mikhaila wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:

 Bull0 wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:

Im a bit immune to all that BS I'm in no rush but its really silly a company of this dimension thinking that it has the flexibility to take sales drops due to lack of publicity.

Well of course, that would be very silly, the thing is their sales don't drop because of a lack of publicity - they have said on numerous occasions that when they experimented with shortening the window between announcement and release, sales went UP each time, so of course they've kept the one-week model because it yields the most sales. If you're going to turn a thread into a moan about GW's marketing at least keep to the facts.

I have no idea where you are getting your info from that sales went up from this.

Personally, i've seen sales drop in half on new releases at my stores, or worse. Lack of advertising will do that. Stores don't do launch parties anymore, or megabattles, painting events, etc to celebrate new releases. How can we? There's no time.

Meanwhile, people are getting excited and talking about all the other games coming out, when they stumble across something new by GW. A lack of excitement = less sales.

No one I've talked to at GW in the US even hints that sales have gone up on new products. Hell, my sales rep can't even tell me anything about the Eldar Codex except price. He won't see it until it comes out. Silly way to run a business.

Out of curiosity is the same thing happening to 40k or are you just referring to WFB? If new 40k releases are dropping by 50% or worse in the US then THAT is scary.

Not as bad as WFB, but down by a good chunk. I've still got about 70% of 40k on my shelf, vs about 30% of WFB. GW just keeps taking away WFB kits and making them direct only. Not as bad with 40k. The huge problem with selling GW right now is that Nobody Cares, and No Excitement about new product. The main reason for this: No one even knows new stuff came out. Even if i have a clue about what is coming out from rumor threads or leaks, i can't advertise until GW posts up pre-orders. How many of the Assassin game can i sell when i get 1 weekend to talk about it before ordering? I'll have people coming in a month from now saying "WTF Skitarrie/WTF Edar???"

Somehow GW thinks the rules of advertising and sales dont affect them. Meanwhile i have players extremely excited about other games, and can't wait for them to come out. I sold more of the latest FOW book than I did the Eldar Codex during the first weekend they were out. The FOW players knew the book was coming, had pre-orders in, and were excited about new German tanks with infrared scopes and nightfighting rules. (Yes, half the 40k armies don't have night goggles, but the germans got them in '44. )

I agree with you. GW should finish producing their next release, let us see pictures of it, then make it available for general release like FOW does. That way seeing it on the Internets for several months generates excitement around the product while they build up an adequate stockpile of the product to meet general demand on day 1. Its better than half -arsing it by getting the product to market faster. I believe this would be a much better strategy and would work better for GW in the long term rather than them building short term profits to pay dividends to Kirby! When the people who buy your product don't have enough time to create/speculate rumors about a product and you've released it! I'm upset that we can't get our wish listing input into you! For shame GW! For shame!

I don't think the secrecy has anything to do with getting it to market faster. They just think that it makes it sell better.

 warboss wrote:
I don't think the secrecy has anything to do with getting it to market faster. They just think that it makes it sell better.

Yeah, they don't want to give you time to think about buying or weighing your options.

It's too bad that there's no way to research your market, find out what would work best. What would you even call that?

Like Rick Priestly said, GW is no longer in the business of making games. They make "collectibles". As such, they've adopted that marketing mentality. Just look at the amount of "limited" releases they're doing. Fast cash. That's where their heads are at.

 Guildsman wrote:
It's too bad that there's no way to research your market, find out what would work best. What would you even call that?

Humility.

 Bull0 wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:

 Bull0 wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:

Im a bit immune to all that BS I'm in no rush but its really silly a company of this dimension thinking that it has the flexibility to take sales drops due to lack of publicity.

Well of course, that would be very silly, the thing is their sales don't drop because of a lack of publicity - they have said on numerous occasions that when they experimented with shortening the window between announcement and release, sales went UP each time, so of course they've kept the one-week model because it yields the most sales. If you're going to turn a thread into a moan about GW's marketing at least keep to the facts.

I have no idea where you are getting your info from that sales went up from this.

Personally, i've seen sales drop in half on new releases at my stores, or worse. Lack of advertising will do that. Stores don't do launch parties anymore, or megabattles, painting events, etc to celebrate new releases. How can we? There's no time.

Meanwhile, people are getting excited and talking about all the other games coming out, when they stumble across something new by GW. A lack of excitement = less sales.

No one I've talked to at GW in the US even hints that sales have gone up on new products. Hell, my sales rep can't even tell me anything about the Eldar Codex except price. He won't see it until it comes out. Silly way to run a business.

Out of curiosity is the same thing happening to 40k or are you just referring to WFB? If new 40k releases are dropping by 50% or worse in the US then THAT is scary.

Not as bad as WFB, but down by a good chunk. I've still got about 70% of 40k on my shelf, vs about 30% of WFB. GW just keeps taking away WFB kits and making them direct only. Not as bad with 40k. The huge problem with selling GW right now is that Nobody Cares, and No Excitement about new product. The main reason for this: No one even knows new stuff came out. Even if i have a clue about what is coming out from rumor threads or leaks, i can't advertise until GW posts up pre-orders. How many of the Assassin game can i sell when i get 1 weekend to talk about it before ordering? I'll have people coming in a month from now saying "WTF Skitarrie/WTF Edar???"

Somehow GW thinks the rules of advertising and sales dont affect them. Meanwhile i have players extremely excited about other games, and can't wait for them to come out. I sold more of the latest FOW book than I did the Eldar Codex during the first weekend they were out. The FOW players knew the book was coming, had pre-orders in, and were excited about new German tanks with infrared scopes and nightfighting rules. (Yes, half the 40k armies don't have night goggles, but the germans got them in '44. )

That would make sense though, since it was also part of the campaign to undermine the trade partners. Your sales != GW's direct sales and I expect they're not closely related

So you think that the extra sales through direct would compensate for those that they are losing through independent stores? That's an interesting thought, but you have to think that a lot of potential customers might then look at other games on the shelves, or at the very least just not purchase anything.

You have to think that the lack of marketing and news before release is as much a pain for the guys working in the GW stores as it is for the independents. I really, really can't understand the logic behind it. It's like the fact that GW weren't present at Salute the previous weekend, one of the biggest wargaming conventions in Europe (if not the world). Just this massive, massive event for the industry and the biggest player in the sci-fi/fantasy game isn't there. Their only presence was what seemed like a 1ft x 4ft stall for Forgeworld, with a couple of guys struggling with a queue. They should have a fething massive, 100ft area with a giant prosthetic demon head suspended in the air over it (breathing fire), and guys dressed up as Eldar and Chaos Cultists walking about. I am genuinely baffled as to why they don't do this, almost enough to write a letter to them to find out why (if I actually gave a damn! )

I have yet to actually read a solid explanation for either the 'no marketing' thing, or the lack of official presence at wargaming conventions. Would be interested to read if anyone does want to take a crack at it!

Nocturnus wrote:
Like Rick Priestly said, GW is no longer in the business of making games. They make "collectibles". As such, they've adopted that marketing mentality.

Except that the "collectibles" market lets collectors know way ahead of time what's coming up.

There were probably 20 stands with GW product on it, so a stand with full RRP isn't much of an addition if they are not previewing anything.

Also for practically as long as there has been a Salute the was a GW games Day. I guess they always felt they had it covered?

 Guildsman wrote:
It's too bad that there's no way to research your market, find out what would work best. What would you even call that?

Exalted. Well played.

 notprop wrote:
There were probably 20 stands with GW product on it, so a stand with full RRP isn't much of an addition if they are not previewing anything.

Also for practically as long as there has been a Salute the was a GW games Day. I guess they always felt they had it covered?

Nothing stopping them bringing some of the thousand or so online only items along (which they don't even do at Games Day), or bring some authors for signings or something.

 notprop wrote:
I guess they always felt they had it covered?

Then they'd be even more foolish than they're usually thought to be.

 notprop wrote:
There were probably 20 stands with GW product on it, so a stand with full RRP isn't much of an addition if they are not previewing anything.

Also for practically as long as there has been a Salute the was a GW games Day. I guess they always felt they had it covered?

Firstly mate, you're British, put an 's' on the end of that 'product' !

Salute is about a lot more than just selling stuff though isn't it. Look at what the likes of Hawk Wargames, Warlord and Mantic were doing, and those guys run on the same amount of money that GW spend on bog roll for a year. They could have had some truly mental demo games, previews of new releases, the design staff to chat to, displays of artwork (I could go on!) Make a real buzz about what they are doing, instead all of the atmosphere, talk and excitement is about other games.

As someone who hasn't been to Games Day in probably a decade or so would have been nice to have an official GW presence at shows like Salute, and lots of others for that matter, as for the more casual GW fan it hasn't sounded like GD has been worth the price of admission over recent years.

They used to have big spoilers for Games Day and I bought metal slaves(skaven) there months before they were released. I loved that it made Games Day worth it.

Games Workshop secrecy thing was kinda related to New Line but it only regarded their IP if I understand. And GW just took it to heart.

 Guildsman wrote:
It's too bad that there's no way to research your market, find out what would work best. What would you even call that?

Otiose. You'd call it otiose.

 Boss Salvage wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:
Why is that every new little bit of info we hear is more depressing than the previous...

And also more confusing? Each batch of rumors just seem to confirm that I don't understand what the feth is going on with a game I've spent 20 years playing.

But this Mordheim league my club is starting up, I'm totally on top of that

- Salvage

THIS.... 100X THIS!!!

Make my 9th edition Mordhiem.

 notprop wrote:

Also for practically as long as there has been a Salute the was a GW games Day. I guess they always felt they had it covered?

So with Games Day dead and gone what's their excuse this year?

 jonolikespie wrote:

 notprop wrote:

Also for practically as long as there has been a Salute the was a GW games Day. I guess they always felt they had it covered?

So with Games Day dead and gone what's their excuse this year?

It's not gone, it's just the games that have gone. It's now WarhammerFest.

I just hope my 20+ year of WHFB does not come to an end this year...
Partly because i still have a few armies to paint and without game, there is hardly a reason anymore.

I do try to follow GW rumours, but if you look at Salute 2015, other companies actually show something and get free exposure on youtube, facebook etc. from bloggers and gamers.
For instance:
I just pre-ordered HALO: Fleet battles and i am already looking forward to Dropfleet Commander (the ships, not the game ;-)

In regard to WHFB, a game i know since 25 years, i have not heard or read 1 bit of information to get me inspired, interested or anything really...

40k does well enough though and by the time GW comes with WHFB info, i might have no budget left to even participate.

 notprop wrote:
There were probably 20 stands with GW product on it, so a stand with full RRP isn't much of an addition if they are not previewing anything.

Also for practically as long as there has been a Salute the was a GW games Day. I guess they always felt they had it covered?

They've been at Salute plenty of times in the past, but it consisted of two blokes sitting at a stall trying to flog plastic boxes whilst everyone around them sold the same at 10% off. Theres been steadily less and less GW kits for sale at Salute over the last decade anyway, by my reckoning. Seem to remember they packed up early and left a few years ago as there was so little business coming their way. Lovely display tables, but well, seen it all before and the "don't show anything" attitude of the company doesn't create much sizzle in a hall full of interesting things.

Now, if they had been whoring WFB 9th edition and had previews - people would have been aaaallll over that, wouldn't they? It'd probably have been the reveal of the event.

Quite.


Still somewhat annoyed that Black Library don't make an appearance there anymore though.

OgreChubbs wrote:

 Lord Scythican wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:
If whfb drops to a skrimish game "which it won't" they would lose my buisness which is about 1grand a month on ogres lol

Jezz....how many ogres do you need? Are you trying to catch them all?

Well right now this month it was firebelly 4boxes of iron guts 4 boxes of lead belchers 3 butchers, and 2 stonehorns. I got lots of ogres and making a hole board for them .... Then a nagash board

Ahh gotcha. I thought you were buying $1000 worth of only ogres every month!

Herzlos wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

 notprop wrote:

Also for practically as long as there has been a Salute the was a GW games Day. I guess they always felt they had it covered?

So with Games Day dead and gone what's their excuse this year?

It's not gone, it's just the games that have gone. It's now WarhammerFest.

Hahaha no it's dead it was dying for years.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 notprop wrote:
There were probably 20 stands with GW product on it, so a stand with full RRP isn't much of an addition if they are not previewing anything.

Also for practically as long as there has been a Salute the was a GW games Day. I guess they always felt they had it covered?

They've been at Salute plenty of times in the past, but it consisted of two blokes sitting at a stall trying to flog plastic boxes whilst everyone around them sold the same at 10% off. Theres been steadily less and less GW kits for sale at Salute over the last decade anyway, by my reckoning. Seem to remember they packed up early and left a few years ago as there was so little business coming their way. Lovely display tables, but well, seen it all before and the "don't show anything" attitude of the company doesn't create much sizzle in a hall full of interesting things.

Now, if they had been whoring WFB 9th edition and had previews - people would have been aaaallll over that, wouldn't they? It'd probably have been the reveal of the event.

Also noticed something that did not happen in past, at least not to this extent... went to wayland to check some 40k stuff at the middle of the show around 11ish did not get anything because there was other more cool bits on the other shelves... returned to the same stand at the end of the day for a last check on 40k stuff and errr the shelves looked untouched and most was still there... mind this was 40k not WFB. Thats just weird.

 NAVARRO wrote:
Also noticed something that did not happen in past, at least not to this extent... went to wayland to check some 40k stuff at the middle of the show around 11ish did not get anything because there was other more cool bits on the other shelves... returned to the same stand at the end of the day for a last check on 40k stuff and errr the shelves looked untouched and most was still there... mind this was 40k not WFB. Thats just weird.

GW stuff has been getting less and less popular at the shows I've been to as well. I don't know if it's because people are using the opportunity to buy new stuff (and the GW stuff you get at shows is the same GW stuff you get online or in your FLGS), or if there's just less interest in GW stuff in general. Shows up here have gone from maybe 50% of stalls with GW to maybe 20-25% and the boxes don't seem to be moving.

Speaking from my own experiences, whenever I attend some sort of show or convention, I tend to be looking for everything that I can't get my hands on regularly.

I'd imagine it's a similar situation at Salute. Why travel all that distance when you can get the very same thing either online or at whatever stores you frequent, and probably cheaper as well?

Half the fun (for me at least) in going to shows like this is seeing what all the little guys are up to.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
Speaking from my own experiences, whenever I attend some sort of show or convention, I tend to be looking for everything that I can't get my hands on regularly.

I'd imagine it's a similar situation at Salute. Why travel all that distance when you can get the very same thing either online or at whatever stores you frequent, and probably cheaper as well?

Half the fun (for me at least) in going to shows like this is seeing what all the little guys are up to.

That's a perfectly valid reason for interest in GW products to be falling at conventions but it seems to be paralleling a decline in interest in FLGS and gaming groups as well.

GW aren't giving us anything to get excited about so they are losing business to those who are, simple as that. Take this thread for example, we have people mentioning Halo and Dropzone fleet games and for the last few pages barely mentioned WHFB 9th ed because for some reason after blowing up the world they think they can tell us literally nothing about what's next for what, two months?

In my FLGS the reason for less interest in GW products is more financial than anything else. It's expensive to get into and to keep up with, so people quit or don't even start.

In general the interest in other wargames is getting less too with a few people buying and trying new games or armies (including GW products) but most others sticking to 1 or 2 games, mostly X-Wing, FoW or 40k.

I go with the ubiquity of Gw stuff generally. I don't need to get GW stuff at the same price at Salute as I could get it for any day of the week.

Every other companies product(s - added for Pacific!) there was at show discount prices for the most part, even FW. So those are the ranges you are going to look for.

Is this just a "discuss GW's general decline" thread now? Can we lock it until something new about WFB 9th emerges, maybe?

I have on, Excellent authority, new info.

4 army books which I am assuming will be costly

Skirmish game for sure no news of a new system with blocks of infantry. no idea about how this game will function beyond it being skirmish

old fluff returns via gods like sigmar recreating the old world anew. GREAT NEWS. New kits, New characters, if the old character died in the end times he won't be coming back so pretty much everyone.

this is all I have but it's great stuff since it means new game, New story, New minis, all done WITHOUT invalidating the minis you already own. books will be more generalized so no more individual books but that doesn't stop anyone from playing just one faction.

THE MINIS WE OWN WILL NOT GO TO WASTE.

knowing where this is from I'm starting to work on my fantasy again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also round or square bases make no difference. Keep them square or switch won't change anything

I want to believe...

 Alpharius wrote:
I want to believe...

I am taking this one to the bank. knowing the source I am 99.9% the only reason it's not 100% is because it's not in front of me right now

 namiel wrote:

if the old character died in the end times he won't be coming back so pretty much everyone.

all done WITHOUT invalidating the minis you already own.

These two statements can, quite literally, not both be true.

 streamdragon wrote:

 namiel wrote:

if the old character died in the end times he won't be coming back so pretty much everyone.

all done WITHOUT invalidating the minis you already own.

These two statements can, quite literally, not both be true.

Exactly. Fantasy would, in fact, become a system no different than Mordheim or any of the Specialist Games. And we all know what happened to those games...

Well, without invalidating models, except for:

-Characters, especially things like the new Thanquol and Boneripper, Glottkin, and other large models that cant be used as a normal character.....

-Models you won't use because they aren't in the new lists....

-Models you won't use because it's a skirmish game with far less figures, so rebase 20 models, leave the other 200 on a shelf....

As a player, I'm trying to not become more cynical about GW than i currently am, i try to pretty much ignore rumors, and just focus on what comes out.

As a retailer, i look at thousands of dollars in ultra slow selling fantasy models and books, and try to have hope.

I'll play a new skirmish game, just don't think it will be a replacement for WFB any more than Mordheim is.

I'm looking forward to the skirmish game! Im hoping my Empire become even more wacky and grim dark too

 mikhaila wrote:
Well, without invalidating models, except for:

-Characters, especially things like the new Thanquol and Boneripper, Glottkin, and other large models that cant be used as a normal character.....

-Models you won't use because they aren't in the new lists....

-Models you won't use because it's a skirmish game with far less figures, so rebase 20 models, leave the other 200 on a shelf....

As a player, I'm trying to not become more cynical about GW than i currently am, i try to pretty much ignore rumors, and just focus on what comes out.

As a retailer, i look at thousands of dollars in ultra slow selling fantasy models and books, and try to have hope.

I'll play a new skirmish game, just don't think it will be a replacement for WFB any more than Mordheim is.

Mikhaila, I always enjoy your input as you come at these releases from your own business perspective. I wanted to ask you what you think about this possible skirmish-acation of Fantasy and how it may improve/worsen sales? (if you have *any* idea about something so far out!)

 namiel wrote:
if the old character died in the end times he won't be coming back so pretty much everyone.

I'd just like to point out that sucked into a Chaos rift =/= dead.

 Platuan4th wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 DarkStarSabre wrote:
then Mantic will just take everyone and giggle.

Not everyone. I find their rules uninteresting and prefer my models to be, y'know, MODELS rather than counters to define footprint size. You may as well play KoW with pieces of cardboard cut to appropriate size. I already own plenty of games that do the same thing better and more interestingly and are self contained.

You could do that with every single miniature game that I know of. Just cut the cardboard to the size of the appropriate base, and voilá, instant "models" for every single miniature game in existence.

Except that WHFB uses TLOS and thus can't be done with chits. You'd need cardboard standees at least. Also, individual cardboard bases would be exceedingly fiddly vs KoW's set units that never shrink.

LOL, TLOS is your main reason?

tlos means nothing - it depends on how you pose the model and people can easily cheat it by basing their models standing on top of a pile of rocks. it is really just a lame gimmick.

Every new rumor sounds like GW copies the concept of LotR 1:1 to Warhammer.

 streamdragon wrote:

 namiel wrote:

if the old character died in the end times he won't be coming back so pretty much everyone.

all done WITHOUT invalidating the minis you already own.

These two statements can, quite literally, not both be true.

"Oh this 'Korhil, Captain of the White Lions' miniature? I'm using him now as 'Laegnir, Champion of the Upper Glade."

"Ah these 'Chaos marauder' cavalry? These are now 'Realm Irregular Horse.'"

etc.

 kodos wrote:
Every new rumor sounds like GW copies the concept of LotR 1:1 to Warhammer.

Which would be awesome in just about every way! Pretty sure it won't pan out quite like that, but if it did, there's a very good chance I'd be in.

 mikhaila wrote:
Well, without invalidating models, except for:


-Models you won't use because it's a skirmish game with far less figures, so rebase 20 models, leave the other 200 on a shelf....
.

You can build 10 armies then

All joking aside, skirmish will never replace WFB, it can add an extra layer of fun to mass battle gaming... but on its own ,will literally fall short.

Disappointed that there are no relevant news by now... New Visions has nothing on WFB or LOTR either. So, well, the wait and see mode will carry on.

Hastings on old warseer has said that the Genestealer and DW forces might , might be in a box like the recent Assassins release.

Not sure where it should go but I don't see it mentioned anywhere else

 Paradigm wrote:

 kodos wrote:
Every new rumor sounds like GW copies the concept of LotR 1:1 to Warhammer.

Which would be awesome in just about every way! Pretty sure it won't pan out quite like that, but if it did, there's a very good chance I'd be in.

Only if they also keep the LotR rules, but I am sure they find a way to mix the worst from both together and create a game that is not playable without a lot of house rules

 NAVARRO wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:
Well, without invalidating models, except for:


-Models you won't use because it's a skirmish game with far less figures, so rebase 20 models, leave the other 200 on a shelf....
.

You can build 10 armies then

All joking aside, skirmish will never replace WFB, it can add an extra layer of fun to mass battle gaming... but on its own ,will literally fall short.

Disappointed that there are no relevant news by now... New Visions has nothing on WFB or LOTR either. So, well, the wait and see mode will carry on.

At this stage I feel sorry for any stores carrying WHFB, sales must really be dwindling with no one knowing what the hell is going on.

The best thing ever associated with the WHFB setting was the Mordheim game.

Anything that moves this bloated mess of a game more towards that is a good thing, and it might just get me buying fantasy models again after many, many, many, many long years...

As i've said many times, I am excited for this "new" game, but only as I have no current WHFB investment. I empathize with its old fans, but am still excited.

I ended up becoming a big Kings of War fan, when I had the desire to start WHFB, and felt really good about the choice. It gave me clean rules, and a chance to buy the GW models I was absolutely head over heels in love with.

This, however, feels perfect. I LOVE hearing rumors of a resemblance to LotR which I feel was GWs best rule-set ever, and a lower model count means I might actually feel like buying all GW models would be cost-viable, something I never EVER entertained when thinking of WHFB.

Thing is with effectively scrapping whfb and making it like lotr, remember lotr failed.

It wasnt because of the models which were as good as whfb
it wasnt because of the setting which is as good or better than whfb, and since whfb has destroyed its setting anyway this is irrelevant.
so it must have been because the majority disliked the rules

So making whfb rules like lotr is a move in the wrong direction

zacharia wrote:
Thing is with effectively scrapping whfb and making it like lotr, remember lotr failed.

It wasnt because of the models which were as good as whfb
it wasnt because of the setting which is as good or better than whfb, and since whfb has destroyed its setting anyway this is irrelevant.
so it must have been because the majority disliked the rules

So making whfb rules like lotr is a move in the wrong direction

The main problem with Skirmish LotR was how borked the combat system was. A single D6 roll off with ties always going to the higher Fight Value. Add in how broken the named characters could easily get, (like Aragorn and his 'free' Might point per turn), and you basically had a game where Fight 3, (supposedly your 'average' skill level), was completely pointless.

The two big problems with War of the Ring was that the Magic system was OP as all hell, and the army lists were just simply insane! The combos you could pull from Epic Heroes make the likes of 7th ed Daemons look super tame!
I fondly remember how at the local GW, when all us staff were going through our store copy rulebook ahead of the release itself, our manager created a list with all 3 Elf heroes with the Epic Shot ability... in a single turn he managed to machine gun down 3 Mumaks!
Then there was the Amdur + Saruman + The Betrayer combo I pulled out... 8 dudes managed to wipe out 70+ Goblins in a single combat round, for only 2 Might pts.

WotR was simply unplayable unless you outright banned the Epic Heroes, (or certain ones and then put in a hard 0-1 limit), banned certain abilities altogether, (Epic Shot & Rampage were plain stupid), AND, re-worked the magic rules.

Or it was because of the massive price increase and not existing support. And at my local club are still more people playing LotR than 8th edition but we always played without epic heroes.

zacharia wrote:
Thing is with effectively scrapping whfb and making it like lotr, remember lotr failed.

It wasnt because of the models which were as good as whfb
it wasnt because of the setting which is as good or better than whfb, and since whfb has destroyed its setting anyway this is irrelevant.
so it must have been because the majority disliked the rules

So making whfb rules like lotr is a move in the wrong direction

LotR failed because of an exaggerated version of GW's business model gone amok, not so much the lack of players, or enthusiasm. New Line Cinema is apparently as vile of a company as GW, and their mutually insane demands, license-fees, and other "requirements" meant that GW was getting treated the way they normally treat their customers. :-p

As such, they paid-it-forward, by pricing the game right out of the market, and deciding the game was more trouble that its worth. Their "suicide" of the game was by stopping proper rules from being written, and eventually just treating it not as a game, but as a model release.

Essentially, it was a prototype for WHFB, even then. :-p

LOTR died as a viable game for me, generally when they halved the models in the boxes, while increased the prices by 50%.

Hey wait... That does sound familiar...

Yeah, LotR would still be going strong if GW actually gave a gak about it. Instead, prices gave gone up about 300% in the case of the newest stuff, half the stuff that could have been released wasn't (or was, but in 3-for-£15 Finecast sets they expected you to build armies from) and half the original range and rules are more OOP.

The rules were never even a factor in the fall of LotR from GWs best product to the third wheel in the GW lineup.

 Bottle wrote:
I'm looking forward to the skirmish game! Im hoping my Empire become even more wacky and grim dark too

New unit which will basically be good warriors if chaos. sigmars super troops. expect them to be pretty good infantry

 namiel wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
I'm looking forward to the skirmish game! Im hoping my Empire become even more wacky and grim dark too

New unit which will basically be good warriors if chaos. sigmars super troops. expect them to be pretty good infantry

I'm not really looking forward to the fantasy space marines all that much. I am more anticipating what the regular humans will become. Hopefully something weird and wacky. Flying renaissance windmills or something :p

 Accolade wrote:
[

Mikhaila, I always enjoy your input as you come at these releases from your own business perspective. I wanted to ask you what you think about this possible skirmish-acation of Fantasy and how it may improve/worsen sales? (if you have *any* idea about something so far out!)

Games sell for a few reasons: 1) Gameplay 2) Models 3) Background 4) all your mates are playing it.

So why will people want to play a skirmish version of WFB:

1) It could be fun. A lot of us love Mordheim. Will we all play the game and love the gameplay, balance, scenarios, leagues, tournaments? Depends a lot on the rules. I remember loving AdeptusTitanicus/SpaceMarine even with it's flaws. I hated Epic when they changed the entire system. Models were better, no one liked the gameplay. Very much like an avalon hill game with chits. It died. Quality of gameplay matters. we like to have fun.

2) Lots of love for our WFB models. Do we still get to use them? GW has cut out 2/3 of the WFB line from my shop. Nearly no blisters, meager amounts of boxes. Is this because the new game takes only a few generic figures? Or will we see a lot of new stuff come out? Can we use our old models?A new version of WFB where i can't use my old WFB models is not WFB.

3) They just killed all the old characters and burnt the world. If new world is a generic bubbleverse, how is it better from any other companies game? I find Malifaux and Privateer to have wonderfully detailed worlds. WFB had a unique world with a huge amount of character to it. Losing it will piss people off. A generic world with new fluff will not go over well.

4) No matter how much i love a game, I'm not playing it by myself. Good games grow in players, bad one die and nothing you can do can revive them. If your friends aren't playing a game, how soon do you quit buying models for it?

So i'll be watching the rest of YOU to see how well I can sell the new warhammer, and remaining stock that GW hasn't taken away from me. If YOU are all excited and want to play, i'll be selling a lot more models. Running leagues and tournaments, supporting the game. If the players don't care, and no one buys it, I am not going to jumping up and down like some GW Cheerleader. I supported GW for decades because we all loved the game and models. Tougher to do that now, and if WFB doesn't sell well, i can't bank my head on the wall to make it sell. I'll go support another game.

Right now, most stores are barely selling any WFB. End times is done. People buy some models that they want to paint. No one is building new armies or units with the possibility they never get to use them. I've had more LOTR played in my shop lately than WFB. Hell, i've had more games of 28mm Japanese vs English, or 15mm vietnam, or Celts vs romans, than i have had WFB played lately.

Which is an interesting point that retailers talk about lately. We don't need GW. Used to be GW was the king. Outsold all other games combined 10 to 1. Go back far enough and there really aren't other games. GW was to stores then what Magic is now.

But now stores and players have Magic, a huge number of good boardgames, Warmahordes, Boltaction, Malifaux, Flames of War, and dozens of other games. (And check out the link at top of the page if you need another good game) Many stores don't carry GW now, some are thinking of dropping it.

The ball is in GW's court. Up to them to make a good game that you all want to play. That's going to determine whether stores pony up the thousands of dollars to stock it, or toss their remaining stock to ebay and move on.

I desperately hope that it's a good game. Both for my store, and my gamers, but also for me personally. Will I be able to take a Toad Dragon in skirmish games?

 mikhaila wrote:
Well, without invalidating models, except for:



-Models you won't use because they aren't in the new lists....

So they won't invalidate models, except for all the units they invalidate...

 streamdragon wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:
Well, without invalidating models, except for:



-Models you won't use because they aren't in the new lists....

So they won't invalidate models, except for all the units they invalidate...

I can see it happening along with the official comment " you can still use your discontinued unit as a count as for a supported one."


Nice post Mikhaila
As for the comment "Quality of gameplay matters. " I have the a bad feeling about this one I really do, specially with the leaflet rumor floating around. Will WFB for the first time swap places with other companies? I mean, will we buy the wonderful WFB models to use for other games? Usually its the opposite.

 streamdragon wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:
Well, without invalidating models, except for:

-Models you won't use because they aren't in the new lists....

So they won't invalidate models, except for all the units they invalidate...

Because there is no way to use that %charactername% model as a default general, sergeant or special weapons-guy...

But given GW's iffy way of creating appeal in their games, it's a step down from from using them as a sooperdedooper speshul character with a gigantic axe of hackenslashing, a 2+++++ save, and the ability to change grunts into ubermensch just by standing somewhere in their general vicinity.

To be honest I wouldn't mind a change away from that, even for the default/generic generals, but that's not what people bought the minis for.

Would like to see a brand new system. I like X-Wing's dice system for example, simple fast flowing.

If they stick with - I go, You go, Roll to Hit, Roll to Wound, Roll to Save Zzzzzzzzzzzz - then I probably won't be interested. Being doing that for literally decades now.

 Kosake wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:
Well, without invalidating models, except for:

-Models you won't use because they aren't in the new lists....

So they won't invalidate models, except for all the units they invalidate...

Because there is no way to use that %charactername% model as a default general, sergeant or special weapons-guy...

Now bear in mind, I say this as someone who converts absolutely everything and am a huge fan of the 40K Allies rules because of the way they allow me to mash different sets of unit rules together to create "counts as" armies: bollocks. Counts As, using fancy models for generic characters, using generic models for fancy characters, these things should be choices made by the players, not necessities imposed by the company because they just wiped out half the factions, half the characters, half the units, and burned the entire planetary setting to a cinder.

If I liked and owned an army of Squats then I can still use the models as Guard or Marines, but that's still not playing Squats. If GW were to eradicate Dark Eldar tomorrow, you could still use the models with Eldar rules, but it's not the same, and a lot of people bough the models they did and built the armies they did because they liked the whole package; aesthetic, rules, background. If you take two of those things away, then you have demonstrably and objectively diminished the value of that player's collection to them.

 Flashman wrote:
Would like to see a brand new system. I like X-Wing's dice system for example, simple fast flowing.

If they stick with - I go, You go, Roll to Hit, Roll to Wound, Roll to Save Zzzzzzzzzzzz - then I probably won't be interested. Being doing that for literally decades now.

Psst. Hey. Hey man. You like rollin'? Yeah... yeah. Who doesn't like rollin'. What you like? Deesixes gettin' too tame, yeah? Tasted them fancy Exwing dice and rollin' IGOUGO don't do it anymore. Yeah. I know what ya sayin'. You wanna roll more a' them sweet polys, get you resolved quick, less'n half the time. I getcha. I got sumpthin' you might like right here.

 Yodhrin wrote:


Now bear in mind, I say this as someone who converts absolutely everything and am a huge fan of the 40K Allies rules because of the way they allow me to mash different sets of unit rules together to create "counts as" armies: bollocks. Counts As, using fancy models for generic characters, using generic models for fancy characters, these things should be choices made by the players, not necessities imposed by the company because they just wiped out half the factions, half the characters, half the units, and burned the entire planetary setting to a cinder.

If I liked and owned an army of Squats then I can still use the models as Guard or Marines, but that's still not playing Squats. If GW were to eradicate Dark Eldar tomorrow, you could still use the models with Eldar rules, but it's not the same, and a lot of people bough the models they did and built the armies they did because they liked the whole package; aesthetic, rules, background. If you take two of those things away, then you have demonstrably and objectively diminished the value of that player's collection to them.

Hm... point taken. Lack of unique background is quite the deal-breaker for anything warhammer-y. The newer models are okay but overpriced and the rules are utter crap. If it weren't for the unique setting, GW would've gone belly up a long time ago.

 Kosake wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:
Well, without invalidating models, except for:

-Models you won't use because they aren't in the new lists....

So they won't invalidate models, except for all the units they invalidate...

Because there is no way to use that %charactername% model as a default general, sergeant or special weapons-guy...

I said units.

I play skaven. While I can see "well, no more gutter runners but you can still use them as night runners!" being an argument, there are plenty of other units that aren't going to work that way. Jezzails, Poisoned Wind Globadiers, Weapon Teams, etc. etc. You're telling me "there will be generic forms of everything!"? Will my Jezzails really be filling the same "generic shooty unit" role that, say, a human archer model would?

Cause if so, I have to say that sounds not at all exciting.

 NAVARRO wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:
Well, without invalidating models, except for:



-Models you won't use because they aren't in the new lists....

So they won't invalidate models, except for all the units they invalidate...

I can see it happening along with the official comment " you can still use your discontinued unit as a count as for a supported one."


Nice post Mikhaila
As for the comment "Quality of gameplay matters. " I have the a bad feeling about this one I really do, specially with the leaflet rumor floating around. Will WFB for the first time swap places with other companies? I mean, will we buy the wonderful WFB models to use for other games? Usually its the opposite.

While I'm no stranger to voluntarily building/converting models from both GW and other companies to use instead of official ones, I'd definitely not appreciate that type of change being forced upon me as a player. I luckily don't play fantasy but I empathise with those worried about this rumored change. The only acceptable and appropriate counter I see is that GW starts taking "counts as" money in return for new product when ordering direct (both by retailers and consumers).

 streamdragon wrote:

 Kosake wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:
Well, without invalidating models, except for:

-Models you won't use because they aren't in the new lists....

So they won't invalidate models, except for all the units they invalidate...

Because there is no way to use that %charactername% model as a default general, sergeant or special weapons-guy...

I said units.

I play skaven. While I can see "well, no more gutter runners but you can still use them as night runners!" being an argument, there are plenty of other units that aren't going to work that way. Jezzails, Poisoned Wind Globadiers, Weapon Teams, etc. etc. You're telling me "there will be generic forms of everything!"? Will my Jezzails really be filling the same "generic shooty unit" role that, say, a human archer model would?

Cause if so, I have to say that sounds not at all exciting.

Yeah, I mean either you have new units that are very similar to the old units that you can use the only ones to proxy, in which case what's the point of rebooting the model range, or you have new models/rules generic enough that lots of things can proxy as one thing, which just sounds dull.

 ImAGeek wrote:
or you have new models/rules generic enough that lots of things can proxy as one thing, which just sounds dull.

What's so important about making, say, one type of elf spearman so different, special and unique from the others, whether high, dark, wood or even sea? What does make then so different, special and unique anyway?

 Vermis wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
or you have new models/rules generic enough that lots of things can proxy as one thing, which just sounds dull.

What's so important about making, say, one type of elf spearman so different, special and unique from the others, whether high, dark, wood or even sea? What does make then so different, special and unique anyway?

Nothing.. if that is what you start with and continue. Once you make something "special", it is reasonable to be upset when that utility is yanked away from you. As a kid growing up in an immigrant family, our first car didn't have AC and our apartment had a single window unit for the whole 3 bedroom flat... it didn't bother me back then. If all of a sudden my AC conked out in my current house and my car's compressor broke, I certainly wouldn't be happy either. There is a saying about a cat and a bag that fits here as well.

 Vermis wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
or you have new models/rules generic enough that lots of things can proxy as one thing, which just sounds dull.

What's so important about making, say, one type of elf spearman so different, special and unique from the others, whether high, dark, wood or even sea? What does make then so different, special and unique anyway?

I think the problem is less that some types of elf spearmen may be "homogenized," and more that we don't know what else has changed. How many other elf units have been combined? What about human armies? How many unique units (grail knights, dryads, plague monks, etc.) will survive the transition? Do Lizardmen even exist any more? It's not the changes that people are worried about (well, maybe a little), it's the uncertainty that people are freaking out about it.

 Vermis wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
or you have new models/rules generic enough that lots of things can proxy as one thing, which just sounds dull.

What's so important about making, say, one type of elf spearman so different, special and unique from the others, whether high, dark, wood or even sea? What does make then so different, special and unique anyway?

Besides being from three separate armies (with their accompanying special rules)? Not much, admittedly. But I'm not talking about "elf spearmen". I'm talking about the outlier units like Jezzails, Globadiers, or Weapon Teams. I can't imagine all the Lizardman players that bought the new anklyosaur laser dudes would be happy about losing those either. Are you really telling me my Jezzails should be a "generic shooty unit" on par with elf bowmen?

 Guildsman wrote:

 Vermis wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
or you have new models/rules generic enough that lots of things can proxy as one thing, which just sounds dull.

What's so important about making, say, one type of elf spearman so different, special and unique from the others, whether high, dark, wood or even sea? What does make then so different, special and unique anyway?

I think the problem is less that some types of elf spearmen may be "homogenized," and more that we don't know what else has changed. How many other elf units have been combined? What about human armies? How many unique units (grail knights, dryads, plague monks, etc.) will survive the transition? Do Lizardmen even exist any more? It's not the changes that people are worried about (well, maybe a little), it's the uncertainty that people are freaking out about it.

To take it a bit farther, imagine a game system that had no differentiation between races etc. Just spearmen and swordsmen in either light or heavy format. Then you could play any type! Just treat the model as a skin that goes over top. Super streamlined rules!
But that wouldn't appeal. Part of the fun of fantasy games is that the different races/factions add variety and interest, because their play style and their aesthetic (when the two line up) make them feel different and interesting.
That is not to say that different for difference's sake is good, but rather that the variety is part of the charm of the genre. If you just want humans with different weapons, there are a ton of various historical games that will scratch that itch quite well.

 streamdragon wrote:

 Vermis wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
or you have new models/rules generic enough that lots of things can proxy as one thing, which just sounds dull.

What's so important about making, say, one type of elf spearman so different, special and unique from the others, whether high, dark, wood or even sea? What does make then so different, special and unique anyway?

Besides being from three separate armies (with their accompanying special rules)? Not much, admittedly. But I'm not talking about "elf spearmen". I'm talking about the outlier units like Jezzails, Globadiers, or Weapon Teams. I can't imagine all the Lizardman players that bought the new anklyosaur laser dudes would be happy about losing those either. Are you really telling me my Jezzails should be a "generic shooty unit" on par with elf bowmen?

Yeah that's more the stuff I meant. Elf spearmen, fine, combine them. But weirder stuff, you either invalidate it, make a new version of the same unit (what's the point?) or make things so generic so everything like that can fit in which is just dull.

I am a fan of how every unit in WHFB played differently because of all the special rules. If the game is downsizing and switching to skirmish then it doesn't need to be streamlined in my opinion.

Thats a reason why it not only needed to be streamlined, but a complete rework from zero.
Having a lot of special rules on the units instead of just different profiles and army rules is one reason why there are so much bad and overpowerd units.

 kodos wrote:
Thats a reason why it not only needed to be streamlined, but a complete rework from zero.
Having a lot of special rules on the units instead of just different profiles and army rules is one reason why there are so much bad and overpowerd units.

Yea, that I will buy. If they were to scrap all the army books and start from scratch, building each unit (even as it exists, or existed in 7th last time I played) to really match the unit's fluff, that would be alright. If they scrapped the whole rule system and started over but kept the fluff/units, basically stripping the game down to the studs of story they want to tell, I would accept that too.
Just giving up on variation and balance in favor of rules with no variation per faction, that is not a good outcome.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?407604-Warhammer-9th-Edition-Roundup-Discussion-%28Reloaded%29&p=7439651#post7439651

Just coming back from my local store following some strange message on facebook and inviting us to pass by .

9th edition will be released on saturday the 13th of june .

My local store is organising on friday the 12th a warhammer tournament beginning at 8.00pm for thoses who will have reserved their 9th edition rule book ( If I correctly understand there will be 2 weeks of preorder )

At 0.00 , He will give to players their books .

Il will be a 8th edition tournament but the local manager will release a summary of the changes if they are not to numerous in order to play in 9th edition . If it changes too much , he says that it will be a 8th edition one ^^

Considering the policy of games workshop , I don't think that will be some local initiative , so other people might have the same level of information to confirm .

 kodos wrote:
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?407604-Warhammer-9th-Edition-Roundup-Discussion-%28Reloaded%29&p=7439651#post7439651

Just coming back from my local store following some strange message on facebook and inviting us to pass by .

9th edition will be released on saturday the 13th of june .

My local store is organising on friday the 12th a warhammer tournament beginning at 8.00pm for thoses who will have reserved their 9th edition rule book ( If I correctly understand there will be 2 weeks of preorder )

At 0.00 , He will give to players their books .

Il will be a 8th edition tournament but the local manager will release a summary of the changes if they are not to numerous in order to play in 9th edition . If it changes too much , he says that it will be a 8th edition one ^^

Considering the policy of games workshop , I don't think that will be some local initiative , so other people might have the same level of information to confirm .

Sounds like quite a fun event, really.

Doesn't the implication of that, namely an event which could be 8th Ed, or 9th Ed rules (if the changes aren't too numerous), suggest that the game isn't as "different" as people were imagining?

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Doesn't the implication of that, namely an event which could be 8th Ed, or 9th Ed rules (if the changes aren't too numerous), suggest that the game isn't as "different" as people were imagining?

It doesn't mean anything, as the store owner knows as much as us. It says IF the changes aren't too numerous, so it could still be a very different game.

No, the fact that it might be an 8th edition tournament or it might be a 9th edition one shows that the store manager, like everyone else, has no idea what's coming.

 kodos wrote:
Thats a reason why it not only needed to be streamlined, but a complete rework from zero.
Having a lot of special rules on the units instead of just different profiles and army rules is one reason why there are so much bad and overpowerd units.

I am honestly asking this:


Is there a game as long running as Warhammer Fantasy Battle, with close to as many updates, that has actual balance for all units? I would posit that is almost an issue of time as much as anything else.

 kodos wrote:
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?407604-Warhammer-9th-Edition-Roundup-Discussion-%28Reloaded%29&p=7439651#post7439651

Just coming back from my local store following some strange message on facebook and inviting us to pass by .

9th edition will be released on saturday the 13th of june .

My local store is organising on friday the 12th a warhammer tournament beginning at 8.00pm for thoses who will have reserved their 9th edition rule book ( If I correctly understand there will be 2 weeks of preorder )

At 0.00 , He will give to players their books .

Il will be a 8th edition tournament but the local manager will release a summary of the changes if they are not to numerous in order to play in 9th edition . If it changes too much , he says that it will be a 8th edition one ^^

Considering the policy of games workshop , I don't think that will be some local initiative , so other people might have the same level of information to confirm .

Sonds like GW to imagine the main part of the rules dont leak in advance so the store manager can reveal all the "great news" of the exiting new edition at midnight to a gawking and gasping audience.

 Fayric wrote:

 kodos wrote:
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?407604-Warhammer-9th-Edition-Roundup-Discussion-%28Reloaded%29&p=7439651#post7439651

Just coming back from my local store following some strange message on facebook and inviting us to pass by .

9th edition will be released on saturday the 13th of june .

My local store is organising on friday the 12th a warhammer tournament beginning at 8.00pm for thoses who will have reserved their 9th edition rule book ( If I correctly understand there will be 2 weeks of preorder )

At 0.00 , He will give to players their books .

Il will be a 8th edition tournament but the local manager will release a summary of the changes if they are not to numerous in order to play in 9th edition . If it changes too much , he says that it will be a 8th edition one ^^

Considering the policy of games workshop , I don't think that will be some local initiative , so other people might have the same level of information to confirm .

Sonds like GW to imagine the main part of the rules dont leak in advance so the store manager can reveal all the "great news" of the exiting new edition at midnight to a gawking and gasping audience.

Sounds like the manager set this up himself, not GW.

 Bottle wrote:
I am a fan of how every unit in WHFB played differently because of all the special rules. If the game is downsizing and switching to skirmish then it doesn't need to be streamlined in my opinion.

Agreed, if it downsizes and transitions to a skirmish game it won't need streamlining... because the game will be dead and stores won't even carry it.

 streamdragon wrote:

I am honestly asking this:


Is there a game as long running as Warhammer Fantasy Battle, with close to as many updates, that has actual balance for all units? I would posit that is almost an issue of time as much as anything else.

How is the number of editions relevant? Every time that GW brings out a new edition, they have the opportunity to address the balance issues. Every time that GW re-releases an army book, they have the opportunity to address the balance issues.

That after these many editions and this many years, their end result is the two worst commercially available miniature games in the world, is a true testament to the incompetence of their rules writers and game developers.

 streamdragon wrote:

 kodos wrote:
Thats a reason why it not only needed to be streamlined, but a complete rework from zero.
Having a lot of special rules on the units instead of just different profiles and army rules is one reason why there are so much bad and overpowerd units.

I am honestly asking this:

Is there a game as long running as Warhammer Fantasy Battle, with close to as many updates, that has actual balance for all units? I would posit that is almost an issue of time as much as anything else.

yes it is an issue of time
but Warhammer is not one game with a lot of updates, but a lot of different games with 1 to 2 updates.
the 3rd edition, 4th/5th edition, 6th/7th edition are 3 games on their own which only share some rules and background.

we are not playing an improved Warhammer at the moment, 8th edition is the basic one and 9th should be the improved one.
like 7th edi was an improved 6th edition, (but the 6th was not an improved 5th edition)

Warhammer, "mass fantasy battle" game still has the same core rules which are from a skirmish game. There are a lot of rules taken from an old edition which are not needed and instead of simplifying things, warhammer gets more complicated.
To many special rules are another problem. Instead of different game play, we just get "good" armies with a lot of special rules and "bad" armies with less special rules or the same amount for more points.

PhantomViper wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:

I am honestly asking this:


Is there a game as long running as Warhammer Fantasy Battle, with close to as many updates, that has actual balance for all units? I would posit that is almost an issue of time as much as anything else.

How is the number of editions relevant? Every time that GW brings out a new edition, they have the opportunity to address the balance issues. Every time that GW re-releases an army book, they have the opportunity to address the balance issues.

That after these many editions and this many years, their end result is the two worst commercially available miniature games in the world, is a true testament to the incompetence of their rules writers and game developers.

Because they have 30+ years of units to try to balance? Finding balance is easy when you're talking about a handful of things. When you're talking about how many armies with how many units though? Hence my question. Is there a game, older than most of its players, that has something resembling perfect balance amongst its armies, and amongst units within said armies?

Also, lol @ underlined.

 streamdragon wrote:

Because they have 30+ years of units to try to balance?
.

Except that isn't the case.

I mean, I know those Fimir and Chaos Dwarves have always been tricky to nail down, but essentially the only units needing any balancing should be anything that slipped the net the Edition they were introduced, and decent play testing should keep that to a minimum.

That's assuming a professional, structured approach to the game design process, of course.

It doesn't take 30 years to balance a cannon.

 streamdragon wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:

I am honestly asking this:


Is there a game as long running as Warhammer Fantasy Battle, with close to as many updates, that has actual balance for all units? I would posit that is almost an issue of time as much as anything else.

How is the number of editions relevant? Every time that GW brings out a new edition, they have the opportunity to address the balance issues. Every time that GW re-releases an army book, they have the opportunity to address the balance issues.

That after these many editions and this many years, their end result is the two worst commercially available miniature games in the world, is a true testament to the incompetence of their rules writers and game developers.

Because they have 30+ years of units to try to balance? Finding balance is easy when you're talking about a handful of things. When you're talking about how many armies with how many units though? Hence my question. Is there a game, older than most of its players, that has something resembling perfect balance amongst its armies, and amongst units within said armies?

Also, lol @ underlined.

Couldn't you say the exact opposite, though? They've had 30+ years to balance the game and the units, but have failed spectacularly.
If you gave someone 30 years to work the kinks out of their system, wouldn't you expect the system to be amazing, or at least have better than bare minimum functionality?

 streamdragon wrote:


Because they have 30+ years of units to try to balance? Finding balance is easy when you're talking about a handful of things. When you're talking about how many armies with how many units though? Hence my question. Is there a game, older than most of its players, that has something resembling perfect balance amongst its armies, and amongst units within said armies?

WH doesn't have that many units to try and balance. That is a fallacy that is constantly thrown around but has no basis in the truth.

A Warmachine faction has almost double the amount of choices than a WHF faction has, for example. Malifaux and Infinity have pretty comparable numbers as well. And I won't even reference the sheer enormity of choices in FoW.

All of those games have much better balance than WHFB.

 streamdragon wrote:

Also, lol @ underlined.

Lol at whatever you wan't, anyone that has a minimum of experience outside of the GW universe will tell you the exact same thing. GW WHFB and 40k are the worse rules systems in the market.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:

Because they have 30+ years of units to try to balance?
.

Except that isn't the case.

I mean, I know those Fimir and Chaos Dwarves have always been tricky to nail down, but essentially the only units needing any balancing should be anything that slipped the net the Edition they were introduced, and decent play testing should keep that to a minimum.

That's assuming a professional, structured approach to the game design process, of course.

It doesn't take 30 years to balance a cannon.

Every time they introduce a new unit or a new (universal) special rule, they have to (ideally) look back over the old stuff and see if it's still "balanced" with the latest update. You see FFG doing this with X-Wing now, where the TIE/Advanced is getting an update because it's fallen so far behind. But X-Wing has 3 factions (one of which is less than a year old) with a handful of ships each (some of which cross faction lines). Not even close to the numbers that GW has with WHFB. That's my point. As you add more variables (e.g. units, rules, change in the main rules, etc) the complexity of balance becomes higher and higher.

Like I said, it was an honest question. I certainly have never played all the war games out there, so if there is another 30ish year old game (I assume there has to be at least one) with something approaching the variety in WHFB, I simply don't know about it.

I don't want to sound like I'm excusing crappy writing of rules, I'm not. I was responding to the idea that any game, not just WHFB, should always have perfect balance. Comparing WHFB to X-Wing and saying "See? FFB gets how to balance a game!"* is neither a fair comparison, or even a true statement.


*I am aware no one in this thread has made this comparison. I am simply using it as an example.

 kodos wrote:

Warhammer, "mass fantasy battle" game still has the same core rules which are from a skirmish game. There are a lot of rules taken from an old edition which are not needed and instead of simplifying things, warhammer gets more complicated.
To many special rules are another problem. Instead of different game play, we just get "good" armies with a lot of special rules and "bad" armies with less special rules or the same amount for more points.

That's the problem. Despite many revisions of the rules, the core has never changed and it's been cludged together with 8 updates and endless special rules. Each edition seems to answer some questions and generate more new ones rather than actually tightening up the rules.

For instance, Infnity 2 is a vast improvement over infinity 1, and is pretty balanced. Malifaux 2 is a vast improvement over Malifaux 1, and is pretty balanced. Why does it take Warhammer 9 editions (or 30 years) to approach that level of clarity and balance? Because they aren't interested in the rules as anything other than a mini selling system.

WHF really needs a good reboot, but I doubt GW has the staff to do that now, so we'll see a reboot done on the cheap that manages to address almost none of the problems.

 streamdragon wrote:
Is there a game as long running as Warhammer Fantasy Battle, with close to as many updates, that has actual balance for all units? I would posit that is almost an issue of time as much as anything else.

That is the exact opposite of how it should work. Iterative design should mean your product gets better, not worse.

Gah. The biggest issue is that a statline should cover 99% of a unit's 'special abilities', reflected in the numbers. Having special rules for everything is clunky, slow and makes balancing harder. Special should be special, by exception, not the norm.

As others have pointed out, usually fewer editions is a sign of lesser balance. Getting things right the first time is almost impossible, so you expect second and third editions to clean up balance issues and tweak things. I particularly remember people describing Infinity as "a good game, but definitely feels like a first edition game.'
It is true that more variables => more difficulty in balancing, but unless you are mixing up the variables every time it shouldn't get harder over time. That is to say, if you start from scratch each time it should still get easier as you have experience with the system, and if you don't start from scratch but add new units it should get easier unless you are adding new units at a high rate. Entirely new unit types/rules will make it harder, throwing in monstrous cav type stuff for instance, but if new units follow a template that already exists it shouldn't be harder.

In any case, when you work on a game that is nominally the same for 30 years and still can't make it work right, your process is horribly flawed. Whether it is because you can't design well, you have too much turn over, you tried to make a skirmish set play mass battles or whatever, there is something deeply wrong. Probably 2-3 somethings, at least.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Gah. The biggest issue is that a statline should cover 99% of a unit's 'special abilities', reflected in the numbers. Having special rules for everything is clunky, slow and makes balancing harder. Special should be special, by exception, not the norm.

I think one of the issues here is that because they started with a fairly abstract system that used stats in several different ways, its hard to go back and make the stats reflect special abilities. For instance, instead of Always Strikes First, you could just make High Elves have very high Initiative. But Initiative has also been used (at various times, not familiar with the current edition) for things like escaping combat, or as a stats test for avoiding certain spells and abilities. So by boosting the average HE Spearman to I8 or something, you actually give them a number of connected powers.

At this point, it might really be better to go back and tear down the system and then rebuild it around some core concepts (opposed WS vs WS and S vs T, modifiable armor saves, LD checks for combat resolution, etc.) with a different number scale and system of modifiers. Then you could get away from the 1-10 scale (in practice more like 2-8) and have stat ranges that allow for more gradation and differentiation between units.

The other problem with the profile is that some stats are useless if they are in the middle.
Doesn’t matter if your weapon skill is 4, 5 or 7. Against a weaker target you only hit on 3+ and against a stronger one on 4+.
Using the whole scale from 2-6 would be better than just adding re-roles to hit (which is very strong if everyone else just hit on 4+)

One improvement would be using the whole profile scale from 1-10 with and tables that are using 1-7 (automatic success and fail)

 streamdragon wrote:

Every time they introduce a new unit or a new (universal) special rule, they have to (ideally) look back over the old stuff and see if it's still "balanced" with the latest update. You see FFG doing this with X-Wing now, where the TIE/Advanced is getting an update because it's fallen so far behind. But X-Wing has 3 factions (one of which is less than a year old) with a handful of ships each (some of which cross faction lines). Not even close to the numbers that GW has with WHFB. That's my point. As you add more variables (e.g. units, rules, change in the main rules, etc) the complexity of balance becomes higher and higher.

Like I said, it was an honest question. I certainly have never played all the war games out there, so if there is another 30ish year old game (I assume there has to be at least one) with something approaching the variety in WHFB, I simply don't know about it.

I don't want to sound like I'm excusing crappy writing of rules, I'm not. I was responding to the idea that any game, not just WHFB, should always have perfect balance. Comparing WHFB to X-Wing and saying "See? FFB gets how to balance a game!"* is neither a fair comparison, or even a true statement.


*I am aware no one in this thread has made this comparison. I am simply using it as an example.

Warhammer has a lot of different Armys and Units, but not as maney as other games has.
There is more difference in gamyplay with more different Army Lists in 1 Flames of War Faction than in whole Warhammer and they are balanced (not perfectly but better than Warhammer)

And Warhammer is not a game with a lot of synergies like Warmachine/Hordes, were every single model needs to be balanced (there are 100+ mercenary models/units which need to be balanced against to whole game because otherwise one faction would get a big advantage)

Kings of War now nearly has the same amount of armies with more different units than warhammer and now running a public test to get the lists balanced (because they don't have the resources to do so).


Some years back when I was part of an very active tournament team (7th edition) we made test weekends with every new army book at the moment it was released
It took us just a view minutes to find the rules which needed a FAQ or were broken and a view hours of play testing to prove that our theory crafted army lists were really overpowered and what house rules the next tournament needed to get the new army in line with the others.

AlexHolker wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:
Is there a game as long running as Warhammer Fantasy Battle, with close to as many updates, that has actual balance for all units? I would posit that is almost an issue of time as much as anything else.

That is the exact opposite of how it should work. Iterative design should mean your product gets better, not worse.

While I agree with your post, I would also argue GW isn't doing actual iterative game design. When they updated the rules to 8th, for example, they didn't update all the army books as well. (Though you'll get no argument from me if you say they should have.) When they release a new army book, they don't also update all the other army books against it (which is how we see the divide between similar units of the various elf armies, for instance). Unless I'm misunderstanding the meaning of iterative design? (full disclosure: I'm not a game designer)

kodos wrote:The other problem with the profile is that some stats are useless if they are in the middle.
Doesn’t matter if your weapon skill is 4, 5 or 7. Against a weaker target you only hit on 3+ and against a stronger one on 4+.
Using the whole scale from 2-6 would be better than just adding re-roles to hit (which is very strong if everyone else just hit on 4+)

One improvement would be using the whole profile scale from 1-10 with and tables that are using 1-7 (automatic success and fail)

I agree with pretty much all of this. Having a stat scale of 1-10 where some of the numbers don't matter, and the variation in stat doesn't reflect in the dice is definitely a starting point for change.

kodos wrote:Warhammer has a lot of different Armys and Units, but not as maney as other games has.
There is more difference in gamyplay with more different Army Lists in 1 Flames of War Faction than in whole Warhammer and they are balanced (not perfectly but better than Warhammer)

And Warhammer is not a game with a lot of synergies like Warmachine/Hordes, were every single model needs to be balanced (there are 100+ mercenary models/units which need to be balanced against to whole game because otherwise one faction would get a big advantage)

Kings of War now nearly has the same amount of armies with more different units than warhammer and now running a public test to get the lists balanced (because they don't have the resources to do so).

Thank you for this; it basically answers the question I posited in the first place. Like I said, I haven't played every game out there.

@the Kings of War thing, you will get no defense from me for GW's lack of communication with its customers. None.

kodos wrote:
Some years back when I was part of an very active tournament team (7th edition) we made test weekends with every new army book at the moment it was released
It took us just a view minutes to find the rules which needed a FAQ or were broken and a view hours of play testing to prove that our theory crafted army lists were really overpowered and what house rules the next tournament needed to get the new army in line with the others.

I have, multiple times on these boards, been critical of GW's apparent lack of real-world play testing (as opposed to their very loose with the rules play testing). Please do not take my posts to be, in any way, excusing of GW pushing out terrible rules. My criticism of 40k orks and nids was both vocal and done with my wallet.

So we agree, if GW is not able to balance the rules on their own
a public test would be help a lot, but GW is to afraid to lose money if they give away free beta-rules (and no one will buy the old books of course)

Someone mentioning Kings of War 2nd Ed getting a public beta as a result of Mantic not having resources to test it deeply internally... The irony is, Kings of War even prior, and without a public beta, has been massively better balanced then it seems WHFB ever was. :-p

I love GW games, and love their product despite them never necessarily treating me well as a consumer, but in terms of their rules writing ability, they are just horrid. I play 40k, for example, for the fluff, for the size of the community, etc... but I could (and have) written/published more immediately functional and successful rules any day of the week. :-p

 SilverDevilfish wrote:
Sounds like it's just more stuff being rolled on to an already existing rumor ball. Wouldn't be surprised if most of it's BS.

Lalalalalalala Rumari Damacy.

This is too true! Thanks for the laugh and the sig line!

 CT GAMER wrote:
The best thing ever associated with the WHFB setting was the Mordheim game.

Anything that moves this bloated mess of a game more towards that is a good thing, and it might just get me buying fantasy models again after many, many, many, many long years...

+1.

Mordheim was great for the 18 months it lasted. I never understood why it wasnt made into a series, with the town of mordheim being replaced by an abandoned dwarf hold, chaos warrior temple or lizardmen city (which was partly attempted with the lustrian town cryer). It could have gone on idefinately, and had great potential to sell cardboard terrain etc. Most importantly, a game could be played in 2 hours from unpacking to fully packed.

I could go on and on about what a great concept the mordheim concept was, but unfortunately gw clipped it.

WHFB as it is now is bloated, unbalanced, boring and is so clunky it makes 40k look elegant.

 kodos wrote:

Warhammer has a lot of different Armys and Units, but not as maney as other games has.
There is more difference in gamyplay with more different Army Lists in 1 Flames of War Faction than in whole Warhammer and they are balanced (not perfectly but better than Warhammer)

And Warhammer is not a game with a lot of synergies like Warmachine/Hordes, were every single model needs to be balanced (there are 100+ mercenary models/units which need to be balanced against to whole game because otherwise one faction would get a big advantage)

Kings of War now nearly has the same amount of armies with more different units than warhammer and now running a public test to get the lists balanced (because they don't have the resources to do so).

Just to point out one thing that War/Hordes and Kings of War don't have to the degree WHFB is unit upgrades and options. A Warmachine unit might have a single unit attachment that modifies it and that is it. A WHFB unit might have a slew of equipment and special upgrades. A chaos warrior unit has four different marks to choose from, four different weapon options, shields or no shields, and several different magic standards to choose from. That is over a hundred different combinations that need to be checked and balanced against. That doesn't even take unit size into consideration. You are probably seeing GW moving to units like Blight Kings and Warmongers just to minimize the amount of variety they have to balance against.

 silent25 wrote:

 kodos wrote:

Warhammer has a lot of different Armys and Units, but not as maney as other games has.
There is more difference in gamyplay with more different Army Lists in 1 Flames of War Faction than in whole Warhammer and they are balanced (not perfectly but better than Warhammer)

And Warhammer is not a game with a lot of synergies like Warmachine/Hordes, were every single model needs to be balanced (there are 100+ mercenary models/units which need to be balanced against to whole game because otherwise one faction would get a big advantage)

Kings of War now nearly has the same amount of armies with more different units than warhammer and now running a public test to get the lists balanced (because they don't have the resources to do so).

Just to point out one thing that War/Hordes and Kings of War don't have to the degree WHFB is unit upgrades and options. A Warmachine unit might have a single unit attachment that modifies it and that is it. A WHFB unit might have a slew of equipment and special upgrades. A chaos warrior unit has four different marks to choose from, four different weapon options, shields or no shields, and several different magic standards to choose from. That is over a hundred different combinations that need to be checked and balanced against. That doesn't even take unit size into consideration. You are probably seeing GW moving to units like Blight Kings and Warmongers just to minimize the amount of variety they have to balance against.

Those are almost meaningless choices though. The decision to take your 40 chaos warriors with shields and MoT vs two hand weapons and MoK changes the role of the unit somewhat, but they are still warriors of chaos and they still preform the role of being hard hitting, sturdy infantry.

Now look at Khador iron fang pikemen. They only have 2 options, their unit leaders. You can give them a regular officer and standard bearer or the black dragon officer and standard. They both have the ability to offer a +4 to your units armour for a single turn but one adds extra movement and the other makes them immune to knock down and stationary effects. That has significantly more impact on the game than a 6+ ward save vs an extra attack does because of the way the game is designed to synergize. With caster A immune to knockdown might be meaningless but a speed buff with the extra movement could assassinate a caster who thought they were far enough back to be safe. Then with caster B the extra speed is wasted but immune to knockdown will make them immune to certain enemy abilities, and with other buffs from caster B they become hard to kill and even harder to get past.

And, best of all, both are very good options but there is no clearly better choice (well, people will have their favourite that they swear by but it's a personal preference.)

 silent25 wrote:

 kodos wrote:

Warhammer has a lot of different Armys and Units, but not as maney as other games has.
There is more difference in gamyplay with more different Army Lists in 1 Flames of War Faction than in whole Warhammer and they are balanced (not perfectly but better than Warhammer)

And Warhammer is not a game with a lot of synergies like Warmachine/Hordes, were every single model needs to be balanced (there are 100+ mercenary models/units which need to be balanced against to whole game because otherwise one faction would get a big advantage)

Kings of War now nearly has the same amount of armies with more different units than warhammer and now running a public test to get the lists balanced (because they don't have the resources to do so).

Just to point out one thing that War/Hordes and Kings of War don't have to the degree WHFB is unit upgrades and options. A Warmachine unit might have a single unit attachment that modifies it and that is it. A WHFB unit might have a slew of equipment and special upgrades. A chaos warrior unit has four different marks to choose from, four different weapon options, shields or no shields, and several different magic standards to choose from. That is over a hundred different combinations that need to be checked and balanced against. That doesn't even take unit size into consideration. You are probably seeing GW moving to units like Blight Kings and Warmongers just to minimize the amount of variety they have to balance against.

Having more options doesn't necessarily mean that the game can't be balanced. Infinity has loads more options that WHFB and yet is probably one of the most balanced games I have ever played. The strength of the game on the tournament scene is testament to this, you don't need 'comp levels'

The difference is that they spend months exhaustively playtesting new units and listen to the fan community, see the tournament results about what needs balancing.

WHFB isn't balanced because the rules haven't been written all at once and as a holistic/unified design, so you get numerous styles of rule and power levels from different authors.

 streamdragon wrote:
Because they have 30+ years of units to try to balance? Finding balance is easy when you're talking about a handful of things. When you're talking about how many armies with how many units though? Hence my question. Is there a game, older than most of its players, that has something resembling perfect balance amongst its armies, and amongst units within said armies?

An understandable point of view, but not entirely true. If you have been in the buisnes for 8 editions, you should have developed a pretty damn good feeling of what is ballanced and what is not. There should be guidelines, unit-building tables, formulas and a buttload of experience.
Yes, if you start a new game and introduce 500 units to it, you'll not get it ballanced for years. But WHFB grew organically over time, so there's plenty of time to iron out the faults and get really good grip on the power levels of whatever you want to make. I am not a competetive player (and not a WHFB player at all, I'm just hanging around in case 9th will be a complete change to a manageable skirmish level) so I can not judge how good the ballance in fantasy is. Looking at those 300 S6 shots with a threat range of "all the table" on the most mobile platform in the game from the latest Eldar codex I'll risk the opinion that no, GW can't ballance a brick on a floor if their life depended upon it.

 silent25 wrote:
A WHFB unit might have a slew of equipment and special upgrades. A chaos warrior unit has four different marks to choose from, four different weapon options, shields or no shields, and several different magic standards to choose from. That is over a hundred different combinations that need to be checked and balanced against. That doesn't even take unit size into consideration. You are probably seeing GW moving to units like Blight Kings and Warmongers just to minimize the amount of variety they have to balance against.

Which makes sense in a skirmish game, but in a mass battle game you shouldn't be mucking about with the armament of your warriors in such minute detail, especially when it has minimal impact on the unit/game itself.

Loads of other mass battle games don't allow that level of detail and work fine.

 Kosake wrote:
If you have been in the buisnes for 8 editions, you should have developed a pretty damn good feeling of what is ballanced and what is not. There should be guidelines, unit-building tables, formulas and a buttload of experience.

This is very true. It seems like the game designers at GW knows what balanced is and choose at times to make things completely imbalanced on purpose. Hence when HE came out, and they were a good hard counter to WoC and DoC, which were pretty powerful at that point, but didn't seem to be completely over the top (minus maybe the Banner of the World Dragon). But, the DE get released and are one better than HE in almost every instance.

Then you get Dwarfs and WE, which can compete, but didn't get anywhere near the love those other factions that seem to be more "loved" by the designers.

Then, when it transitioned into End Times, the designers seemed to be able to do whatever they wanted to boost up the factions that "inspired them" while throwing balance out the window and not even touching any of the forces of order (minus KFA of course).

In reality, it doesn't even seem like they are trying to build a balanced game in the past couple of years. Sure, many tournament players say that it is the most balanced it has been now that most books have been released under 8th Ed, but that is when you include the comp that goes with a typical tournament (no special characters, nerfing big spells or adding look-out sirs and so on).

 triplegrim wrote:

 CT GAMER wrote:
The best thing ever associated with the WHFB setting was the Mordheim game.

Anything that moves this bloated mess of a game more towards that is a good thing, and it might just get me buying fantasy models again after many, many, many, many long years...

+1.

Mordheim was great for the 18 months it lasted. I never understood why it wasnt made into a series, with the town of mordheim being replaced by an abandoned dwarf hold, chaos warrior temple or lizardmen city (which was partly attempted with the lustrian town cryer). It could have gone on idefinately, and had great potential to sell cardboard terrain etc. Most importantly, a game could be played in 2 hours from unpacking to fully packed.

I could go on and on about what a great concept the mordheim concept was, but unfortunately gw clipped it.

WHFB as it is now is bloated, unbalanced, boring and is so clunky it makes 40k look elegant.

The thought of GW taking the best elements of the scenario/skirmish style of Mordheim and combining it with their current level of models/terrain kits is something that has great potential.

You have my attention GW, don't screw this up...

Page after page of discussion about the quality of rules writing. Not so much in the way of rumour discussion. :/

 triplegrim wrote:

 CT GAMER wrote:
The best thing ever associated with the WHFB setting was the Mordheim game.

Anything that moves this bloated mess of a game more towards that is a good thing, and it might just get me buying fantasy models again after many, many, many, many long years...

+1.

Mordheim was great for the 18 months it lasted. I never understood why it wasnt made into a series, with the town of mordheim being replaced by an abandoned dwarf hold, chaos warrior temple or lizardmen city (which was partly attempted with the lustrian town cryer). It could have gone on idefinately, and had great potential to sell cardboard terrain etc. Most importantly, a game could be played in 2 hours from unpacking to fully packed.

I could go on and on about what a great concept the mordheim concept was, but unfortunately gw clipped it.

WHFB as it is now is bloated, unbalanced, boring and is so clunky it makes 40k look elegant.

That's why the fans took it and ran with it.

Look for Empire In Flames, as well....

You won't be disappointed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Charles Rampant wrote:
Page after page of discussion about the quality of rules writing. Not so much in the way of rumour discussion. :/

Theres a rumor out there that there will be bundle terrain, and that theres going to be some new buildings and ruin sets...

http://natfka.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-new-warhammer-fantasy-terrain-system.html

 jonolikespie wrote:

Those are almost meaningless choices though. The decision to take your 40 chaos warriors with shields and MoT vs two hand weapons and MoK changes the role of the unit somewhat, but they are still warriors of chaos and they still preform the role of being hard hitting, sturdy infantry.

Now look at Khador iron fang pikemen. They only have 2 options, their unit leaders. You can give them a regular officer and standard bearer or the black dragon officer and standard. They both have the ability to offer a +4 to your units armour for a single turn but one adds extra movement and the other makes them immune to knock down and stationary effects. That has significantly more impact on the game than a 6+ ward save vs an extra attack does because of the way the game is designed to synergize. With caster A immune to knockdown might be meaningless but a speed buff with the extra movement could assassinate a caster who thought they were far enough back to be safe. Then with caster B the extra speed is wasted but immune to knockdown will make them immune to certain enemy abilities, and with other buffs from caster B they become hard to kill and even harder to get past.

And, best of all, both are very good options but there is no clearly better choice (well, people will have their favourite that they swear by but it's a personal preference.)

Again, you are just having to balance two options on a unit. You can either bring A or B in a play test game. With WHFB you could play a dozen different play test games and still not cover all the options.

And they are not meaningless choices, in a game with D6's +1 has a huge swing on rolls. Plus having played against all flavor of Chaos Warriors, the marks make a huge difference turning the unit from a defensive type to an offensive type. A dozen Khorne warriors with Halberds and Standard of Swiftness is a fast moving kill unit where as a Nurgle block with shields is study defensive unit meant to take a charge, hold and allow you set up counter-charges. Or if you are in a magic heavy environment, you go Tzeentch and the MR banner for improve ward.

And yes, not scrapping the army books and trying to keep them backwards compatible hurt WHFB more than it helps. They should have done a ravaging hordes list at the start of 8th like at the start of 6ht, but of course we see all the gnashing of when army books are made obsolete.

As for actual rumors. Via Darkpignouf onWarseer:

Hello everyone .

I don't know if the following information as been revealed yet because I just don't read the 26 pages of posts , sorry !

Just coming back from my local store following some strange message on facebook and inviting us to pass by .

9th edition will be released on saturday the 13th of june .

My local store is organising on friday the 12th a warhammer tournament beginning at 8.00pm for thoses who will have reserved their 9th edition rule book ( If I correctly understand there will be 2 weeks of preorder )

At 0.00 , He will give to players their books .

Il will be a 8th edition tournament but the local manager will release a summary of the changes if they are not to numerous in order to play in 9th edition . If it changes too much , he says that it will be a 8th edition one ^^

Considering the policy of games workshop , I don't think that will be some local initiative , so other people might have the same level of information to confirm .

And translated announcement on that store's FB page (store is in France):

“The sun will set, tainting the sky in ruby and blood

The chosen ones will regroup in the heart of the sanctuary, bringing with them hopes of their kind.

They will fight for glory, for honor, one step from the abyss….

The weaker will fall in the abyss while the stronger will be acclaimed….

Then they will fall too, victims of their own pride until only one survives, shining in glory, bathing in the blood of his own nation, deaf to pleas of dyings while he will claim what he deserves, eternal champion made king in the middle of the night, supreme lord in those devasted lands, nocturne king acclaimed by the ghosts of his enemies…until dawn….

May the forge been turning night and day, may prophets examine the future, may your armies gathered around your banners.

Prepare yourselves mortals !

Because I am KHORNE! The blood lord ! The archi commander ! The war builder !

You are my guests ….come into my arena . RULES HAVE CHANGED ! PREPARE YOURSELVES !!!!!!”

Not sure I like the sound of this.....

I could see the arguments for 'there's loads of options so it's hard to balance' if it actually seemed like the put a modicum of effort into attempting to balance it, but it doesn't seem that way at all. Also, the weapons options don't seem to have changed much over the years so they've had plenty of time to get it right.

 CT GAMER wrote:

 triplegrim wrote:

 CT GAMER wrote:
The best thing ever associated with the WHFB setting was the Mordheim game.

Anything that moves this bloated mess of a game more towards that is a good thing, and it might just get me buying fantasy models again after many, many, many, many long years...

+1.

Mordheim was great for the 18 months it lasted. I never understood why it wasnt made into a series, with the town of mordheim being replaced by an abandoned dwarf hold, chaos warrior temple or lizardmen city (which was partly attempted with the lustrian town cryer). It could have gone on idefinately, and had great potential to sell cardboard terrain etc. Most importantly, a game could be played in 2 hours from unpacking to fully packed.

I could go on and on about what a great concept the mordheim concept was, but unfortunately gw clipped it.

WHFB as it is now is bloated, unbalanced, boring and is so clunky it makes 40k look elegant.

The thought of GW taking the best elements of the scenario/skirmish style of Mordheim and combining it with their current level of models/terrain kits is something that has great potential.

You have my attention GW, don't screw this up...

When has gw ever been able to live up to potential and not screw up the implementation? I doubt this will be any different compared to the last 15 years. Unjustified hope is dangerous!

 silent25 wrote:


Again, you are just having to balance two options on a unit. You can either bring A or B in a play test game. With WHFB you could play a dozen different play test games and still not cover all the options.

And they are not meaningless choices, in a game with D6's +1 has a huge swing on rolls. Plus having played against all flavor of Chaos Warriors, the marks make a huge difference turning the unit from a defensive type to an offensive type. A dozen Khorne warriors with Halberds and Standard of Swiftness is a fast moving kill unit where as a Nurgle block with shields is study defensive unit meant to take a charge, hold and allow you set up counter-charges. Or if you are in a magic heavy environment, you go Tzeentch and the MR banner for improve ward.

Because the lists need more testing, GW don't test them at all?

 Kirasu wrote:
Unjustified hope is dangerous!

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

 silent25 wrote:


And translated announcement on that store's FB page (store is in France):

“The sun will set, tainting the sky in ruby and blood

The chosen ones will regroup in the heart of the sanctuary, bringing with them hopes of their kind.

They will fight for glory, for honor, one step from the abyss….

The weaker will fall in the abyss while the stronger will be acclaimed….

Then they will fall too, victims of their own pride until only one survives, shining in glory, bathing in the blood of his own nation, deaf to pleas of dyings while he will claim what he deserves, eternal champion made king in the middle of the night, supreme lord in those devasted lands, nocturne king acclaimed by the ghosts of his enemies…until dawn….

May the forge been turning night and day, may prophets examine the future, may your armies gathered around your banners.

Prepare yourselves mortals !

Because I am KHORNE! The blood lord ! The archi commander ! The war builder !

You are my guests ….come into my arena . RULES HAVE CHANGED ! PREPARE YOURSELVES !!!!!!”

Not sure I like the sound of this.....

This sounds a lot more like some form of board game (similar to the Assassins one that just came out) and a lot less like a new edition of WHFB. Or, if anything, this is what the new skirmish game premise could be. But, I still have my money on anything skirmish related being connected to the whole Haven thing with Araloth and company.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

I love GW games, and love their product despite them never necessarily treating me well as a consumer, but in terms of their rules writing ability, they are just horrid.

Why doesn't GW hand the rules portion over to FFG and focus on the models? FFG has proven that they can do rules well, and then GW can focus on being a model company like they've apparently always wanted.

Benandorf wrote:

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

I love GW games, and love their product despite them never necessarily treating me well as a consumer, but in terms of their rules writing ability, they are just horrid.

Why doesn't GW hand the rules portion over to FFG and focus on the models? FFG has proven that they can do rules well, and then GW can focus on being a model company like they've apparently always wanted.

Because that's far to close to a logical move for GW to consider it.

Because they want to maintain control. You can't tweak the rules to boost model sales if you don't control the rules.

And if, God forbid, an excellent, balanced set of rules came out, we'd be locked in stasis. People would be happy with the rules, and be in no rush to buy the next broken book, Codex hop, etc...

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
And if, God forbid, an excellent, balanced set of rules came out, we'd be locked in stasis. People would be happy with the rules, and be in no rush to buy the next broken book, Codex hop, etc...

Indeed. We could spent all our money on minis instead

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
And if, God forbid, an excellent, balanced set of rules came out, we'd be locked in stasis. People would be happy with the rules, and be in no rush to buy the next broken book, Codex hop, etc...

All they would do is add more units/options and people would buy the new book. It's simple.

 ImAGeek wrote:

Benandorf wrote:

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

I love GW games, and love their product despite them never necessarily treating me well as a consumer, but in terms of their rules writing ability, they are just horrid.

Why doesn't GW hand the rules portion over to FFG and focus on the models? FFG has proven that they can do rules well, and then GW can focus on being a model company like they've apparently always wanted.

Because that's far to close to a logical move for GW to consider it.

They could do the rules in house, the problem isn't that they are incapable (IMO at least) it's that they don't give a damn. Things like poor wordings that make it from one edition to the next or erratas that raise just as many issues as they solved.... to me those are signs of not caring more than lack of capability.

well FFG did the rules doe Dust and that went well...

 juraigamer wrote:

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
And if, God forbid, an excellent, balanced set of rules came out, we'd be locked in stasis. People would be happy with the rules, and be in no rush to buy the next broken book, Codex hop, etc...

All they would do is add more units/options and people would buy the new book. It's simple.

Yeah, God forbid they produced something that had actual value as opposed to scheming people out of money with garbage years recycled on a bi-yearly basis. That sure hasn't had an detrimental impact on sales...

If there's a clear GW trend over the last 3 years, it's using the rules (or even lack of rules) to sell big plastic kits. They will want to keep ownership of the rules to maintain the link between rules and sales.

 Flashman wrote:
If there's a clear GW trend over the last 3 years, it's using the rules (or even lack of rules) to sell big plastic kits. They will want to keep ownership of the rules to maintain the link between rules and sales.

Yeah, like the Ghorgon/Cygor kit for Beastmen!

 streamdragon wrote:

 Flashman wrote:
If there's a clear GW trend over the last 3 years, it's using the rules (or even lack of rules) to sell big plastic kits. They will want to keep ownership of the rules to maintain the link between rules and sales.

Yeah, like the Ghorgon/Cygor kit for Beastmen!

It's telling that it took ages for that kit to come out.

 Flashman wrote:
If there's a clear GW trend over the last 3 years, it's using the rules (or even lack of rules) to sell big plastic kits. They will want to keep ownership of the rules to maintain the link between rules and sales.

The Slaughterbrute, Treeman, Coven Throne, Thundertusk, Troglodon, & Kharibdyss would like to have a word with you.

 silent25 wrote:

 Flashman wrote:
If there's a clear GW trend over the last 3 years, it's using the rules (or even lack of rules) to sell big plastic kits. They will want to keep ownership of the rules to maintain the link between rules and sales.

The Slaughterbrute, Treeman, Coven Throne, Thundertusk, Troglodon, & Kharibdyss would like to have a word with you.

Maybe that actually a part of the answer as to why WFB might be changing.

Large 40k kits are going off like a frog in a sock and GW would be raking in alot of easy cash from them. If WFB large kits arnt doing anywhere close to those numbers then the 'easy cash' just isnt there.

 Flashman wrote:
If there's a clear GW trend over the last 3 years, it's using the rules (or even lack of rules) to sell big plastic kits. They will want to keep ownership of the rules to maintain the link between rules and sales.

Son, GW has been doing this for all their kits since the early 90s. I don't know why this is news to anyone.

 Breotan wrote:

 Flashman wrote:
If there's a clear GW trend over the last 3 years, it's using the rules (or even lack of rules) to sell big plastic kits. They will want to keep ownership of the rules to maintain the link between rules and sales.

Son, GW has been doing this for all their kits since the early 90s. I don't know why this is news to anyone.

I'd argue it's become more blatant over the last few years, although maybe more so with 40K

Weren't the 40k Ork new releases Flash Gitz and the *Orkanaut, neither of which are considered all that amazing?

 streamdragon wrote:
Weren't the 40k Ork new releases Flash Gitz and the *Orkanaut, neither of which are considered all that amazing?

It is hit & miss. Sometimes the new units are gross (Centurions, Riptide), sometimes they are powerful but not totally op (Knights), sometimes they totally blow (Tau and Dark Angels flyers).

There is a trend though that very large 'flagship models' are usually very strong.

 Breotan wrote:

 Flashman wrote:
If there's a clear GW trend over the last 3 years, it's using the rules (or even lack of rules) to sell big plastic kits. They will want to keep ownership of the rules to maintain the link between rules and sales.

Son, GW has been doing this for all their kits since the early 90s. I don't know why this is news to anyone.

Yes, but it's accelerated massively over recent years. We've heard from a number of ex-GW guys (inc. Rick Priestly, and you don't get much bigger) that a reason they left was due to the sales team holding sway over the design guys.

I've no doubt at all that if the rules authors were allowed to create a better semblance of rule balance, improve the mechanics etc, they could do so. I have no doubt that the creative types within the company have got potential to create things that would raise the bar in the industry (as they did in the 90's in fact). But, the point is that in both of these cases they are shackled. If the 90's was an 'accountants nightmare' (as it's been described) of too many games, too many off-the-wall releases, then surely the last decade has swung back completely in the opposite direction.

Do you have a link to such Priestly quites? Not doubting you, but would be interested to read it.

The most famous quote

Rick Priestley wrote: Bryan always said that if the studio ever had to mix with the manufacturing and sales part of the business it would destroy the studio. And I have to say – he wasn’t wrong there! The modern studio isn’t a studio in the same way; it isn’t a collection of artists and creatives sharing ideas and driving each other on. It’s become the promotions department of a toy company – things move on!

From this interview..

http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/rick-priestley-interview-from-realms-of.html

 streamdragon wrote:
Weren't the 40k Ork new releases Flash Gitz and the *Orkanaut, neither of which are considered all that amazing?

Huh? The Flash Gitz models are pretty awesome and the changes in the rules made them better and cheaper to a point where they actually became a viable option and not a completely overcosted points dump.

As for the orkanaut? Well, it depends. I find it's design a little bit too boxy and too... i don't know? clean? friendly? chibbi? Forge's Megadread looks so much more rust-corroded, rag-tag welded-on ork-style assembly while this thing looks too pre-planned and too comical. Didn't look into the rules, as I never wanted one of these.

The discussion of whether GW tailor the rules for new models to make them sell better comes up frequently. I think the evidence points to GW just being bad at writing rules rather than intentionally doing it to sell models as there's lots of examples of new models having crappy rules as well.

I never understood people. You are not forced to buy the models you like them but think they are over priced way the pros cons and buy or don't. There is nothing to complain about since you not forced to do anything. If I sell rocks that keep away tigers and people buy them then good if not then thats my problem if you like the tiger rock get it if not don't and move on.

Clearly you don't understand people, as the discussion is not if people buy things or not, but whether GW tailor rules to encourage said behaviour.

I'm pretty sure we're all aware we're not obligated to buy anything, but I guess it never hurts to have someone bumbling around stating the blindingly obvious.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Clearly you don't understand people, as the discussion is not if people buy things or not, but whether GW tailor rules to encourage said behaviour.

I'm pretty sure we're all aware we're not obligated to buy anything, but I guess it never hurts to have someone bumbling around stating the blindingly obvious.

which is my point who cares you like them get them if not then don't who cares if you keep playing no love lost. GW makes rules they like and again your not obligated to buy them. So again a pointless topic, like them or not they are what they are.

OgreChubbs wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Clearly you don't understand people, as the discussion is not if people buy things or not, but whether GW tailor rules to encourage said behaviour.

I'm pretty sure we're all aware we're not obligated to buy anything, but I guess it never hurts to have someone bumbling around stating the blindingly obvious.

which is my point who cares you like them get them if not then don't who cares if you keep playing no love lost. GW makes rules they like and again your not obligated to buy them. So again a pointless topic, like them or not they are what they are.

I feel like you've still missed the point.

OgreChubbs wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Clearly you don't understand people, as the discussion is not if people buy things or not, but whether GW tailor rules to encourage said behaviour.

I'm pretty sure we're all aware we're not obligated to buy anything, but I guess it never hurts to have someone bumbling around stating the blindingly obvious.

which is my point who cares you like them get them if not then don't who cares if you keep playing no love lost. GW makes rules they like and again your not obligated to buy them. So again a pointless topic, like them or not they are what they are.

OUR point is that we liked the game and would like to see it done properly and not as an adjunct to selling toys.

It's clear you don't like GW games. At which point, I do have to ask why you're trolling on a forum DEDICATED to GW games. Perhaps YOUR time might be better spent on other forums rather than here complaining that we like GW games but don't like the direction they're going right now.

 Vulcan wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Clearly you don't understand people, as the discussion is not if people buy things or not, but whether GW tailor rules to encourage said behaviour.

I'm pretty sure we're all aware we're not obligated to buy anything, but I guess it never hurts to have someone bumbling around stating the blindingly obvious.

which is my point who cares you like them get them if not then don't who cares if you keep playing no love lost. GW makes rules they like and again your not obligated to buy them. So again a pointless topic, like them or not they are what they are.

OUR point is that we liked the game and would like to see it done properly and not as an adjunct to selling toys.

It's clear you don't like GW games. At which point, I do have to ask why you're trolling on a forum DEDICATED to GW games. Perhaps YOUR time might be better spent on other forums rather than here complaining that we like GW games but don't like the direction they're going right now.

To be fair I don't think that was his point at all...

OgreChubbs wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Clearly you don't understand people, as the discussion is not if people buy things or not, but whether GW tailor rules to encourage said behaviour.

I'm pretty sure we're all aware we're not obligated to buy anything, but I guess it never hurts to have someone bumbling around stating the blindingly obvious.

which is my point who cares you like them get them if not then don't who cares if you keep playing no love lost. GW makes rules they like and again your not obligated to buy them. So again a pointless topic, like them or not they are what they are.

You're terribly one note aren't you?

GW doesn't make "the rules they like" they make "rules that should sell and support the sale of models so they don't make no money and go out of business." At least, one assumes that's what they're trying to do on account of that's their business model.

So, to answer your question "who cares if we like them or not?"

It's GW!!

I love GW games and played them all even got the psp bloodbowl and the pc version right from shadow of the hornder rat. But there is no point in freaking out over change.They will change them if you like it or not buy them keep playing if you like them if not move on.

Think of it like all your other toys and friendships. You had a good time together and as you got older you grew apart you still have good memories of the past but thats all it is a past memorie. So if GW moving away from what you like be glad for the time you had and move on. btw there always retro gamers who you can play old games with.

 Vulcan wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Clearly you don't understand people, as the discussion is not if people buy things or not, but whether GW tailor rules to encourage said behaviour.

I'm pretty sure we're all aware we're not obligated to buy anything, but I guess it never hurts to have someone bumbling around stating the blindingly obvious.

which is my point who cares you like them get them if not then don't who cares if you keep playing no love lost. GW makes rules they like and again your not obligated to buy them. So again a pointless topic, like them or not they are what they are.

OUR point is that we liked the game and would like to see it done properly and not as an adjunct to selling toys.

It's clear you don't like GW games. At which point, I do have to ask why you're trolling on a forum DEDICATED to GW games. Perhaps YOUR time might be better spent on other forums rather than here complaining that we like GW games but don't like the direction they're going right now.

While I think he's needlessly aggressive and stubborn, the counterpoint isn't really that you don't want it as an adjunct to selling toys. It's always since the beginning been an adjunct to selling toys. The difference is that over the past few years that the drive to sell the toys has been increased significantly specifically at the expense of the game itself and the community (slowly but consistently) is responding.

I do not know if this is a store wide thing or just limited to my local GW (GW Coventry, England). But they have had a move around and Fantasy is now the first thing slap bang in your face when you walk in the shop. Previously it was new releases first with Fantasy stuck at the back. The new releases are now in the middle of the store whilst 40k is at the back.

Whether this is indicative of just trying to promote fantasy generally, or in preparation for the new game/starter set I do not know. Any other experiences like this?

That's pretty standard retail strategy, you place the things people buy most somewhere which means they have to walk past other items that you'd like to get more attention.

It could be indicative of a push on Fantasy, but is probably more likely the result of a competent manager or somebody at HO.

 Azreal13 wrote:
That's pretty standard retail strategy, you place the things people buy most somewhere which means they have to walk past other items that you'd like to get more attention.

It could be indicative of a push on Fantasy, but is probably more likely the result of a competent manager or somebody at HO.

I know it works for ordinary grocery stores, but for GW?
How many people walk in to the store and dont even know if they want to get a fantasy or 40k kit?
I dont know how the standard consumer do, but I rarely just throw in an extra fanatsy box just for the heck of it on my way to the register.
Besides, because GW even remove the least seling stuf from the stores, Id say this sales tactic is all but unknown to the company.

It costs GW essentially nothing, if it works once in 1000 sales, it's worth doing.

Ofcourse its worth doing ~ You have the ever popular 40k range, in particular the space marines. Theyre riiiight at the back, so that you must see everythign else on offer on your way to them. This will make more people aware of the other products and spark interest.

As Azreal13 said, once in 1000 times for this to work is worth it ~ unless it is so hard to find the popular items that no one even tries to look anymore.

Although GW are a bit special ~ the price point of their items does prohibit impulse buys for most people. The vast majority of their returning customers know what they want before they even went in, and likely ordered for instore collection. I'd bet most of their sales come from that now ~ since the stock is limited within the store, unless you want the shiny new thing theres no guarantee it will be instock unless you order it especially. While back in the 90's I often did go browse blister packs and pick whatever i fancied painting that week on a whim, GW dont have any items that really fall into that price range anymore.

 Fayric wrote:
How many people walk in to the store and dont even know if they want to get a fantasy or 40k kit?

There was a time when I would happily impulse buy a $10 blister or $20 armybook every week at the game store, just because I had picked up a few comics and why not? Of course that was a long time ago, given where the Dub's prices sit currently, and now my impulse money goes to Infinity / Malifaux

- Salvage

 Fayric wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
That's pretty standard retail strategy, you place the things people buy most somewhere which means they have to walk past other items that you'd like to get more attention.

It could be indicative of a push on Fantasy, but is probably more likely the result of a competent manager or somebody at HO.

I know it works for ordinary grocery stores, but for GW?
How many people walk in to the store and dont even know if they want to get a fantasy or 40k kit?
I dont know how the standard consumer do, but I rarely just throw in an extra fanatsy box just for the heck of it on my way to the register.
Besides, because GW even remove the least seling stuf from the stores, Id say this sales tactic is all but unknown to the company.

There are plenty of price-insensitive customers that just come in for something cool to paint, who could easily spot a fantasy box to buy that they'd never see if they only looked at the new stuff. Lots of GW stores already do this anyway.

The only downside to this approach is if the new stuff is so far back it puts people off.

Stores also switch stock around so, for people familiar to a shop & know what they want to buy, they still have to go searching for it when they change things around. That way you're more likely to impulse buy something rather then just pick up what you went in to the store to pick up in the 1st place.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/05/wfb-9th-roundup-the-trinity-of-warhammer.html

MarcusBeli translated a number of entries removed from the Pacific Ocean:
Basically, it says that it is a rumor, we did not believe it. More or less, a translation.

9th edition rules will not be the big leap was the passage of 7th-8th.
There will be 3 versions of warhammer. The era of Sigmar , recommended to play 500-1500 points and will be a skirmish style game. The era of steel , will be warhammer as we played the last five years. The end of time , magic and 50% to sack commanders and heroes (and know of undeath).
Power dice are based 2d6 (4d6 ET) to 2000 points and another die for every 1000 points, so that playing at 4000 points 4d6 winds of magic would throw (6d6 ET)
Many new spells, although all # 6 allow special salvations
New magical items. Some leave, new ones arrive.
The measure of 8th remain
Regeneration works like a hydra of war. Minis dead back with a single wound to 4+ (I think that carriers just won Warhammer)
Lances make impact hits
+1 Strength spears against mounted units
Always attack first change. Charging units obtained ASP against the charging unit.
Fear as now, but checks are ld -1, -2 terror is ld (battle standards remain unbalanced)
Lethal blow does 1d3 wounds
Death Strike continues heroic killing all
Characters riding monsters have combined profile (which I assume is because the guns were still yelling at them “10 um in the back!”)
Impassivity can be lost with a single row of 5 on the sidewall. Units can not be unmoved against anything that might make thunderous slam.
2d6 scenarios and a table of far greater land
The minis lose half its load roll away if they pass spot (I think it is a simplification of the rules of land 7th) but dangerous ground remains in effect (1s to hurt the minis that make checking)
Building new rules, although still look bad
Combat resolution – numerical superiority again
Table quadrants have also returns.




We’ll have to wait to see if the rumors are verified at the moment I do not excite me much !!!
Last and not least I have a friend in Nottingham who left rods with no man …. no, this is serious. I said my confidence shopkeeper had informed him from the official store of GW Valencia will have two weekends red coming week.
Recall that for the purposes of red GW week is the usual way to warn shopkeepers GW of which will have a weekend with many sales due to a special event such as the launch of a special product.
Thus dependent they not know what is coming but if they have to prepare for that something big is about to arrive. Well, so red are scheduled one week for the month of May and another for June.

better translation:

- the 9th edition rules aren't going to be the big jump that moving from 7th edition to 8th was.
- there are going to be 3 versions of Warhammer. The Age of Sigmar - recommended for point totals 500 to 1,500 and will be a skirmish style game. The Age of Steel - Warhammer as we all played it over the last 5 years. The End Times - magic heavy and 50% lords & heroes (and Lore of Undeath).
- power dice are now a base of 2D6 (4D6 for End Times) up to 2,000 points, add another power dice for every 1,000 points after that so fielding a 4,000 point army would roll 4D6 Winds of Magic or 6D6 in the End Times.
- lots of new spells though the #6 spells all allow Ward Saves
- new magic items. Some went away, some new ones arrived.
- 8th edition measuring still exists
- Regeneration now works like a War Hydra, dead models come back with a single wound on a 4+ (I think Plaguebearers just won Warhammer)
- Lances do impact his on the charge
- Spears are +1ST if they hold against "mounted units"
- ASF has changed. Units that charge get ASF vs the unit they charge.
- Fear as now but tests are at -1 leadership, Terror at -2 (BSBs are still OP)
- Killing Blow does D3 wounds
- Heroic Killing Blow still kills everything
- characters riding monsters have a merged profile (which I presume is why cannons are still going shout '10 from the back!'...)
- Steadfast can be lost with a single rank of 5 in the flank. Units cannot be Steadfast against anything that can Thunderstomp them
- 2D6 Scenarios and a much broader terrain chart
- models lose half their charge roll distance if they clip terrain (think of it as toned down 7th edition terrain rules) though dangerous terrain is still in effect (1s to wound for models that take dangerous terrain tests)
- new building rules though they still look bad
- combat resolution - outnumbering is back
- holding table quarters is back too

Pretty good.. Looks like a big rollback of the dumbest 8th ed changes to combat resolution (IE steadfast)

Well it sounds like the sky isn't falling after all. Will be interested to see the "Age of Sigmar" rules.

Color me impressed if those rumors are true. Splitting the system into multiple rules sets is precisely what I've said they should do for years.

A Skirmish rule set, good for getting into the game due to the low model count, a "normal" Rule set, large scale but streamlined for playability, and an "Unbound" Ruleset where everything is crazy.

Hope that turns out to be true.

Also, "Age of Sigmar" sounds like it takes place in the past, not the future. Does this mean all the Bubble dimension stuff was false?

That doesn't sound awful.

And so all armies aren't invalidated after all?

Bet GW are probably wondering why nobody is buying Fantasy at the moment.

Edit - And if the end bit of End Times hasn't happened yet, is that going to get retconned?

Sounds kind of meh really. I dont know if this will change the face of Fantasy like the end times had hyped everyone up for.

 Delicate Swarm wrote:
Also, "Age of Sigmar" sounds like it takes place in the past, not the future. Does this mean all the Bubble dimension stuff was false?

A bunch of generic human warriors backed by some dwarves and elves here and there seems like it could fit both the time of Sigmar as well as the bubblehammer. Maybe it's a case of crossed wires.

I do like the fact that that a flank manoeuvre might be meaningful again.

These rumors sound good.

All I want is some kind of assurance that the entire model range isn't going to be wound down so I can go back to pillaging it for Mordheim pieces

 Swastakowey wrote:
Sounds kind of meh really. I dont know if this will change the face of Fantasy like the end times had hyped everyone up for.

You say "hyped up for", a lot of us say "horrified at the prospect of".

At this point I don't know what to believe, because this sounds exactly like the only scenario people could think of in which people who despised the whole End Times nonsense could continue to enjoy the game, and more importantly the setting we liked(that being a Storm of Chaos-style climbdown by GW on the fluff side of things), which makes me suspicious this is just wishlisting from the Disgruntled faction. If true though; brilliant.

Curiouser and curiouser.

I wonder how negatively WHFB sales have been impacted by GW's insistence on not ever addressing possible upcoming changes. Is anyone noticing or are they just going to offset this by raising the prices of future kits?

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Sounds kind of meh really. I dont know if this will change the face of Fantasy like the end times had hyped everyone up for.

You say "hyped up for", a lot of us say "horrified at the prospect of".

At this point I don't know what to believe, because this sounds exactly like the only scenario people could think of in which people who despised the whole End Times nonsense could continue to enjoy the game, and more importantly the setting we liked(that being a Storm of Chaos-style climbdown by GW on the fluff side of things), which makes me suspicious this is just wishlisting from the Disgruntled faction. If true though; brilliant.

Hyped is probably the wrong word, I mean my Lizards are now in space...

But now we all know how it ends, simply rewinding it wont get rid of the fact I know where my lizards end up (in space... via flying pyramid). It will never be on the edge again. They should have at least improved the game or done something. Otherwise it was all a waste of time really.

Dont know, not excited by it so far. Just another edition with 40k game styles (kill team, normal and apocalypse with different names).

I dunno.. that rumour is very very.. wishlisty.

Hopefully GW will realise the impact their secrecy has on sales and open up a bit. OR maybe they leak this stuff on purpose in order to see what we say. Were they just testing the waters, and when we didn't like the new direction they changed the plan?

 Micky wrote:
I dunno.. that rumour is very very.. wishlisty.

Some of those rumors showed up prior to 8th. Suspect someone dusted off some old ideas, added some more and threw them into the breeze to be caught up. Too bad, like some of them. Steadfast needs some toning down, but not sure I like what they are proposing.

If they make a nice file out of it then Fantasy can get its own pancake edition just like 40k!

A skirmish style would be great.

But GW has one big problem on 28mm scale:
They just seem to be unable to understand that for a good skirmish game you need to activate per model or unit, not "i go, you go" for the whole army.

A game with fewer points does not make a skirmish game.
That will be just the same game for someone with less money and hopefully not enough information to know there might be better alternatives at skirmish scale.

Although Mordheim, Necromunda and IMO above all GorkaMorka were fun, they could have been good as well.

 Micky wrote:
I dunno.. that rumour is very very.. wishlisty.

That was my first thought as well. These rumours actually sound reasonably good (if they can pull it off).

It's been my opinion for years that both WHFB and 40k need a tiered system. With something saying "These rules are recommended for under 1000pts, these rules are recommended for under 2500pts and these rules are recommended for over 2500pts, though you and your opponent can decide which set of rules to use".

But.... I'm still not buying a damned thing until we see/hear something more and something concrete. GW need to be beaten over the head for leaving the community hanging after the end times.

These rumours are quite pleasant - though pausing the fluff clock is a touch dull, the rest sound like the sort of thing that would cause mild shakeups in the army building sphere without completely ruining the game. Though I think I'd be tempted to add something to make Fast Cavalry worse, if only to annoy Dark Elf players! Whether they are believable or not is hard to say. We lack an essential piece of the puzzle: GW's intentions and views for Fantasy. Do they want to build the game up with easier access? Strip it back to save costs? Or simply keep the Status Quo and see whether it is a cycle that they can move out of naturally? We don't know which (if any) of these options are correct, and I suspect that we won't until that red date whotsit in July. There are a lot of compelling (especially from a business point of view) arguments to strip the game back to those six factions we were all discussing earlier: it seems like the main people standing to lose from it are current players. But GW, who have the numbers, might feel that 16 Army Books + (potential) Supplements* is too valuable a revenue stream to lose. And so it goes.

Because of all this, it truly is hard to make any good judgement calls on a given set of rumours, until we start seeing photographs or other evidence beyond some translated snippets.

* Interesting thought experiment: does Fantasy lend itself to Supplements? Cult of Khaine is a logical one, but I think that many armies are already so niche that there doesn't seem to be much space to create alternatives within that niche.

 Delicate Swarm wrote:
Also, "Age of Sigmar" sounds like it takes place in the past, not the future. Does this mean all the Bubble dimension stuff was false?

This also has me super excited, though I'm not sure if this will be in the past or the future. Could go either way. Looking at the end of the Archaon book

If it is bouncing back to the past, I may end up spending a good amount of money. I thoroughly enjoy the Time of Legends books with Sigmar and it would be smart for them to mine that portion of the IP and actually put it into the game. If this is where the rumored 6 factions come from, I think it will be:

1. Early Empire
2. Orcs and Goblins
3. Warriors of Chaos
4. Beastmen
5. Dwarfs
6. Undead

That covers the main factions that Sigmar fought against/with in his novels, with the small exception of Skaven, which popped up in a few places but were never a focus.

I think I would prefer it goes back to the past, but it would make more sense for them to use the Skirmish game to lay the ground work for the future, especially if that is what will be focused upon with the most amount of model releases and everything.

Granted, I'm still taking this with a heaping amount of salt, because as others said this seems fairly wish-listy. But, if this is true, I'm really happy with where it is going and excited again for the future. I just wish GW was in front of this and was giving us a bit more of this information straight off, instead of killing their WHFB sales (no matter how meager they are) by holding things so close to the vest.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Charles Rampant wrote:
* Interesting thought experiment: does Fantasy lend itself to Supplements? Cult of Khaine is a logical one, but I think that many armies are already so niche that there doesn't seem to be much space to create alternatives within that niche.

It does if they do what was rumored at times and lump a bunch of the books together. For example, release an Elves army book that has rules for all Elves with core units and various special characters. Then, they go through and release supplements as needed, so your Dark Elves and Wood Elves. Then they could break it down more and do Cult of Slaanesh, Cult of Khaine. Same would be with Undead, then do a breakout with Tomb Kings and could do something with Vampire Counts and release a few more Vampire specific units (the von Carsteins).

If they grouped together humans, they could then release a supplement for Brets, and also a supplement for Cult of Sigmar which would include Flagellants and so on.

Not sure I would enjoy that and it would be quite a money grab, but it might open them up to expanding stuff a bit more for moving into future editions. And I'm not sure they will want to do that amount of expansion with WHFB as in 40K they are going crazy with the amount of new factions and supplements they are releasing.

1500 points army is a "skirmish" game ? Riiiiiight ....
I thought skirmish was about a dozen miniatures like mordheim/Necromunda.

I hope this " 1500pts skirmish" is not what was supposed to be the "warhammer skirmish" release we heard about.

ORicK wrote:
A skirmish style would be great.

But GW has one big problem on 28mm scale:
They just seem to be unable to understand that for a good skirmish game you need to activate per model or unit, not "i go, you go" for the whole army.

A game with fewer points does not make a skirmish game.
That will be just the same game for someone with less money and hopefully not enough information to know there might be better alternatives at skirmish scale.

Although Mordheim, Necromunda and IMO above all GorkaMorka were fun, they could have been good as well.

Ever played their "Regiments of Renown" rules set for Fantasy?

Because they do seem to understand the exact point you made, seeing as that's how RoR plays...

Humm dont think I trust these rumours, I mean we are a few months away and we know little to nothing about the new edition and now we have rulesets? Still waiting to see how it all unfolds...

GW should really spill the beans, as it stands no money from me.

So how does the 'game divided into three levels and ages' thing square with the older rumours about the new factions and models in bubble universes, for the new skirmish game? Doesn't sound like that'd easily mesh with the medium battles in the old, familiar warhammer world with old, familiar factions.

Oh also units will have unit cards with all of there stats on them for the launch. all of that will be available online for FREE while new army books are coming out.

be naysayers but add this to the other rumors I posted.

eflix29 wrote:
1500 points army is a "skirmish" game ? Riiiiiight ....
I thought skirmish was about a dozen miniatures like mordheim/Necromunda.

I hope this " 1500pts skirmish" is not what was supposed to be the "warhammer skirmish" release we heard about.

Haha yes, I was thinking this. We play 1250pts at my local GW and it definitely feels like a 'battle' with the numerous regiments and characters.

I think 600 points and under would be a good size for a skimirsh level. I'm not looking for 10 a side Mordheim, but instead 20-30 men including cavalry and a warmachine in the mix.

 namiel wrote:
Oh also units will have unit cards with all of there stats on them for the launch. all of that will be available online for FREE while new army books are coming out.

be naysayers but add this to the other rumors I posted.

 namiel wrote:
FREE

The time of nay saying is upon you.

HobbyBox wrote:
If this is where the rumored 6 factions come from, I think it will be:

1. Early Empire
2. Orcs and Goblins
3. Warriors of Chaos
4. Beastmen
5. Dwarfs
6. Undead

That covers the main factions that Sigmar fought against/with in his novels, with the small exception of Skaven, which popped up in a few places but were never a focus.

I can not imagine they are going to write out the skaven. Aren't they one of the most popular fantasy armies? And dropping Daemons of Chaos? And lizards? To keep Beastmen as a single army, when they have been so horrible for so long?

Nah

 namiel wrote:
Oh also units will have unit cards with all of there stats on them for the launch. all of that will be available online for FREE while new army books are coming out.

 namiel wrote:
all of that will be available online for FREE while new army books are coming out.

 namiel wrote:
online for FREE

 namiel wrote:
FREE

Now you've just crossed completely into fantasy land!

PhantomViper wrote:

Now you've just crossed completely into fantasy land!

I thought that blew up?

Earlier age skirmish makes a bit of sense, Mordhiem was after all set in the Empire's past.

I could see a fair self contained rule book with points costs for basic heroes/units plus weapons.

So basically 3rd edition.

 jonolikespie wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

Now you've just crossed completely into fantasy land!

I thought that blew up?

Precisely. That idea of stuff for free from GW is so out of touch with reality, no way it can even see the ground, let alone touch it.

If it is bouncing back to the past, I may end up spending a good amount of money. I thoroughly enjoy the Time of Legends books with Sigmar and it would be smart for them to mine that portion of the IP and actually put it into the game. If this is where the rumored 6 factions come from, I think it will be:

1. Early Empire
2. Orcs and Goblins
3. Warriors of Chaos
4. Beastmen
5. Dwarfs
6. Undead

Really enjoying Time of Legends novels

but would have thought it would be more like:

1.Tribes of Men - Empire and Bretonia
2, Dwarf Holds
3. Chaos - Daemons, Beastmen and Warriors
4. Orcs, Goblins and Ogres
5. Elven Kingdoms
6. Lands of the Dead - Khemri, Nagash and Vampires

Allies:

Chaos and Orcs,
Humans, Dwarves and Elves

Undead can ally either with either group (but not both in one army) as in the fluff.

Skaven and Lizardmen are the big missing parts here if restricted to 6 armies......

I don't think "Age of Sigmar" is going to be past Warhammer, it's got to be the world recreated by Sigmar/Asuryan.

 Ozymandias wrote:
I don't think "Age of Sigmar" is going to be past Warhammer, it's got to be the world recreated by Sigmar/Asuryan.

So that's our Bubblehammer then?

 Alpharius wrote:

 Ozymandias wrote:
I don't think "Age of Sigmar" is going to be past Warhammer, it's got to be the world recreated by Sigmar/Asuryan.

So that's our Bubblehammer then?

I think so. Araloth and friends will be "Coming out the pocket", so to speak, after Sigmar remakes things, or at least salvages the bubbles?

 Mr Morden wrote:

but would have thought it would be more like:

1.Tribes of Men - Empire and Bretonia
2, Dwarf Holds
3. Chaos - Daemons, Beastmen and Warriors
4. Orcs, Goblins and Ogres
5. Elven Kingdoms
6. Lands of the Dead - Khemri, Nagash and Vampires

Allies:

Chaos and Orcs,
Humans, Dwarves and Elves

Undead can ally either with either group (but not both in one army) as in the fluff.

Skaven and Lizardmen are the big missing parts here if restricted to 6 armies......

Dwarfs will likely be rolled in with the men, freeing up a slot for Skaven.

 Thunderfrog wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:

 Ozymandias wrote:
I don't think "Age of Sigmar" is going to be past Warhammer, it's got to be the world recreated by Sigmar/Asuryan.

So that's our Bubblehammer then?

I think so. Araloth and friends will be "Coming out the pocket", so to speak, after Sigmar remakes things, or at least salvages the bubbles?

I seem to recall Lileath getting upset because Chaos found - and destroyed - her little pocket dimension, along with everyone in it (including Araloth and their unnamed daughter).

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

I seem to recall Lileath getting upset because Chaos found - and destroyed - her little pocket dimension, along with everyone in it (including Araloth and their unnamed daughter).

Lileath was upset because they found out about the pocket dimension, but she lost the ability to sense the dimension, so she figured it was destroyed. IIRC, it was Bel'akor that overheard that. Instead of him passing that information back to the powers that be, he probably instead is going to crash the party and will lead his own incursion of Chaos there.

I can forsee this being where the Age of Sigmar exists. And, just because "Haven' is where the story occurs, doesn't necessarily mean it is going to be "Bubblehammer". It could just be a new setting similar to the Old World.

Skaven will be in there one way or another. Either mixed in with chaos (which would be terrible IMO), or as their own faction. Good chance Dwarfs are matched together with the humans, whether they are the Warriors of Light or whatever they decide to call them.

I actually have my own guess as to what they are going to do, but I'll post that on the other forum...

What 'other forum' would that be, and why are we to be denied your insights here on 'this forum'?!?

Those rumors sound more like the 40k pancake edition rumors where someone just corrected what was "wrong" with the rules (i.e. too good to be true).

 Alpharius wrote:
What 'other forum' would that be, and why are we to be denied your insights here on 'this forum'?!?

I didn't quite type that correctly. I created a new thread in the WHFB General Discussion area, as I didn't want to take this thread too off topic. It is there now:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/648584.page

More round bases stuff from Warhammer World (via Warseer)



Some square bases, but loose formations

Wonderwolf wrote:
More round bases stuff from Warhammer World (via Warseer)

Spoiler:

Some square bases, but loose formations

Spoiler:

Hmmm not sold on the loose formations in those photos. Looks a bit of a mess. I think loose formations works well with armies such as Wood Elves and Beastmen. With Empire, High Elves, Dwarfs the ordered approach to warfare is best shown in closed ranks of troops

That big table is all about display; those troops are placed in a way that looks impressive and interesting. I wouldn't try to read anything too much into it.

The round based Nurgle stuff, that is the real question. Har de har. They look good, though; round bases always look best for display models.

Mostly the loose formations would suck for actual gaming in larger battles like shown in those images. Hour long movement phases get boring rather fast.

Though I figure it's probably just for display purposes rather than a sign of what 9th will bring.

Lizardmen Via twitter

I'm inclined to agree that in both of these cases it's all about display purposes. People have been putting WHFB models on round bases for Golden Daemon for years.

But if this is for display only, why are the Skinks on square bases?

Wonderwolf wrote:
Lizardmen Via twitter

Spoiler:

Ok, those images concern me more than the loose formation square base ones shown previously.

See, stuff just looks better on round bases, and more spread out!

Seriously, though, round bases and 40-60 model a side 'full' games would have me diving back into Fantasy like a diving thing with an extra special reason to be diving!

Square bases, unit blocks and armies as big as they are now? Pass.

But I thought Lizards weren't even going to be part of 9th edition?

 Da Boss wrote:
But I thought Lizards weren't even going to be part of 9th edition?

Because one or two random rumours said so?

Wonderwolf wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
But I thought Lizards weren't even going to be part of 9th edition?

Because one or two random rumours said so?

Because SPPAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCEEEEE!!!!!!!!

...that aside, I'm not even sure what to make of those lizards being both round AND square bases. I'm sure we'll find out in a month or so.

 kodos wrote:
But if this is for display only, why are the Skinks on square bases?

Probably because the Skinks fit pretty well on their bases?

The Saurus are all mounted on the new 32mm round bases, the Bastiladon seems to be on the same base as the Onager Dunecrawler(which is a new base size itself), and the Saurus on Cold Ones seem to be on an entirely new base itself.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 kodos wrote:
The Saurus on Cold Ones seem to be on an entirely new base itself.

And even if everything else can be explained away, that pretty much confirms we'll be seeing round bases of some sort come summer.