also keep it clearly separate from AoS (and LoTR),
remember they flirted with having connections with WHFB and Rogue Trader/40K in the beginning but decided to abandon the idea. They've already got a connection between the world that was and AoS so easiest way to keen them well separated is a different scale
(i'd love to be wrong as I don't care for smaller scales,)
I think the solution is changing the basing, either like KoW or ASOIAF, or something new, so that blocks of units require less models.
I think part of what appeals about rank and file games is how they're densely packed units. Something is lost when the formation becomes too loose.
Of course that contradicts the idea of having something easier to get into, but something like this just looks cool standing opposite you on the battlefield...
My desire is a return to the gritty, down and dirty look and feel of Oldhammer.
I dislike modern versions for many reasons. One of the big ones is how ludicrous the overly ornate miniatures are. It literally looks like Brazilian parade in which several of the float contestants got in to a squabble. Huge centerpiece surrounded by gaudily dressed show girls.
Rules I can tinker with. I always do. But for me to buy the models they must look the part. Grubby peasants, Skaven looking like they just crawled from a sewer, Knights in battered armor, Dwarves with grubby fingers and menacing glares, etc.
I can not imagine dwarves spending countless hours on their hair before battle................throw on a hat and get to marching.
This means models to scale and aesthetic with 6th edition.
I honestly do not have much hope for anything that emerges but will buy the book for a read. After reading some online reviews..............
Even if the rules are good they will pulverize them before long. Making army lists and special rules for each and every model. Meaning game tactics are 5% and army list building- (and buying) are the other 95% of the experience.
I went back to 3rd edition and it will take a peach of a rules set for me to move ahead.
I don't recall 40k games getting up to those sizes on a typical basis, at least not around these parts. I myself have a Tyranid army and despised playing large games with 100 or so models as half the day would be taken up doing the movement phases, whereas my WHFB O&G army weighs in at about 170 to 200 models.
But yeah I agree on the scalability thing. I recall in earlier editions it was a valid tactic to run several smaller units with a couple of big blocks for achors to gain a movement advantage over armies running only big blocks, but that tactic died out in later editions as they'd just be swept away.
for 40k there was the time were "formations" added expensive models for free
like if you have X units of Y ther transports for those are free, ending up with people being able to put 4000 points worth of units in a 2000 point game
and there rules were written in a way that you wanted to use those formations because those were the "fluffy" way of playing a specific company/faction
and those things did not scale well as one army could use those formations already at 1,5k points while another only at 2,5k points
same way Warhammer stopped scaling well in 8th, as with the 50% Heroes instead of a fixed number and rules that needed larger blocks, was well as stronger monsters, magic and warmachines, playing less than 2k points was a problem as a single model could wipe out the opponents army in a single turn (something we haven't had since 5th Edition) and 2,5-3k was the point level were things started to work
a strange thing, that was the communities fault, was that while house rules were dominant in 7th and made it work, people were strongly against them in 8th "because GW now fixed all problems and we need to play the game as it is for the full Warhammer experience"
don't know were this trend was coming from but changing rules that did not work well, was a no-go while it was normal in 7th that stuff that was obvious broken at lower points got changed without a doubt
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I think part of what appeals about rank and file games is how they're densely packed units. Something is lost when the formation becomes too loose.
Of course that contradicts the idea of having something easier to get into, but something like this just looks cool standing opposite you on the battlefield...
Believe me, I fully understand that. Few things are cooler than a full shieldwall of spearmen, which your opponent has to charge.
I don't want to loose that phalanx feeling either, but I believe there is a middle ground between "I have to pose all my models with them holding their weapons up, so they don't use up more than 25cm²" and the Khorne Wrathmongers.
Daughters of Khaine Witch Aelves are rank and file models and yet have a very dynamic pose to them. I would suspect that digital sculpting would allow designers to really get wild with poses and experiment with what can and cannot work in conceptual form far easier and quicker than physical sculptors who would likely find it more of a challenge (and a huge amount of time reposing and redesigning models etc...).
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I think part of what appeals about rank and file games is how they're densely packed units. Something is lost when the formation becomes too loose.
Of course that contradicts the idea of having something easier to get into, but something like this just looks cool standing opposite you on the battlefield...
Believe me, I fully understand that. Few things are cooler than a full shieldwall of spearmen, which your opponent has to charge.
I don't want to loose that phalanx feeling either, but I believe there is a middle ground between "I have to pose all my models with them holding their weapons up, so they don't use up more than 25cm²" and the Khorne Wrathmongers.
I think a unit like that would probably end up on 40mm bases as they aren't the sort of unit that would form nice ranks and files anyway.
A large part of the problem was GW grew the scale but the bases stayed the same size, though personally I would have rather they didn't grow the scale instead of growing the base sizes anyway. Someone mentioned Bestigors earlier, I'm not familiar with the models but maybe the solution there is another intermediate base size like 30mm (similar to how 40k introduced 32mm) or maybe the models need a redesign. I think GW lost their way for a while in the early days of multipose when it came to WHFB model posing, producing stuff that neither looked good nor ranked up easily. Savage Orcs are a good example of a unit that looks dynamic and chaotic while still being able to mount up in a dense formation on 25mm bases (so long as you're a bit careful).
But there is always a conflict between wanting uniquely posed models and having them rank up easily. I definitely went through a phase of wanting all my WHFB models to look unique, after a while I grew out of it and realised the aesthetic beauty of WHFB is not the individual model, but the regiment as a whole. These days I only pose my champions / heroes / lords, though even that's sometimes a bit of a headache, a couple of units I've had to custom make a command group around my lord so he'll fit in the unit. A solution might just be to allow the Lord / Hero to stand next to the unit while counting as being "in" the unit at an arbitrary location.
kenofyork wrote:
I can not imagine dwarves spending countless hours on their hair before battle................throw on a hat and get to marching.
I went back to 3rd edition and it will take a peach of a rules set for me to move ahead.
Just my $.02.
Have you ever had long hair? It gets manky and unmanageable if you don't take care of it. Keep it clean and tied back when you have a job to do. If it's long enough; braids are also quite practical.
I hear you on sticking to a game that works for you though. GW will have to make something phenomenal and entirely change how they treat their games and players before I even consider getting something from GW again.
Overread wrote: Daughters of Khaine Witch Aelves are rank and file models and yet have a very dynamic pose to them.
And it was a nightmare to put them in formation, if you remember it well like I do.
While I remember the memes when they reveal their Old World project, I don't have a lot of hope they will actually return to the old WFB with the squares the same size. It feels they're not compatible anymore to GW's upscaled plastic kits while keeping the dynamism of their new sculpts. I feel like a minimum of 25 mm for all infantries (not just orcs, chaos and some others) is more than needed. Could see monstruous infantry on 50 mm squares while cavalry can certainly work on their usual 25x50 mm (though for some, even that is getting tight...).
We still have a long time ahead before we even have a glimpse of the actual game mechanisms.
It still baffles me they keep trying to work a Hype when they are so early in the project. It's not even an Alpha if they're just working on the maps.
I'm willing to bet they have a pretty sound idea of the game rules already- they have the various different editions or warhammer to workwith, along with thier own experiences of it, alongside what various competitors are doing.
We know from interviews that as much as it may seem like everyone in the studio only knows warhammer, they all have an exposure to various other games, and are probably fans of them. At the very least, I'm sure they read the rule books.
I really think the thing we are waiting on is the models to get sculpted, and maybe other art assets created.
Carlovonsexron wrote: I'm willing to bet they have a pretty sound idea of the game rules already- they have the various different editions or warhammer to workwith, along with thier own experiences of it, alongside what various competitors are doing.
We know from interviews that as much as it may seem like everyone in the studio only knows warhammer, they all have an exposure to various other games, and are probably fans of them. At the very least, I'm sure they read the rule books.
I really think the thing we are waiting on is the models to get sculpted, and maybe other art assets created.
I'd like to think GW rules writers are well versed and have extensively played lots of different rule sets... though based on their writing a lot of the time it feels like they have barely playtested the rules they just wrote let alone rules to other games.
I think they are trying to be too exact for their own good sometimes.
I've tried a few times to get into GW rules with the boxed games, most recently the rules for the underworlds game, and I found them not very well written.
At the end of the day, the rules really don't need to be more than two pages opposing each other so you can see everything, a quick reference flow chart and an errata to cover specific situations.
Instead its full of dumb special key words where there don't need to be and wording that is meant to be exact but is instead very muddling.
And good-gods, the video explanation for direchasm was HUGELY confusing. It took me watching two guys just playing to realize how simple a game it actually is to play.
Now I've never actually branched into main AoS or 40k, but I cant imagine they are any better.
But there is always a conflict between wanting uniquely posed models and having them rank up easily. I definitely went through a phase of wanting all my WHFB models to look unique, after a while I grew out of it and realised the aesthetic beauty of WHFB is not the individual model, but the regiment as a whole. These days I only pose my champions / heroes / lords, though even that's sometimes a bit of a headache, a couple of units I've had to custom make a command group around my lord so he'll fit in the unit. A solution might just be to allow the Lord / Hero to stand next to the unit while counting as being "in" the unit at an arbitrary location.
Models on circular bases rank up in movement trays better than models on same size square bases. You can adjust the angles of the figures individually on the fly.
Base shape on the model doesn't really matter if they are all on a movement tray anyway. Which is why I'll bet if/when this comes out there will be many rebased onto round bases and movement trays with round slots on them - because if GW doesn't do it themselves gamers will do it to have cross compatible models.
That is true, but the issue becomes the absolutely massive frontage on stuff that is on 32mm rounds. I think 25mm works well enough, but the bigger sizes are stupid on movement trays.
Trademark is to do with logos, names, symbols etc, its to identify or associate something with a specific brand/source so you can differ them from other similar things and tell which is which - the Trademark for Bretonnians has absolutely nothing to do with the models themselves. The aesthetics of them doesn't matter regarding that at all and won't make any difference in terms of "defending" it, they just have to use the trademark to do that. It's copyright that can involve aspects of appearance, identity, portrayal etc but having lsomething ike the aesthetic style or theming of a miniature be protected under copyright is more difficult, as they can't really own the general idea underlying them.
It isn't a requirement for them to change the look and style of any of the old miniatures to "defend" them.
I was using "Trademark" as a catch all for trying to protect their games and IP by making visually unique models that aren't easily represented by Historical counterparts, oh, and let's not forget the stupid names too. I'd be really surprised if these "old Brets" end up looking like Medieval Tournament Knights with helm decorations and barding/trapping. If they keep the same look, I can go to a dozen other miniature providers and get similar looking miniatures for a fraction of the price.
If GW continues to be GW, we'll see continued swelling of miniature sizes (just look at the 5th ed Bret Knights compared to 7th, or whenever they re-did the plastic knights), the look will change, and they'll try to do something cute with the basing to just make it a bigger PITA.
I'd be super surprised if they kept it anything like what older editions of WHFB looked like.
Sabots and other movement trays are a common thing nowadays, so as folks have mentioned, that's a possibility. The other unknown is potential table size. 40k went from bog standard marines on 25s to Primaris on 32s, larger centerpiece models, and a smaller game surface. Don't you think "TOW" will aim to do the same thing, to maximize on the sales of gaming mats and surfaces? GW managed, over the 7 editions I've been playing 40k, to finally push me out, and I no longer buy or collect. AT is the only active game GW has that has kept me paying the slightest attention.
I'll be monitoring this as well, but its likely I'll just return to the "dead" editions of the games I enjoy(ed) and continue to play those.
kenofyork wrote:
I can not imagine dwarves spending countless hours on their hair before battle................throw on a hat and get to marching.
I went back to 3rd edition and it will take a peach of a rules set for me to move ahead.
Just my $.02.
Have you ever had long hair? It gets manky and unmanageable if you don't take care of it. Keep it clean and tied back when you have a job to do. If it's long enough; braids are also quite practical.
I hear you on sticking to a game that works for you though. GW will have to make something phenomenal and entirely change how they treat their games and players before I even consider getting something from GW again.
Aye. I can absolutely see them braid their hair before battle. It's what the Spartans (famously long-haired in antiquity) did before battles. I imagine them taking care of their luxurious hair just as well as they would maintain their weapons and armour. Various Germanic peoples (on which the Dwarfs are strongly culturally based) had similarly good hair-care regimes. Vikings washed it all the time, and combs are amongst the most common items found from them. Early Frankish kings had their hair braided when their nation was at war. Presumably most long-haired people in history did. Pretty embarrassing to die because your hair got in front of your face during a battle.
Also, braids made for great helmet padding. Pretty sure the aforementioned Spartans did that.
Da Boss wrote: That is true, but the issue becomes the absolutely massive frontage on stuff that is on 32mm rounds. I think 25mm works well enough, but the bigger sizes are stupid on movement trays.
Was that a problem with the width of the ranks or the amount of stuff that was crammed on the table that made manvouvering wide formations a chore?
Carlovonsexron wrote: I think they are trying to be too exact for their own good sometimes.
I've tried a few times to get into GW rules with the boxed games, most recently the rules for the underworlds game, and I found them not very well written.
At the end of the day, the rules really don't need to be more than two pages opposing each other so you can see everything, a quick reference flow chart and an errata to cover specific situations.
Instead its full of dumb special key words where there don't need to be and wording that is meant to be exact but is instead very muddling.
And good-gods, the video explanation for direchasm was HUGELY confusing. It took me watching two guys just playing to realize how simple a game it actually is to play.
Now I've never actually branched into main AoS or 40k, but I cant imagine they are any better.
Yeah, maybe a touch more than 2 pages as I think some diagrams are helpful, but the WHFB rules were absolutely terribly written. To understand how one thing worked you'd often have to flip through 3 or 4 different sections of the rulebook, then 2 or 3 different sections of your army book, assuming you knew where those sections were to look them up in the first place.
I think it was just a case of the rules never being rewritten, they just kept getting adapted and it needed someone with a fresh set of eyes to come in and say "hey guys, this writing is hairy balls, lets just start from scratch".
The game itself wasn't that complicated, and if you learned simply by being taught (like most of us) then you might not appreciate how god awful the rules must have been for someone who only has the rulebook and army books to go off.
That said, GW have managed to screw up even the simplest of rulesets to the point of feeling like they weren't playtested (I'm looking at you, 2019 release of Aeronautica Imperialis).
They will most likely stay the exact same scale as before. Many kits, including some newer boxes of miniatures and those directly from their warehouse that have both square and circular bases. Building my death army for AoS gave me 40 squares that I promptly used for other games in two boxes, with circulars as well.
Carlovonsexron wrote: I think they are trying to be too exact for their own good sometimes.
I've tried a few times to get into GW rules with the boxed games, most recently the rules for the underworlds game, and I found them not very well written.
At the end of the day, the rules really don't need to be more than two pages opposing each other so you can see everything, a quick reference flow chart and an errata to cover specific situations.
Instead its full of dumb special key words where there don't need to be and wording that is meant to be exact but is instead very muddling.
And good-gods, the video explanation for direchasm was HUGELY confusing. It took me watching two guys just playing to realize how simple a game it actually is to play.
Now I've never actually branched into main AoS or 40k, but I cant imagine they are any better.
Yeah, maybe a touch more than 2 pages as I think some diagrams are helpful, but the WHFB rules were absolutely terribly written. To understand how one thing worked you'd often have to flip through 3 or 4 different sections of the rulebook, then 2 or 3 different sections of your army book, assuming you knew where those sections were to look them up in the first place.
I think it was just a case of the rules never being rewritten, they just kept getting adapted and it needed someone with a fresh set of eyes to come in and say "hey guys, this writing is hairy balls, lets just start from scratch".
The game itself wasn't that complicated, and if you learned simply by being taught (like most of us) then you might not appreciate how god awful the rules must have been for someone who only has the rulebook and army books to go off.
That said, GW have managed to screw up even the simplest of rulesets to the point of feeling like they weren't playtested (I'm looking at you, 2019 release of Aeronautica Imperialis).
Trademark is to do with logos, names, symbols etc, its to identify or associate something with a specific brand/source so you can differ them from other similar things and tell which is which - the Trademark for Bretonnians has absolutely nothing to do with the models themselves. The aesthetics of them doesn't matter regarding that at all and won't make any difference in terms of "defending" it, they just have to use the trademark to do that. It's copyright that can involve aspects of appearance, identity, portrayal etc but having lsomething ike the aesthetic style or theming of a miniature be protected under copyright is more difficult, as they can't really own the general idea underlying them.
It isn't a requirement for them to change the look and style of any of the old miniatures to "defend" them.
I was using "Trademark" as a catch all for trying to protect their games and IP by making visually unique models that aren't easily represented by Historical counterparts, oh, and let's not forget the stupid names too. I'd be really surprised if these "old Brets" end up looking like Medieval Tournament Knights with helm decorations and barding/trapping. If they keep the same look, I can go to a dozen other miniature providers and get similar looking miniatures for a fraction of the price.
I really don't get where this "Everything has to be entirely unique now so they can defend it" comes from, as while the latest factions of Age of Sigmar are quite varied and unique in comparison to something like the typical WHFB armies, there are still large sections of it that do not follow that idea and are something that has similar miniatures by other manufacturers. Part of the unique thematic side of those AoS armies also comes just from the setting in the first place, with the change from a gritty dark sword-and-sorcery/Tolkien style fantasy to a much more stylized and exaggerated Mythic/Epic fantasy. I'd be very suprised if new Bretonians don't have the Bretonian theme, because that's been a defining characteristic of them for years and is just what makes them what they are. I don't see where this supposed push for everything now having to be changed to being unique even at the cost of their previous iconic aspects is.
Carlovonsexron wrote: I think they are trying to be too exact for their own good sometimes.
I've tried a few times to get into GW rules with the boxed games, most recently the rules for the underworlds game, and I found them not very well written.
At the end of the day, the rules really don't need to be more than two pages opposing each other so you can see everything, a quick reference flow chart and an errata to cover specific situations.
Instead its full of dumb special key words where there don't need to be and wording that is meant to be exact but is instead very muddling.
And good-gods, the video explanation for direchasm was HUGELY confusing. It took me watching two guys just playing to realize how simple a game it actually is to play.
Now I've never actually branched into main AoS or 40k, but I cant imagine they are any better.
Yeah, maybe a touch more than 2 pages as I think some diagrams are helpful, but the WHFB rules were absolutely terribly written. To understand how one thing worked you'd often have to flip through 3 or 4 different sections of the rulebook, then 2 or 3 different sections of your army book, assuming you knew where those sections were to look them up in the first place.
I think it was just a case of the rules never being rewritten, they just kept getting adapted and it needed someone with a fresh set of eyes to come in and say "hey guys, this writing is hairy balls, lets just start from scratch".
The game itself wasn't that complicated, and if you learned simply by being taught (like most of us) then you might not appreciate how god awful the rules must have been for someone who only has the rulebook and army books to go off.
That said, GW have managed to screw up even the simplest of rulesets to the point of feeling like they weren't playtested (I'm looking at you, 2019 release of Aeronautica Imperialis).
With the exception of the minutiae, the 6th Ed. WFB rules fit on a 2 sided card that came in the boxed set with a second 2 sided card that covered the magic section that was released in an issue of White Dwarf. Both were also available as a free pdf on GW's website, which I have access to through a wayback machine link. That isn't exactly complicated, and the minutiae in the book expands and adds clarity. You could still play 6th using nothing but those two cards and a copy of Ravening Hordes.
GrosseSax wrote: As someone (along with my normal group) who had been introduced to WHFB through Total War and instantly fell in love with the setting, we were very disappointed to find that the entire TT setting was nuked a few years prior to us discovering it.
I don't think there is any better example of how badly thought out the launch of AoS was than the fact that they did it just before the release of the biggest and most anticipated video game based on their IP.
Was it even announced at the time?
Yup. Warhammer Total War was announced in April 2015 and came out May 2016, AoS starter set was released in July 2015.
And GW would have been much more aware of when video games based on their IP would be coming, or at least what games are currently in production, than the public. Well, they should and if they weren't then that just reinforces my point.
Trademark is to do with logos, names, symbols etc, its to identify or associate something with a specific brand/source so you can differ them from other similar things and tell which is which - the Trademark for Bretonnians has absolutely nothing to do with the models themselves. The aesthetics of them doesn't matter regarding that at all and won't make any difference in terms of "defending" it, they just have to use the trademark to do that. It's copyright that can involve aspects of appearance, identity, portrayal etc but having lsomething ike the aesthetic style or theming of a miniature be protected under copyright is more difficult, as they can't really own the general idea underlying them.
It isn't a requirement for them to change the look and style of any of the old miniatures to "defend" them.
I was using "Trademark" as a catch all for trying to protect their games and IP by making visually unique models that aren't easily represented by Historical counterparts, oh, and let's not forget the stupid names too. I'd be really surprised if these "old Brets" end up looking like Medieval Tournament Knights with helm decorations and barding/trapping. If they keep the same look, I can go to a dozen other miniature providers and get similar looking miniatures for a fraction of the price.
I really don't get where this "Everything has to be entirely unique now so they can defend it" comes from, as while the latest factions of Age of Sigmar are quite varied and unique in comparison to something like the typical WHFB armies, there are still large sections of it that do not follow that idea and are something that has similar miniatures by other manufacturers. Part of the unique thematic side of those AoS armies also comes just from the setting in the first place, with the change from a gritty dark sword-and-sorcery/Tolkien style fantasy to a much more stylized and exaggerated Mythic/Epic fantasy. I'd be very suprised if new Bretonians don't have the Bretonian theme, because that's been a defining characteristic of them for years and is just what makes them what they are. I don't see where this supposed push for everything now having to be changed to being unique even at the cost of their previous iconic aspects is.
I cringe whenever I hear someone say these two words like its some deep and meaningful explanation for everything, but: Chapterhouse lawsuit.
Man, look at us all strung out like crack addicts. We have a 75 page thread about a game that won't release for years.
We got ten pages of comments about a simple map.
Why can't we all move on?
It is coming up on a decade since I've played WHFB. I regularly play games with both better models and immensely better rules, but I still linger around here and my heart still beats a little faster whenever I see this thread crop up.
Well it was around for 30 years - for many gamers it was something they grew up with either directly or in the background of one of their main hobbies. So yeah its not surprising there's a lot of nostalgic love about it.
Carlovonsexron wrote: I think they are trying to be too exact for their own good sometimes.
I've tried a few times to get into GW rules with the boxed games, most recently the rules for the underworlds game, and I found them not very well written.
At the end of the day, the rules really don't need to be more than two pages opposing each other so you can see everything, a quick reference flow chart and an errata to cover specific situations.
Instead its full of dumb special key words where there don't need to be and wording that is meant to be exact but is instead very muddling.
And good-gods, the video explanation for direchasm was HUGELY confusing. It took me watching two guys just playing to realize how simple a game it actually is to play.
Now I've never actually branched into main AoS or 40k, but I cant imagine they are any better.
Yeah, maybe a touch more than 2 pages as I think some diagrams are helpful, but the WHFB rules were absolutely terribly written. To understand how one thing worked you'd often have to flip through 3 or 4 different sections of the rulebook, then 2 or 3 different sections of your army book, assuming you knew where those sections were to look them up in the first place.
I think it was just a case of the rules never being rewritten, they just kept getting adapted and it needed someone with a fresh set of eyes to come in and say "hey guys, this writing is hairy balls, lets just start from scratch".
The game itself wasn't that complicated, and if you learned simply by being taught (like most of us) then you might not appreciate how god awful the rules must have been for someone who only has the rulebook and army books to go off.
That said, GW have managed to screw up even the simplest of rulesets to the point of feeling like they weren't playtested (I'm looking at you, 2019 release of Aeronautica Imperialis).
With the exception of the minutiae, the 6th Ed. WFB rules fit on a 2 sided card that came in the boxed set with a second 2 sided card that covered the magic section that was released in an issue of White Dwarf. Both were also available as a free pdf on GW's website, which I have access to through a wayback machine link. That isn't exactly complicated, and the minutiae in the book expands and adds clarity. You could still play 6th using nothing but those two cards and a copy of Ravening Hordes.
Well that's 4 pages then, and still the minutiae was mostly required to play. I think someone who didn't already know how to play the game probably wouldn't have been able to figure it out from the reference sheets, and there was a whole heap of rules missing (different weapon types, special rules, firing and charge arcs, what to do with multiple charges all come to mind). I don't really remember how well written the 6th edition rules were, it's so long since I've read them, I don't remember them being significantly different than 7th in terms of how the rules were written and structured (play style was obviously very different). I probably still have a copy kicking around somewhere unless it got junked or sold.
But yeah, if it's written concisely and with a few diagrams to help out, I think a small pamphlet should be enough to cover the rules without needing the gigantic convoluted rulebook with more cross references than the bible, and then summarise the flow of a turn on a reference sheet to help people not forget things.
Gallahad wrote: Man, look at us all strung out like crack addicts. We have a 75 page thread about a game that won't release for years.
We got ten pages of comments about a simple map.
Why can't we all move on?
It is coming up on a decade since I've played WHFB. I regularly play games with both better models and immensely better rules, but I still linger around here and my heart still beats a little faster whenever I see this thread crop up.
Them nostalgia goggles really are something.
It evokes comfy feelings and nothing has been able to fill that gap yet (for me). Yes, large parts of my excitement can be attributed to nostalgia, but there is also an inherent quality in the world, factions and units they created.
Overread wrote: Well it was around for 30 years - for many gamers it was something they grew up with either directly or in the background of one of their main hobbies. So yeah its not surprising there's a lot of nostalgic love about it.
Yeah, I started my journey into to table top gaming in the mid 90's, scarily it's been a part of my life for longer than it hasn't, if it weren't for my friend who bought a boxed set way back when I was 10 years old, I wouldn't be on this forum now...
Trademark is to do with logos, names, symbols etc, its to identify or associate something with a specific brand/source so you can differ them from other similar things and tell which is which - the Trademark for Bretonnians has absolutely nothing to do with the models themselves. The aesthetics of them doesn't matter regarding that at all and won't make any difference in terms of "defending" it, they just have to use the trademark to do that. It's copyright that can involve aspects of appearance, identity, portrayal etc but having lsomething ike the aesthetic style or theming of a miniature be protected under copyright is more difficult, as they can't really own the general idea underlying them.
It isn't a requirement for them to change the look and style of any of the old miniatures to "defend" them.
I was using "Trademark" as a catch all for trying to protect their games and IP by making visually unique models that aren't easily represented by Historical counterparts, oh, and let's not forget the stupid names too. I'd be really surprised if these "old Brets" end up looking like Medieval Tournament Knights with helm decorations and barding/trapping. If they keep the same look, I can go to a dozen other miniature providers and get similar looking miniatures for a fraction of the price.
I really don't get where this "Everything has to be entirely unique now so they can defend it" comes from, as while the latest factions of Age of Sigmar are quite varied and unique in comparison to something like the typical WHFB armies, there are still large sections of it that do not follow that idea and are something that has similar miniatures by other manufacturers. Part of the unique thematic side of those AoS armies also comes just from the setting in the first place, with the change from a gritty dark sword-and-sorcery/Tolkien style fantasy to a much more stylized and exaggerated Mythic/Epic fantasy. I'd be very suprised if new Bretonians don't have the Bretonian theme, because that's been a defining characteristic of them for years and is just what makes them what they are. I don't see where this supposed push for everything now having to be changed to being unique even at the cost of their previous iconic aspects is.
I cringe whenever I hear someone say these two words like its some deep and meaningful explanation for everything, but: Chapterhouse lawsuit.
Have to got a link to an actual explanation of the impact of that in this context? It's also a phrase that have seen repeated regarding this as if it's some sort of complete explanation, yet i've not actually found how that resulted in "Their stuff needs to be completely unique thematically so they can defend it". From what I've seen that wasn't part of the cases outcome, but rather the opposite, as part of the problem there was that that just isn't how copyright works in the first place - you can't copyright an idea or theme itself. A specific depiction of something as in overall look of an actual miniature itself is one thing, but the underlying concept and design ethos is something that won't be owned by GW no matter how "unique" it is. It makes no difference whether their Dwarfs are the typical fantasy style Dwarves of WHFB or the Sci-fi Steampunk AoS Dwarves for example - either way, they can't stop someone else making something along those lines. They can defend the way they've realized a thing in terms of the miniature sculpt itself and how similar another miniature might be in comparison, but not so much the thematic elements that make them up.
what GW did after the lawsuit and their conclusion on the case is not really based on what actual happened
GW took that route because it was their way of dealing with the result that everyone can sell 28mm plastic "Dwarfs" but only GW can sell Duradin and Fyreslayer
To add my own personal speculation/wish I would absolutely love it if they went for a mix of highly detailed and single pose kits.
If you take the Empire as an example. It would be great if they released a 10 miniature swordsman pack. It would be nicely detailed and have a command. It would be priced at around £30. They could also have a "wound counter" single-pose infantry box set similar to the 4th/5th edition sets, 10 for £10. This would be great because it would offer the ultimate in flexibility. If you wanted to have a large regiment of highly detailed figures and you didn't mind spending more you could go multiples of the £30 quid box, or a mix of the two or if you were on a super tight budget you could go for the single pose.
kodos wrote: what GW did after the lawsuit and their conclusion on the case is not really based on what actual happened
GW took that route because it was their way of dealing with the result that everyone can sell 28mm plastic "Dwarfs" but only GW can sell Duradin and Fyreslayer
The names are to do with the trademark side of things, the look of the actual miniatures is something that is protected in their actual depiction/realization of an idea, but the underlying ideas of them are not something they own. Other manufacturers can make Dwarfs with similar themes as long as they aren't too similar to the actual GW miniatures. Changing the themes of the WHFB miniatures with this project wouldn't matter, because that's not what the copyright protects.
Unique names are also likely because GW realised that if they are the only ones that make Fyreslayers then when you google it most of the results will be GW based models/links etc...
kodos wrote: what GW did after the lawsuit and their conclusion on the case is not really based on what actual happened
GW took that route because it was their way of dealing with the result that everyone can sell 28mm plastic "Dwarfs" but only GW can sell Duradin and Fyreslayer
The names are to do with the trademark side of things, the look of the actual miniatures is something that is protected in their actual depiction/realization of an idea, but the underlying ideas of them are not something they own. Other manufacturers can make Dwarfs with similar themes as long as they aren't too similar to the actual GW miniatures. Changing the themes of the WHFB miniatures with this project wouldn't matter, because that's not what the copyright protects.
right, but this would mean GW understand Copyright and Trademark, and for what we have seen in the past, they do not
they would change everything just because they feel the need to do it to protect something that does not need protection while others can still sell similar stuff as "Airship Dwarf Pirates" is nothing they can Copyright
kodos wrote: what GW did after the lawsuit and their conclusion on the case is not really based on what actual happened
GW took that route because it was their way of dealing with the result that everyone can sell 28mm plastic "Dwarfs" but only GW can sell Duradin and Fyreslayer
The names are to do with the trademark side of things, the look of the actual miniatures is something that is protected in their actual depiction/realization of an idea, but the underlying ideas of them are not something they own. Other manufacturers can make Dwarfs with similar themes as long as they aren't too similar to the actual GW miniatures. Changing the themes of the WHFB miniatures with this project wouldn't matter, because that's not what the copyright protects.
right, but this would mean GW understand Copyright and Trademark, and for what we have seen in the past, they do not
they would change everything just because they feel the need to do it to protect something that does not need protection while others can still sell similar stuff as "Airship Dwarf Pirates" is nothing they can Copyright
I feel like this is just baseless speculation rather than something with anything to back it up though. The trademark side of things with the more unique names for stuff is obviously something they've done, which is absolutely fine, so it's not the trademark part that's really relevant to this.
It's the idea of "They're going to make the WHFB factions completely different so they more thematically unique because of the Chapterhouse Lawsuit" that keeps getting repeated when there isn't any actual evidence that that's what's going on at all. It's conflating the more unique models that have resulted from a completely different style of fantasy that came with AoS, with something that is just not how copyright works in the first place, while saying GW doesn't even know what copyright because....what? Because they didn't win in regards to all of those copyright disputes over all of those specific miniatures, when determining infringement is not some easy clear thing? The idea that the new miniatures are the result of them trying to uselessly make their miniature themes more "copyright defendable" because of a lawsuit over half a decade ago and because they don't know that themes and concepts aren't what copyright protects (and even though that lawsuit said that), rather than them just wanting more interesting and unique miniatures as the result of a setting and fantasy style change, just seems absurd.
I feel like this is just baseless speculation rather than something with anything to back it up though. The trademark side of things with the more unique names for stuff is obviously something they've done, which is absolutely fine, so it's not the trademark part that's really relevant to this.
It's the idea of "They're going to make the WHFB factions completely different so they more thematically unique because of the Chapterhouse Lawsuit" that keeps getting repeated when there isn't any actual evidence that that's what's going on at all. It's conflating the more unique models that have resulted from a completely different style of fantasy that came with AoS, with something that is just not how copyright works in the first place, while saying GW doesn't even know what copyright because....what? Because they didn't win in regards to all of those copyright disputes over all of those specific miniatures, when determining infringement is not some easy clear thing? The idea that the new miniatures are the result of them trying to uselessly make their miniature themes more "copyright defendable" because of a lawsuit over half a decade ago and because they don't know that themes and concepts aren't what copyright protects (and even though that lawsuit said that), rather than them just wanting more interesting and unique miniatures as the result of a setting and fantasy style change, just seems absurd.
Tell that to the new Aempyre vs Skavyn starter set that we'll eventually get.
The aesthetic change isn't for copyright or trademark protection, it's to ape WOW and M:TG in appearance as they try to chase that dragon financially speaking...
kodos wrote: what GW did after the lawsuit and their conclusion on the case is not really based on what actual happened
GW took that route because it was their way of dealing with the result that everyone can sell 28mm plastic "Dwarfs" but only GW can sell Duradin and Fyreslayer
My understanding of the outcome of the case was that other companies are allowed to use GW's names to sell their products, they're just not allowed to claim they are those names.
So you're not allowed to sell a "Duradin Fyreslayer" that looks exactly like GW's, but you are allowed to sell a model in a totally unique pose and called "Dwarf Berseker, compatible with GW's Duradin Fyreslayer range". You're not allowed to sell wings that are called "Tyranid Shrike wings", but you are allowed to sell "Monstrous Alien Wings, compatible with GW's Tyranid Warriors".
At least that's my understanding. Having unique names doesn't mean other companies aren't allowed to use those names, they just aren't allowed to use the names in a way that makes it seem like they're making duplicates of those models, or trying to confuse customers into thinking they're selling GW's actual products.
Overread wrote: Unique names are also likely because GW realised that if they are the only ones that make Fyreslayers then when you google it most of the results will be GW based models/links etc...
I think that's a possibility, though I don't know how well it works given I misspell the damned names all the time because they're not common words (I misspelled Duradin and Fyre about 4 times while writing this post).
I think they were probably better off someone stumbling across Warhammer by googling "Imperial Guard" than someone having to go out of their way to google "Astra Militarum" to avoid finding out about the Byzantine Excubitors... even now after all these years the majority of google results for "Imperial Guard" are 40k related, and most people who are looking for Imperial Guard for 40k are smart enough to just google "40k Imperial Guard" if they come across the wrong result. It's not like someone looking for GW's Dwarfs are going to google "Dwarf" and go "OMG! Dwarfs exist outside of GW's games!", they're going to know non-GW Dwarfs exist, and alter their google search to "Warhammer Dwarfs" is they don't get the result they want first time.
The Chapterhouse case on paper was mostly a negative for GW, but in the end it probably had the desired effect in that no one wanted to make replacement GW parts after that because even if they're in the right and allowed to, they don't want to have to deal with GW's legal bullying.
I've thought for a while now that 3rd party folks need to make their own game, call it "Battleaxe in the 401st Century", so they can have consistent faction names.
I'm tired of trying to figure out if some 3rd party's "Mecha Empire" line means Tau, Necrons, Imperial knights or Mechanicus.
producing minis to sell as GW alternative but having their own "rules" for legal reasons and to be consistant
AllSeeingSkink wrote:
My understanding of the outcome of the case was that other companies are allowed to use GW's names to sell their products, they're just not allowed to claim they are those names.
So you're not allowed to sell a "Duradin Fyreslayer" that looks exactly like GW's, but you are allowed to sell a model in a totally unique pose and called "Dwarf Berseker, compatible with GW's Duradin Fyreslayer range". You're not allowed to sell wings that are called "Tyranid Shrike wings", but you are allowed to sell "Monstrous Alien Wings, compatible with GW's Tyranid Warriors".
At least that's my understanding. Having unique names doesn't mean other companies aren't allowed to use those names, they just aren't allowed to use the names in a way that makes it seem like they're making duplicates of those models, or trying to confuse customers into thinking they're selling GW's actual products.
And in addition, that GW cannot Trademark generic names like "Imperial Guard" or "Dragon Slayer"
yet GW does always overreact in such cases, like remember when GW removed all kind of fan-fiction from official sources for Copyright reasons or when they wanted that everyone who posts painted minis on the web add "painted by XY, Copyright by GW" to the picture (while the Copyright for the painted Miniature belongs to the one who painted it and not GW and in some countries this would mean that you give the CP to GW for free)
what GW is doing is based on lawsuits or court decisions, but their reaction to it is not the minimum afford but the maximum +strange things that maybe help
changing to Astra Militarum was a reaction to the lawsuit but changes nothing in the case of Chapterhouse but only that people find GW minis when searching the term in Google
Mentlegen324 wrote:
I feel like this is just baseless speculation rather than something with anything to back it up though. The trademark side of things with the more unique names for stuff is obviously something they've done, which is absolutely fine, so it's not the trademark part that's really relevant to this.
well, everything regarding TOW is pure speculation from our side
but Names that can be trademarked are to be expected and with them changes to make things more unique
HRE Lantzknechts are a very common theme and easy to get in plastic, why should one buy the generic GW models if he can have more for less with the same quality and specially in an R&F game were only the first rank need to look good
we won't see State-Troops but more likley "Reiklanders" or "Middenheimers" and they will look more different to historical minis than the old ones
I don't think GW changed the design of their models to prevent others from simply copying them after chapterhouse. I think there are a few aspects to it.
One is that it makes the game look more unique and stand out from other games/manufacturers. With their old more "generic" look it doesn't stand out much from what Mantic and others produce. GW want to be seen as the nr 1 and be distinguishable from the others.
Another reason is that they can now sell the new models to people that already own the old models and people will be more inclined to buy the new stuff rather than get second hand stuff that look very different from the current range. If only a small update in looks people wouldnt bother and might even prefer the older looks. Now they need the new one if they want to keep the aesthetic of their army consistent. Just look at the reboot of the marine range with the Primaris Marines.
And after the above reasons it probably is to make it harder for others to undercut them on prices. GW have the most experience and budget to make detailed plastic kits, others would probably have to contend with resin or metal. Even if other people copy their designs it wont be easy for them to make cheaper versions if they want to stay even close on the amount of detail and weird gak that is on the models now. And if they were to do them the models probably wouldnt be easy to sell to those that want more simple and generic fantasy stuff. It is very easy to make alternative fantasy dwarves to sell to players of many game systems, including WFB. Might even be worth it to get their own molds to make plastic sprues. Not so to make very detailed steam punk dwarves that mostly just AoS players want. They would probably have to be in resin or metal but that will make them costly and more of an alternative for those that want different poses. Not something that would be directly competing with GW on prices.
I think the first 2 reasons are the main ones why they have changed the style to be more "special" the last 10 years, more so the last few years. The last on is more of a bonuses but will diminish with improvements in production for small scale manufacturers, be it resin printers or other methods.
Also the market has changed. Kids of the 80-90s were growing up within the Tolkien directly inspired bubble - today they are growing up with World of Warcraft style fantasy. Things have chagned.
Furthermore with 3D designs and no rank and file GW can do things they couldn't do in the past. The 3D element isn't just changing the nature of poses, but also the nature of cuts on the models. Look at the fiend sprue for Slaanesh, almost every single join line is hidden on the model and the pose is far more dynamic than the old style model. These are things 3D design and top end staff who know how to make good cuts with 3D software and moulds can achieve. GW is pushing the envelope in ways other firms are not and cannot easily do so.
Overread wrote: Also the market has changed. Kids of the 80-90s were growing up within the Tolkien directly inspired bubble - today they are growing up with World of Warcraft style fantasy. Things have chagned.
Furthermore with 3D designs and no rank and file GW can do things they couldn't do in the past. The 3D element isn't just changing the nature of poses, but also the nature of cuts on the models. Look at the fiend sprue for Slaanesh, almost every single join line is hidden on the model and the pose is far more dynamic than the old style model. These are things 3D design and top end staff who know how to make good cuts with 3D software and moulds can achieve. GW is pushing the envelope in ways other firms are not and cannot easily do so.
Those kids that grow up in the 2000s sure do love Total Warhammer . Jeez, boomers need to get it into their skulls that perhaps maybe those nerdy bois and girls of the new age actually like the old stuff that came before in an increasing number.
I also wouldnt say every sculpt theyve done has proven such. Sister went from monopose pewterwith some options to monopose plastic. Amazing, wow. All their new improvements have done is to make the sprue as confusing as ever in a way to prevent recasters.
It also completely ignores that the single biggest cultural juggernaut of the past decade was Game of Thrones, a very distinctly low/gritty fantasy that appealed because a lot of it felt grounded and realistic.
Let's not forget the massive success of Dark Souls either which avoids the bright cartoonish and exaggerated Warcraft look to again go for very grounded, realistic designs. And no, Warcraft does not dwarf the Dark Souls trilogy by any stretch of the imagination since it's up to about 35 million copies sold at this point. If we take the entire the "Soulsborne" series (as they all share aesthetic sensibilities and tone) then you could easily be looking at 50 million copies sold. Oh yeah and the remake of Demon's Souls that came out for the PS5 recently as a launch title.
If kids are growing up with any "fantasy" visual style nowadays then it'll either be anime-inspired, or Minecraft or Fortnite related.
Bosskelot wrote: It also completely ignores that the single biggest cultural juggernaut of the past decade was Game of Thrones, a very distinctly low/gritty fantasy that appealed because a lot of it felt grounded and realistic.
Low fantasy.....hmmm
And yet many peoples favourite was Dany and her Dragons.....and/or the unkillable Jon and his Dire Wolf, giant magic wall.....it did have quasi medievil elements but also High Fantasy - prophercies, long journeys across strange lands, mythical beasts and even a dark lord (well Ice Lord) advancing from the North with an vast army of Undead.
Isn't the Witcher quite popular as well? Lost of magic there Personally dislikd the TV show but the games are apparently good.
If the kids are Animae focussed - well thats normally massively over the top - and thats just the weapons!!
The apparent Empire civil war (and the fact that rather than just having "Bretonnia" as a faction they saw fit to emphasize the various dukedoms) would seem to point towards the idea that GW wanted to capitalize on the concept of medieval political intrigue ala GoT.
Bosskelot wrote: It also completely ignores that the single biggest cultural juggernaut of the past decade was Game of Thrones, a very distinctly low/gritty fantasy that appealed because a lot of it felt grounded and realistic.
Low fantasy.....hmmm
And yet many peoples favourite was Dany and her Dragons.....and/or the unkillable Jon and his Dire Wolf, giant magic wall.....it did have quasi medievil elements but also High Fantasy - prophercies, long journeys across strange lands, mythical beasts and even a dark lord (well Ice Lord) advancing from the North with an vast army of Undead.
Isn't the Witcher quite popular as well? Lost of magic there Personally dislikd the TV show but the games are apparently good.
If the kids are Animae focussed - well thats normally massively over the top - and thats just the weapons!!
In a setting that is still primarily all gritty low fantasy. The difference is that a lot of those high fantasy aspects are splashes, small bits of color that have meaningful impact. People like the dragons, but they also like many of the other characters of the show beyond that of two main characters. In fact it is arguable that something like GoT or Witch are indeed very similar to WHF. Primarily low fantasy brutal world that when they get high fantasy, they can get pretty high.
As well what anime are we talking about, the grounded early portions of Berserk, //hacks and SAOs more mmo high, Goblin Slayers brutal DnD homage? You are over generalizing like an old man trying to figure out what is hip with the kids and missing the point.
I don't think I would read too much into the Dukedoms being named. It could also be just simple worldbuilding, as not everyone may know the details of Bretonnia and its Dukedoms...especially as some like Parravon were famous for specific things. In Parravon's case, basically all the Pegasus Knights hailed from the region around there since the Pegasi nested in the Gray Mountains nearby.
It could also be setting up the Mousillion kerfluffle or the war against Orcs or any number of things.
Bosskelot wrote: It also completely ignores that the single biggest cultural juggernaut of the past decade was Game of Thrones, a very distinctly low/gritty fantasy that appealed because a lot of it felt grounded and realistic.
Low fantasy.....hmmm
And yet many peoples favourite was Dany and her Dragons.....and/or the unkillable Jon and his Dire Wolf, giant magic wall.....it did have quasi medievil elements but also High Fantasy - prophercies, long journeys across strange lands, mythical beasts and even a dark lord (well Ice Lord) advancing from the North with an vast army of Undead.
Isn't the Witcher quite popular as well? Lost of magic there Personally dislikd the TV show but the games are apparently good.
If the kids are Animae focussed - well thats normally massively over the top - and thats just the weapons!!
In a setting that is still primarily all gritty low fantasy. The difference is that a lot of those high fantasy aspects are splashes, small bits of color that have meaningful impact. People like the dragons, but they also like many of the other characters of the show beyond that of two main characters. In fact it is arguable that something like GoT or Witch are indeed very similar to WHF. Primarily low fantasy brutal world that when they get high fantasy, they can get pretty high.
As well what anime are we talking about, the grounded early portions of Berserk, //hacks and SAOs more mmo high, Goblin Slayers brutal DnD homage? You are over generalizing like an old man trying to figure out what is hip with the kids and missing the point.
Sad thing is I am old :( so maybe
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Kanluwen wrote: I don't think I would read too much into the Dukedoms being named. It could also be just simple worldbuilding, as not everyone may know the details of Bretonnia and its Dukedoms...especially as some like Parravon were famous for specific things. In Parravon's case, basically all the Pegasus Knights hailed from the region around there since the Pegasi nested in the Gray Mountains nearby.
It could also be setting up the Mousillion kerfluffle or the war against Orcs or any number of things.
Genevieve is also from Paravon and her novels are all still out (I think) - I can't recall if Bretonnia try and take advantage of the civil war - they sometimes do.
So much they can do - either large or small scale.
As well again, people like the dragons in GoT, but I don't think people want more dragons. Hell what makes them important isnt that they are dragons, it is that they are the last known dragons if I recall and more importantly an exiled royal's dragons. They are a splash, not the whole lake. You can say the same for the undead horde of the north. There in the background and affecting everything, but are not constantly present the ongoing of daily life. They re getting closer and closer until the threat of them does become the present in your face issue.
Part of this is a protagonist thing as well. Geralt is a Witcher, a beaing created of the witches, magical and alchemical beings that then deal with the worlds magical monsters and beings. It creates a bias as how we see the their world as we see it through them.
Kanluwen wrote: I don't think I would read too much into the Dukedoms being named. It could also be just simple worldbuilding, as not everyone may know the details of Bretonnia and its Dukedoms...especially as some like Parravon were famous for specific things. In Parravon's case, basically all the Pegasus Knights hailed from the region around there since the Pegasi nested in the Gray Mountains nearby.
It could also be setting up the Mousillion kerfluffle or the war against Orcs or any number of things.
Considering all the dukedoms heraldry are being presented alongside the "faction symbols" for four warring Empire states, Wood Elves, and High Elves, it would seem that they are intended to represent factions just as much as anything else - otherwise it would be poor data presentation and visualization to portray them in the same/similar manner as non-equivalent data.
GrosseSax wrote: As someone (along with my normal group) who had been introduced to WHFB through Total War and instantly fell in love with the setting, we were very disappointed to find that the entire TT setting was nuked a few years prior to us discovering it. We looked into Age of Sigmar and were thoroughly unimpressed so we decided to go with 8th. After months of collecting dozens of boxes of older minis still available on GW's storefront (greatswords, dreadspears, skelies, kemmler/krell etc) and those now discontinued elsewhere (the guy putting together a Stirlander army almost had a stroke when he saw the prices of empire archers on ebay), we thought we were in a pretty good place after hearing about the "Old World".
Needless to say, we hope there are no major changes to scale. If so, we'll just go back to our original plan. No harm, no foul.
Felt the same same when I saw the prices on Ebay for Bretonnian Men at Arms. Not to mention anything else that isn't 5e Archers and Knights of the Realm.
chaos0xomega wrote:
Considering all the dukedoms heraldry are being presented alongside the "faction symbols" for four warring Empire states, Wood Elves, and High Elves, it would seem that they are intended to represent factions just as much as anything else - otherwise it would be poor data presentation and visualization to portray them in the same/similar manner as non-equivalent data.
Honest question, assuming there is a difference (Though as its a UK company, I would assume there is, since there is a difference) is it the heraldry of the dukedoms, or of the dukes themselves?
Bosskelot wrote: It also completely ignores that the single biggest cultural juggernaut of the past decade was Game of Thrones, a very distinctly low/gritty fantasy that appealed because a lot of it felt grounded and realistic.
Low fantasy.....hmmm
And yet many peoples favourite was Dany and her Dragons.....and/or the unkillable Jon and his Dire Wolf, giant magic wall.....it did have quasi medievil elements but also High Fantasy - prophercies, long journeys across strange lands, mythical beasts and even a dark lord (well Ice Lord) advancing from the North with an vast army of Undead.
Isn't the Witcher quite popular as well? Lost of magic there Personally dislikd the TV show but the games are apparently good.
If the kids are Animae focussed - well thats normally massively over the top - and thats just the weapons!!
People really need to get over the fact that the colloquial meaning of "low fantasy" changed to pretty much mean "gritty dark fantasy in a world somewhat like our own history with some magic but it has a personal/existential cost or is very rare" about twenty years ago. Just as when you say "high fantasy", a lot(most, tbh) people don't hear "any setting with magic in it, even, strictly speaking, any fantasy not explicitly set on our own earth", they hear "World of Warcraft aesthetics and magitech toasters and modern D&D".
Overread wrote: Furthermore with 3D designs and no rank and file GW can do things they couldn't do in the past. The 3D element isn't just changing the nature of poses, but also the nature of cuts on the models. Look at the fiend sprue for Slaanesh, almost every single join line is hidden on the model and the pose is far more dynamic than the old style model. These are things 3D design and top end staff who know how to make good cuts with 3D software and moulds can achieve. GW is pushing the envelope in ways other firms are not and cannot easily do so.
If I were to track the history of GW models in the time I've been collecting, it would be something like this...
- high quality metal models with crappy monopose plastics
- multipose plastics that for the most part were pretty crappy, an improvement over the monopose but worse than the metals (but cheaper and easier to work with)
- gradually improving plastics to reach the level of quality of the metals.
- plastics surpassed the quality of the metals, but are now more expensive than the metals ever were and when every model has a dynamic pose the "special" models no longer stand out
I don't know if other companies are making plastic soldiers to the level of quality of GW's models as far as hidden mould lines and whatnot, but in the realm of plastic models in general, some of Tamiya's stuff over recent years has been really incredible. I think it's a mix of the increasing accuracy of plastics combined with the ingenuity of the designers. Many of Tamiya's recent generation of aircraft models have seam lines that are either tiny, or line up on an actual crevice in a way that makes it look like it's supposed to be that way, and the models go together really intelligently so the modeller doesn't have to worry about things like wing dihedral or the landing gear lining up properly, combine that with removable panels with magnets, plastic bushings for moving parts and the modern kits are really nice.
Bosskelot wrote: And no, Warcraft does not dwarf the Dark Souls trilogy by any stretch of the imagination
I don't care about the overarching argument in this thread within any capacity but you are absolutely out of your mind if you think this is a true statement. 35 million copies sold is pocket change compared to what WoW has raked in over its lifetime.
Bosskelot wrote: And no, Warcraft does not dwarf the Dark Souls trilogy by any stretch of the imagination
I don't care about the overarching argument in this thread within any capacity but you are absolutely out of your mind if you think this is a true statement. 35 million copies sold is pocket change compared to what WoW has raked in over its lifetime.
Because it's an MMO so it has a constant revenue stream. Expansions too.
Actual copies sold is a very different matter.
Of course it's going to be bigger still, but people overestimate WoW's actual impact compared to a game like, say, Dark Souls. Especially when it comes to visual aesthetic and tone which is what I was referring to.
Low fantasy.....hmmm
And yet many peoples favourite was Dany and her Dragons.....and/or the unkillable Jon and his Dire Wolf, giant magic wall.....it did have quasi medievil elements but also High Fantasy - prophercies, long journeys across strange lands, mythical beasts and even a dark lord (well Ice Lord) advancing from the North with an vast army of Undead.
Low or gritty fantasy doesn't mean a lack of fantastical elements. By your definition Warhammer Fantasy and Age of Sigmar are practically identical, however I'm fairly certain this thread wouldn't even be happening if that was actually the case.
Only found this "The game had a total of over a hundred million registered accounts by 2014." "73,8 million sales as of 2012". With over 12 million active subscriptions at its peak as well I would say it dwarfs dark souls. Sure there are some that have made multiple accounts but I dont think they are more than the amount of people who have bought all 3 of the dark souls games + remaster. WoW total sales with expansions should be in the hundreds of millions and not just low tens like Dark Souls.
Probably something like 15 million who played dark souls and 10x as many who have played WoW + Warcraft
Right, but even if the argument that dark souls somehow sold better that Warcraft which it absolutely hasn't at all, the cultural impact of Warcraft stomps dark souls into the mud too.
And considering how much Warcraft was influenced by Warhammer, of course there is a market for WHFB.
I feel like the argument in this thread is just going round in circles.
I think estimates are about 12 million accounts at its peak, and over 100 million created accounts over its life. Though I imagine a decent chunk of that 100 million is duplicate accounts (not even necessarily simultaneous, but maybe someone created a new account when they came back to it, or maybe there was a deal of some description that got people to create a brand new rather than continue an old one).
By comparison, a game like The Witcher 3 has sold over 40 million copies.
It's hard to estimate the true penetration in society of these games though. As nerdy as I am, I've never played WoW (my MMO experience was the old WAR and LOTRO), and as nerdy as my mate is he's never played The Witcher 3. I've never tried Dark Souls because none of the reviews I've encountered makes me want to play it.
I think we have a tendency to exaggerate the reach of the games we see as common, either due to local ubiquity or our own interest.
There's definitely been an interest in both dark and gritty settings (Dark Souls, The Witcher, Game of Thrones, WHFB) and also the more comical settings like WoW.
chaos0xomega wrote:
Considering all the dukedoms heraldry are being presented alongside the "faction symbols" for four warring Empire states, Wood Elves, and High Elves, it would seem that they are intended to represent factions just as much as anything else - otherwise it would be poor data presentation and visualization to portray them in the same/similar manner as non-equivalent data.
Honest question, assuming there is a difference (Though as its a UK company, I would assume there is, since there is a difference) is it the heraldry of the dukedoms, or of the dukes themselves?
Bosskelot wrote: And no, Warcraft does not dwarf the Dark Souls trilogy by any stretch of the imagination
I don't care about the overarching argument in this thread within any capacity but you are absolutely out of your mind if you think this is a true statement. 35 million copies sold is pocket change compared to what WoW has raked in over its lifetime.
Because it's an MMO so it has a constant revenue stream. Expansions too.
Actual copies sold is a very different matter.
Of course it's going to be bigger still, but people overestimate WoW's actual impact compared to a game like, say, Dark Souls. Especially when it comes to visual aesthetic and tone which is what I was referring to.
Low fantasy.....hmmm
And yet many peoples favourite was Dany and her Dragons.....and/or the unkillable Jon and his Dire Wolf, giant magic wall.....it did have quasi medievil elements but also High Fantasy - prophercies, long journeys across strange lands, mythical beasts and even a dark lord (well Ice Lord) advancing from the North with an vast army of Undead.
Low or gritty fantasy doesn't mean a lack of fantastical elements. By your definition Warhammer Fantasy and Age of Sigmar are practically identical, however I'm fairly certain this thread wouldn't even be happening if that was actually the case.
You can, and they have, told the same style of stories in both worlds - so a few sewer jacks facing skaven or other horrors in the sewers beneath a unknowing and uncaring city or grand outrageous swashbucking adventures on flying ships - somethimes they even combine in Gotrek novels in both worlds.
By exploring or taking an specific element of these fantasy world you can craft a narrrative or experience to suit - be that the struggle of a singel Witch Hunter or lone survivor of a Orc raid with no magic etc or the total opposite with Archmages battling Greater Daemons. ALL of these can have consequences of action or inaction, use of magic or lack of same.
Bosskelot wrote: And no, Warcraft does not dwarf the Dark Souls trilogy by any stretch of the imagination
I don't care about the overarching argument in this thread within any capacity but you are absolutely out of your mind if you think this is a true statement. 35 million copies sold is pocket change compared to what WoW has raked in over its lifetime.
Because it's an MMO so it has a constant revenue stream. Expansions too.
Actual copies sold is a very different matter.
Of course it's going to be bigger still, but people overestimate WoW's actual impact compared to a game like, say, Dark Souls. Especially when it comes to visual aesthetic and tone which is what I was referring to.
Low fantasy.....hmmm
And yet many peoples favourite was Dany and her Dragons.....and/or the unkillable Jon and his Dire Wolf, giant magic wall.....it did have quasi medievil elements but also High Fantasy - prophercies, long journeys across strange lands, mythical beasts and even a dark lord (well Ice Lord) advancing from the North with an vast army of Undead.
Low or gritty fantasy doesn't mean a lack of fantastical elements. By your definition Warhammer Fantasy and Age of Sigmar are practically identical, however I'm fairly certain this thread wouldn't even be happening if that was actually the case.
You can, and they have, told the same style of stories in both worlds - so a few sewer jacks facing skaven or other horrors in the sewers beneath a unknowing and uncaring city or grand outrageous swashbucking adventures on flying ships - somethimes they even combine in Gotrek novels in both worlds.
By exploring or taking an specific element of these fantasy world you can craft a narrrative or experience to suit - be that the struggle of a singel Witch Hunter or lone survivor of a Orc raid with no magic etc or the total opposite with Archmages battling Greater Daemons. ALL of these can have consequences of action or inaction, use of magic or lack of same.
While the stories might be similar superficially, the differences in the settings render them entirely different in fact. You might get stories about combat both in sewers and on airships in both a WHF and an AoS Gotrek novel, but in the WHF novel the airship is a singular oddity while in AoS it's as commonplace as hopping on a riverboat would be in the Old World, and in the AoS novel the sheer scale of things outside that grimy sewer completely changes the context and so, to anyone who considers the story beyond "*reads book* Huh, that was fun. *chucks in a corner and never thinks about again*" it can't have the same tone or implications as the version in the WHF novel.
Any story in AoS can only raise its stakes so high before it has to start contriving reasons why any WHF-tier plot wouldn't just get trampled under something huge and unfathomably powerful - in WHF the Gods are distant beings who - if they even exist at all - occasionally empower a mortal for long enough to strike a single fateful blow; in AoS the Gods have armies of magical supermen striding around the land and exist *in* the world. In AoS magic is sometimes dangerous, but it's also ubiquitous - to the point of mundanity in some places; in WHF, magic exists in the world as a reality in the same way the belief of magic existed in our own history - for the vast majority it's a distant horror, a superstition, a sense of suspicion about a stranger, but just often enough to keep the sense of dread alive, it becomes a terrifying reality.
Two recipes can use very similar lists of ingredients, yet result in meals that are completely different depending on the few differences and the quantities in which the ingredients are used.
Yodhrin makes some very good points which I would be challenged to bring a reasonable argument against. Even though both settings draw on many of the same tropes, inspiration, and stylings, etc. they are night and day in terms of how the two settings are actually depicted.
The respective RPGs are reflective of the stark contrasts between the two settings.
In WFRP you usually play the ratcatcher or the innkeeper or any of the other blue collar mooks in the gritty mundane corners of the Warhammer setting, and you're mostly just trying to survive and make it through without losing too many of your limbs or being horrifically mentally and emotionally scarred by the horrors that be.
In AoS you pretty much start the game already a mythic hero or a demigod at a power level over 9000, your character is already a hero and you're making them into a superhero - but the margin between "hero" and "superhero" is a very fine and fuzzy line because you're not necessarily all that much more powerful in the late game than you are when you start.
Mind you, that doesn't mean that super-beings don't exist in the Old World (Archaon, Balthasar Gelt, etc.), nor does it mean that meek peasants don't exist in the Mortal Realms, it just means that the frames of reference of both settings are centered on completely different ends of the scale.
Livings gods like Archaon are a rarity in the Old World and most people are helpless level 0 normies that would die to a stiff breeze, whereas in AoS they are dime a dozen to the extent that its not even really worth thinking about the redshirts - because even the redshirts have a high probability of powering up to demigod status for arbitrary but not uncommon reasons.
AoS is more similar in narrative to 40k than to Fantasy.
In 40k you also have the problem of having books about normal guys like Gaunt Ghost's stories, etc... but at the end of the day a single planet means nothing for the imperium as a whole. That doesnt make those stories devoid of meaning or emotion, because a good writter can make you care about those characters, just like a novel about the strugles of a african kid can be engaging even if his life or death is meaningless as a whole for humanity.
A story about a skirmish in a forest in age of sigmar or the old world has the same relevance: 0 for the world, and 100 for the characters involved with their lifes and those of their loved ones at stake.
The above two posts from Yodhrin and chaos0xomega regarding high versus low fantasy really resonate with me.
As a young buck in the late 80s I had been offered a chance to play a very long 1st Edition campaign with my much older cousin’s ex-college buds who had been playing since the smaller softcover pamphlet sized books (long before the Red and Blue starter boxes). Having just read all the Dragonlance “novels”, I expected to be flying around on platinum dragons while dual wielding Vorpal Blades. Instead, we found ourselves as a party of grubby level 1 nobodies, living in the gutter near the local tavern and counting every copper piece to fund an expedition into the Pine Hills to collect the meagre bounty posted for brigands and a “ferocious beast” who had been waylaying the peasant farmer wagons and routed the local constabulary.
After multiple and very brutal woodland skirmishes with the local banditry and suffering incredible attrition from low-tech booby-trapped pathways, we finally cornered the ringleader. He was not a lich, demon, mind flayer, beholder, demigod or any other fantastic being – he was just a traveling musician of the scandalous sort, a performer and a cut-throat dandy. After being chased from the local village for various transgressions, he accidentally stumbled into a deep cave where he startled a massive hibernating brown bear. With incredible luck he managed to charm recalcitrant bear with his musical talents and with it at his disposal, the “ferocious beast”, he formed his group of highway men.
Our haul was a small lockbox with a few silver pieces, a rusting dagger with runes which turned out to be a +1. The bearskin, which the local crafter was able to turn into a +1 AC suit of leather to compensate the resurrection stat penalty (-1 CON?) for the thief who the bear maimed and killed. The bear meat was smoked and packed as iron rations. After being bankrupted by the local priesthood for thief’s resurrection we resumed our grubby existence.
Fast forward 30+ years – while balls deep in a conversation with that very same cousin on R.E Howard’s brand of “low fantasy” as it exists in his literary works contrasted with modern day game developer’s concept of “low fantasy” in Hyboria, he asked me -
“Do you still want to fly around on a platinum dragon while dual wielding Vorpal swords?”
I responded with “Nope. I’ll settle for chasing down that skullduggerous gypsy and his charmed bear in the Pine Hills.”
tldr: When it comes to fantasy less IS more. It takes only one tiny oddity to turn the mundane into the fantastic. The mind-blowing complexity of “generic” humanity is more than enough to weave a rich tapestry of heroic and memorable series of events (especially as it relates to the Elector Counts) and truly requires only a dash of fantastic elements.
Is less more? Reading your anecdote, I spent the time thinking "man I'd prefer the flying dragon and vorpal swords".
When it comes to fantasy, preference and execution are everything. I can create a story about Space Marines and have just as much drama, tension, and commentary on the human condition as any story about guardsmen.
Why exactly is a commentary about the human condition a.focal point?
For alot of people there just comes a point where too much fantasy is no.longer relatable in terms of setting and aesthetics.
Not to mention high fantasy tends to suffer from.the same tropes.as super heroes in which every scenario or campaign seems to have the fate of the world on its shoulders.
I'll take Grossesax's bard, bear, and bandit.campain too.
While you can write the same story in AoS as you can in WHFB, WHFB as a setting is more grounded and relatable.
On the one hand people say they want more innovation in the Fantasy genre, but at the same time so many of the classical Fantasy tropes work because they aren't too far from the real world we live in.
I remember having this discussion back in the 90's with one of my mates talking about WHFB vs 40k and why WHFB was a better setting for stories. In 40k you have Space Marines and infinite worlds to fight on, and Space Marines are cool, but they elevate the setting above regular people. In WHFB, you have the regular people of the Empire and Bretonnia fighting against exceptional odds on a world not dissimilar to our own. Now that doesn't necessarily make WHFB a better setting for a game, because the cool factor of Space Marines goes a long way for a table top game, but for forging compelling narratives, we both agreed WHFB was the better setting.
I always liked the contrast of 40k vs WHFB. I enjoyed both settings and had armies in both games... liked WHFB stories more, liked 40k models more, liked standard WHFB games more, liked scripted 40k games more.
Let's not forget that when WHF came out it was a revelation. Take a look at a lot of the gaming art and fiction from the mid 80s, the Larry Elmore (and imitators) art, the D&D campaigns thinly translated into fiction.
A buddy of mine called it the age of Rens Faires, yeah everyone is in the Middle-ish ages but they have perfect teeth, clean clothes, play for everything in cash and never get seriously hurt.
WHF with its offering of the Rat Catcher class and pictures of toothless guys in rags was a real breath of fresh air.
I'm not saying I'd want to spend all my imaginary time there bartering rat pelts for eggs but it was something new.
Another vote for the rat catchers. Much much prefer a low fantasy setting.
A group of rag tags "heroes" led by a low level witch hunter and raiding the town crypts is much more interesting for me than some superhumans fighting demi gods
That's why, when i was playing video games rpg, i always liked the few first hours, and was getting bored afterward
Automatically Appended Next Post: Anyhow, cant wait to see what comes out of this project. The first few sketches were rather interesting. Its a bit frustrating that the info about the game is drop feeded
Carlovonsexron wrote: Why exactly is a commentary about the human condition a.focal point?
For alot of people there just comes a point where too much fantasy is no.longer relatable in terms of setting and aesthetics.
Not to mention high fantasy tends to suffer from.the same tropes.as super heroes in which every scenario or campaign seems to have the fate of the world on its shoulders.
I'll take Grossesax's bard, bear, and bandit.campain too.
Different Strokes for different folks I think - played and ran quite a bit of WFRP and still enjoy including the new iteration. Also worth remembering that 1st ed WFRP did have a higher level of magic (and much safer) and magic use. Yes you could play a ratatcher at the start but also a Troll Slayer or Wizards Apprentice... all have different stories to be told.
My fav campaigns:
Spoiler:
I ran (2nd Ed) was centered around Middenheim after the Storm of Chaos and whilst the characters started as basic havng fought their way to the battered city they were important and what they became important to the survivial of the city as they uncovered Skaven plots - one was a apprentice Wizard who became involved with her own Orders internal politics whilst the Elf was having an affair with a young wizard but was mostly accepted due to his actions during the siege. The Dwarf was having to balance suspicion amngst his own kind for associating with such folk but also later had the opportunity to marry - not something all male Dwarfs get and equally tricky thing to neogtiate! Would the same story have worked in a battered smaller City of Sigmar - absolutely.
The fav I took part in saw my character start as a minor noble (basic class) (1st Ed) wanting to be Mercenary but rejected for her class and gender whilst no longer wlecome in her family. At the start we fought a few Beastmen but progressed to being involved in a seige of a city before progressing to a growing plot in Altdorf - which lead through a miscast ritual to Lustria - a encounter with a Slann and then back to the Old World where the final battle with a twisted Dark Elf Dragon - oh and she became a vampire half way through Again would this have worked in AOS - yep
I enjoy chracters growing, changing and stories accomodating that
However like others - really looking to see what they do with the world alongside the ongoing 4th WFRP.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I remember having this discussion back in the 90's with one of my mates talking about WHFB vs 40k and why WHFB was a better setting for stories. In 40k you have Space Marines and infinite worlds to fight on, and Space Marines are cool, but they elevate the setting above regular people. In WHFB, you have the regular people of the Empire and Bretonnia fighting against exceptional odds on a world not dissimilar to our own. Now that doesn't necessarily make WHFB a better setting for a game, because the cool factor of Space Marines goes a long way for a table top game, but for forging compelling narratives, we both agreed WHFB was the better setting.
I never got that argument.
The only reason why anyone would think WFRP is a better story setting than 40k is because no one made an RPG where you can play a Hive sludge collector, a Ratskin, or a low level scribe.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I remember having this discussion back in the 90's with one of my mates talking about WHFB vs 40k and why WHFB was a better setting for stories. In 40k you have Space Marines and infinite worlds to fight on, and Space Marines are cool, but they elevate the setting above regular people. In WHFB, you have the regular people of the Empire and Bretonnia fighting against exceptional odds on a world not dissimilar to our own. Now that doesn't necessarily make WHFB a better setting for a game, because the cool factor of Space Marines goes a long way for a table top game, but for forging compelling narratives, we both agreed WHFB was the better setting.
I never got that argument.
The only reason why anyone would think WFRP is a better story setting than 40k is because no one made an RPG where you can play a Hive sludge collector, a Ratskin, or a low level scribe.
Getting off topic but I would LOVE Necromunda the RPG!
Back on topic, Low vs High Fantasy comes down to restraint vs freedom. It's tense when the heroes are cornered by the bad guys if they're a group of scribes and rat catchers and a hedge wizard who can kind of make sparks from his fingers.
Now a good writer can still make the battle tense even if the heroes are Knightly Lords in their Mythryl armor and the wizard is opening portholes to Heaven to bring down hosts of angels. It just takes more world building and explanation to sell why they high-end heroes are having trouble and explaining what their limits are.
But you don't have to tell me what the lowly scribe's limits are, I am a lowly scribe, I know exactly what his limits are.
The problem with high-end fantasy is a poor writer can just throw in a few deus ex-machinas and it fits. Of course Arch-Cardinal Brightlance can summon the Host of Heaven! It even gets dull.
With low-power fantasy the writer has to think a bit more, and if a writer finally does say "#$%^ it, DXM time!" it feels properly epic, and not "huh, a host of angels with flaming swords, must be Tuesday".
It doesn't help when a lot of the arguments you lot are using have no basis in what the actual lore is for AoS.
I will never understand the perception that somehow it's A Bad Thing that you have unexplored areas but having everything known is A Good Thing.
There are only so many times it can believably be the case that the Empire lost a patrol in the Drakwald Forest, again, to an "unknown threat". Spoiler: It was Beastmen. It's always Beastmen. Because they live in the Drakwald Forest.
Also, it sounds like a lot of you don't actually want a wargame--it sounds like you want a RPG. Check out "Soulbound" to see how they're running things for AoS on that front.
Kanluwen wrote: It doesn't help when a lot of the arguments you lot are using have no basis in what the actual lore is for AoS.
I will never understand the perception that somehow it's A Bad Thing that you have unexplored areas but having everything known is A Good Thing.
There are only so many times it can believably be the case that the Empire lost a patrol in the Drakwald Forest, again, to an "unknown threat".
Spoiler: It was Beastmen. It's always Beastmen. Because they live in the Drakwald Forest.
Also, it sounds like a lot of you don't actually want a wargame--it sounds like you want a RPG. Check out "Soulbound" to see how they're running things for AoS on that front.
And...? I’ve tried to read the lore for AOS and don’t find it as compelling as the WHF lore. It’s actually that simple. Different strokes.
I will never understand the perception that somehow it's A Bad Thing that you have unexplored areas but having everything known is A Good Thing.
There are only so many times it can believably be the case that the Empire lost a patrol in the
Kanluwens got a point.
Personally, for me the real difference between Age of Sigmar and Warhammer Fantasy is not one of high fantasy vs low fantasy, its one of "Open Fantasy" vs "Closed Fantasy" (pretty much making this up as I go). Age of Sigmar is an open-ended setting, the majority of the setting is physically unmapped, the majority of the characters are unnamed, the majority of the history is unexplored, the majority of events unknown, the borders of the various kingdoms, etc. are undefined, etc. etc. etc. You can literally do anything you want within the setting and make it fit into the established lore because of how much design space there is to work with, and that will still be true 50 years from now unless they do something stupid and release something like "A Definitive Cartographic Guide to the Entirety of the Mortal Realms, Including Detailed Histories of the Peoples and Places Found Therein" that establishes firm rules for the setting and world to follow. 40K is similar - though there are some more limitations to what you can do within the 40k setting, but its still a big galaxy and theres plenty of room for oddball planets, weird aliens, new factions, and bizarre events. Star Wars is another example of an open ended setting, though it has to deal with some of the same limitations as 40k, theres still plenty of design space for basically whatever you want to write into it.
Warhammer Fantasy on the other hand is/was fairly closed - there are well defined kingdoms with fairly well defined borders, a fairly definitive world map, a lot of well-defined history and events, etc. etc. etc. There are a lot of limitations as to what you can do with the Warhammer setting short of moving the timeline (but if you move the timeline you potentially preclude the involvement of certain characters that you might otherwise want involved in the relevant events, etc.) - worse still a lot of it was tied to real world geography/history/stereotypes in a manner that restricted what you could implement in a manner that didn't offend someones political sensibilities ("faction xyz is a cultural stereotype of xyz marginalized community") or realistic expectations ("Ogres have to be vaguely central asian in their theming, because their Kingdoms are in an area roughly analagous to central asia - it would be weird for them to be located there, but thematically based off of Zulu tribesmen from south africa or scottish highlanders, etc."). Warmachine suffers from some similar issues, less so from stereotypes, but more in that the map is fairly well-charted - short of opening up another continent theres not really any space for a new "kingdom" - no surprise then that 2 of the last 3 factions added to the game have basically been invaders from another dimension/your nightmares (and the third faction an exploration of a long-established but little explored minor kingdom that has spent most of the games history being occupied by one of the major powers).
I think the move to Age of Sigmar was probably in no small part driven by the need for more design space and creative freedom than what the World-That-Was realistically had to offer. In terms of "open" settings I can't think of any more open than Age of Sigmar, its literally a creative sandbox where almost anything goes.
Seeing as my favorite Dragonball Z arc is the Cell Saga, with time travel, mushroom-cloud throwers galore, teleportation to different planets, cyborgs, genetic superbeings capable of regenerating from a single cell, and a villain who blows up a chunk of Heaven itself, I feel like I should be AOS’s target demographic. I want big, crazy adventures across space and dimensions. I want thundergod mooks. I just need some sort of “in” to the setting, some way to start visualizing it, and maybe a basic map.
Back in the day, I bought a $20 book that describes the history of the Warhammer World and all its factions (including Chaos Dwarfs because it was back in the day). I would love something like that for Age of Sigmar, an affordable yet chunky fluff intro book that isn’t full of rules clutter. Have they ever released anything like that?
Kanluwen wrote: So what lore have you read? Genuinely curious here, as the early stuff is as bad as early WHFB stuff was.
What is a good starting point? I’d be interested to read some of the most un-WHFBAOS novels to get a feel for the setting’s flavor. However, current BL prices make me hesitant to pick up a book that has mixed reviews or takes place entirely in one little part of one AOS city (negating the scope of the setting and making me nostalgic for WHFB novels instead).
BlaxicanX wrote: Is less more? Reading your anecdote, I spent the time thinking "man I'd prefer the flying dragon and vorpal swords".
When it comes to fantasy, preference and execution are everything. I can create a story about Space Marines and have just as much drama, tension, and commentary on the human condition as any story about guardsmen.
They'd be really bad ones. Space Marines don't have the same biology, psychology, relationships or hierarchy of needs as humans.
They frankly have more in common with orks than humans, just for the lack of romantic/procreation relationships/partnerships and children (as well as the genetic engineering and indoctrination, and the latter is more extreme for marines than orks).
Space Marine priorities are generally big picture stuff that is downright disturbing when swinging around to put a lens on 'the human condition'
Kanluwen wrote: So what lore have you read? Genuinely curious here, as the early stuff is as bad as early WHFB stuff was.
What is a good starting point? I’d be interested to read some of the most un-WHFBAOS novels to get a feel for the setting’s flavor. However, current BL prices make me hesitant to pick up a book that has mixed reviews or takes place entirely in one little part of one AOS city (negating the scope of the setting and making me nostalgic for WHFB novels instead).
Kanluwen wrote: So what lore have you read? Genuinely curious here, as the early stuff is as bad as early WHFB stuff was.
What is a good starting point? I’d be interested to read some of the most un-WHFBAOS novels to get a feel for the setting’s flavor. However, current BL prices make me hesitant to pick up a book that has mixed reviews or takes place entirely in one little part of one AOS city (negating the scope of the setting and making me nostalgic for WHFB novels instead).
Yeah, +1 for dragons and vorpal swords. I don't know what most of you are talking about, I don't give a rats arse about scribes and rat-catchers, I see humans literally every day and I barely care about the real ones let alone some rando peasant. I certainly don't want to spend my free time playing some poorly dressed Landshneckt, gimme elves and dragons and orcs and ogres. If high fantasy "just turns them into superheroes" then...well, good! That's what I want!
WHFB as a setting was great because it DID have all that high magic and high fantasy in it. I mean, the two most popular book series were about a dark elf riding a velociraptor who had his soul permanently bonded to a demon, and dwarf berserker and his human bard taking down vampires and dragons and mages. Y'know, normal peasant stuff. Clearly the "Low-fantasy" stuff is the most popular aspect of WHFB /rolleyes
Hell, if I could have Stormcast Eternals in ToW I'd be 100% cool with it, fluff be damned. A bunch of plate armored superhumans is why I made an Undivided Mortals of Chaos army to begin with!
chaos0xomega wrote: Warhammer Fantasy on the other hand is/was fairly closed - there are well defined kingdoms with fairly well defined borders, a fairly definitive world map, a lot of well-defined history and events, etc. etc. etc. There are a lot of limitations as to what you can do with the Warhammer setting short of moving the timeline [...] I think the move to Age of Sigmar was probably in no small part driven by the need for more design space and creative freedom than what the World-That-Was realistically had to offer. In terms of "open" settings I can't think of any more open than Age of Sigmar, its literally a creative sandbox where almost anything goes.
The idea that few new things could be implemented in the Warhammer Fantasy world is of course nonsense. Even within the narrow focus of the Old World, they did little with Kislev, Estalia, the Border Princes, Araby, Norsca. Is Estalia not just Spain? Geographically, yes. Culturally, socially, militarily it could have been anything. Zoom further out, and there is even more space to manoeuvre. They wanted to introduce some aquatic race (Idoneth)? Already hinted to exist deep in the ocean, but besides "existing", nothing was known and it could have taken any form they'd want. New Chaos warbands (Warcry)? Cathay was said to be strongly influenced by Tzeentch, and who knows in what ways that could manifest (especially since it's Tzeentch!). All kinds of other things could have been introduced in Naggarond, Lustria, the Southlands and certainly the far east. Those few pre-existing hints in older lore could be interpreted to mean almost anything, or simply ignored altogether. Just look at what they did with the Ogres. Altdorf? Yeah, relatively limited in what new things you can introduce there. Hinterlands of Khuresh? Erm, whatever you want, bring it on! As for storytelling, the idea that the WHFB world was particularly limiting feels odd given the existence of actual historical fiction. Even about real-world history, there is more we don't know than we do know. Numerous new stories can be told about known people, and even more about newly imagined people in known settings.
It only gets limiting if you merely want to constantly write about cataclysmic world changing events and characters with the powers of gods, and that's where WHFB was certainly "too small" - and based on what they're doing in AoS, that's what they wanted to write about. Maybe some or many customers are also interested in that kind of stuff, but to me it just feels like a sequence of superhero movies. Big powers, high stakes, slight change in the status quo, and on to the next instalment. Unfortunately, I'm personally far more interested in the motivations and limited powers of Samwise Gamgee and Tyrion Lannister than the godlike powers of Superman or Morathi.
Anyway, back to the settings: Star Wars may be a large open setting, but the games and movies always connect it to something we already know from other games and movies, because that's the point of a setting. There is something you know and understand, and then you can expand or dig deeper from there. "Anything goes" is not an interesting setting, it's the lack of one. It's a slate so blank it might as well not exist.
ToW is both very open and incredibly limiting for that very reason, everything is geographically locked in place and there's almost no reason certain armies would ever fight, but it's also only half-explored like Coenus said. If it hadn't gone End-Times, you could still have easily come up with reasons to create Fyreslayers or Kharadron overlords or Idoneth within the setting and make them work
I read historical fiction (and “low” fantasy) for different things than I read “high” fantasy for. A Guy Gavriel Kay fantasy set in not-quite-China focuses on characters and world building and setting the stakes and limitations of the story, which is great. Moorcock’s Corum stories are full of balls-to-the-wall wtf creatures, magic powers, and weird surprises around every corner, which is also great. There’s no reason why WHF can’t give the former while AOS gives the latter. Neither type of storytelling is superior; they each have their mood and time.
It only gets limiting if you merely want to constantly write about cataclysmic world changing events and characters with the powers of gods, and that's where WHFB was certainly "too small" - and based on what they're doing in AoS, that's what they wanted to write about. Maybe some or many customers are also interested in that kind of stuff, but to me it just feels like a sequence of superhero movies. Big powers, high stakes, slight change in the status quo, and on to the next instalment. Unfortunately, I'm personally far more interested in the motivations and limited powers of Samwise Gamgee and Tyrion Lannister than the godlike powers of Superman or Morathi.
As perviously said - these stories are told and take place in AOS as well as well as the big scale stuff.
Tyrion was someone who helped shaped the fate of the entire Seven Kingdoms and more - pretty high stakes - he did not have magic or Dragons but until Season 6+ he had intelligence. Samwise saves the entire known world..... no small stakes there and there are plenty of people of power in those novels.
Morathi is a interesting character who happens to have lots of power (IMO) as are plenty of others.
Back in the day, I bought a $20 book that describes the history of the Warhammer World and all its factions (including Chaos Dwarfs because it was back in the day). I would love something like that for Age of Sigmar, an affordable yet chunky fluff intro book that isn’t full of rules clutter. Have they ever released anything like that?
The 2nd ed. core rulebook has a lot of that (though admittedly theres a lot of crunch in there too).
The idea that few new things could be implemented in the Warhammer Fantasy world is of course nonsense. Even within the narrow focus of the Old World, they did little with Kislev, Estalia, the Border Princes, Araby, Norsca. Is Estalia not just Spain? Geographically, yes. Culturally, socially, militarily it could have been anything.
Have to agree to disagree. Even though they did little with that material, they still gave us enough insight into it to know what it was and how it would end up looking whenever they got around to it.
The only reason why anyone would think WFRP is a better story setting than 40k is because no one made an RPG where you can play a Hive sludge collector, a Ratskin, or a low level scribe.
I will say I have never played WFRP This is talking more broadly about the worlds as they appeared to the average gamer. I don't think the average gamer has played WFRP.
But yeah, the expanse of the 40k world meant you could write whatever world you wanted into existence, but then you don't really need 40k to write a world into existence. The compelling bit of WHFB as a world in and of itself is that it's already a grounded background within which you can your stories. Maybe it wasn't the best of examples as 40k is obviously sci fi which has its own tropes that have been developed outside of 40k over many decades also.
I have found that about half of people expressing like or dislike of AoS lore vs WHFB lore are just looking for 'excuses' because they feel "it just isn't my thing as much as the other one is" is a not a legitimate argument. Which is sadly ironic, because that is the most legitimate argument.
chaos0xomega wrote: Have to agree to disagree. Even though they did little with that material, they still gave us enough insight into it to know what it was and how it would end up looking whenever they got around to it.
I don't think anything they've done in AoS could not have existed within WHFB. Enough of the world was left unexplored that even if there wasn't a pre-existing place that had the theme they wanted, they could have just carved out a section of the world to make it. The only thing is that something like Sigmarines don't really fit with the vibe of the world, but that doesn't mean they couldn't have been shoehorned in if you really wanted to ruin the setting
And just because you think you know what it was and how it would end up looking doesn't mean it would turn out how you think if and when it finally did get fleshed out. Maybe the parts described in the few existing sentences don't become the focus of that lore expansion, and another part they didn't talk about much or at all becomes the central theme. Even within our existent world, if someone writes a few sentences about a place or a people group your own experiences when you go visit yourself could be wildly different.
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NinthMusketeer wrote: I have found that about half of people expressing like or dislike of AoS lore vs WHFB lore are just looking for 'excuses' because they feel "it just isn't my thing as much as the other one is" is a not a legitimate argument. Which is sadly ironic, because that is the most legitimate argument.
My intention wasn't to express like or dislike at all, but rather try and figure out the broad appeal of WHFB vs AoS.
Obviously individuals have their own preferences for what they like vs what they don't, I figured that went without saying.
chaos0xomega wrote: Have to agree to disagree. Even though they did little with that material, they still gave us enough insight into it to know what it was and how it would end up looking whenever they got around to it.
I don't think anything they've done in AoS could not have existed within WHFB. Enough of the world was left unexplored that even if there wasn't a pre-existing place that had the theme they wanted, they could have just carved out a section of the world to make it. The only thing is that something like Sigmarines don't really fit with the vibe of the world, but that doesn't mean they couldn't have been shoehorned in if you really wanted to ruin the setting
And just because you think you know what it was and how it would end up looking doesn't mean it would turn out how you think if and when it finally did get fleshed out. Maybe the parts described in the few existing sentences don't become the focus of that lore expansion, and another part they didn't talk about much or at all becomes the central theme. Even within our existent world, if someone writes a few sentences about a place or a people group your own experiences when you go visit yourself could be wildly different.
Again, agree to disagree. Many of the Age of Sigmar factions would be difficult to incorporate into WHFB on the simple basis that they occupy the same design space as the more established factions of the old setting, and in order to justify them as standalone factions you would have to tear apart and split established factions in order to make them work. You could introduce Daughters of Khaine units into a Dark Elf army easily without the need for any real fluff changes - creating them as a distinct entity/faction within the fluff as presented in AoS however would require you to pull apart the Dark Elf faction and rewrite their lore to justify why Morathi and a bunch of elves were now snakefolk that stood apart from the rest of Dark Elf society, you would also likely need to explain them in relation to the already existing snakefolk found in the Hinterlands of Kush. Nighthaunt could likewise easily be introduced into a Vampire Counts army - establishing them as a separate entity with their own motivations, etc. would require you to pull about a third of the Vampire Counts army apart into a separate faction. etc. etc. etc.
You're correct that aesthetically all these things fit in the old setting - realistically speaking quite a bit of it probably began life before The End Times with the intent of incorporating them into WHFB instead of being spun-off into a separate setting - but in doing so you would have to frame them in reference to what was already established within the WHFB setting instead of being given the freedom to work them as you please. Nighthaunt and Daughters of Khaine are far more compelling and interesting factions that have strong identities and unique themes, etc. as stand-alone independent factions than they would if they were relegated to mere subsets of their parent factions in the WHFB setting - in both cases the other themes present in Vampire Counts/Dark Elves would only serve to water them down and make them feel more generic.
Kanluwen wrote: Also, it sounds like a lot of you don't actually want a wargame--it sounds like you want a RPG. Check out "Soulbound" to see how they're running things for AoS on that front.
They're doing it pretty well, actually! Much more inspired in its design than the new 40k one.
Coenus Scaldingus wrote:
It only gets limiting if you merely want to constantly write about cataclysmic world changing events and characters with the powers of gods, and that's where WHFB was certainly "too small" - and based on what they're doing in AoS, that's what they wanted to write about. Maybe some or many customers are also interested in that kind of stuff, but to me it just feels like a sequence of superhero movies. Big powers, high stakes, slight change in the status quo, and on to the next instalment. Unfortunately, I'm personally far more interested in the motivations and limited powers of Samwise Gamgee and Tyrion Lannister than the godlike powers of Superman or Morathi.
Yep. GW wants us to buy crazy models of godlike things, so they needed a bigger setting.
It only gets limiting if you merely want to constantly write about cataclysmic world changing events and characters with the powers of gods, and that's where WHFB was certainly "too small" - and based on what they're doing in AoS, that's what they wanted to write about.
I don't understand how people find that appealing. When everything is always over the top epic, nothing is epic. It just becomes the new status quo. It becomes boring. I also find age of sigmar's lack of grounding in anything relatable makes it harder to get into. If you can make up infinite new settings with massive scales, why does any one scenario matter? Why should I feel attached and care?
And all of that is before you add in GW's inability to write anything decent.
The reality is that writing is harder than people make it out to be, writing settings is harder than that, and a setting does not even have to be that coherent to be good. Even classics like Lord of the Rings have gaping holes and nonsensical baggage if you are looking for it but that's just it; someone who wants to dislike a setting can always find justification. Given the way WHFB ended and AoS started, I'd say there was a strong sentiment of anger and a lot of people who did not want to like the new setting. Early AoS did not make this easier, as the writing of that period was at its poorest compared to what we got later. Even then I would not call it bad, there is simply way too much room on the lower end of that quality scale.
As to answer your question directly jojo, AoS is not a novel or show but a setting first. This means the stories are secondary and exist to push the setting rather than the other way around so the traditional 'pulls' aren't quite the basis anymore. Instead of having characters that are engaging and/or relatable it is about creating a world people want to explore. If people find the setting interesting and want to read more about it they will naturally come to care about what happens to it. There is also the 'army factor' where players have room to put their own army with its own fluff into the setting and now they have another reason to care what is happening. If a normal story is a person that you interact with, AoS is a tourist destination.
FWiW, AoS is not infinite; there was some early snippets that leaned in that directly but we found out via short story that realms had an edge, then 2nd edition fully clarified that they have finite dimensions. While not strictly defined best estimates suggest each realm is approximately one 'world' in size. So still an immense setting but relatively speaking quite small.
To illustrate, I raise 40k. People care about stuff that happens on a planet in 40k. They certainly care what happens to the Imperium with ~1 million of themd. The milky way has over 100 billion systems in it. One planet within that is nothing. The equivalent of a few trees in the entirety of the WHFB world at most. The entirety of what happens on a given planet in 40k is utterly, incomprehensibly insignificant as related to the whole setting. GW can keep creating new planets within it indefinitely. There is less relatable about it than AoS. But people can still care about what happens on a given planet, or even a given battle on a given planet, because there is context that makes it matter.
Dunno how much that all makes sense. But regardless, your experience with AoS is still entirely valid. I am just trying to offer insight into why the people who do care, care.
Sidenote: Personally, given the setting that we live in these days I want to get away from it. I don't want a setting to be relatable.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I have found that about half of people expressing like or dislike of AoS lore vs WHFB lore are just looking for 'excuses' because they feel "it just isn't my thing as much as the other one is" is a not a legitimate argument. Which is sadly ironic, because that is the most legitimate argument.
My intention wasn't to express like or dislike at all, but rather try and figure out the broad appeal of WHFB vs AoS.
Obviously individuals have their own preferences for what they like vs what they don't, I figured that went without saying.
Wasn't responding to you specifically, though in hindsight I can see why it seemed that way. As your your last line; it should go without saying and for a long time I thought it did too. Turns out it doesn't.
There's a difference between High and Low fantasy (which describes the story) and a relatable world vs an alien one.
Middle Earth was high fantasy with princes and wizards and the fate of the world, but that world was grounded in English folklore and history. Star Trek is basically a navy ship but in space, Star Wars the hero's journey in space. Things like the Empire replacing the Republic or a frontier cantina are instantly accessible.
The Olde Worlde was a bit of fresh air since it was centered on Germany and the early Renaissance (vs England and middle ages) and a grubbier world than most fantasy settings. But still we all recognized and responded to it. Whether a story was about a homeless dwarf murder hobo or a mighty prince we got a sense of where they were and what the rules were.
Age of Sigmar... just felt like word hash and madness to me so I never even bothered to try and get into it.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: There's a difference between High and Low fantasy (which describes the story) and a relatable world vs an alien one.
Middle Earth was high fantasy with princes and wizards and the fate of the world, but that world was grounded in English folklore and history. Star Trek is basically a navy ship but in space, Star Wars the hero's journey in space. Things like the Empire replacing the Republic or a frontier cantina are instantly accessible.
The Olde Worlde was a bit of fresh air since it was centered on Germany and the early Renaissance (vs England and middle ages) and a grubbier world than most fantasy settings. But still we all recognized and responded to it. Whether a story was about a homeless dwarf murder hobo or a mighty prince we got a sense of where they were and what the rules were.
Age of Sigmar... just felt like word hash and madness to me so I never even bothered to try and get into it.
And the early writing of AoS certainly didn't do itself any favors. I would suggest borrowing a second edition rulebook sometime to read the baseline they are operating off now (as opposed to like... a few pages worth?). It may still be a hot mess for you, but I think GW made a big enough improvement in lore with 2nd ed AoS to earn a second chance.
Also, your shirt says "Merry Christmas" when it should have said "Happy Holidays" and I say "should have" because Christmas was over a week ago, you heathen.*
Also, your shirt says "Merry Christmas" when it should have said "Happy Holidays" and I say "should have" because Christmas was over a week ago, you heathen.*
Sarcasm, obviously.
Christmas is a 12 festival ending on January 6, Day of the Epiphany you philistine!
Also, your shirt says "Merry Christmas" when it should have said "Happy Holidays" and I say "should have" because Christmas was over a week ago, you heathen.*
Sarcasm, obviously.
Christmas is a 12 festival ending on January 6, Day of the Epiphany you philistine!
I speak of the real Chrismas; commercial Christmas!
Also, your shirt says "Merry Christmas" when it should have said "Happy Holidays" and I say "should have" because Christmas was over a week ago, you heathen.*
Sarcasm, obviously.
Christmas is a 12 festival ending on January 6, Day of the Epiphany you philistine!
I speak of the real Chrismas; commercial Christmas!
Edit: Wait, Holidays!
Commercial Christmas is not real Christmas
real Christmas is from 25th - 6th
chaos0xomega wrote: Have to agree to disagree. Even though they did little with that material, they still gave us enough insight into it to know what it was and how it would end up looking whenever they got around to it.
I don't think anything they've done in AoS could not have existed within WHFB. Enough of the world was left unexplored that even if there wasn't a pre-existing place that had the theme they wanted, they could have just carved out a section of the world to make it. The only thing is that something like Sigmarines don't really fit with the vibe of the world, but that doesn't mean they couldn't have been shoehorned in if you really wanted to ruin the setting
And just because you think you know what it was and how it would end up looking doesn't mean it would turn out how you think if and when it finally did get fleshed out. Maybe the parts described in the few existing sentences don't become the focus of that lore expansion, and another part they didn't talk about much or at all becomes the central theme. Even within our existent world, if someone writes a few sentences about a place or a people group your own experiences when you go visit yourself could be wildly different.
Again, agree to disagree. Many of the Age of Sigmar factions would be difficult to incorporate into WHFB on the simple basis that they occupy the same design space as the more established factions of the old setting, and in order to justify them as standalone factions you would have to tear apart and split established factions in order to make them work. You could introduce Daughters of Khaine units into a Dark Elf army easily without the need for any real fluff changes - creating them as a distinct entity/faction within the fluff as presented in AoS however would require you to pull apart the Dark Elf faction and rewrite their lore to justify why Morathi and a bunch of elves were now snakefolk that stood apart from the rest of Dark Elf society, you would also likely need to explain them in relation to the already existing snakefolk found in the Hinterlands of Kush. Nighthaunt could likewise easily be introduced into a Vampire Counts army - establishing them as a separate entity with their own motivations, etc. would require you to pull about a third of the Vampire Counts army apart into a separate faction. etc. etc. etc.
You're correct that aesthetically all these things fit in the old setting - realistically speaking quite a bit of it probably began life before The End Times with the intent of incorporating them into WHFB instead of being spun-off into a separate setting - but in doing so you would have to frame them in reference to what was already established within the WHFB setting instead of being given the freedom to work them as you please. Nighthaunt and Daughters of Khaine are far more compelling and interesting factions that have strong identities and unique themes, etc. as stand-alone independent factions than they would if they were relegated to mere subsets of their parent factions in the WHFB setting - in both cases the other themes present in Vampire Counts/Dark Elves would only serve to water them down and make them feel more generic.
In 6th they were doing it without fracturing the main books. They were referred to as "appendix lists" as most of them were found in the appendix at the end of the army book. Dark Elves? They had the main book list, a Watchtower Patrol list that was published in a White Dwarf, A City Garrison list that was also pushed in a White Dwarf, and a Cult of Excess list in Storm of Chaos. A pure Daughters of Khaine list wouldn't look out of place in that regard. Other books had even MORE appendix lists to run to flavor. Variant lists or builds don't need their own 120 page book to be viable.
FyreSlayer Release in Warhammer, with the SoC Slayer List already being there, would have been no problem
if those are more independent or just a Supplement is a minor detail
for AoS you can take it as 4 Factions and everything else are Supplements to those, as well each of them just being their own (Sub)Faction
blowing up the Old World, does not destroy it but opens Realm Gates all over it
so now the gates are not only on the poles open to the Realm of Chaos, but all over the world, open to all kind of Realms (the Realms of Magic as we know from AoS) or just giving a direct connection from the Empire to Cathy
Warhammer 2800 and you could get all the AoS Factions as they are now into the world
Free-Cities are the big Empire Cities rebuild after the EndTimes
Stormcast the new poster boys build by Sigmar in a different Realm coming thru the Gate in Altdorf
OBR being the new (evil) "Khemri" and so on
there is nothing that could not have been done that AoS is doing now
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I remember having this discussion back in the 90's with one of my mates talking about WHFB vs 40k and why WHFB was a better setting for stories. In 40k you have Space Marines and infinite worlds to fight on, and Space Marines are cool, but they elevate the setting above regular people. In WHFB, you have the regular people of the Empire and Bretonnia fighting against exceptional odds on a world not dissimilar to our own. Now that doesn't necessarily make WHFB a better setting for a game, because the cool factor of Space Marines goes a long way for a table top game, but for forging compelling narratives, we both agreed WHFB was the better setting.
I never got that argument.
The only reason why anyone would think WFRP is a better story setting than 40k is because no one made an RPG where you can play a Hive sludge collector, a Ratskin, or a low level scribe.
Getting off topic but I would LOVE Necromunda the RPG!
I wonder if perhaps sorting out using the Dark Heresy Or Rogue Trader ruleset could easily achieve this. It’d take a GM with good lore know,edge of Necromunda to create a campaign and the setting, but the rules are there..
Kanluwen wrote: So what lore have you read? Genuinely curious here, as the early stuff is as bad as early WHFB stuff was.
What is a good starting point? I’d be interested to read some of the most un-WHFBAOS novels to get a feel for the setting’s flavor. However, current BL prices make me hesitant to pick up a book that has mixed reviews or takes place entirely in one little part of one AOS city (negating the scope of the setting and making me nostalgic for WHFB novels instead).
It’s a shame you can’t lend out ebooks I’ve got several of these and so far they are pretty good, I’m also only just getting to the novel side of AoS having been keeping up on discussions or reading about the setting - it’s certainly nice to read a proper story about it.
The horror stuff I’m really enjoying. The short stories anthologies are pretty good for a cheap price too (several deals on audible too if you like a listen).
Fantasy will always have a high place in my heart, but it is nice reading some current stories that are good (I’d say the first few books that came were maybe weaker, but they really went into the setting more recently..)
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kodos wrote: FyreSlayer Release in Warhammer, with the SoC Slayer List already being there, would have been no problem
if those are more independent or just a Supplement is a minor detail
for AoS you can take it as 4 Factions and everything else are Supplements to those, as well each of them just being their own (Sub)Faction
blowing up the Old World, does not destroy it but opens Realm Gates all over it
so now the gates are not only on the poles open to the Realm of Chaos, but all over the world, open to all kind of Realms (the Realms of Magic as we know from AoS) or just giving a direct connection from the Empire to Cathy
Warhammer 2800 and you could get all the AoS Factions as they are now into the world
Free-Cities are the big Empire Cities rebuild after the EndTimes
Stormcast the new poster boys build by Sigmar in a different Realm coming thru the Gate in Altdorf
OBR being the new (evil) "Khemri" and so on
there is nothing that could not have been done that AoS is doing now
Hell, the Old World could have been the world that links all the realms that get created from the End Times event.
The all points thing, then it would be a true continuation.
New factions could come in from the realms, with stuff still taking place in each realm as it does now (basically just AoS as present, but the old world still technically being there).
chaos0xomega wrote: Again, agree to disagree. Many of the Age of Sigmar factions would be difficult to incorporate into WHFB on the simple basis that they occupy the same design space as the more established factions of the old setting, and in order to justify them as standalone factions you would have to tear apart and split established factions in order to make them work. You could introduce Daughters of Khaine units into a Dark Elf army easily without the need for any real fluff changes - creating them as a distinct entity/faction within the fluff as presented in AoS however would require you to pull apart the Dark Elf faction and rewrite their lore to justify why Morathi and a bunch of elves were now snakefolk that stood apart from the rest of Dark Elf society, you would also likely need to explain them in relation to the already existing snakefolk found in the Hinterlands of Kush. Nighthaunt could likewise easily be introduced into a Vampire Counts army - establishing them as a separate entity with their own motivations, etc. would require you to pull about a third of the Vampire Counts army apart into a separate faction. etc. etc. etc.
I think you exaggerate. You don't need to tear apart and split factions to create those forces any more than Space Marines had to be torn apart for Space Wolves to get Grey Hunters, Blood Claws and Fenrisian Wolves.
You just write some fluff about how a certain group/sect/cult/whatever encountered magic or were blessed by a god or discovered a shrine or have their own city shrouded in mystery or decided to rebel and start their own group and voila, that's sufficient to create a unique sub faction with its own army organisation chart, special rules, special units, etc.
You can just shoehorn that sort of crap in as much as you want into the WHFB world, there's a bunch of reasons you can come up with to create a subfaction with unique troops and rosters.
I don't know why you say things like "you would also likely need to explain them in relation to the already existing snakefolk found in the Hinterlands of Kush". Why exactly would you need to do that? Just create it as a separate faction, and gamers can guess that maybe there's a relationship, or maybe there isn't, maybe they're completely different snakefolk, maybe you expand on that in a campaign event 5 years from now.
The Warhammer world was big enough to introduce a whole heap of stuff. Take that empty forest, that open area of land, that isolated mountain that ocean with nothing in it and introduce what you want. That's without even doing things like redrawing the maps, expanding further east / west, or just using existing easter eggs.
The only real retconning that maybe needs to be done is to introduce interactions with other races, but even that's only a "maybe", you could just move the story forward to reveal or create new factions without having to rewrite existing history. I remember back when End Times started, before people realised they were actually killing the game, a lot of folk were happy that GW was finally moving the story forward. Turns out they were only moving it forward to kill it and the excitement was short lived.
Kid_Kyoto wrote:Middle Earth was high fantasy with princes and wizards and the fate of the world, but that world was grounded in English folklore and history.
Middle Earth is quite clearly inspired by Midgard from Germanic and Norse mythology. Which is where the idea of dwarves comes from too.
well, Middle Earth was created with the idea that there is no detailed british acient "how the world started" mythology
so Tolkien created a lore that should be british version of the Edda
that is why it is kind of "grounded" because the initial idea was that it will end in the "real" world
Kid_Kyoto wrote:Middle Earth was high fantasy with princes and wizards and the fate of the world, but that world was grounded in English folklore and history.
Middle Earth is quite clearly inspired by Midgard from Germanic and Norse mythology. Which is where the idea of dwarves comes from too.
Just in case you wanted to know.
IIRC it was an answer to Norse Myth, Greek, Roman etc, an attempt to bring together English folklore to create a uniquely British myth that could stand shoulder to shoulder with them.
And given the global success of Tolkienesque fantasy I think he succeeded.
FWiW, AoS is not infinite; there was some early snippets that leaned in that directly but we found out via short story that realms had an edge, then 2nd edition fully clarified that they have finite dimensions. While not strictly defined best estimates suggest each realm is approximately one 'world' in size. So still an immense setting but relatively speaking quite small.
The recent fluff has been fairly clear that the size of the realms is massive, each larger than the World That Was, and that it would take several lifetimes to travel from the center of any realm to its edge. It was also clear that the "edge" is less a geographical line or boundary and more of a magical one - anyone crossing the "perimeter inimical" (as its called) spontaneously combusts or transforms, etc. (depends on the realm) which makes it Impossible to travel further. As described, physically the region beyond that bleeds into other realms and domains (Slaanesh has apparently claimed a lot of this territory for himself and connected it directly to his domains in the Realm of Chaos). Effectively speaking, this does make them infinite.
In 6th they were doing it without fracturing the main books. They were referred to as "appendix lists" as most of them were found in the appendix at the end of the army book. Dark Elves? They had the main book list, a Watchtower Patrol list that was published in a White Dwarf, A City Garrison list that was also pushed in a White Dwarf, and a Cult of Excess list in Storm of Chaos. A pure Daughters of Khaine list wouldn't look out of place in that regard. Other books had even MORE appendix lists to run to flavor. Variant lists or builds don't need their own 120 page book to be viable.
You're very much missing the point here. All those appendix lists were subsets of a main faction built using the same units found in the main faction. Fluffwise all those appendix lists existed as a subset of that faction and were inextricably linked and tied to their parent faction. That is very clearly not the case with Daughters of Khaine or Nighthaunt. Daughters of Khaine are *not* Dark Elves, they are an independent faction with their own beliefs, goals, agendas, society, etc. that stand distinctly separate from other factions. Nighthaunt are not vampire counts - they aren't even vampires - they also have their own goals, agendas, beliefs, society, etc. Relegating them to an appendix list or a subset of a parent faction would fundamentally alter them by their very nature and dilute their themes and "brand". It would also dilute the themes of the parent faction (at this point, Nighthaunt have about as many units as the entire Vampire Counts army list did, introducing Nighthaunt into WHFB as part of Vampire Counts would have fundamentally altered the faction from "Vampires leading an army of spooky undead" to "An army of ghosts and their vampire and undead friends").
FyreSlayer Release in Warhammer, with the SoC Slayer List already being there, would have been no problem
Except the Fyreslayer fluff doesn't work at all with the WHFB dwarves fluff. Grimnir in WHFB was not a fire god the way he is in Age of Sigmar. Fyreslayers are also not deathseekers the way slayers in WHFB are - Fyreslayers also wear armor (although most of it is runic gold hammered into their flesh, aside from various more conventional helmets, wristguards, etc.), this is entirely at odds with the slayer oath of WHFB where slayers forsake armor entirely.
OBR being the new (evil) "Khemri" and so on
there is nothing that could not have been done that AoS is doing now
This kinda just proves the point - can Ossiarch Bonereapers and Tomb Kings exist in the same design space? You seem to think no, based on this, and that the Ossiarch would have had to replace the Tomb Kings. As it stands - theres just about zero similarity between Tomb Kings and Ossiarch Bonereapers in terms of fluff, they are almost night and day. So you are either replacing something that already existed in WHFB with something new, and thus taking something away, or you are pigeon-holing OBR into a pre-existing and predefined context/concept as defined by the more limited setting and thus limiting what can be done with them fluff-wise.
I think you exaggerate.
I think you have your head in the sand.
You don't need to tear apart and split factions to create those forces any more than Space Marines had to be torn apart for Space Wolves to get Grey Hunters, Blood Claws and Fenrisian Wolves.
Disagreed and an inept comparison. In your mind, its pretty clear that Daughters of Khaine would be relegated to being a a sect of Dark Eldar, Nighthaunt would just be a sect of Vampire Counts, Fyreslayers would just be a sect of Dwarves, etc the same way Space Wolves are just one chapter of Space Marines that share common goals and beliefs and use 90% of the same equipment and have a handful of unique organizations/formations and associated beliefs/traditions. In Age of Sigmar, all of those things are unique factions with distinct societies, distinct fluff, distinct themes, separate agendas, separate goals, separate beliefs, and often separate empires, etc. The two are not really equivalent.
The Daughters of Khaine (like Idoneth Deepkin) exist pretty specifically because elves went more or less extinct save a literally handful of elven souls who weren't devoured by Slaanesh. These survivors tried all sorts of different ways to rebuild the elven race and save it from extinction. In Morathi's case she tried weird shadow-blood-sex magic which failed spectacularly giving birth to Khinerai and Melusai (and an unseen race of deformed male slave drones), which are generally regarded as mutants and freaks and hated by most normal "aelves". Thankfully the other elf-gods figured out a better process and created a race of actual Aelves, some of whom flocked to Morathis banner and helped her establish her own empire with her own domains. In Teclis/the Idoneth Deepkins case, he created the Cythai, who rebelled and decided to go live underwater because their souls had been saved from Slaanesh (albeit temporarily) by way of Mathlann and thus had some sort of innate longing for the sea - but their souls were still tainted by Slaanesh and many went mad over time and their children were born with weak souls that rapidly withered away and thus required souls to be harvested in order to sustain their life forces. Lumineth are a second try and are basically would-be mary-sue elves, the most perfect of perfect beings, blah blah blah, except this is Warhammer so nothing perfect ever really actually is.
How do you justify that fluff in WHFB without removing Dark Elves, High Elves, and Wood Elves from the game or fundamentally altering their established identities and histories? Sure, you could add the minis for these factions into the game easily enough with different fluff entirely, *BUT THATS NOT THE POINT*. With those three factions still present in the game, theres basically zero justification for why elf-gods would be trying to recreate the elven race and in the process creating entirely new races with their own distinct societies, kingdoms, subfactions, etc. And notice how the Sylvaneth are *just* tree people, but they seem to behave a lot like the Wood Elves of old? Theres a reason for that - fluff-wise their lore doesn't entirely work with Wood Elves still hanging since a central part of the Sylvaneth lore can basically be boiled down to "we don't need no stinkin elves to help us, we can do what they used to do ourselves", and Alarielle and the Sylvaneth consider the Wanderers (basically would-be Wood Aelves) to be cowards and traitors who are sometimes uneasy allies and other times outright enemies bearing the brunt of Alarielles anger. Could you incorporate Sylvaneth into WHFB? Yeah - but you would have pissed off the entirety of the wood elves playerbase in the process and have had to rewrite a significant chunk of their lore, they probably wouldn't be welcome in Athel Loren anymore at a minimum at which point you've basically gutted the heart and soul of the faction from itself.
Which is why I go back to saying that AoS is an open-ended setting where they can do basically whatever without running afoul of established lore, and its big enough that there is room for a lot of things to coexist that wouldn't have made sense in the significantly smaller, more limited, and much more well established setting that was WHFB.
Kalamadea wrote: Yeah, +1 for dragons and vorpal swords. I don't know what most of you are talking about, I don't give a rats arse about scribes and rat-catchers, I see humans literally every day and I barely care about the real ones let alone some rando peasant. I certainly don't want to spend my free time playing some poorly dressed Landshneckt, gimme elves and dragons and orcs and ogres. If high fantasy "just turns them into superheroes" then...well, good! That's what I want!
WHFB as a setting was great because it DID have all that high magic and high fantasy in it. I mean, the two most popular book series were about a dark elf riding a velociraptor who had his soul permanently bonded to a demon, and dwarf berserker and his human bard taking down vampires and dragons and mages. Y'know, normal peasant stuff. Clearly the "Low-fantasy" stuff is the most popular aspect of WHFB /rolleyes
Hell, if I could have Stormcast Eternals in ToW I'd be 100% cool with it, fluff be damned. A bunch of plate armored superhumans is why I made an Undivided Mortals of Chaos army to begin with!
From what it looks at the moment, they try to get themselves a fresh start in the same general concept of the setting, without having to adhere to the decisions about the fluss and design of specific areas of yesteryear. From my point of view, that is a smart move, as it avoids a lot of the controversy and retconning of the old world, they would´ve had if they set it in the timeframe just before the end times.
The interesting question for me will be, how much fantasy will be in this game? While Kalamadea wants Dragon riding heroes with magic swords, I would be happy if my dwarf hero has a magic axe that never breaks or gets dull. They shifted towards more epic and elaborate stuff towards the 8th edition, like the war sphinxes and the luminarium or star machines on dinosaurs, and that was already enough for me to lose interest in the setting, or at least be critical.
And while Gotrex and Felix are definetly not everyday peasants, they still have to work for food and shelter, rely on other humans / dwarfs to get around and don´t kill a dragon or troll each week. That is what makes them heroes and relatable, in my eyes, while I cannot really identify with Teclis or a greater demon.
But now that we have AoS, and it does not seem to go away, it would be nice if the new old game was more about the "low" (or whatever you want to call it) fantasy setting and rank and file units matter.
chaos0xomega wrote: ...its pretty clear that Daughters of Khaine would be relegated to being a a sect of Dark Eldar...
Watch out, Vect ! Morathi is coming for your space throne !!
Just kidding. The debate about would it have been possible to keep the WFB universe for AoS new releases is honestly endless - each side has its own views and tend to stand their grounds no matter the arguments of the other side. I know, I have been there.
What's really important is that GW thought it wasn't the case at that time and that's why they destroyed the Old World to make Age of Sigmar. Anything else is just a "what if ?" question that will have all the answers you want to have.
The down-to-earth aspects of WHFB were definitely important parts of it. The lack of it is why AoS isn't WHFB and why people are interested in a revival.
NinthMusketeer wrote: The reality is that writing is harder than people make it out to be, writing settings is harder than that, and a setting does not even have to be that coherent to be good. ...
As to answer your question directly jojo, AoS is not a novel or show but a setting first. This means the stories are secondary and exist to push the setting rather than the other way around so the traditional 'pulls' aren't quite the basis anymore. Instead of having characters that are engaging and/or relatable it is about creating a world people want to explore. If people find the setting interesting and want to read more about it they will naturally come to care about what happens to it. ...
FWiW, AoS is not infinite; there was some early snippets that leaned in that directly but we found out via short story that realms had an edge, then 2nd edition fully clarified that they have finite dimensions. While not strictly defined best estimates suggest each realm is approximately one 'world' in size. So still an immense setting but relatively speaking quite small.
To illustrate, I raise 40k. People care about stuff that happens on a planet in 40k. They certainly care what happens to the Imperium with ~1 million of themd. The milky way has over 100 billion systems in it. One planet within that is nothing.
I would say that people care about planets with a history, but not planets GW pulls out of hat for the purposes of a campaign. If the planet is like a red shirt on star trek and exists only to get beaten up in that one passing scene, does it matter?
Age of Sigmar feels similar from where I stand. Admittedly, I absolutely failed to make the jump from WFB to AoS, so I am fundamentally biased. The things I've read of the setting haven't drawn me in because it feels like a lot of what I referred to above in relation to 40k--fighting over properties that exist only as a means to an end. This is the same thing that has always been a barrier to me getting into mainstream comics or games like world of warcraft. There's always a new "biggest baddest" antagonist every new story run that is like the last one +1. And when the dust settles, things are largely the same as how they were before.
But I get that a lot of people still get caught up in that and that it makes them happy. I'm not going to say they're wrong for that. I just can't get into it myself.
savemelmac wrote: But now that we have AoS, and it does not seem to go away, it would be nice if the new old game was more about the "low" (or whatever you want to call it) fantasy setting and rank and file units matter.
You risk being rather disapointed in my opinion. From the few snippets we were given. It seems that you will have armored giant bear cavalrry and ice-mage amazon warriors as units of Kislev. These are signs that big models with lots of magical powers and abilities will be rather common in my opinion. It seems that most of the legacy characters will still be around like Teclis, Tyrion, Morathi, Malekith, Archaon, etc. That's unless this is a completely "alternate" old world universe in which those people don't exist and frankly that could be smart. It's probably going to be the 30K of AoS though.
savemelmac wrote: But now that we have AoS, and it does not seem to go away, it would be nice if the new old game was more about the "low" (or whatever you want to call it) fantasy setting and rank and file units matter.
You risk being rather disapointed in my opinion. From the few snippets we were given. It seems that you will have armored giant bear cavalrry and ice-mage amazon warriors as units of Kislev. These are signs that big models with lots of magical powers and abilities will be rather common in my opinion. It seems that most of the legacy characters will still be around like Teclis, Tyrion, Morathi, Malekith, Archaon, etc. That's unless this is a completely "alternate" old world universe in which those people don't exist and frankly that could be smart. It's probably going to be the 30K of AoS though.
Rare units could get odd, though, so that there will be bear-riding kislevites (wasn't that in Warmaster, anyway?) isn't inherently a cause for concern or anything. I mean, orcs could have giants. Giants! Who would stuff you down their trousers! And there where whole armies of the walking dead. There were ghosts, man.
If they're core troops then that's meh but rare warrior ice witches is well within established parameters. Or if they're 0-1 choices.
savemelmac wrote: But now that we have AoS, and it does not seem to go away, it would be nice if the new old game was more about the "low" (or whatever you want to call it) fantasy setting and rank and file units matter.
You risk being rather disapointed in my opinion. From the few snippets we were given. It seems that you will have armored giant bear cavalrry and ice-mage amazon warriors as units of Kislev. These are signs that big models with lots of magical powers and abilities will be rather common in my opinion. It seems that most of the legacy characters will still be around like Teclis, Tyrion, Morathi, Malekith, Archaon, etc. That's unless this is a completely "alternate" old world universe in which those people don't exist and frankly that could be smart. It's probably going to be the 30K of AoS though.
The powerful stuff was always in the lore - its only more recently that they could do models to match it.
Plenty of super powerful figures have had rules in early editions - if they really wanted to go for it they would have gone for the Time of Legends when the Dwarfs had massive walking statues, the Elves had hundreds of Dragons and Sigmar and Nagash went toe to toe.
Warhammer has always covered both the small stuff and the gods walking the earth. To pretend otherwise is to select small parts of the lore and focuss only on those - which is fine but its not what Warhammer has ever been - in the same was as rules for Giant War Machines was in 1st Ed 40K although some try to ignore this.
Yeah don't forget Man O War had some big war engines and if Warmaster has got underway it would have had them too. Airships and such just didn't appear in the tabletop because making them out of lead/white metal or even plastic in those days would have been an insanely high cost.
Heck dragons were all serpentine not just because its an old design, but again because of size and practicality to cast and make.
Lots of high magic stuff happened, Gotrek was fighting living cannon and corrupted demon spewing living face fronted siege towers years back in Old World. It's just it didn't all translate to the tabletop game side of things.
AoS merges a bit closer, but still has issues - eg Cities of Sigmar are lacking a lot of the steam punk elements that their story versions clearly display.
aS for Realm size I think its undertaken a bit of a shift due to GW's shifting attitude toward AoS. Early stories have the Realms as insanely vast to infinite; latter stories talk about vast distances, but not beyond comprehension. Eg early stories talk about how travelling to the edge is near impossible; whilst latter stories talk about Nagash moving whole trains of Skeletons to the edge to harvest grains of sand.
One issue is that the setting has very little chronological links. so it can be hard to work out distances and travel times and events that relate to each other because you basically navigate by major event markers. Before or after Age of Sigmar; before or after Necroquake; before or after Morathi arises etc...
The change of Age of Sigmar in both the lore style and miniatures is something I really can't see happening to this project. As others have already said, the completely different style of Fantasy of Age of Sigmars Mythic/Epic fantasy or whatever the proper term is for it, is something that just let them do all sorts of exaggerated, absurd things, I don't see it as indicative of anything beyond that. To me that change removed a huge part of what made the WHF setting interesting, where it was a relevantly normal world with a few extra-ordinary things and it was quite grounded and gritty. There just feels like a loss of stakes and depth with AoS when there's a faction of magical supermen, Dwarves that are focused on Magical Gold, Another that uses magical gas to make sky ships etc along with all the different magical realms and actual gods walking about and all that. The setting feels a lot less 'real' from what I've seen where it's less like an actual coherent place but just a jumbled collection of whatever they want to shove together. It's had the ceiling of things moved so high up that it's like anything goes now, so those aspects that were at the forefront and the main viewpoints of the WHF setting before are now quite irrelevant overall. It's like there's a swap from a fairly normal world that just has some magic things, to a magical setting with a few normal things.
That's also what seems to have resulted in the elaborate miniatures and theming, not anything to do with the lawsuit but rather the change in setting and focus now requires/allows far more unique stuff in order to fit in within the world and use it to a proper extent. Having a new faction that feels relatively normal within Age of Sigmar wouldn't really fit in well I don't think, as it's no longer that style of fantasy in the same way it used to be. It's a little worrying though when the only faction we have seen for The Old World so far is one that follows those more exaggerated high fantasy stylings with magical weapons and such, but fortunately those things were already established as part of Kislev's lore so they aren't too out there, hopefully it's not indicative of what's coming from the settings tone overall and stays within what was already defined.
I just don't think they'd do something like, as suggested, change Bretonnia to a look and theme that is no longer Medieval Tournament Knights, because that's iwhat's conic to the faction/setting, things being "more unique" isn't required because of Chapterhouse as some seem to think, and it's the tone and fantasy style that allowed those stylistic changes of AoS. Turning The Old World into Age-of-Sigmar-lite where things end up vastly differently now from their original depiction would be just utterly absurd.
Mentlegen324 wrote:
I feel like this is just baseless speculation rather than something with anything to back it up though. The trademark side of things with the more unique names for stuff is obviously something they've done, which is absolutely fine, so it's not the trademark part that's really relevant to this.
well, everything regarding TOW is pure speculation from our side
but Names that can be trademarked are to be expected and with them changes to make things more unique
HRE Lantzknechts are a very common theme and easy to get in plastic, why should one buy the generic GW models if he can have more for less with the same quality and specially in an R&F game were only the first rank need to look good
we won't see State-Troops but more likley "Reiklanders" or "Middenheimers" and they will look more different to historical minis than the old ones
They'll likely get a name that can be trademarked, but Like I said there's nothing in the lawsuit that means they now have to be different from the basis on historical miniatures.
ZebioLizard2 wrote: If we're counting Man O War we had giant dragons with castles on their back and the Gigantic Flying Magical Tzeentch Castles.
People want to think WHFB is low magic, that's not what that term means and trying to redefine it is not going to happen.
I think its a setting that on the tabletop was low magic, but in the lore was closer to high magic; but it also had shifts depending on the period in time and the author. Of course high and low magic are only very generic terms at best to denote a theme and many stories that fit into one can change. Eg Game of Thrones starts out very heavily low magic, but there's clearly been a high magic history to the setting and through the stories you can see many of the higher magic elements returning.
BlaxicanX wrote: Is less more? Reading your anecdote, I spent the time thinking "man I'd prefer the flying dragon and vorpal swords".
When it comes to fantasy, preference and execution are everything. I can create a story about Space Marines and have just as much drama, tension, and commentary on the human condition as any story about guardsmen.
I looked at it and thought, "Man, riding a flying dragon with paired vorpal swords would be so easy as to be boring, but squatting in a sewer counting pennies so we can afford to go confront a scoundrel with a charmed bear in heavily trapped lair sound so difficult as to be boring as well. Surely there's a middle ground somewhere between these two that will be interesting...
BUT, it sounds like the OP had fun in his game, and you'd have fun in your dragon-riding game, so neither are wrong ways to play. Just two ends of a spectrum, neither of which appeal to me, but they don't have to appeal to me because I'm not in those games.
Part of the fun of fantasy RPGs is finding the power scale that appeals to a given group.
chaos0xomega wrote: ...its pretty clear that Daughters of Khaine would be relegated to being a a sect of Dark Eldar...
Watch out, Vect ! Morathi is coming for your space throne !!
Lol woops.
Just kidding. The debate about would it have been possible to keep the WFB universe for AoS new releases is honestly endless - each side has its own views and tend to stand their grounds no matter the arguments of the other side. I know, I have been there.
Clearly. This started out with, "whfb sucked so age of sigmar was needed to make it better" - "no, AoS sucks, WHFB was great."
Then it became "whfb was low fantasy, AoS is high fantasy, clearly they wanted a different approach to the setting." - "no, WHFB was high fantasy too"
Now its "WHFB was a very restrictive setting, AoS offers a lot more creative freedom" - "no, WHFB allowed for just as much creative freedom as AoS"
Its pretty clear that the arguments against AoS are coming from the same place that first response - "no, AoS sucks, WHFB was great". WHFBs defenders are stuck on that bit and see anything that doesn't portray WHFB in a light where WHFB was inherently flawless or just as "good" as AoS, etc.as being some sort of a value judgement against WHFB. But it isn't. I love WHFB - I also love AoS. There are a million and one reasons why AoS might have been seen as a more profitable and marketable product than WHFB was. That doesn't mean that WHFB is bad and you are a loser for missing it or whatever, it just means that it was no longer sustainable as a business operation for its creators and they had to move on from it. Personally, I think some of the arguments presented here as to what the reasons that made it such might have been are pretty damned valid despite flimsy arguments to the contrary.
Being able to argue that you could have had Sylvaneth or Daughters of Khaine in WHFB doesn't prove that WHFB was an open-ended setting, especially not when most of those arguments inadvertently reveal that you would have either have to have stilted their implementation in order to squeeze them into the established boundaries of the lore or would have otherwise pissed people off anyway when their one army suddenly became two separate ones with dramatic shifts in the lore. Seriously, people complain about Newcrons because GW gave Necrons actual lore and personality (albeit somewhat at the expense of flavor) and made one largely unpopular unit obsolete, can you imagine the nerd outrage that would have occurred when Morathi established her own kingdom of femme-elf snake chicks and a quarter of the dark elf army was suddenly a separate army entirely? Rinse/repeat with Slayers and airship dwarves becoming separate factions from regular dwarves, and wood elves being split into trees and elves, etc. etc. etc. If thats someones defense for WHFB being an open-ended setting then they have pretty much made my point for me.
Likewise, the argument that "hey if you go back a few thousand years in the lore the entire High Elf army would be riding dragons and Sigmar and Nagash would be fieldable minis with rules and Dwarves had walking statue golems" is meaningless. It might as well be a different setting at that point, you would get serious nerd rage when peoples Empire and Bretonnian armies became suddenly unusable (hope you like your Empire minis carrying spears and looking like stone-age barbarians!), and probably a few other major changes to other factions as well. Suggestions that they could have advanced the timeline and do AoS in the WHFB setting likewise - sorry, but creating the Free Cities in place of the Empire doesn't fix anything, it implies that dark elves, wood elves, dwarves, high elves, and bretonnia/empire cease to exist as independent factions and kingdoms and those armies likewise cease to exist as discrete entities on the tabletop, etc. What does that get you at that point thats any different from just blowing up the setting and creating the mortal realms? It lets you keep the rough shape of the continents I guess? To me all these arguments really do is show that the people making them like the Age of Sigmar minis and factions and themes and aesthetics and lore, etc. but they are bummed out that arbitrary fictional geography is no longer present - in short, they are complaining more for the sake of complaining and because they are experiencing a primal and instinctual fight or flight response thats telling them to hate Age of Sigmar because its different from what they already knew rather than because they have any rational argument to really justify their stance.
What's really important is that GW thought it wasn't the case at that time and that's why they destroyed the Old World to make Age of Sigmar. Anything else is just a "what if ?" question that will have all the answers you want to have.
Truth. Despite peoples desires to pretend GW is wholly inept and utterly incompetent, GW had its reasons and justifications for doing what they did and it doesn't really matter if we agree with it or not.
I don't think WHFB was low fantasy by any means, but its high fantasy elements weren't in the foreground to the same degree as AoS.
For me, the 'soul' of Warhammer was a landsknecht with a halberd venturing into the sewers to fight ratmen, or a French/English knight setting his lance as he bears down on a troll. Mundane people putting steel and courage against fantasy monsters. Yeah, the emperor rode a hippogryph and there were dragons and wizards, but those were special and rare things- same as how Lord of the Rings had dragons and wizards, but most of the fights were just dudes with swords.
AoS seems much more focused on the magical and 'larger-than-life' right at the forefront. It's not just Tolkien dwarves, no sir, these are steampunk airship-riding flying dwarves. Your stars of the setting aren't dudes in puffy coats wishing they were somewhere else, they're golden-armored supermen with enchanted weapons. Zombies are out, engineered bone-golem super-skeletons are in.
I really don't mind AoS's style. It's just different, and I think playing games of 'well WHFB had that too' is missing the forest for the trees. You couldn't retrofit AoS's content into the Old World without significantly altering the style of the setting. I at least like that AoS is its own thing, and we still have an Old World to go back to.
catbarf wrote: ...but its high fantasy elements weren't in the foreground...For me, the 'soul' of Warhammer was a landsknecht with a halberd venturing into the sewers to fight ratmen, or a French/English knight setting his lance as he bears down on a troll. Mundane people putting steel and courage against fantasy monsters.
Excuse me? Weren't in the foreground? What game were YOU playing? It certainly wasn't Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Warhammer has pretty much slapped you in the face with High Fantasy concepts from the outset. It's always had Steamtanks and Gyrocopters. Magic weapons and magic armor and magic banners, common enough to give to unit champions. Wizards that could summon literal meteors from bare sky come to almost every battle. Hordes of rat-men riding magical belltowers, giant eagles and griffons and giants and giant skeletons are commonly seen on any battlefield. Nobody blinks an eye at Pegasus riding knights and gigantic chaos demons, or half-dragon half-ogres and frog demigods floating into battle on levitating stone thrones. Dragons are so common that they have a dedicated breath attack named after them in the core section of the rules. That's not even getting into the crazyness that came out in 8th edition, all that stuff has around going back to 5th edition or before. High levels of magic and fantastical creatures have ALWAYS been at the forefront in Warhammer. Not just buried in the fluff, but in the game as played out on the tabletop. It wasn't something that "occasionally crept in", it was literally every single army that was lead by some general with 100 points of magic items. Often chosen from a "standard magic items list" Every army has a Battle Standard Bearer with a magical banner. Every army that DOESN'T have a meteor-wielding wizard still took a lowbie wizard with at least one dispel scroll, because if you didn't then the enemy wizard got to wipe a unit off the table each turn. With magic. Which was an entire phase of the game.
The "soul of Warhammer" is definitively NOT a landsknecht with a halberd any more than the "soul" of Star Wars is a smuggler with a good blaster at his side. Defining either setting like that is actively ignoring everything else going on around you.
I agree that Warhammer Fantasy was a different kind of setting compared with AoS. But people that tries to use the battlefield as an example are wrong. Old World battlefields were very much similar to the ones you can see in Age of Sigmar with the exception of some of the extreme elements like flying Kharadron Fleets fighting on the skies agaisnt whatever.
In Warhammer Fantasy, a bunch of normal humans fighting another bunch of normal humans wasn't the norm, or what was the center of the universe. All the relevant battles were big with tons of heroes, monsters, magic, etc....
WHFB was superior to Ao$ because it was a clearinghouse for fantasy tropes from broad myth and literature, such that everything inspired and resonated with it, from Lord of the Rings to Fafrd and the Grey Mouser. Ao$ is a proprietary sandbox that no longer resonates with established tropes, and instead aims to trademark gimmicks to set itself apart, for example cow elves. This is clear, and why Ao$ is a weaker setting.
VBS wrote: Tbh, the Old World was varied enough to gather many different types of fantasy, from the very low to the very high.
It's why there are different perceptions on what the Old World was because it was never one distinct thing. This thread is proof enough.
The whole conversation of "it was X, not Y!" is kind of useless. Just people trying to hard to have the right opinion.
I’d just call that High Fantasy.
Where things happen sometimes that are also possible in a low fantasy setting. They are just happening in the HF one.
Also though,
Can’t the AoS vs Fantasy, Low vs High be taken to general?
There hasn’t been a post about the new game in ages. I know info is limited, but if it was at least about things we’ve seen..
Automatically Appended Next Post: And yes I know, I posted about it too But the point is, it’s not news that they’re different. We had all this when AoS first came out etc..
BlaxicanX wrote: Is less more? Reading your anecdote, I spent the time thinking "man I'd prefer the flying dragon and vorpal swords".
When it comes to fantasy, preference and execution are everything. I can create a story about Space Marines and have just as much drama, tension, and commentary on the human condition as any story about guardsmen.
I looked at it and thought, "Man, riding a flying dragon with paired vorpal swords would be so easy as to be boring, but squatting in a sewer counting pennies so we can afford to go confront a scoundrel with a charmed bear in heavily trapped lair sound so difficult as to be boring as well. Surely there's a middle ground somewhere between these two that will be interesting...
BUT, it sounds like the OP had fun in his game, and you'd have fun in your dragon-riding game, so neither are wrong ways to play. Just two ends of a spectrum, neither of which appeal to me, but they don't have to appeal to me because I'm not in those games.
Part of the fun of fantasy RPGs is finding the power scale that appeals to a given group.
Fair assessment.
"squatting in a sewer counting pennies". Im going to go use this, thank you.
jeff white wrote: WHFB was superior to Ao$ because it was a clearinghouse for fantasy tropes from broad myth and literature, such that everything inspired and resonated with it, from Lord of the Rings to Fafrd and the Grey Mouser. Ao$ is a proprietary sandbox that no longer resonates with established tropes, and instead aims to trademark gimmicks to set itself apart, for example cow elves. This is clear, and why Ao$ is a weaker setting.
I dunno if this is off topic, but in my humble opinion, AOS is leagues above Warhammer in terms of high fantasy.
Looking beyond things like Kharadron Overlords and Air-grots (since Skaven used crazy machines in fantasy and dwarfs had zeppelins and gyrocopters) there's a lot that I would classify as high fantasy.
Foremost is the fact that gods walk amongst men (and most have models.) The Everqueen, Nagash, Morathi, Teclis, etc are all god-tier beings and often are described as gods. In fantasy, gods existed, but only were physically present as mortals, if they ever physically existed at all. We also have beings like the Godbeasts that can still show up from time to time, though they also can just die fairly easily (rip Behemet).
The worlds are also a lot crazier than fantasy. Some pretty fantastical places existed, mostly in the realm of chaos, but in AOS, we have floating islands (not super special), rivers of gold, sentient mountains, the realms themselves constantly being built (from that one short story about the wizard going to a realm's edge), space lizard temple spaceships, etc.
The stakes are also bigger. Since the realms aren't finite like the Old World, whole civilizations can be introduced and killed off. True, whether or not these stakes hold any significant meaning depends on you, but that's still a lot more intense than a simple kingdom being besieged.
The point is it isn't the size of something within a setting that makes it significant in the first place. WHFB blowing up the Empire and having Cathay continue the fight against Chaos would have a hell of a lot different response than it blowing up Cathay and having the Empire continue.
I agree that Warhammer Fantasy was a different kind of setting compared with AoS. But people that tries to use the battlefield as an example are wrong. Old World battlefields were very much similar to the ones you can see in Age of Sigmar with the exception of some of the extreme elements like flying Kharadron Fleets fighting on the skies agaisnt whatever.
In Warhammer Fantasy, a bunch of normal humans fighting another bunch of normal humans wasn't the norm, or what was the center of the universe. All the relevant battles were big with tons of heroes, monsters, magic, etc....
What an absolute heap of the brown stuff.
First of all, "they're exactly the same, providing you ignore these major, glaring examples of difference that I'm arbitrarily excluding because they fatally undermine my argument" is just disingenuous.
Secondly, maybe the battles you personally paid attention to and which GW wanted to push as they became ever more focused on encouraging players to buy bigger and bigger armies fit the description you give, but that doesn't make the countless other battles that took place in the setting - and which in that setting would be far more typical - invalid or negated.
Thirdly, the perpetual attempts to strawman "there's a large difference in the level of magic and other fantastical elements in WHF compared to AoS and similar settings, and this has a meaningful impact on the kinds of stories that can be successfully told in each" as "hurr durr you just want War of the Roses go play historicals nurd" and similar is just tired. The setting does not have to be "just normal humans fighting normal humans" for the typical battlefield to look nothing like AoS. I like dragons. And wizards. And ancient Elven fae. And mythical beasts. I like that Warhammer Fantasy has them. I also like that it has them in moderation, thus permitting the setting to also meaningfully include Gunter & Gruber with their bog-standard forged metal halberds, and have them be something more than a mere speedbump to a god-powered superbeing in magical armour riding lizard-gryphs from another dimension.
DarkBlack wrote: What I don't get is why people cling to GW games despite all the disapointment. There are other companies that make good games.
You want rank and file games? Have you had a look at Kings of War, Conquest, A Song of Ice and Fire, Oathmark or Age of Fantasy?
I know this was a few pages back, but I decided to check out some "lets plays" of ASOIAF. Didn't really appeal to me (though the models look great). It looks to take inspiration in some areas from WHFB, however the bits I didn't like were that it seems to be heavily kill based (i.e. in one round of attacks you often wipe out significant portions of each others units), random charge distance (can people seriously not come up with a better idea than that...) and the way it uses cards to alter engagements very (overly?) significantly. I'm undecided if I like the general way modifiers / terrain / objectives work Also whilst I like the ASOIAF universe in general, for a table top game I do prefer a few more monsters and whatnot. When I started WHFB in the mid to late 90's, that had the perfect level of monsters in that they weren't massively dominant, but each army still had an option or two for something big and scary to bring.
I do like the way they did the unit cards though, that's a good idea to avoid the flicking back and forth necessary in WHFB to figure out what you need to roll each time. And yeah, the models look great.
Excuse me? Weren't in the foreground? What game were YOU playing? It certainly wasn't Warhammer Fantasy Battles.
Warhammer has pretty much slapped you in the face with High Fantasy concepts from the outset. It's always had Steamtanks and Gyrocopters.
Spoiler:
Magic weapons and magic armor and magic banners, common enough to give to unit champions. Wizards that could summon literal meteors from bare sky come to almost every battle. Hordes of rat-men riding magical belltowers, giant eagles and griffons and giants and giant skeletons are commonly seen on any battlefield. Nobody blinks an eye at Pegasus riding knights and gigantic chaos demons, or half-dragon half-ogres and frog demigods floating into battle on levitating stone thrones. Dragons are so common that they have a dedicated breath attack named after them in the core section of the rules. That's not even getting into the crazyness that came out in 8th edition, all that stuff has around going back to 5th edition or before. High levels of magic and fantastical creatures have ALWAYS been at the forefront in Warhammer. Not just buried in the fluff, but in the game as played out on the tabletop. It wasn't something that "occasionally crept in", it was literally every single army that was lead by some general with 100 points of magic items. Often chosen from a "standard magic items list" Every army has a Battle Standard Bearer with a magical banner. Every army that DOESN'T have a meteor-wielding wizard still took a lowbie wizard with at least one dispel scroll, because if you didn't then the enemy wizard got to wipe a unit off the table each turn. With magic. Which was an entire phase of the game.
The "soul of Warhammer" is definitively NOT a landsknecht with a halberd any more than the "soul" of Star Wars is a smuggler with a good blaster at his side. Defining either setting like that is actively ignoring everything else going on around you.
Tanks and helicopters? Oh my, those are far-fetched indeed!
As has become more than clear in recent years, part of the difference isn't what exists, but what's visible and focussed on. WHFB had beings with god-like power, but you rarely saw them. Depending on what edition you look at, the strongest figures in a faction's background often had no rules and models, or they had rules (and possibly an accompanying model) that required your opponent's permission to use (right? I remember that being a thing). And even then, very few people used them. Never saw anyone use Kroq-gar or Lord Kroak in 6th, those figures were just used converted or used as proxies for an Oldblood on carnosaur and a Slann. Skarloc and Ariel may have been important in the lore, but I wasn't expected to use them in my Wood Elf army. Meanwhile, AoS is supposed to, somewhere, contain vaguely ordinary humans going about their daily lives, but in this case those are the ones that are unseen. The fact that they live in realms in which ordinary life can be difficult to imagine and comprehend doesn't help.
Thing is, the shift to focus more on the immensely powerful beings didn't just happen with AoS; before that we already saw people becoming more powerful and just physically bigger. During the End Times, Archaon changed from a guy on horse to a guy on a massive chimaera. Little ratman Thanquol's rat ogre bodyguard Boneripper had to become a much larger rat-monster bodyguard. Guy on foot or horse Mannfred became guy on big flying creature Mannfred. Before the End Times, Vampire Counts got massive centrepieces like the Mortis Engine, the Empire got a new, larger griffon expected to be ridden by many characters besides the Emperor, as well as demigryph knights etcetera etcetera. I don't have the rules nearby, but I think even those changed from "roll a D6, the nearby forest may be magical" to "roll a D6 to see what kind of magical this forest is", between 6th and 8th.
In summary, there were three trends: an emphasized focus on powerful named characters (quite a few veterans lament the loss of highly customizable characters the player was expected to name and create a backstory for), a focus on creating and selling large centrepiece models (already diminishing the rank and flank look of the game) and the increased existence/visibility of more fantastical elements on the table. This has continued in AoS and is partially also visible in 40k (Ghazghkull is bigger than ever, the Sisters got two new large special characters in the form of Junith Eruita and the Triumph procession). Big personalities (apparently) need to be on the tabletop and need to have suitably big models. All of which then leads to the simple question that brings us back to the actual topic: how much of that will we see in W:TOW? As discussed previously, are bear cavalry and ice witches a rare feature, or a staple of the Kislevite forces? (The question isn't if they exist - they always have - but how common they are supposed to be.) Is for instance King Louen Orc-Slayer going to be portrayed as a character on the tabletop, and if so, are he and his knights allowed to look like relatively ordinary human medieval knights? So, how much of what GW wants to make will resemble what people actually liked about Warhammer Fantasy, that is lacking for them in AoS? Because if you like both WHFB and AoS, that's great, but GW already has you as a customer. This project clearly needs to reach people who enjoyed the former and not the latter, otherwise it has very little reason to exist.
Tanks and helicopters? Oh my, those are far-fetched indeed!
As has become more than clear in recent years, part of the difference isn't what exists, but what's visible and focussed on. WHFB had beings with god-like power, but you rarely saw them. Depending on what edition you look at, the strongest figures in a faction's background often had no rules and models, or they had rules (and possibly an accompanying model) that required your opponent's permission to use (right? I remember that being a thing). And even then, very few people used them. Never saw anyone use Kroq-gar or Lord Kroak in 6th, those figures were just used converted or used as proxies for an Oldblood on carnosaur and a Slann. Skarloc and Ariel may have been important in the lore, but I wasn't expected to use them in my Wood Elf army. Meanwhile, AoS is supposed to, somewhere, contain vaguely ordinary humans going about their daily lives, but in this case those are the ones that are unseen. The fact that they live in realms in which ordinary life can be difficult to imagine and comprehend doesn't help.
Thing is, the shift to focus more on the immensely powerful beings didn't just happen with AoS; before that we already saw people becoming more powerful and just physically bigger. During the End Times, Archaon changed from a guy on horse to a guy on a massive chimaera. Little ratman Thanquol's rat ogre bodyguard Boneripper had to become a much larger rat-monster bodyguard. Guy on foot or horse Mannfred became guy on big flying creature Mannfred. Before the End Times, Vampire Counts got massive centrepieces like the Mortis Engine, the Empire got a new, larger griffon expected to be ridden by many characters besides the Emperor, as well as demigryph knights etcetera etcetera. I don't have the rules nearby, but I think even those changed from "roll a D6, the nearby forest may be magical" to "roll a D6 to see what kind of magical this forest is", between 6th and 8th.
In summary, there were three trends: an emphasized focus on powerful named characters (quite a few veterans lament the loss of highly customizable characters the player was expected to name and create a backstory for), a focus on creating and selling large centrepiece models (already diminishing the rank and flank look of the game) and the increased existence/visibility of more fantastical elements on the table. This has continued in AoS and is partially also visible in 40k (Ghazghkull is bigger than ever, the Sisters got two new large special characters in the form of Junith Eruita and the Triumph procession). Big personalities (apparently) need to be on the tabletop and need to have suitably big models. All of which then leads to the simple question that brings us back to the actual topic: how much of that will we see in W:TOW? As discussed previously, are bear cavalry and ice witches a rare feature, or a staple of the Kislevite forces? (The question isn't if they exist - they always have - but how common they are supposed to be.) Is for instance King Louen Orc-Slayer going to be portrayed as a character on the tabletop, and if so, are he and his knights allowed to look like relatively ordinary human medieval knights? So, how much of what GW wants to make will resemble what people actually liked about Warhammer Fantasy, that is lacking for them in AoS? Because if you like both WHFB and AoS, that's great, but GW already has you as a customer. This project clearly needs to reach people who enjoyed the former and not the latter, otherwise it has very little reason to exist.
I think toward the end of WHFB it was suffering from the range becoming overgrown. GW's business strategy relied on always releasing new kits (as they sold the best by a long way) while never retiring old ones that no one was really buying any more, and I think this in some part led to releasing more big stuff.
Was WFB as high fantasy as AoS ? To me, the answer is "it depends which period of WFB".
At the very beginning, in the first editions and such, yes it was very high fantasy. You can see it in the old artworks with insane stuff like ships in the sky, weird forests filled with weirdly people that look clearly like fantasy races and countries that look nothing like the real world.
Then as the editions followed...it was toned down at first a bit, especially in the Empire with restrictions about magic and how the common people saw it. It was especially true in the first edition of the WFB RPG, and the setting at that time was low fantasy.
Then at the end, high fantasy came back bit by bit as GW added new units that were "more fantastic" than players would expect it to be. It was ultimately GW going back to its roots, but I still remember clearly at that time players complaining it was not fitting to WFB because precisely it was too "high fantasy". Do you remember the introduction of the Empire demi-gryph knights, with people saying it was absurd these fantastic mounts came out of nowhere and were used as troops rather than an occasionnal monstruous mount for heroes ? Or the high elf Phoenixes and "flying chariot" ? Yes, people complained about them being too high fantasy.
So saying WFB was always high fantasy...that's simply not true. WFB had an evolution (or devolution, depending on who you're talking with) during all its life. And people claiming otherwise just don't remember well what really happened at that time.
Could WFB's universe stay and welcome new armies of AoS ? Personnally, I think yes, it would have been possible, but to be honest it would have been harder than starting from a blank state. I do understand why GW did what they did with AoS. Besides, since it's been done, it's pointless to still debate about it anyway.
The Old World project is just looking at the state of the Old World in the past, long before the events leading to End Times. It's the Horus Heresy of AoS. Nothing more, nothing less.
While I still remember my days playing WFB fondly, I won't be saying that WFB is superior to AoS. In fact, I won't let nostalgy blind my eyes - there are things I really don't regret in WFB and things I really do enjoy in AoS.
Sarouan wrote: While I still remember my days playing WFB fondly, I won't be saying that WFB is superior to AoS. In fact, I won't let nostalgy blind my eyes - there are things I really don't regret in WFB and things I really do enjoy in AoS.
I generally shy away from saying WHFB was superior, simply that it was different, and AoS is a type of different I don't enjoy.
My gripe with it all is that, for me at least, the niche that AoS would fill was already filled by 40k. I played WHFB because of the game it was and the setting it was, and they killed that game and setting to replace it with one I didn't want, all because GW mismanaged the one I did want.
My gripe with it all is that, for me at least, the niche that AoS would fill was already filled by 40k.
It wasn't. 40k is SF, AoS is Fantasy.
Saying playing 40k is the same as playing AoS is nonsense. I play both, I would know if I was playing the same niche.
Agreed!
Someone mentioned Moorcock who has always been a big influence on Warhammer - the Mortal Realms of AOS are very much in theme like the worlds he created.
I enjoy both worlds - after all I spend plenty of time updating the Warhammer Lex!
At the very beginning, in the first editions and such, yes it was very high fantasy. You can see it in the old artworks with insane stuff like ships in the sky, weird forests filled with weirdly people that look clearly like fantasy races and countries that look nothing like the real world.
Then as the editions followed...it was toned down at first a bit, especially in the Empire with restrictions about magic and how the common people saw it. It was especially true in the first edition of the WFB RPG, and the setting at that time was low fantasy.
Then at the end, high fantasy came back bit by bit as GW added new units that were "more fantastic" than players would expect it to be. It was ultimately GW going back to its roots, but I still remember clearly at that time players complaining it was not fitting to WFB because precisely it was too "high fantasy". Do you remember the introduction of the Empire demi-gryph knights, with people saying it was absurd these fantastic mounts came out of nowhere and were used as troops rather than an occasionnal monstruous mount for heroes ? Or the high elf Phoenixes and "flying chariot" ? Yes, people complained about them being too high fantasy.
Part of this was the creation of the Old World as its own thing and the growing ability to translate the more fantastical into models - remember it went from this (early on)
Spoiler:
to this
Spoiler:
but the ambition to create such models was Always there and Always a part of the world, lore and theme of Warhammer.
I think he meant the niche in terms of gameplay rather than in terms of genre/setting - and on that I agree with him, AoS doesn't necessarily offer much of a different experience on the table than 40k does. In general, the mechanical differences are fairly minute and don't lend themselves towards creating a significantly different gameplay experience.
chaos0xomega wrote: I think he meant the niche in terms of gameplay rather than in terms of genre/setting - and on that I agree with him, AoS doesn't necessarily offer much of a different experience on the table than 40k does. In general, the mechanical differences are fairly minute and don't lend themselves towards creating a significantly different gameplay experience.
Considering that since its beginning, Warhammer games have always been based on the same game system thats not a major surprise.
I would agree that AOS and 40k are now closer due to the removal of the ranked regiment element but they were always reaonably compatable.
Kid_Kyoto wrote:Middle Earth was high fantasy with princes and wizards and the fate of the world, but that world was grounded in English folklore and history.
Middle Earth is quite clearly inspired by Midgard from Germanic and Norse mythology. Which is where the idea of dwarves comes from too.
Just in case you wanted to know.
IIRC it was an answer to Norse Myth, Greek, Roman etc, an attempt to bring together English folklore to create a uniquely British myth that could stand shoulder to shoulder with them.
And given the global success of Tolkienesque fantasy I think he succeeded.
That's interesting! Do you have a reference where I can read more?
When I think English myth and legend; then Celtic mythology along with Arthurian legend and fae come to mind.
AllSeeingSkink wrote:
DarkBlack wrote: What I don't get is why people cling to GW games despite all the disapointment. There are other companies that make good games.
You want rank and file games? Have you had a look at Kings of War, Conquest, A Song of Ice and Fire, Oathmark or Age of Fantasy?
I know this was a few pages back, but I decided to check out some "lets plays" of ASOIAF. Didn't really appeal to me (though the models look great). It looks to take inspiration in some areas from WHFB, however the bits I didn't like were that it seems to be heavily kill based (i.e. in one round of attacks you often wipe out significant portions of each others units), random charge distance (can people seriously not come up with a better idea than that...) and the way it uses cards to alter engagements very (overly?) significantly. I'm undecided if I like the general way modifiers / terrain / objectives work Also whilst I like the ASOIAF universe in general, for a table top game I do prefer a few more monsters and whatnot. When I started WHFB in the mid to late 90's, that had the perfect level of monsters in that they weren't massively dominant, but each army still had an option or two for something big and scary to bring.
I do like the way they did the unit cards though, that's a good idea to avoid the flicking back and forth necessary in WHFB to figure out what you need to roll each time. And yeah, the models look great.
My point was that there are a lot of options.
I haven't gotten into ASOIAF either, I hear it's got limited replayability.
For me, Kings of War is exactly the kind of wargaming experience I'm looking for.
From what I've seen, Oathmark is also a good and straightforward fantasy rank 'n flank. As is Age if Fantasy, with the added benefit of being free.
ZebioLizard2 wrote: If we're counting Man O War we had giant dragons with castles on their back and the Gigantic Flying Magical Tzeentch Castles.
People want to think WHFB is low magic, that's not what that term means and trying to redefine it is not going to happen.
Which is exactly why I put it in parenthesis, because your "low" fantasy might be completely different thant my "low" fantasy. If you have a definitive summary what for you constitutes "low" fantasy, please share it, so we can agree/disagree on it. Otherwise any discussion about our feel for this is futile.
To quote myself from earlier this thread:
savemelmac wrote:
One reason I believe the feeling of low fantasy stems from is the limit of 1 or 2 rare units into your army. You would just not see 4 steam tanks. It simply was not possible to field them. If you are extrapolating from that time, the idea of an army of just giants like Sons of Behemat seems absolutely ridiculous. I am fine with one giant. I am still okay with two. But then.... And the same goes for Gryphs, Dragons, Sphinxes and wacky war machines of the Skaven or Imperium. One big centerpiece for the army is awesome. An army of center pieces, not so much.
Coenus Scaldingus wrote: how much of that will we see in W:TOW? As discussed previously, are bear cavalry and ice witches a rare feature, or a staple of the Kislevite forces? (The question isn't if they exist - they always have - but how common they are supposed to be.) Is for instance King Louen Orc-Slayer going to be portrayed as a character on the tabletop, and if so, are he and his knights allowed to look like relatively ordinary human medieval knights? So, how much of what GW wants to make will resemble what people actually liked about Warhammer Fantasy, that is lacking for them in AoS? Because if you like both WHFB and AoS, that's great, but GW already has you as a customer. This project clearly needs to reach people who enjoyed the former and not the latter, otherwise it has very little reason to exist.
This sums it up rather nicely. I am fine with bear cavalry, as long it is one rare unit, and not everybody and their mother rides on bears. Same for ice witches: Having magic weapons is not unprecedented (chaos knights and grave guard), but I would like them to limit it to special powerful units.
I also do not really understand why people seem to be offended by my wish to have a rank and file game with limited magic/monsters/huge centerpiece models. AoS already exists. If they go through the trouble to establish another game, I simply hope they do differentiate them enough to be interesting for a different type of player involvement.
I am fine with bear cavalry, as long it is one rare unit, and not everybody and their mother rides on bears. Same for ice witches.
Kings of War already has similar (frostfangs are bear-like, right?).
I also do not really understand why people seem to be offended by my wish to have a rank and file game with limited magic/monsters/huge centerpiece models.
I also do not really understand why people seem to be offended by my wish to have a rank and file game with limited magic/monsters/huge centerpiece models.
Kings of War already has that too.
And I'll add that KOW was also inspired by WFB in more than one way. Not surprising, since its original father was Alessio Cavatore.
It's not like the rank and file games with limitations on list building have disappeared completely. They just don't have the GW scene so far.
And honestly, the Old World project is nice and all, but we only know about a part of its background so far. We have nothing about the gameplay and we don't even know if it will be a rank and file game like WFB at all. As far as I know, they may be making the next Mordheim-like game, just with the entire Old World map rather than a ruined town as setting. FW is barely able to handle skirmish-size games like Necromunda and Bloodbowl, I don't even see how they could manage a full rank and file game with new whole armies the size WFB offered.
I still don't understand why people keep hyping themselves to so high expectations that they can only be disappointed when the real thing will be there at the end. Especially when we have litterally nothing more than a map and a few artworks to back it up.
Kalamadea wrote: Excuse me? Weren't in the foreground? What game were YOU playing? It certainly wasn't Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Warhammer has pretty much slapped you in the face with High Fantasy concepts from the outset. It's always had Steamtanks and Gyrocopters. Magic weapons and magic armor and magic banners, common enough to give to unit champions. Wizards that could summon literal meteors from bare sky come to almost every battle. Hordes of rat-men riding magical belltowers, giant eagles and griffons and giants and giant skeletons are commonly seen on any battlefield. Nobody blinks an eye at Pegasus riding knights and gigantic chaos demons, or half-dragon half-ogres and frog demigods floating into battle on levitating stone thrones. Dragons are so common that they have a dedicated breath attack named after them in the core section of the rules. That's not even getting into the crazyness that came out in 8th edition, all that stuff has around going back to 5th edition or before. High levels of magic and fantastical creatures have ALWAYS been at the forefront in Warhammer. Not just buried in the fluff, but in the game as played out on the tabletop. It wasn't something that "occasionally crept in", it was literally every single army that was lead by some general with 100 points of magic items. Often chosen from a "standard magic items list" Every army has a Battle Standard Bearer with a magical banner. Every army that DOESN'T have a meteor-wielding wizard still took a lowbie wizard with at least one dispel scroll, because if you didn't then the enemy wizard got to wipe a unit off the table each turn. With magic. Which was an entire phase of the game.
The "soul of Warhammer" is definitively NOT a landsknecht with a halberd any more than the "soul" of Star Wars is a smuggler with a good blaster at his side. Defining either setting like that is actively ignoring everything else going on around you.
I feel like you've rather missed my point.
Yes, all of those things were in the game- that's exactly what I said. Of course Fantasy had lots of high fantasy elements. Of course you could take all sorts of big monsters and centerpieces. But they were special specifically because they weren't the baseline. All those high fantasy elements were contrasted with more mundane rank-and-file.
-An Empire army was primarily composed of dudes wearing pajamas, not resurrecting demigods with magic weapons. Yes, you had steam tanks and wizards. They weren't the core of the army, and you were highly limited in how many you could take.
-A Dwarf army was primarily Tolkien-esque short Scots with axes. You could take a Gyrocopter or two. You certainly didn't have an entire army of flying Dwarfs and airships.
-A Tomb Kings army was mostly skeletons. There were bone giants. Your entire army was not entirely composed of engineered bone-golems.
-You could take one giant in many armies as a large, highly powerful centerpiece. You could not take an army where a giant was your smallest model.
I guess I wasn't clear enough the first time around so I'll rephrase my point: WHFB had all the same high fantasy elements as AoS. The difference is that WHFB also put a lot more emphasis on mundane 'low-fantasy' elements to establish a baseline, rather than all high fantasy all the time down to even your basic foot troops.
This was an Empire battalion. That's how you got started with the Empire, the face of the WHFB setting. You get twenty foot soldiers with polearms, ten with muskets, ten knights with barded warhorses, and a cannon. No wizards. No steam tank. No dragons. Just soldiery that could be mistaken for Renaissance historicals. As you worked towards 1000pts, then you could start adding in more fantastic elements, but at bare minimum a quarter of your points were going to be spent on knights and/or state troops.
This is a Stormcast SC, how you get started with the face of the setting in AoS. You get thirteen reincarnated demigods, another three who are also angels and can fly, and two characters, of whom one is riding a dragon-lizard-dog and the other of whom is a cleric who can summon lightning.
Or look at how armies transitioned, and see how prominent the rank-and-file are versus the centerpiece models. The Seraphon, Anvilgard, and FEC Start Collecting boxes include a Carnosaur, Hydra, and Zombie Dragon respectively; those are things you'd see one of at 2000pts in WHFB as the centerpiece of your army, not at 500pts as a starting point. Plus for many factions that changed in the transition, what they have as their basic rank-and-file now is what used to be their elites in WHFB. Orcs don't actually have Orcs anymore, you get either Savage Orcs or Black Orcs as your base troops. Dwarfs don't get Dwarf Warriors, they get Ironbreakers, Arkanauts, or Slayers.
If you really don't see any stylistic difference between the two games, I think we'll have to agree to disagree.
Though I believe so far we've managed to push derailing things so far.. There's always been magical elements within such things. I imagine at this point we are going to see more of it as they push out and explore the rest of the world. Hedge wizards and witches and the like could be substituted for Imperial College mages.
Can't speak for anybody else, but I've been using ToW as an excuse to get back to working on my High Elf army that I started a couple years back. If they work for ToW, great, if they don't, I can always schedule a game against my buddies' Dwarf army and play 6th ed WHFB.
I'm hoping that ToW means a re-release of discontinued kits so I can finish my High Elves without paying collectors prices, but I'd also love a 15MM WHFB game to go with my Deamonworld and Joan of Arc 15mm stuff, but we just don't have any real info on what the game will be
***edit***
Nevermind, deleted this whole thing. I'm done with arguing with people that want to claim green is red, and green isn't always green if you use my definition of green. If somebody wants to play word games and cherry pick or ignore elements to make it fit their vision of the setting then fine, WHFB can be low fantasy for you. Have at.
***/edit***
Excuse me? Weren't in the foreground? What game were YOU playing? It certainly wasn't Warhammer Fantasy Battles.
Warhammer has pretty much slapped you in the face with High Fantasy concepts from the outset. It's always had Steamtanks and Gyrocopters.
Spoiler:
Magic weapons and magic armor and magic banners, common enough to give to unit champions. Wizards that could summon literal meteors from bare sky come to almost every battle. Hordes of rat-men riding magical belltowers, giant eagles and griffons and giants and giant skeletons are commonly seen on any battlefield. Nobody blinks an eye at Pegasus riding knights and gigantic chaos demons, or half-dragon half-ogres and frog demigods floating into battle on levitating stone thrones. Dragons are so common that they have a dedicated breath attack named after them in the core section of the rules. That's not even getting into the crazyness that came out in 8th edition, all that stuff has around going back to 5th edition or before. High levels of magic and fantastical creatures have ALWAYS been at the forefront in Warhammer. Not just buried in the fluff, but in the game as played out on the tabletop. It wasn't something that "occasionally crept in", it was literally every single army that was lead by some general with 100 points of magic items. Often chosen from a "standard magic items list" Every army has a Battle Standard Bearer with a magical banner. Every army that DOESN'T have a meteor-wielding wizard still took a lowbie wizard with at least one dispel scroll, because if you didn't then the enemy wizard got to wipe a unit off the table each turn. With magic. Which was an entire phase of the game.
The "soul of Warhammer" is definitively NOT a landsknecht with a halberd any more than the "soul" of Star Wars is a smuggler with a good blaster at his side. Defining either setting like that is actively ignoring everything else going on around you.
Tanks and helicopters? Oh my, those are far-fetched indeed!
As has become more than clear in recent years, part of the difference isn't what exists, but what's visible and focussed on. WHFB had beings with god-like power, but you rarely saw them. Depending on what edition you look at, the strongest figures in a faction's background often had no rules and models, or they had rules (and possibly an accompanying model) that required your opponent's permission to use (right? I remember that being a thing). And even then, very few people used them. Never saw anyone use Kroq-gar or Lord Kroak in 6th, those figures were just used converted or used as proxies for an Oldblood on carnosaur and a Slann. Skarloc and Ariel may have been important in the lore, but I wasn't expected to use them in my Wood Elf army. Meanwhile, AoS is supposed to, somewhere, contain vaguely ordinary humans going about their daily lives, but in this case those are the ones that are unseen. The fact that they live in realms in which ordinary life can be difficult to imagine and comprehend doesn't help.
Thing is, the shift to focus more on the immensely powerful beings didn't just happen with AoS; before that we already saw people becoming more powerful and just physically bigger. During the End Times, Archaon changed from a guy on horse to a guy on a massive chimaera. Little ratman Thanquol's rat ogre bodyguard Boneripper had to become a much larger rat-monster bodyguard. Guy on foot or horse Mannfred became guy on big flying creature Mannfred. Before the End Times, Vampire Counts got massive centrepieces like the Mortis Engine, the Empire got a new, larger griffon expected to be ridden by many characters besides the Emperor, as well as demigryph knights etcetera etcetera. I don't have the rules nearby, but I think even those changed from "roll a D6, the nearby forest may be magical" to "roll a D6 to see what kind of magical this forest is", between 6th and 8th.
In summary, there were three trends: an emphasized focus on powerful named characters (quite a few veterans lament the loss of highly customizable characters the player was expected to name and create a backstory for), a focus on creating and selling large centrepiece models (already diminishing the rank and flank look of the game) and the increased existence/visibility of more fantastical elements on the table. This has continued in AoS and is partially also visible in 40k (Ghazghkull is bigger than ever, the Sisters got two new large special characters in the form of Junith Eruita and the Triumph procession). Big personalities (apparently) need to be on the tabletop and need to have suitably big models. All of which then leads to the simple question that brings us back to the actual topic: how much of that will we see in W:TOW? As discussed previously, are bear cavalry and ice witches a rare feature, or a staple of the Kislevite forces? (The question isn't if they exist - they always have - but how common they are supposed to be.) Is for instance King Louen Orc-Slayer going to be portrayed as a character on the tabletop, and if so, are he and his knights allowed to look like relatively ordinary human medieval knights? So, how much of what GW wants to make will resemble what people actually liked about Warhammer Fantasy, that is lacking for them in AoS? Because if you like both WHFB and AoS, that's great, but GW already has you as a customer. This project clearly needs to reach people who enjoyed the former and not the latter, otherwise it has very little reason to exist.
I think you've summed it up quite nicely really. The high VS low fantasy argument is something that really depends on what definition of the terms you use, it looks like people might be using different standards for what counts as what. There are all sorts of conflicting definitions of the terms.To me it's down to the stakes of things and the prevalence of magic that completely changes the style of fantasy, from whatever WHF counted as to something with a much more exaggerated magic-focused mytholical scale setting with more of a focus on Gods and supermen - the grounded sense of things has been replaced by a ceiling so high that the tone is overall vastly different in a way that I find less interesting. It's that while WHF was obviously still a setting with high fantasy elements, Things like Dragons, Trolls, Skaven, Elves, Dwarves, Beastmen, airships, gyrocopters etc, they were put in the setting in a way that were just a natural part of the world. They were just as ordinary within the world as the humans were, and when the more supernatural and power fantasy elements were there, they were relatively rare or the result of dark forces. It was for the most part just a gritty, grim setting that felt like a believable world with a few more eleborate magical things occasionally making an appearance, where the underlaying core of it was still a relatively normal place. Not so much with Age of Sigmar, where the setting was created by a divine being, where it's split into magical realms, where there's Magic-imbued Dwarves who seek Magic Gold, Sky Dwarves making airships and power armour using magical gas, a faction of soul-forged magical supermen, Godbeasts, Gods wandering around the setting etc. The stakes of it are no so much closer to Mythic fantasy and the prevalence of those magical entities are so, so far above what WHF was that there isn't a semblance of it being a believable, grounded fantasy setting in the same way as WHF, the overall tone and importance of things is entirely different. It's entirely down to what the focus is and what's at the forefront of the setting, even if those more mundane things still exist in AoS and the more fantastical things exist in WHF, the problem is to what degree they're emblematic of the setting overall.
The first units of Kislev, and the first units we even saw from this, both being shown as being more outlandish stuff really does give a bit of a worrying first impression as to what their focus might be on. If they'd have shown the standard units and then shown those It wouldn't really be a problem, and while both were already somewhat estabslished within Kislev lore, when they haven't even suggested anything about the more common baseline troops and gone straight to showing a magical ice-witch elite guard and a giant bear cavalry then it's really something that suggests they might have a bit of a strange priority. If that's the direction they're taking things, with more eleborate fantastical setpiece units and a focus on those aspects that were previously done in a more niche reserved way, then I think that will somewhat defeat the point of bringing the setting back in the first place.Hopefully it's just something that happens with Kislev as it was already part of their lore and isn't indicative of what they want to do with the rest. If they flanderize Kislev to have them focus on those types of things then that will be very worrying.
It's absolutely fine to have high-fantasy stuff as they're obviously a part of the setting, it just needs to include them in a way that feels relatively ordinary like before where they're just a natural part of the world and not jump to absurd levels when it comes to the more extra-ordinary aspects.
See edit above, only going to post that I'm really, REALLY tired of arguing minutia and instead I'm just looking forward to WHFB occupying space in my brain again. If it eventually hits the table in a recognizable fashion that would be nice as well.
I think the problem here is that people are missing the forest for the trees (or maybe its the opposite). People are seeing gyrocopters, steam tanks, dragons and going "look we haz high fantasy". The reality is that you have to look at the setting in aggregate - big picture, look at the generalized portrayal of the setting and what the underlying and overarching themes of the setting are. In aggregate WHFB was a low fantasy setting, in aggregate AoS is a high fantasy setting. That does not preclude the possibility for one to have the elements of the other.
But honestly, what the feth does it even matter? High fantasy isn't inherently superior to low fantasy nor vice versa, what does it even matter if WHFB was low fantasy to AoS high fantasy? What difference does it make to you on an individual level? This goes right back to a previous comment I made where anything that some people seem to interpret as portraying WHFB as being in any way "lesser" than Age of Sigmar triggers an instinctual "no you're wrong" response from WHFB fans.
Being a low fantasy vs high fantasy setting is ultimately meaningless - ffs we can't even all agree on what those two terms even mean. The ultimately undeniable and simple truth of the matter is that AoS and WHFB are two very different settings that aren't comparable to eachother. They have very different themes, inspirations, styles, and all the other elements that taken in aggregate define them as being distinct and separate entities from one another.
Thats it. Thats all it has to be. Stop seeing value judgements where none exist and insisting that your fav is better than someone elses. Its honestly embarrassing and childish. WHFB has been dead for what, 3 years now? Get over it already. GW is giving us some sort of a new rank n file game that will be drawing inspiration from the old one and no doubt doing a lot of new things too. Be excited for it and stop being curmudgeonly whenever someone draws distinctions between the two games and IPs.
People are seeing gyrocopters, steam tanks, dragons and going "look we haz high fantasy". The reality is that you have to look at the setting in aggregate - big picture, look at the generalized portrayal of the setting and what the underlying and overarching themes of the setting are. In aggregate WHFB was a low fantasy setting
I mean going by the definitions of the low arching themes.. Only if you count specific parts of it. You'd have to cut the new world and it's jungles made of Dinosaurs, giant monsters, and overall hell beasts along with the cities of Dark Elves that run red with blood that are absorbed into gigantic statues of Khaine every year or so, you'd be ignoring the hellcaps of the north and south that are populated by daemons and mutated beasts, you'd be ignoring the High Elves cities, the Wood Elves mystical forests, the daemon forges of the Dark Dwarves to the east... In general, you'd be localized around parts of the Old World, and Brettonia. It's why I'm not even sure how by what peoples current definitions are the world is somehow low fantasy.
Being a low fantasy vs high fantasy setting is ultimately meaningless - ffs we can't even all agree on what those two terms even mean.
There's been actual places to go to on what they mean. It's typically what I use.
People are seeing gyrocopters, steam tanks, dragons and going "look we haz high fantasy". The reality is that you have to look at the setting in aggregate - big picture, look at the generalized portrayal of the setting and what the underlying and overarching themes of the setting are. In aggregate WHFB was a low fantasy setting
I mean going by the definitions of the low arching themes.. Only if you count specific parts of it. You'd have to cut the new world and it's jungles made of Dinosaurs, giant monsters, and overall hell beasts along with the cities of Dark Elves that run red with blood that are absorbed into gigantic statues of Khaine every year or so, you'd be ignoring the hellcaps of the north and south that are populated by daemons and mutated beasts, you'd be ignoring the High Elves cities, the Wood Elves mystical forests, the daemon forges of the Dark Dwarves to the east... In general, you'd be localized around parts of the Old World, and Brettonia. It's why I'm not even sure how by what peoples current definitions are the world is somehow low fantasy.
Agreed - some areas of the human realms were quite low magic but only some and only if you ignored many many aspects to look at it through this narrow focus. The same as in any other world including the Mortal Realms.
Even the Empire has the Colleges of Magic - hell Middenheim has the Black Pool Illumiantions, flying wizard display teams etc. Bretonnia has Pegasus Knights and the powers of the Grail, the Lady etc.
In aggregate WHFB was a low fantasy setting
See above And I like both AOS and the Old World perfectly fine.
Warhammer fantasy is definitely not low fantasy as I understand it... Low fantasy would be something like dark materials or Harry potter, set in the actual world. Whilst you could argue that the world of Warhammer fantasy is an alternative earth, I don't think that would make it into low fantasy...
I mean going by the definitions of the low arching themes.. Only if you count specific parts of it. You'd have to cut the new world and it's jungles made of Dinosaurs, giant monsters, and overall hell beasts along with the cities of Dark Elves that run red with blood that are absorbed into gigantic statues of Khaine every year or so, you'd be ignoring the hellcaps of the north and south that are populated by daemons and mutated beasts, you'd be ignoring the High Elves cities, the Wood Elves mystical forests, the daemon forges of the Dark Dwarves to the east... In general, you'd be localized around parts of the Old World, and Brettonia. It's why I'm not even sure how by what peoples current definitions are the world is somehow low fantasy.
Again, you have to look at in aggregate. Yes, all those things exist, but the majority of the fluff, novels, books, roleplaying games, etc. are pretty squarely centered on The Empire and a landsknecht with a halberd as someone else said. People can disagree all they want, but thats the truth and thats what most people casually familiar with the setting think of first, and indeed its how GW largely marketed the setting - the landsknecht with the halberd is the everyman that people connect to and opens the door towards acceptance of the more fantastical in other parts of the setting. Much the same way, 40k is a dystopian gothic horror scifantasy setting centered on the plight of humanity and its post-human protectors standing alone against a cruel galaxy. Yeah, lots of other gak exists too, but for every novel written from the perspective of someone other than a human or space marine theres 100 more that are focused squarely on the Imperium. Saying the setting is about aliens and extradimensional demonspawn would be rather missing the point and focusing on peripheral information rather than the core.
There's been actual places to go to on what they mean. It's typically what I use.
Right, but we (and by we I mostly mean the gestalt dakka collective consciousness) established 10 or 20 pages ago that high and low fantasy means different things to different people in different places in spacetime because its constantly changing. I think we established our own custom definition, though feth me if I have any idea what it is at this point.
Even by the "popular" definition of low fantasy and high fantasy, Warhammer Fantasy was high fantasy.
That doesnt mean AoS and Fantasy are at the same scale of "high fantasy".
Heck, look at Warcraft. It is high fantasy, but theres a difference between Warcraft 1-2-3 and Vanilla WoW high fantasy vs WoW:Legion high fantasy when the Demons invade with their space ships and you end up fighting a god with the power of other words in a destroyed planet.
Yes, all those things exist, but the majority of the fluff, novels, books, roleplaying games, etc. are pretty squarely centered on The Empire and a landsknecht with a halberd as someone else said.
No they are not. The Empire Halberdier is a single unit of the army and actually not that many of the novels contain even one. There are more with Vampires, Slayers, Elf Sorcerers or Dark Elves possessed by Daemons as central characters.
The warhammer novel that was selected as the one (including me) that people wanted to see back in print was Drachenfels -the one with the 600+ year old vampire as its main character fighting the more than 10,000 year old Sorcerer / Dark Lord style villain in the prologue which as the author himself says was the standard high fantasy quest - and he then wanted to tell you what happens next in the same world. Although a few do actually have short cameos in Drachenfels but no more than that.
The front covers of WFRP simply don't feature the Halberdier and WFB features the legendary magical Rune Hammer than a god wields as its symbol.
Here are the RPG covers for immediate reference Note that all four have Wizards, three have Slayers and several have magic swords, Rat Ogres etc.
Spoiler:
Look through all the books here and how many do even have a Halberdier on them ?
Now the Halberdier has his place as does Teclis, Neferata, Nagash, Sigmar and Malekith all of whom have their own novels of course. We cna choose to explore the Old World and the Mortal Realms and which aspects as we like - thats the joy of them surely?
Again, you have to look at in aggregate. Yes, all those things exist, but the majority of the fluff, novels, books, roleplaying games, etc. are pretty squarely centered on The Empire and a landsknecht with a halberd as someone else said. People can disagree all they want, but thats the truth and thats what most people casually familiar with the setting think of first, and indeed its how GW largely marketed the setting - the landsknecht with the halberd is the everyman that people connect to and opens the door towards acceptance of the more fantastical in other parts of the setting. Much the same way, 40k is a dystopian gothic horror scifantasy setting centered on the plight of humanity and its post-human protectors standing alone against a cruel galaxy. Yeah, lots of other gak exists too, but for every novel written from the perspective of someone other than a human or space marine theres 100 more that are focused squarely on the Imperium. Saying the setting is about aliens and extradimensional demonspawn would be rather missing the point and focusing on peripheral information rather than the core.
One of the most popular book series was Gotrex and Felix.. a wisecracking man disowned by his family and a slayer. That Slayer has killed a Bloodthirster, has fought one of the Council of Thirteen Grey Seer Thanquol, has fought Throgg the Troll King, has battled the Champion of Khorne turned Undead servant Krell... And many, many more incredible things.
There's a lot of books, and a lot of books are certainly not about the common man fighting on the field in the mud against a bunch of orcs or beastmen to defend some hamlet out in the woods.
The RPG games I believe are what pushed people to believe there's a lot of information about the game being that sort of thing.
One of my favourite warhammer fantasy books was Riders of Death by Dan Abnett's and what made me love that book is that it felt like a historical novel with the attention to the little detail and with how... "realistic" the chaos culture was portrayed in that book.
But that kind of narrative was not the most common way to show Warhammer Fantasy, quite the opposite.
I doubt anybody is defending that as a whole Age of Sigmar is the same as Warhammer Fantasy. It clearly isnt, but theres a clear intention of painting some kind of fantasy perceived as "low", more realistic and mature, as the superior version compared with "modern" and "pop" "high fantasy" with super heroes and vorpal blades and whatever. At the end of the day each work of fantasy has his own quality to be measured, you can't measure something as broad as a "genre" as superior to another , and then each person will have his own tastes.
Yes, all those things exist, but the majority of the fluff, novels, books, roleplaying games, etc. are pretty squarely centered on The Empire and a landsknecht with a halberd as someone else said.
No they are not. The Empire Halberdier is a single unit of the army and actually not that many of the novels contain even one.
Paging Dr. Literal. Dr. Literal, you're wanted in the thread.
Galas wrote: Even by the "popular" definition of low fantasy and high fantasy, Warhammer Fantasy was high fantasy.
That doesnt mean AoS and Fantasy are at the same scale of "high fantasy".
Heck, look at Warcraft. It is high fantasy, but theres a difference between Warcraft 1-2-3 and Vanilla WoW high fantasy vs WoW:Legion high fantasy when the Demons invade with their space ships and you end up fighting a god with the power of other words in a destroyed planet.
Warhammer Fantasy VS Age of Sigmar.
Dark Sun VS Spelljammer.
Cyberpunk VS Shadowrun.
I wonder if the "Core Tax" and fluff had a much bigger impact on perception? An Empire army isn't just Demigryph Knights and Steam Tanks; those are the Rare units that only occasionally show up when the situation is dire, while the Greatswords, who are just dudes in chestplate wielding zweihanders are far more common than the Demigryphs, and even then they're much more Special than the common Core of massed guys with halberds and handguns. So while all armies in WHFB had fantastical elements (Hydras, Giants, Dragons, Pegasus, Minotaurs, Golems, etc, etc), they were mostly things that felt far more mundane. Take away the goat head and -legs, and a Beastman Gor would just be a hirsute Celt.
But in AoS we have entire armies where everything feels like it should have been in that Special/Rare category with no common Core, if that makes sense?
I think one way to think about it is: What does the majority of the killing in the setting?
It feels like for WHFB it would be steel weapons and arrows and crossbow bolts that largely wouldn't look out of place in a medieval history museum. Most of the things killed would have organs and would bleed. Humans, Orcs, Beastmen, Dwarves, Skaven, Elves, Lizardmen, even Chaos Warriors to some extent, the majority of the deaths of the above list would be caused by something sharp made of steel.
In AOS the majority of the deaths are caused by something magical and many of those killed wouldn't even bleed. Magical storm hammers and exploding turkey basters fired out of crossbows and weapons made of magical bone and bolts of lightning and hungry spells, etc. etc. Almost none of the weapons of the new setting could ever be seen in a medieval history museum.
There were deaths in WHFB caused by magic or non historical means, but the death and the method of dealing it remained majorly medieval (with a little Renaissance for flavor).
The same just cannot be said for AOS. This is why there were such strong reactions to the "magical ice weapon Kislev" previews. It wasn't characteristic of the setting.
As someone looking from the outside, having never played Fantasy and only dipped my toe into Sigmar, I think part of the issue is in communication and perception. Fantasy is High Fantasy, but when compared to Sigmar it looks far lower. Like if Sigmar is an 8/10 on the High Fantasy Scale, Fantasy would be a 3.
Along with this is that the most basic descriptor I have heard of Fantasy over the years, and I'm sure many others have as well, is "Its like the Holy Roman Empire, but in a fantasy setting." That combined with the fact that humans were the baseline, as opposed to say 40k where Marines are the baseline and Sigmar where Stormcast are set as the baseline for the most part, gives it a feel of being low fantasy. When the baseline is blocks of landsknechte backed up by musketeers or bowmen, fighting basic skeletons or orcs, it feels like low fantasy when compared to respawning demigods fighting bone constructs, and them being merely the baseline infantry of both factions.
Gallahad wrote: I think one way to think about it is: What does the majority of the killing in the setting?
It feels like for WHFB it would be steel weapons and arrows and crossbow bolts that largely wouldn't look out of place in a medieval history museum. Most of the things killed would have organs and would bleed. Humans, Orcs, Beastmen, Dwarves, Skaven, Elves, Lizardmen, even Chaos Warriors to some extent, the majority of the deaths of the above list would be caused by something sharp made of steel.
In AOS the majority of the deaths are caused by something magical and many of those killed wouldn't even bleed. Magical storm hammers and exploding turkey basters fired out of crossbows and weapons made of magical bone and bolts of lightning and hungry spells, etc. etc. Almost none of the weapons of the new setting could ever be seen in a medieval history museum.
There were deaths in WHFB caused by magic or non historical means, but the death and the method of dealing it remained majorly medieval (with a little Renaissance for flavor).
The same just cannot be said for AOS. This is why there were such strong reactions to the "magical ice weapon Kislev" previews. It wasn't characteristic of the setting.
Most of the deaths in Age of Sigmar are accomplished with clubs and knives. Everyone seems to forget that Chaos's influence still controls most of the Mortal Realms except Azyr, Shyish and Hysh possibly Ulgu which are Sigmar and Nagash respectively. Because in many ways the Age of Sigmar is just a kind of 'Mission Accomplished' statement. It is still very much the Age of Chaos.
The most common fighters are mortal tribes that really have no choice in not worshiping the Chaos gods if they wish to survive. Most tribes likely don't even know the true Chaos gods names call and pray to them by the many others they possess. Because of Chaos's influence, many tribes have regressed to iron or even earlier levels of technology and live barely better than animals. Sometimes they organize groups of warriors is Chaos Marauders under a power and charismatic war chief, which haven't changed all that much (not at all model-wise) from their WHFB days. They still roam taking from the weak and fleeing from the strong they don't or won't bend the knee to. This is Age of Sigmar's Empire Halberder. Just like the Chaos Knight really is Age of Sigmar's Bretonian. Almost none who held their honor above their life survived when the Gates to Azyr closed and remained that way for centuries.
Age of Sigmar is very much a Conan the Barabarian setting (to me) when you move beyond the resplendent armor of the Stormcast Enternals and many of the other high magic revealed the playable factions. As well as keep to the center of most Realms. It is like the Chaos Wastes of the World-That-Was. Outside the tiny holdings of Grand Alliance: Order which can resemble the Old World Empire in its spring days, the lands of the Mortal Realms are vast in their grim darkness. So much so that Sigmar has to align himself with allies that most certainly will stab him in the back, hold grudges, sway to the highest bidder or just don't seem to care. Just to make the little gains he has, and in the process forced the return of a former ally turned enemy who sees Sigmar as a liar and cheat robbing him of the souls he believes are his property. His own soldiers, only immortal in the strictest sense, slowing devolving into madmen, golems of slaves to his divine edicts. Some of their souls are mutilated by the re-forging process, some torn asunder by the god of Death himself.
Age of Sigmar doesn't really concern itself with the mundane. This is true. Much like 40kwhich will likely never make available a strictly Planetary Defense Force faction. Age of Sigmar is not just high fantasy which Warhammer Fantasy was as well. Age of Sigmar is Mythic fantasy much like the tales of Gilgamesh, Beowolf, Iliad and the Odyssey for a more modern audience. A setting where heroes of legend lead fantastic armies of great power both martial and arcane. Yet that isn't always enough to secure victory. Sometimes the gods themselves must walk the battlefields in divine flesh.
Age of Sigmar isn't very fleshed out with dates and maps (yet). Almost as if the bulk of people haven't advanced to keeping accurate calendars yet and can only use major events that defy their primitive understanding as reference. The lands beyond the ones tribes of mortal survive on are far too dangerous and deadly to venture and map out. The few that do, don't return. Only the power of the playable factions and armies they wield have the strength and daring to venture into these hinterlands and beyond. I suspect that has the forces of Order consolidate more power more accurate cartography and history will be recorded.
Age of Sigmar isn't going to appeal to everyone. And the death of WHFB that allowed its genesis as well as its infancy party-game like rules and sunset-ed factions is more than enough to deserve a stern tongue clucking and peer down of a nose. Age of Sigmar does ask its players to be the general of mighty armies where even moon-worshipping, mushroom addicted goblins are still very powerful warriors. Though in the context of the game they seem rather green (pun intended). Much like 40k, where the humble lasgun of the setting is actually a devastating weapon just not in the context of the playable factions. Age of Sigmar still allows for classic rank and file maneuvering along with the option to field epic monsters, fantastical technological air ships and even mythic gods.
It isn't so much that Age of Sigmar doesn't have more grounded elements. It is that the grounded world is some of the more concentrated awful of the Chaos Shadowlands best left to the imaginations of the players. Especially with the company GW has become and the market they wish to court. Age of Sigmar focuses on the more mythological world-shaping aspects of martial power instead.
I have a mild interest in seeing what the Old World turns out to be. I hope those who don't want a home in Age of Sigmar, they can find joy in the Old World when it arrives. I would prefer if fans of WHFB would stop acting the part of historical war gamer curmudgeons of yester-decades who did exactly the same thing to many a fantasy war gamer all those decades ago. I am sure at least a few of the posters here encountered them who saw your adding of wizards and dragons (no matter how very little and optional) saw your game as lesser and silly for doing so compared to their meticulously researched games of historical eras. I ask you, "Do you really want to take over what they did?"
Thank you, and good night (I will still keep following this tread, its just bedtime for me)
Gallahad wrote: I think one way to think about it is: What does the majority of the killing in the setting?
It feels like for WHFB it would be steel weapons and arrows and crossbow bolts that largely wouldn't look out of place in a medieval history museum. Most of the things killed would have organs and would bleed. Humans, Orcs, Beastmen, Dwarves, Skaven, Elves, Lizardmen, even Chaos Warriors to some extent, the majority of the deaths of the above list would be caused by something sharp made of steel.
In AOS the majority of the deaths are caused by something magical and many of those killed wouldn't even bleed. Magical storm hammers and exploding turkey basters fired out of crossbows and weapons made of magical bone and bolts of lightning and hungry spells, etc. etc. Almost none of the weapons of the new setting could ever be seen in a medieval history museum.
There were deaths in WHFB caused by magic or non historical means, but the death and the method of dealing it remained majorly medieval (with a little Renaissance for flavor).
The same just cannot be said for AOS. This is why there were such strong reactions to the "magical ice weapon Kislev" previews. It wasn't characteristic of the setting.
Most of the deaths in Age of Sigmar are accomplished with clubs and knives. Everyone seems to forget that Chaos's influence still controls most of the Mortal Realms except Azyr, Shyish and Hysh possibly Ulgu which are Sigmar and Nagash respectively. Because in many ways the Age of Sigmar is just a kind of 'Mission Accomplished' statement. It is still very much the Age of Chaos.
The most common fighters are mortal tribes that really have no choice in not worshiping the Chaos gods if they wish to survive. Most tribes likely don't even know the true Chaos gods names call and pray to them by the many others they possess. Because of Chaos's influence, many tribes have regressed to iron or even earlier levels of technology and live barely better than animals.
...
None of the iron age tribes you mention are playable factions or even have models. Death by steel is barely even a possibility in the game. If the majority of troops were the tribesmen you mention you'd have a point, but instead they are flying turtles, sci-fi dwarves, bone constructs, demigod lightning warriors riding around on Griffons, and elves from the ministry of silly hats weilding magical croquet mallets.
I really wish that instead of AOS we'd gotten iron age old world...Sigmar the Barbarian uniting the tribes against the savage orcs, defying the predictions of the sneering elves, etc. etc.
Too much AoS talk, back to Warhammer Fantasy. I tried to paint with some background inspiration, but didn't get much done as I was too distracted watching old Warhammer videogame videos instead. Started with my absolute favorite, good old Warhammer Online:Age of Reckoning from 2008:
Man, look at this game, focusing on what's important: the regular human soldier. Try to ignore all the mages and monsters and orcs and goblins and mutated chaos warriors and giants and siege towers and more giants and more mages, Warhammer isn't really about any of those things and they're supposed to be incredibly rare and not commonly seen. In fact there's gotta be some regular human rank&file troops in there somewhere...Ah HAH! In the background at 1:47 and...oops, they're gone already. Oh nvm there they are at 1:55 again! See? They're behind the huge flaming squig being burned to death by the Bright Wizard. Ignore that wizard, BTW, he's rare in the setting and that squig rider would have been a special at best, so you should ignore that too. Just look past all the magical fire and focus on the mundane figures in the background! They're the important thing to focus on in this game! Indeed, the CORE of the setting! heh, get it? I SAID IGNORE THE MAGE AND HIS 25 SECONDS OF SCREENTIME AND PAY ATTENTION TO THE MOMENTARY BLURRY NORMAL HUMANS IN THE BACKGROUND! THEY'RE THE CORE OF THE SETTING! Y'know what, just skip ahead to 3:11 and you can really see just how important and truly BADASS regular humans are in Warhammer! There's another one at 3:22 doing The Lord's work. In fact, of the 7 minute video, you should really only watch those exact timestamps, the rest is a waste and not representative of the Warhammer setting at all. Again, I must be clear that you should NOT be imagining ANY of the rest of the video while playing with your toy models making stabby-stabby-clash-stab-blaaaarg! sounds. Warhammer is about masses of boring and mundane soldiers doing boring and mundane soldier-y stuff, anything magical or exciting or heroic is just artists lying to you, and you need to learn to ignore the joy you feel in your heart when you see it.
In fact, those 4 seconds got me really inspired to go look at all the other Warhammer cinematics over the years, it started with portraying true Warhammer spirit by basic humans fighting each other in Shadow of the Horned Rat
Ok, well actually that started out on a dark and stormy night with a human mage in his mage tower being attacked by skaven assassins stealing magic glowing rocks, but we're not supposed to concentrate on them, none of those are Core troops! That didn't even represent the first mission properly! I guess we should move on to the REAL spirit of Warhammer: Dark Omen!
Huh, more human mages in a clockwork planetarium. At least this time is a clear night beneath the moon...and crap the rest of it is just legions of undead rising, no blocks of rank & file soldiers. Bad Dark Omen, BAD! Stop misrepresenting the Old World! Mark of Chaos will surely deliver what the setting is TRULY about!
YES! HUMAN SOLDIERS! IN RANKS! GLORIOUS! It's now time for you nerds to view some tried and true, dyed in blue, absolutely new Warhammer fantasy block-on-block formation action! THIS is the way you're SUPPOSED to care about hot Warhammer action! That's right just rank & file nobodies against rank & file nobodies...in a dark forest...or, well OK rank&file nobodies against skirmishing Chaos Warriors...SCREW IT! NUMBERS WIN THE DAY! CHARGE!...uh...man, they sure don't look like they're doing much against those Chaos Warriors. Oh what the hell, they CLEARLY have 3 ranks+outnumber over those chaos and...were those goblins?...why aren't the superior numbers and morale bonuses winning the day? How dare you, Mark of Chaos?...Oh, oooh..OOOH! It must be a Challenge and Baldy just got a kill! Score one for the normies, SURELY THE wARRIORS WILL BREAK AND GET RUN DOWN....and nope Baldy is out like a light. Oh, arrows, comeback time! Surely more rank&flank humans will now save the day! No, it's just a boring elven ninja Waywatcher soloing all the Chaos Warriors. Nothing interesting or fun. I guess it's time for these Chaos Warriors to show the Waywatcher what true faceless nobodies can do by...by summoning a greater demon!? damnit! Better respond with rank & file...nvm, looks like Baldy is just gonna go Super Saiyan. That's disappointing, we're supposed to be enjoying the regular rank and file nobodies! The HEART and SOUL of the setting! All these super monsters and mages the videos are focusing on are really ruining my immersion! These video games just aren't representing the Soul of Warhammer at all! Lets move on to Warhammer Online...oh wait, no skip that one, too much magic. MAGIC IS RARE DAGNABBIT!
Y'know what, lets try some smaller settings, like Warhammer Quest. Just some regular dudes, going treasure hunting...
...by casting magic and getting magic items and fighting orcs and spiders and trolls and **checks notes** "becoming Legends". Nevermind, Warhammer Quest isn't supposed to represent Warhammer anyways, that was silly, but Mordheim sure doesl! Nothing says Warhammer more than warbands of humans leading only humans fighting against other humans in the middle of the human Empire in ruined human buildings over **checks notes** "magical glowing Warp-stones, remnants of the city-destroying supernatural meteor that the Skaven summoned to power their arcane machines". At least there's only gonna be humans in pajamas with halberds right?
Dangit, why are there so many rat people glowing with magical energy in my human city?! ARRG?! DON'T THEY KNOW THAT THE SOUL OF WARHAMMER IS REGULAR MUNDANE RANK & FILE SOLDIERS! USE NORMAL SWORDS AND STOP SHOWING OFF SO MUCH MAGIC! GET OUT OF HERE RAT OGRE, YOU TOO NORMAL OGRE! CHAOS? AND CHAOS SORCERERS?! YOU'RE RUINING MAH IMMERZIONZ!
Screw this, I'm ending it all, lets do some End Times! Virmintide. The End of Days, the ultimate showing of mundane rank&file armies meeting against other mundane rank&file armies where magic and monsters are MINOR and INSGNIFICANT! YOU HEAR ME GAME?!
Or not, I guess the End Times was really just a cinematic of my high school D&D game on random Saturday night. I guess I may as well grab some Cheetos and a case of Mountain Dew if this is how you gonna play me :(
OK, y'know what, screw this! Hard reset. Lets move on to what re-kindled the craze to begin with: Warhammer Total War! It's based on Rome Total War, so clearly it's going to show off rank & flank at it's absolute finest!
Weird, that sure is a lot of griffons and meteors and magical transformations for a rank&flank. Damnit, I guess this is why they made a sequel, to fix this misrepresentation ONCE AND FOR ALL!
STOP IT! STOP SHOWING COOL STUFF! STOP IT WITH ALL THAT AWESOME MAGIC AND AMAZING HEROES AND FANTASTICAL BEASTS! IT'S NOT HOW GW INTENDED YOU TO IMAGINE WARHAMMER! I KNOW THIS BECAUSE I PLAYED THE RPG WHEN I WAS TOO YOUNG AND POOR TO AFFORD THE ACTUAL MODELS SO THAT'S ALL I CAN FOCUS ON!
None of these cinematics represent how you're supposed to view the game in your mind's eye! HOW DARE THEY!
Kalamadea wrote: Too much AoS talk, back to Warhammer Fantasy. I tried to paint with some background inspiration, but didn't get much done as I was too distracted watching old Warhammer videogame videos instead. Started with my absolute favorite, good old Warhammer Online:Age of Reckoning from 2008:<snip>
None of these cinematics represent how you're supposed to view the game in your mind's eye! HOW DARE THEY!
/s
You're kinda proving the point even though you're trying to be sarcastic.
The thing that makes those special things cool is that they are "special". When you put together a trailer, however, you don't focus on the mundane parts between the special, you only focus on the special. When you have a 2 hour movie with 15 minutes worth of action, you make a 2 minute trailer summarising the action parts, not a 2 minute trailer with only 15 seconds worth of action.
The trailer for Total War may prominently feature the heroes, but play an actual campaign and most of your time will be spent sending basic warriors into the fray with the heroes holding the line. When you finally get your first Dragon or you first Dread Saurian, it's something special. Once you're so far into the campaign that you can have a doomstack of Dragons, that's when the game starts to get boring.
Age of Reckoning suffered (like most MMORPG's) that everyone wants to be a hero, so you get the absurdity of a battle with nothing but heroes. But that's inherent in the genre (I actually quite enjoyed WAR back in the day, but it is all a bit silly).
Obviously WHFB varied over the years, but the best times were when the game was focused on outmanoeuvring and outthinking your opponent to stack the combat resolution in your favour, not just throwing the biggest dumbest model into the fray and hoping the dice go your way.
Saturmorn Carvilli wrote: I would prefer if fans of WHFB would stop acting the part of historical war gamer curmudgeons of yester-decades who did exactly the same thing to many a fantasy war gamer all those decades ago. I am sure at least a few of the posters here encountered them who saw your adding of wizards and dragons (no matter how very little and optional) saw your game as lesser and silly for doing so compared to their meticulously researched games of historical eras. I ask you, "Do you really want to take over what they did?"
I'd like to know how any of us were acting like that? If anything, this thread shows the divide between WFB and AOS players where one group absolutely wants the other group to have no way to play but THEIR way. I'll give you a hint as to which is which...
chaos0xomega wrote:WHFB has been dead for what, 3 years now? Get over it already.
Essentially "Play the newest modern hotness or GTFO!", which is essentially the message here. I won't bog it down with that poster's incessant attempts to basically crap on every aspect of expectation for the new game going so far as to flat out ADMITTING they were trolling the thread., this right here pretty much sums up their viewpoint.
Kalamadea wrote:Too much AoS talk, back to Warhammer Fantasy. I tried to paint with some background inspiration, but didn't get much done as I was too distracted watching old Warhammer videogame videos instead. Started with my absolute favorite, good old Warhammer Online:Age of Reckoning from 2008:
Man, look at this game, focusing on what's important: the regular human soldier. Try to ignore all the mages and monsters and orcs and goblins and mutated chaos warriors and giants and siege towers and more giants and more mages, Warhammer isn't really about any of those things and they're supposed to be incredibly rare and not commonly seen. In fact there's gotta be some regular human rank&file troops in there somewhere...Ah HAH! In the background at 1:47 and...oops, they're gone already. Oh nvm there they are at 1:55 again! See? They're behind the huge flaming squig being burned to death by the Bright Wizard. Ignore that wizard, BTW, he's rare in the setting and that squig rider would have been a special at best, so you should ignore that too. Just look past all the magical fire and focus on the mundane figures in the background! They're the important thing to focus on in this game! Indeed, the CORE of the setting! heh, get it? I SAID IGNORE THE MAGE AND HIS 25 SECONDS OF SCREENTIME AND PAY ATTENTION TO THE MOMENTARY BLURRY NORMAL HUMANS IN THE BACKGROUND! THEY'RE THE CORE OF THE SETTING! Y'know what, just skip ahead to 3:11 and you can really see just how important and truly BADASS regular humans are in Warhammer! There's another one at 3:22 doing The Lord's work. In fact, of the 7 minute video, you should really only watch those exact timestamps, the rest is a waste and not representative of the Warhammer setting at all. Again, I must be clear that you should NOT be imagining ANY of the rest of the video while playing with your toy models making stabby-stabby-clash-stab-blaaaarg! sounds. Warhammer is about masses of boring and mundane soldiers doing boring and mundane soldier-y stuff, anything magical or exciting or heroic is just artists lying to you, and you need to learn to ignore the joy you feel in your heart when you see it.
In fact, those 4 seconds got me really inspired to go look at all the other Warhammer cinematics over the years, it started with portraying true Warhammer spirit by basic humans fighting each other in Shadow of the Horned Rat
Ok, well actually that started out on a dark and stormy night with a human mage in his mage tower being attacked by skaven assassins stealing magic glowing rocks, but we're not supposed to concentrate on them, none of those are Core troops! That didn't even represent the first mission properly! I guess we should move on to the REAL spirit of Warhammer: Dark Omen!
Huh, more human mages in a clockwork planetarium. At least this time is a clear night beneath the moon...and crap the rest of it is just legions of undead rising, no blocks of rank & file soldiers. Bad Dark Omen, BAD! Stop misrepresenting the Old World! Mark of Chaos will surely deliver what the setting is TRULY about!
YES! HUMAN SOLDIERS! IN RANKS! GLORIOUS! It's now time for you nerds to view some tried and true, dyed in blue, absolutely new Warhammer fantasy block-on-block formation action! THIS is the way you're SUPPOSED to care about hot Warhammer action! That's right just rank & file nobodies against rank & file nobodies...in a dark forest...or, well OK rank&file nobodies against skirmishing Chaos Warriors...SCREW IT! NUMBERS WIN THE DAY! CHARGE!...uh...man, they sure don't look like they're doing much against those Chaos Warriors. Oh what the hell, they CLEARLY have 3 ranks+outnumber over those chaos and...were those goblins?...why aren't the superior numbers and morale bonuses winning the day? How dare you, Mark of Chaos?...Oh, oooh..OOOH! It must be a Challenge and Baldy just got a kill! Score one for the normies, SURELY THE wARRIORS WILL BREAK AND GET RUN DOWN....and nope Baldy is out like a light. Oh, arrows, comeback time! Surely more rank&flank humans will now save the day! No, it's just a boring elven ninja Waywatcher soloing all the Chaos Warriors. Nothing interesting or fun. I guess it's time for these Chaos Warriors to show the Waywatcher what true faceless nobodies can do by...by summoning a greater demon!? damnit! Better respond with rank & file...nvm, looks like Baldy is just gonna go Super Saiyan. That's disappointing, we're supposed to be enjoying the regular rank and file nobodies! The HEART and SOUL of the setting! All these super monsters and mages the videos are focusing on are really ruining my immersion! These video games just aren't representing the Soul of Warhammer at all! Lets move on to Warhammer Online...oh wait, no skip that one, too much magic. MAGIC IS RARE DAGNABBIT!
Y'know what, lets try some smaller settings, like Warhammer Quest. Just some regular dudes, going treasure hunting...
...by casting magic and getting magic items and fighting orcs and spiders and trolls and **checks notes** "becoming Legends". Nevermind, Warhammer Quest isn't supposed to represent Warhammer anyways, that was silly, but Mordheim sure doesl! Nothing says Warhammer more than warbands of humans leading only humans fighting against other humans in the middle of the human Empire in ruined human buildings over **checks notes** "magical glowing Warp-stones, remnants of the city-destroying supernatural meteor that the Skaven summoned to power their arcane machines". At least there's only gonna be humans in pajamas with halberds right?
Dangit, why are there so many rat people glowing with magical energy in my human city?! ARRG?! DON'T THEY KNOW THAT THE SOUL OF WARHAMMER IS REGULAR MUNDANE RANK & FILE SOLDIERS! USE NORMAL SWORDS AND STOP SHOWING OFF SO MUCH MAGIC! GET OUT OF HERE RAT OGRE, YOU TOO NORMAL OGRE! CHAOS? AND CHAOS SORCERERS?! YOU'RE RUINING MAH IMMERZIONZ!
Screw this, I'm ending it all, lets do some End Times! Virmintide. The End of Days, the ultimate showing of mundane rank&file armies meeting against other mundane rank&file armies where magic and monsters are MINOR and INSGNIFICANT! YOU HEAR ME GAME?!
Or not, I guess the End Times was really just a cinematic of my high school D&D game on random Saturday night. I guess I may as well grab some Cheetos and a case of Mountain Dew if this is how you gonna play me :(
OK, y'know what, screw this! Hard reset. Lets move on to what re-kindled the craze to begin with: Warhammer Total War! It's based on Rome Total War, so clearly it's going to show off rank & flank at it's absolute finest!
Weird, that sure is a lot of griffons and meteors and magical transformations for a rank&flank. Damnit, I guess this is why they made a sequel, to fix this misrepresentation ONCE AND FOR ALL!
STOP IT! STOP SHOWING COOL STUFF! STOP IT WITH ALL THAT AWESOME MAGIC AND AMAZING HEROES AND FANTASTICAL BEASTS! IT'S NOT HOW GW INTENDED YOU TO IMAGINE WARHAMMER! I KNOW THIS BECAUSE I PLAYED THE RPG WHEN I WAS TOO YOUNG AND POOR TO AFFORD THE ACTUAL MODELS SO THAT'S ALL I CAN FOCUS ON!
None of these cinematics represent how you're supposed to view the game in your mind's eye! HOW DARE THEY!
/s
At first I thought about abbreviating your post, but that would detract from showing how disingenuous you were being with your argument. How many of those games' actual GAMEPLAY was on the level of the cinematics? I still play most of those games and can tell you it DOESN'T. The fastest way to get rid of your characters aside from hitting the delete button during game play is to send them solo at ranked anything.
Obviously WHFB varied over the years, but the best times were when the game was focused on outmanoeuvring and outthinking your opponent to stack the combat resolution in your favour, not just throwing the biggest dumbest model into the fray and hoping the dice go your way.
It had a perverse consequence about the visuals of an army, though. When you ended up in WFB putting a 40 soldiers strong unit in a 5x8 rank formation with 5 in front, just so that you could minimize the numbers of attacks throwed on it while keeping the numbers of fixed rank bonus as long as possible, isn't as much representative of a true mass battle like in AoS when you are forced to maximize the numbers of models in contact so that you can deal damage to your enemies, since it's the only way to actually win the battle rather than being decided with artificial fixed bonuses.
This is actually important. Gameplay influence directly the visual of battles. To me, and I know it's not a popular point of view, the battles of the scale of Total War Warhammer look visually more like AoS games than truly WFB ones. There is no such thing as rank bonuses in the video game...it's all about making damage with as much models as you can.
And I think it wouldn't look as good if it was trying to copy the game system of WFB close combats, with its rank bonuses. We would have units of skaven slaves in this stupid 5 front and x ranks, or even worse (like the infamous 100 zombies deployed with a front of 5 or line of troll slayers with only one champion in front, so that you could only kill one at a time...).
At first I thought about abbreviating your post, but that would detract from showing how disingenuous you were being with your argument. How many of those games' actual GAMEPLAY was on the level of the cinematics? I still play most of those games and can tell you it DOESN'T. The fastest way to get rid of your characters aside from hitting the delete button during game play is to send them solo at ranked anything.
Your point failed miserably.
How.. How does that even address anything of his post at all? It really doesn't do anything that you think it does, given that what he's showing is that the focus for most people isn't generally on the rank and file. The Books don't do it, the games don't do it.. It's one of those things that make me wonder how specific people have to be to get to where they get to that point.
Really none of what you say addresses anything, nor does his point fail at all.
Swing and a miss then, I guess, but I sure as heck enjoyed watching all those old vids again. I liken it to the cover art and the big sweeping 2-page illustrations: it's the showy side of the world. The side that stops people as they walk by and grabs their attention and the centerpiece models, especially back when a dragon was the biggest kit GW made.
Maybe it was more tactically effective to load up on nothing but 30+ unit Death Stars, but everyone I always played against took at least a few fun monsters and kitted out heroes. Might have also been that nobody wanted to paint that many figs. I never liked the look of units larger than 20 unless they were goblins or skaven. Warhammer is all about a mix of small and medium units with a few heroes and cav and monsters/warmachines to me
STOP IT! STOP SHOWING COOL STUFF! STOP IT WITH ALL THAT AWESOME MAGIC AND AMAZING HEROES AND FANTASTICAL BEASTS! IT'S NOT HOW GW INTENDED YOU TO IMAGINE WARHAMMER! I KNOW THIS BECAUSE I PLAYED THE RPG WHEN I WAS TOO YOUNG AND POOR TO AFFORD THE ACTUAL MODELS SO THAT'S ALL I CAN FOCUS ON!
None of these cinematics represent how you're supposed to view the game in your mind's eye! HOW DARE THEY!
/s
First off, I would like to thank you for compiling that list. Very thorough and saved for later
Second, do you mind sharing one of your last army lists from WHFB that you used? I don´t mean exactly the points, just what units and from which edition? That might be a better representation of what some of the people in this thread expect to find in the new game.
Sarouan wrote: It had a perverse consequence about the visuals of an army, though. When you ended up in WFB putting a 40 soldiers strong unit in a 5x8 rank formation with 5 in front, just so that you could minimize the numbers of attacks throwed on it while keeping the numbers of fixed rank bonus as long as possible, isn't as much representative of a true mass battle like in AoS when you are forced to maximize the numbers of models in contact so that you can deal damage to your enemies, since it's the only way to actually win the battle rather than being decided with artificial fixed bonuses.
This is actually important. Gameplay influence directly the visual of battles. To me, and I know it's not a popular point of view, the battles of the scale of Total War Warhammer look visually more like AoS games than truly WFB ones. There is no such thing as rank bonuses in the video game...it's all about making damage with as much models as you can.
I guess it is rather important in which edition someone started, just as it is how old you are for your music taste. I liked 6th and 7th edition best, and 40 man units were by far the exception, barring skaven slaves and zombies. Everything else I encountered was usually between 16 and 30 in a regiment. But YMMV depending on your playgroup. I never ever want to see the hordes of 8th edition again, as those were really not fun for me, nor were they visually or monetarily attractive.
Problems with the game system existed for as long as I remember, which is why at least the TTT restrictions were rather extensive. I hope GW is smart enough to adress some of the problems the old system hat in their new game. But seeing the speed with which they update 40k and AoS gives me hope (in contrast to waiting 7 years for a new wood elf book, that is).
I feel like this whole discussion goes something like this:
Person W says they really enjoy fruit baskets with six apples, two oranges, and two pineapples. They really want to buy said fruit baskets again.
Person S then shows examples of the pineapples in the fruit basket that Person W says they enjoyed, and tries to convince Person W that the whole basket was actually pineapples.
Person W then points out that the fruit basket actually tended towards apples, with some oranges and pineapples thrown in that really perfected the mix.
Person S then shows video game cinematics that feature pineapples and says "see the basket was all pineapples!!" so that Person W will see the similarity between the fruit basket they enjoyed, and the basket of pineapples that Person S currently enjoys.
etc. etc.
Hopefully the confusion between "part" and "whole" can end at some point for the S type people. But if not, I wish all the people that enjoy baskets of 100% pineapples the best. I for my part, really prefer fruit baskets that include mostly apples, some oranges, and a couple pineapples.
To reassure myself that the baskets I preferred were not actually 100% pineapples, I flipped through a couple old White Dwarfs and looked at the armies featured there in battle reports. Mostly apples who killed their opponents with the business end of some variety of a medieval weapon. Definitely some oranges and a pineapple or two, but mostly apples.
Sarouan wrote: This is actually important. Gameplay influence directly the visual of battles. To me, and I know it's not a popular point of view, the battles of the scale of Total War Warhammer look visually more like AoS games than truly WFB ones. There is no such thing as rank bonuses in the video game...it's all about making damage with as much models as you can.
And I think it wouldn't look as good if it was trying to copy the game system of WFB close combats, with its rank bonuses. We would have units of skaven slaves in this stupid 5 front and x ranks, or even worse (like the infamous 100 zombies deployed with a front of 5 or line of troll slayers with only one champion in front, so that you could only kill one at a time...).
I really don't regret that.
I don't know if TW has anything in the way of rank bonus, but I think you're looking at (or playing) overly simplistically if you think it's "all about making damage with as much models as you can".
Ranks are actually quite important. There's been a trend to just deploy units as wide as possible to get the most models engaged, but that only works if you're rocking the better melee fighters. If you have worse melee fighters but you want them to hang around as long as possible (so your missile troops can do more damage or so you can get a flank/rear charge in or you're waiting for you hammer unit to be freed up) then it actually makes more sense to deploy them in a deeper formation.
I used to think Eternal Guard sucked until I realised deploying them wide was just making them die faster, and deploying them deep let them hang around longer.
Units also have flanks and rears similar to WHFB (or maybe just rears? not sure) where you get psychology bonuses for flank and rear charges, units you might not normally charge in become viable if they can make a rear charge, and for many armies the psychology game is very important.
I think TWW is a really good translation of WHFB to a real time strategy game. It does start to suck a bit when you get further into a campaign and it only matters how many god tier units you can fit in an army, it's usually around that point that I start to get bored and just start a fresh campaign to try a different lord/faction.
The all-Stegadon doomstack starts to look a bit like a game of AoS
EDIT: Also things like the minimum width high ranks zombie/goblin/etc units might have been a thing, but I don't recall seeing too many people playing them (I remember one such army was featured in a WD once, but it didn't seem to filter down to my gaming group), and unbreakable conga lines were considered sufficiently cheesy that I never saw one on the table, only theorised on forums.
Second, do you mind sharing one of your last army lists from WHFB that you used? I don´t mean exactly the points, just what units and from which edition? That might be a better representation of what some of the people in this thread expect to find in the new game.
Played Chaos throughout 6th/7th and a small Wood Elf army in 6th, but mostly Chaos Mortals either Undivided or Mark of Khorne.
Army was often some variation of:
2-3 blocks of warriors, a block of foot Chosen, a big block of Marauders w/hand weapon &Shield would form the main line. Chaos Lord on horse leading Knights on one side, sometimes Chosen Knights, sometimes Chosen Knights of Khorne if I wanted to be mean, especially in 7th when Frenzy wasn't as crippling. Usually a couple chariots, 2-4 Spawn, unit of Furies to go after warmachines and some Beastmen to flank. Everything ellse was a sometimes-take: Sometimes take a demon prince, sometimes a Hellcannon. Loved my Archaon model but never did actually get to use him. I'd try out various Demon units or Beasts units, had a Shaggoth that I loved but could rarely afford, always wanted Dragon Ogres but hated the metal models, the plastics were amazing but came out too late
Wood elves were an eclectic mix of stuff I got secondhand: old plastic archers and plastic Blood Bowl "wardancers", a high elf lord on dragon painted in greens and browns, a treeman and some dryads and waywatchers. Nothing cohesive, it was only used for funsies games.
Big launch - 5-6 factions, multiple kits for each taking about a year for the first wave. Basically a Sisters of Battle level launch every two months for a year. It would suck up a lot of shelf space in stores, a lot of time and release windows, not to mention molding and development costs. All of which are resources that could go into a big Imperial Guard relaunch 
(its the same basic ruleset, just slightly modified).
