Crimson wrote:

Chikout wrote:
Personally I wish they gone the song of Ice and fire route. I like the look of their movement trays.
It preserves the rank and flank feel of the game with fewer minis. If they offered trays with either square or round holes, then people could use whichever bases they preferred.

Yeah, that would be ideal.

I'd say it's debatable if such trays actually preserve a rank n' file feel.

I've seen countless people proposing using unit trays with holes as a easy solution of using round based models in a square besed game. But in actual practice, it really do not work very well. The problem is that round bases in general are larger. A model that was based on 20mm squares in WHFB are now supplied with 25mm rounds. (it's true that GW models produced around the 8th edition era, and some earlier then that, started to outgrow their bases and really needed bigger bases than were supplied, but that's a tale for a different time).

So in the unit footprint which accommodated 20 goblins on 20mm square bases, you can fit about 9-10 on round 25mm, depending on how tight the holes are placed together. So either you end up with units of satisfying number of models but a ginormous footprint. Or you get units that take up a reasonable amount of space, but consist of a pitiful number of troops.

The one scenario I think it looks good is when you have models designed for 25mm bases, put on 25mm rounds and then slotted into trays of extremely tightly cut holes. As these
It's a good way to make use of Chaos Deamons in both 40k and WHFB for example.

Put a group of goblins like these:

on 25mm rounds and plonk them into a movement tray like this:

and it'll look less than a rank and file units of messed ranks and more like a scirmish screen of sorts.

 Strg Alt wrote:

Luke82 wrote:
I still think it is a dicey prospect trying to accommodate the new round base sizes into the game, unless the fundamentals change massively. I can only imagine the main target audience are those still playing WHFB and not spending their doll hairs on new rule books and official models… saying to these people they need to rebase their armies so the AoS boys can play too is gonna be a risky opening gambit.

Those people are 40+. They will laugh at such a notion and turn their backs on this project the instant such a silly proposal is being made. I am honestly baffled that GW wants to revisit R&F now. It´s not going to be cheaper and the community has less disposable income than during WHFB´s golden years. It´s going to be a Dreadfleet disaster.

GW is an order of magnitude better run and another order of magnitude better at marketing it's products than it was when they killed WHFB. Hell one of Rountree's first jobs was trying to salvage something from the mess that was AOS 1e. I wouldn't be worried about this being a success. The only question is what large this project is going to be be.

it really depends what GW is going to do

if they manage to have the same issue with the core box as with Cursed City, it won't do well

at the same time, half of the people will be disappointed no matter what
as there are those that want the same game it once was, were something like fixed/maximum unit sizes or multi-bases are a no-go

while the other half want an update with more modern mechanics gameplay and all the stuff removed that they thought make it a bad game

 Eldarsif wrote:


My hot take is that they could still go the ASOIAF route and in a way keep the current round based miniatures relevant.

The best thing about ASOIAF is that the miniatures have round bases but the movement trays are square. They could easily do the same for Old World which means people could use the new Chaos Warriors and whatnot. Because personally I have a hard time imagining GW printing the old Chaos Warrior line while they have the new Chaos Warrior line. I can just imagine for a new player going into the store to buy Chaos Warrior and buying the wrong unit. At least with the HH marines they are practically firstborns in 40k and much more interchangeable..

They did that for War of the Ring, which was a Rank and File game using their Middle-Earth figures. Since the existing line used round bases, and they weren't discontinuing the SBG, they had to provide movement trays with round slots for players to put their figures into. So they're certainly aware of the idea.

Eumerin wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:


My hot take is that they could still go the ASOIAF route and in a way keep the current round based miniatures relevant.

The best thing about ASOIAF is that the miniatures have round bases but the movement trays are square. They could easily do the same for Old World which means people could use the new Chaos Warriors and whatnot. Because personally I have a hard time imagining GW printing the old Chaos Warrior line while they have the new Chaos Warrior line. I can just imagine for a new player going into the store to buy Chaos Warrior and buying the wrong unit. At least with the HH marines they are practically firstborns in 40k and much more interchangeable..

They did that for War of the Ring, which was a Rank and File game using their Middle-Earth figures. Since the existing line used round bases, and they weren't discontinuing the SBG, they had to provide movement trays with round slots for players to put their figures into. So they're certainly aware of the idea.

It’s a lot of effort to go to for there first issue to be the same one as when they killed off The old world Fantasy the first time.

It may be better for GW thinking players who like one game won’t want to play the other and keeping the lines more seperate, than trying to work it out for both.

Unless they plan on retracting a previous statement, they've publicly committed to using square bases.

They can however two two things:

Design a new square base movement tray that spaces the models out more (like the ASOIAF trays) so that you don't have to buy quite as many to have a full regiment.


And rerelease the war of the rings movement trays for people using round bases so they can be incorporated into the game as well.

Will they do either? Don't know. Probably not.

Tyel wrote:
I guess that raises the question of whether there should be degrading profiles. Because there's a clear gap between cannons killing characters & monsters, and just tickling them pointlessly.

I'd say 8th made it too easy to hit with cannons, but my friend played dwarfs in the early 2000s and he seemed able to hit stuff up across tables near perfectly.

No surprise. With all the tricks with hand(known length), known board sizes, deployment distances, known terrain size and basic trigonomy "guess" range weapons were just noob traps.

tneva82 wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I guess that raises the question of whether there should be degrading profiles. Because there's a clear gap between cannons killing characters & monsters, and just tickling them pointlessly.

I'd say 8th made it too easy to hit with cannons, but my friend played dwarfs in the early 2000s and he seemed able to hit stuff up across tables near perfectly.

No surprise. With all the tricks with hand(known length), known board sizes, deployment distances, known terrain size and basic trigonomy "guess" range weapons were just noob traps.

I really didn’t see people use any of those methods all that much with success, the people who could do distance I think is just a skill you pick up or don’t.
Plenty of new players new and old would just know, others would struggle even trying all the tricks.

It’s the same with Warmachine distance and measurements, it just wasn’t a issue for most of our players and even with the change. No one really ever bothered with pre measurements without issue.

40k was similar, the changed didn’t really make much effect.

I think it’s fine if they just let players place the first spot, and roll a dice for how far off the unit was, and then how far the cannon bounce.
Since I think it’s cool mechanic, that serves the game more than guessing ever did.
Two chance for it to be a dud shot would go a long way for cannons and similar units being rather random for there damage output.

I honestly doubt even half of boxes GW sells see their models assembled, not to mention painted or fielded. I would hazard a guess most of them are bought because they are expertly marketed, not because they are really desired/needed. They just end up on the pile of shame, alongside the sixth 40k starter box and 10th Kill Team team.

As such it is mostly irrelevant how the game plays. For GW it only matters how cool the new models will look and if they will make their customers go "Oooh! I need to buy this immediately whike the stocks last!".

 Strg Alt wrote:

Luke82 wrote:
I still think it is a dicey prospect trying to accommodate the new round base sizes into the game, unless the fundamentals change massively. I can only imagine the main target audience are those still playing WHFB and not spending their doll hairs on new rule books and official models… saying to these people they need to rebase their armies so the AoS boys can play too is gonna be a risky opening gambit.

Those people are 40+. They will laugh at such a notion and turn their backs on this project the instant such a silly proposal is being made. I am honestly baffled that GW wants to revisit R&F now. It´s not going to be cheaper and the community has less disposable income than during WHFB´s golden years. It´s going to be a Dreadfleet disaster.

Those same people repurchase their 40K armies on the regular simply because New Official Release, so I think they'd do the same for WFB.

Or, you know, use the opportunity to start a second/third/fourth army. I know I'm not the only lunatic in the hobby that intends to eventually own 1 of each race/faction in WFB and 40K.

In the context of movement trays: TBH honest I always really liked the ideas of unit fillers. You could have mini dioramas within your units.

Ofc there are easy and cheap ones (--> here... this rock counts as 4 units)... and there are narrative and fun ones (--> brawling orcs).

I think it would be lovely to have get vignettes to bolster your units... make them distinguishable... and more fun. And the old catalogue already had so many fun items. If only they made these accessible again...

So... in conclusion: I preferred the old movement trays even more, because they gave me the freedom to include stories within my units and my army...

 Just Tony wrote:
I know I'm not the only lunatic in the hobby that intends to eventually own 1 of each race/faction in WFB and 40K.

Hey fellow Lunatic! Personally, I'm only short Chaos Dwarfs and Ogres for my Square Base armies...

Anyway, the Old World will be using square bases so movement trays will be made for square bases.

GW already knows how to make movement trays for round bases. We saw what was that looking like with War of the Ring. We know for sure the Old World won't be that (mainly because War of the Ring was closer to Warmaster in terms of rule design).

Not Online!!! wrote:
why sigh, the new warriors look not nearly as iconic as the old ones, especially the shields.

I'm not sure I agree, but my mind's eye is placed in the cinematic for that video game ( forget it atm ) where the Empire / Warrior Priest were beset on all sides by Chaos Warriors and I feel like the AoS ones capture that more readily.

I get the appeal of the static poses though.

I think there's lots of things GW could do - but if they are essentially going for "9th edition that never was" and "here's stuff that we stopped printing a decade ago now shut up", they are rather more limited.

I mean the point about rank and file units with round bases taking up a bigger movement tray footprint... could be a good thing. You wouldn't need as many models to feel you are taking up space on the battlefield. I realise you leave gaps - look at any ASIOAF models - but I think it can work. It might look a bit silly with say goblins - but its arguably preferable to "yes, my Black Orcs can rank up, but only as long as every model takes its designated spot in the axe jigsaw".

Its much harder though if you are running the same models as in 8th edition.

Apple fox wrote:

Eumerin wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:


My hot take is that they could still go the ASOIAF route and in a way keep the current round based miniatures relevant.

The best thing about ASOIAF is that the miniatures have round bases but the movement trays are square. They could easily do the same for Old World which means people could use the new Chaos Warriors and whatnot. Because personally I have a hard time imagining GW printing the old Chaos Warrior line while they have the new Chaos Warrior line. I can just imagine for a new player going into the store to buy Chaos Warrior and buying the wrong unit. At least with the HH marines they are practically firstborns in 40k and much more interchangeable..

They did that for War of the Ring, which was a Rank and File game using their Middle-Earth figures. Since the existing line used round bases, and they weren't discontinuing the SBG, they had to provide movement trays with round slots for players to put their figures into. So they're certainly aware of the idea.

It’s a lot of effort to go to for there first issue to be the same one as when they killed off The old world Fantasy the first time.

It may be better for GW thinking players who like one game won’t want to play the other and keeping the lines more seperate, than trying to work it out for both.

Which means that quite a few boxes will have double the SKUs. Chaos Warriors? Two skus. Witch Elves? Two SKUs.

I mean, DoK has 3 units that would have to be doubled SKU'd for Old World. Quite a few in the Seraphon line. Ton of Chaos stuff. Almost all of FEC and Soulblight Gravelords. I guess they'll bring the expensive resin Blood Knights back. Then ton of kits in Gitz, Ogors, and Orruk lines.

I must admit that unless they find a way for the two lines to coexist this entire thing will be a logistical nightmare. There is no way existing models from existing AoS lines will be removed except maybe for CoS.which is already in a leftover state. Then if one game updates an existing unit, like Chaos Marauders, that then the other game has to wait a decade until they get their updated version.

Probably the easiest way is just to sell the boxes with round and square bases in the box. However, with how some of the models are evolving I can't really imagine many of the models staying within the old square base sizes. So I think what can be assumed is that the square base sizes are not going to retain their old WHFB days sizes. That we will see a much more variance in overall base sizes for units.

This would also mean that GW could scale unit sizes a bit back(larger infantry on larger square bases) and potentially avoid the old issue with WHFB where you had buy tons of boxes for 2 full units.

I am just really curious how GW aims to address all of these things.

Hah yea I remember numbering bases for the correct model order.

Whether they're on rounds or squares, I'm expecting they'll still have gaps between the bases ASOIAF/WotR style. GW loves it's dynamic, overly detailed, leaping and arms wide poses to go back to the days of tucked-in arms. Doubly so if they plan for any cross compatibility with AoS (although I doubt they will do much, if any, of this).

Wow, we are already back to rounds? What's next, Warmaster?

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
why sigh, the new warriors look not nearly as iconic as the old ones, especially the shields.

I'm not sure I agree, but my mind's eye is placed in the cinematic for that video game ( forget it atm ) where the Empire / Warrior Priest were beset on all sides by Chaos Warriors and I feel like the AoS ones capture that more readily.

I get the appeal of the static poses though.

Mark of Chaos. I have an obsolete computer solely so I can play it every so often...

Mark of Chaos you can also download and play from gog.com for those interested. I think some of the older warhammer games are on there too like Shadow of the horned rat.

tneva82 wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I guess that raises the question of whether there should be degrading profiles. Because there's a clear gap between cannons killing characters & monsters, and just tickling them pointlessly.

I'd say 8th made it too easy to hit with cannons, but my friend played dwarfs in the early 2000s and he seemed able to hit stuff up across tables near perfectly.

No surprise. With all the tricks with hand(known length), known board sizes, deployment distances, known terrain size and basic trigonomy "guess" range weapons were just noob traps.

As an Empire player, I honed my cannon skills and didn't have to do any of that crap. I even played in an environment where they forced me to actually aim the damn thing and sight down the barrel (despite the rules and writers' commentary stating otherwise). Monsters were easy points, and I still managed to kill more than my share of vampires...

Cyel wrote:
I honestly doubt even half of boxes GW sells see their models assembled, not to mention painted or fielded. I would hazard a guess most of them are bought because they are expertly marketed, not because they are really desired/needed. They just end up on the pile of shame, alongside the sixth 40k starter box and 10th Kill Team team.

As such it is mostly irrelevant how the game plays. For GW it only matters how cool the new models will look and if they will make their customers go "Oooh! I need to buy this immediately whike the stocks last!".

Less than half of what GW sells gets assembled?
That is ludicrous.
If you’d said 20% or so? Maybe.
But you’re saying around 60% of everything GW makes and sells, just sits in a box?

Having seen that TK and Bret artwork, I hope that they plan or releasing/supporting these armies right from the start!

But that would mean at a minimum a few core troops set with new sculpts for both. No way they could get away with the old Skeletons for the TK. That kit was already outdated when TK was released as an army (if not before), and the Horsemen and Chariot were designed to kinda match them so those too would need to go. Personally I have no real gripe with the horsemen or chariots in general, but they would look super ancient if re-released today (seeing all the cool dynamic horses they do now), but they were still much more serviceable than the troops that's for sure!

As an owner of a vast TK army, I won't be the main target for those release (at least model-wise), but I'd love to see them supported proper still. Old core troops were a big problem for a lot of armies in 8th edition, so they need to get those out to draw people in.

TK had a good batch of new plastic from their 8th edition launch (Tomb Guards, Sphinxes and Stalkers/Necro Knights), but Bretonnia had no 8th edition release, no "recent" models, very few units in plastic, and no 8th edition "upgrade" that could have added some life and new units to the army. They would need a bit more love here compared to the rest.

Danny76 wrote:

Cyel wrote:
I honestly doubt even half of boxes GW sells see their models assembled, not to mention painted or fielded. I would hazard a guess most of them are bought because they are expertly marketed, not because they are really desired/needed. They just end up on the pile of shame, alongside the sixth 40k starter box and 10th Kill Team team.

As such it is mostly irrelevant how the game plays. For GW it only matters how cool the new models will look and if they will make their customers go "Oooh! I need to buy this immediately whike the stocks last!".

Less than half of what GW sells gets assembled?
That is ludicrous.
If you’d said 20% or so? Maybe.
But you’re saying around 60% of everything GW makes and sells, just sits in a box?

That would be pretty ridiculous. Clearly 60% of everything GW makes and sells is kept in bins or large bags full of small bags full of bits.

I usef to run a wargaming school club for GW target audience - boys in their early teens. They together* outpurchased any adult players I'd known in my 30y history of playing miniature wargames but a vast majority of them limited themselves to buying some boxes, being excited about buying them for a short period of time, assembling some, painting even less, pretending to play an actual game with them and then putting them at the bottom of their closet never to look at them again.

So yes, I think the majority of GW sold items rests at the bottom of teenage boys' closets, still in sprues


*- that's to say that for all the adult "whales" I knew over the years I had ten+ such boys in the club every year

With the pile of shame thing and boxes being unbuilt that actually doesn't surprise me at all.
I have read similar about plastic kit collectors, some of those guys have collections just sat in storage where they could open a model shop to sell them all if they wanted to. Its not always intentional I don't think, and they probably intend to build them, but there wouldn't be enough hours left in their lifetime to do them even if they wanted to.

Bretonnians are in desperate need of new models to fill out the range, updates to the existing range (which is very outdated) and moving metal models over to plastic.

Cyel wrote:
I usef to run a wargaming school club for GW target audience - boys in their early teens. They together* outpurchased any adult players I'd known in my 30y history of playing miniature wargames but a vast majority of them limited themselves to buying some boxes, being excited about buying them for a short period of time, assembling some, painting even less, pretending to play an actual game with them and then putting them at the bottom of their closet never to look at them again.

So yes, I think the majority of GW sold items rests at the bottom of teenage boys' closets, still in sprues


*- that's to say that for all the adult "whales" I knew over the years I had ten+ such boys in the club every year

Equally I know several stories to the opposite fact.

I mean sure, unpainted models, we must be looking at half or so.
But most projects at least get started (which is the built part).

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I guess that raises the question of whether there should be degrading profiles. Because there's a clear gap between cannons killing characters & monsters, and just tickling them pointlessly.

I'd say 8th made it too easy to hit with cannons, but my friend played dwarfs in the early 2000s and he seemed able to hit stuff up across tables near perfectly.

No surprise. With all the tricks with hand(known length), known board sizes, deployment distances, known terrain size and basic trigonomy "guess" range weapons were just noob traps.

As an Empire player, I honed my cannon skills and didn't have to do any of that crap. I even played in an environment where they forced me to actually aim the damn thing and sight down the barrel (despite the rules and writers' commentary stating otherwise). Monsters were easy points, and I still managed to kill more than my share of vampires...

After having played WHFB I never understood why Buffy wouldn´t hunt vampires with cannon balls.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I guess that raises the question of whether there should be degrading profiles. Because there's a clear gap between cannons killing characters & monsters, and just tickling them pointlessly.

I'd say 8th made it too easy to hit with cannons, but my friend played dwarfs in the early 2000s and he seemed able to hit stuff up across tables near perfectly.

No surprise. With all the tricks with hand(known length), known board sizes, deployment distances, known terrain size and basic trigonomy "guess" range weapons were just noob traps.

As an Empire player, I honed my cannon skills and didn't have to do any of that crap. I even played in an environment where they forced me to actually aim the damn thing and sight down the barrel (despite the rules and writers' commentary stating otherwise). Monsters were easy points, and I still managed to kill more than my share of vampires...

Ah yes. You are obviously such a big thing that you not doing something obviously means nobody does. You are the ultimate proof of how things were played by 100% of player base. Yep yep. Totally believable.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I guess that raises the question of whether there should be degrading profiles. Because there's a clear gap between cannons killing characters & monsters, and just tickling them pointlessly.

I'd say 8th made it too easy to hit with cannons, but my friend played dwarfs in the early 2000s and he seemed able to hit stuff up across tables near perfectly.

No surprise. With all the tricks with hand(known length), known board sizes, deployment distances, known terrain size and basic trigonomy "guess" range weapons were just noob traps.

As an Empire player, I honed my cannon skills and didn't have to do any of that crap. I even played in an environment where they forced me to actually aim the damn thing and sight down the barrel (despite the rules and writers' commentary stating otherwise). Monsters were easy points, and I still managed to kill more than my share of vampires...

After having played WHFB I never understood why Buffy wouldn´t hunt vampires with cannon balls.

She used a rocket launcher on a demon in one episode but access to military grade hardware is not automatic for teenage girls......

I started a new thread on unbuilt models, we should probably take that discussion there.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/807339.page

I've probably got poor impulse control - but am usually not overly inspired by marketing hype.

My issue is that basically every 6 months for the past 5-7 years I've thought "time for a new army", buy 2-3 kits (or a start collecting box, get the unpopular half of the various army deals etc), paint up a unit, go "actually nah" and drop it. The sprues then end up in a pile.

Case in point - if they brought TK back, I'd be highly tempted to start a TK army because at some level I've always wanted one. But I suspect 10 skeletons in I'd be bored. The same goes for say Beastmen.

Tyel wrote:
I've probably got poor impulse control - but am usually not overly inspired by marketing hype.

My issue is that basically every 6 months for the past 5-7 years I've thought "time for a new army", buy 2-3 kits (or a start collecting box, get the unpopular half of the various army deals etc), paint up a unit, go "actually nah" and drop it. The sprues then end up in a pile.

Case in point - if they brought TK back, I'd be highly tempted to start a TK army because at some level I've always wanted one. But I suspect 10 skeletons in I'd be bored. The same goes for say Beastmen.

What has fixed that problem I too had, was Kill Team and Warhammer Underworlds.
Small snapshot into a faction without having to go in deep. Get to paint up cool different things and try new things in a safer manner

Danny76 wrote:
What has fixed that problem I too had, was Kill Team and Warhammer Underworlds.
Small snapshot into a faction without having to go in deep. Get to paint up cool different things and try new things in a safer manner

That's probably a sensible way to go about it.
I've sort of got an agreement with a friend to build & paint up a new(ish) 1k points army for a game after Christmas. Although whether either of us stick to that and just end up using our old stuff remains to be seen.

Tyel wrote:
I've probably got poor impulse control - but am usually not overly inspired by marketing hype.

My issue is that basically every 6 months for the past 5-7 years I've thought "time for a new army", buy 2-3 kits (or a start collecting box, get the unpopular half of the various army deals etc), paint up a unit, go "actually nah" and drop it. The sprues then end up in a pile.

Case in point - if they brought TK back, I'd be highly tempted to start a TK army because at some level I've always wanted one. But I suspect 10 skeletons in I'd be bored. The same goes for say Beastmen.

Contrast paints are a god send for something like skeletons.

Grail Seeker wrote:

Contrast paints are a god send for something like skeletons.

Not like they were hard to paint to begin with. A white base coat and a wash of everyones' favorite retired brown ink were how I painted the bulk of my TK army. Gave my skeletons a properly aged look, and was extremely simple.

Grail Seeker wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I've probably got poor impulse control - but am usually not overly inspired by marketing hype.

My issue is that basically every 6 months for the past 5-7 years I've thought "time for a new army", buy 2-3 kits (or a start collecting box, get the unpopular half of the various army deals etc), paint up a unit, go "actually nah" and drop it. The sprues then end up in a pile.

Case in point - if they brought TK back, I'd be highly tempted to start a TK army because at some level I've always wanted one. But I suspect 10 skeletons in I'd be bored. The same goes for say Beastmen.

Contrast paints are a god send for something like skeletons.

Skeletons are one of the most easiest minis to paint:

1) Undercoat.
2) Three colours of drybrushing.
3) Details like weapons & shields.
4) Done.

Before you can get bored the army has been painted by itself.

Spray them black. Grab neon-colored, fine tipped Sharpies. Start scribbling while watching TV. Dios de los Muertos army done.

tneva82 wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I guess that raises the question of whether there should be degrading profiles. Because there's a clear gap between cannons killing characters & monsters, and just tickling them pointlessly.

I'd say 8th made it too easy to hit with cannons, but my friend played dwarfs in the early 2000s and he seemed able to hit stuff up across tables near perfectly.

No surprise. With all the tricks with hand(known length), known board sizes, deployment distances, known terrain size and basic trigonomy "guess" range weapons were just noob traps.

As an Empire player, I honed my cannon skills and didn't have to do any of that crap. I even played in an environment where they forced me to actually aim the damn thing and sight down the barrel (despite the rules and writers' commentary stating otherwise). Monsters were easy points, and I still managed to kill more than my share of vampires...

Ah yes. You are obviously such a big thing that you not doing something obviously means nobody does. You are the ultimate proof of how things were played by 100% of player base. Yep yep. Totally believable.

Conversely, just because a few people do do a thing doesn't mean that everybody else does.

 Strg Alt wrote:

Grail Seeker wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I've probably got poor impulse control - but am usually not overly inspired by marketing hype.

My issue is that basically every 6 months for the past 5-7 years I've thought "time for a new army", buy 2-3 kits (or a start collecting box, get the unpopular half of the various army deals etc), paint up a unit, go "actually nah" and drop it. The sprues then end up in a pile.

Case in point - if they brought TK back, I'd be highly tempted to start a TK army because at some level I've always wanted one. But I suspect 10 skeletons in I'd be bored. The same goes for say Beastmen.

Contrast paints are a god send for something like skeletons.

Skeletons are one of the most easiest minis to paint:

1) Undercoat.
2) Three colours of drybrushing.
3) Details like weapons & shields.
4) Done.

Before you can get bored the army has been painted by itself.

I do mine in an even quicker way.

1) spray army painter skeleton bone.
2) paint details, weapon, shield, cloth, etc.
3) water down army painter soft tone liberally slapped on the model.

Got a whole load of the Warlord Skeletons, think I'll get all 90 of them done on next to no time.

 stonehorse wrote:


I do mine in an even quicker way.

1) spray army painter skeleton bone.
2) paint details, weapon, shield, cloth, etc.
3) water down army painter soft tone liberally slapped on the model.

Got a whole load of the Warlord Skeletons, think I'll get all 90 of them done on next to no time.

Basically how I did my 150 or so mix of 3rd and 4th/5th ed skeletons.

Out of interest is anyone choosing not to play one of the other existing R&F games available at the moment (ASOIAF, Kings of War, Conquest, Oathmark etc) because they are waiting to see what Old World brings?

Or do you already play one or more of those games and will get Old World also?

I just stick to One Page Rules fantasy for getting my existing models and dice moving on a table, not having anyone to play WFB 8th with. Should really give the rank and file version a crack someday...

I haven't touched my square based armies in ten years. I might dust them off when Old World hits the shelves but I am more likely to buy new armies instead.

 Pacific wrote:
Out of interest is anyone choosing not to play one of the other existing R&F games available at the moment (ASOIAF, Kings of War, Conquest, Oathmark etc) because they are waiting to see what Old World brings?

Or do you already play one or more of those games and will get Old World also?

I'm certainly not holding off on other R&F games as a result; my mountain of ASOIAF stuff being sat in boxes gathering dust is an entirely separate phenomenon.

 Pacific wrote:
Out of interest is anyone choosing not to play one of the other existing R&F games available at the moment (ASOIAF, Kings of War, Conquest, Oathmark etc) because they are waiting to see what Old World brings?

Or do you already play one or more of those games and will get Old World also?

I went back to 6th, and my brother is pretty hyped about Kings of War as well. If W:TOW sucks we will stick with one or both of those options.

This went up briefly before being removed.

I'd really like to see substantial info on this project. It's about time they give us something.

They've used that image before.

Kind of odd that they would post it and then pull it down as it specifically references an article that should be posted tomorrow (even going so far as to clarify they mean Wednesday).

Even odder that they would drop a big update about this tomorrow when the big livestreamed warhammer preview thing is on Friday.

That just seems like an error. That's the exact same image they used years ago.

"Everything comes round"

Round bases confirmed!

Shush you.

Honestly I'd be totally ok with round bases and movementtrays. IF anything its how a lot of people might end up running so that they can run in AoS and Old World; just like how people run 40K and 30K models in each system.


It also means that if one of the games falls behind the other significantly - GW can just blend the two into one. Say if Old World takes off like crazy they can muddle the timeline up and bring the AoS stuff over; or if Old World falls flat on its face they can effortlessly move it into AoS

 Overread wrote:
Honestly I'd be totally ok with round bases and movementtrays. IF anything its how a lot of people might end up running so that they can run in AoS and Old World; just like how people run 40K and 30K models in each system.


It also means that if one of the games falls behind the other significantly - GW can just blend the two into one. Say if Old World takes off like crazy they can muddle the timeline up and bring the AoS stuff over; or if Old World falls flat on its face they can effortlessly move it into AoS

Seems all very sensible

 Pacific wrote:
Out of interest is anyone choosing not to play one of the other existing R&F games available at the moment (ASOIAF, Kings of War, Conquest, Oathmark etc) because they are waiting to see what Old World brings?

Or do you already play one or more of those games and will get Old World also?

I never stopped playing 8th ed Fantasy. If I don't like Old World I'll keep playing. I have a slight interest in Kings of War, however I would split mantic boxes to build units as dioramas which sounded cool till I read the rule where they want at least 75% of the unit on the base.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
"Everything comes round"

Round bases confirmed!

They showed a square. If they bring round bases geeks will sue them for false advertising.

 Overread wrote:
Honestly I'd be totally ok with round bases and movementtrays. IF anything its how a lot of people might end up running so that they can run in AoS and Old World; just like how people run 40K and 30K models in each system.

Yeah, I really, really hope they do this. In fact my willingness to invest in this system fully depends on whether the models can do double duty with AoS.

 Crimson wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Honestly I'd be totally ok with round bases and movementtrays. IF anything its how a lot of people might end up running so that they can run in AoS and Old World; just like how people run 40K and 30K models in each system.

Yeah, I really, really hope they do this. In fact my willingness to invest in this system fully depends on whether the models can do double duty with AoS.

Even if they don't the basic infantry and cavalry models won't be too hard to put on rounds and then put on a movement tray with slots. The only difficult ones would be monsters and heroes on their own ,though I'm sure the market (esp 3d print) might rise to the challenge to make convertible bases

Problem is you can fit like 7 dudes on 32mms in the space that should have 20.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Problem is you can fit like 7 dudes on 32mms in the space that should have 20.

Well if we assume 20 is 5x4, that's 125mmx100mm, it would be a simple affair to fit at least 10 in. With a slight overage of 128mm wide one could run 4x3 with 32s.

I suppose players could always use a movement tray with cutouts and just say "ok that's actually 20 guys because that's the correct size rectangle for 4x5" but maybe that subtracts from the core experience of squares of tons of lil dudes I dunno

Thing is though, part of the aesthetic appeal of Fantasy is having a fully ranked up regiment. So I can't quite see that happening.

Well that could be the cost of "double dipping" your army between both systems.

 Olthannon wrote:
Thing is though, part of the aesthetic appeal of Fantasy is having a fully ranked up regiment. So I can't quite see that happening.

Yeah, I get that. Not sure if there is a "good way" for GW to officially support round and square both, not without compromises like "this regiment of 20 guys is way bigger footprint" or "this regiment of 20 guys has the same footprint but is actually 10 guys"

*GW advertising the return to square bases with a promo shot indicating as much*

Dakkadakka: "Let's debate how they're going to release this new game on round bases in movement trays because..."

I'd be perfectly okay with going back to Middlehammer's paradigm of most units being 5x3 or 4x4, with 5x4 representing a large unit, rather than like 8th Ed WHFB where 5x4 was standard and 8x5 death stars weren't uncommon. That makes round bases on movement trays substantially easier to work with.

A 4x4 unit on 25mm round bases has the same board footprint as a 5x5 unit on 20mm squares, just the sculpts are less bunched up. Which is probably a necessity anyways if they're going to use any modern minis, given how scale and poses have evolved.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:
*GW advertising the return to square bases with a promo shot indicating as much*

Dakkadakka: "Let's debate how they're going to release this new game on round bases in movement trays because..."

I wouldn't assume the marketing is that literal.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Problem is you can fit like 7 dudes on 32mms in the space that should have 20.

Well if we assume 20 is 5x4, that's 125mmx100mm, it would be a simple affair to fit at least 10 in. With a slight overage of 128mm wide one could run 4x3 with 32s.

Yeah, that'd look crap, having 10 dudes in some funky arrangement going up against 20 dudes ranked up in a traditional format.

The 4 wide wouldn't really work in practice, the movement tray would need some amount of space between models, say 1mm each side, then more than likely the movement tray would need edges, lets call it 5 to 10mm added to the total, that's still pretty tightly packed and 4 wide 32mm would end up being 140-145mm.

A Song of Ice and Fire works because the game is consistent, everything in the game is on big chunky bases so it doesn't stand out as much as if you put an ASOIAF regiment next to a WHFB regiment. If you do that, the ASOIAF regiment basically looks like a skirmish formation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:
*GW advertising the return to square bases with a promo shot indicating as much*

Dakkadakka: "Let's debate how they're going to release this new game on round bases in movement trays because..."

Meh, we're just wishlisting and discussing possibilities, not saying "tHiS iS hoW tHeY WilL dO iT!!!"

Also, there's precedence for games that have round bases... but make them square by putting them on movement trays. Do I think TOW will do that? Not really. Is it a possibility? Maybe. It's best to keep your mind open to possibilities, rather than trying to interpret everything in the narrowest way possible.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:
I'd be perfectly okay with going back to Middlehammer's paradigm of most units being 5x3 or 4x4, with 5x4 representing a large unit, rather than like 8th Ed WHFB where 5x4 was standard and 8x5 death stars weren't uncommon. That makes round bases on movement trays substantially easier to work with.

A 4x4 unit on 25mm round bases has the same board footprint as a 5x5 unit on 20mm squares, just the sculpts are less bunched up. Which is probably a necessity anyways if they're going to use any modern minis, given how scale and poses have evolved.

If GW could standardise regiment sizes, like KOW or ASOIAF, I think that could be a nice simplification.

But I don't love the idea of round bases formed into square regiments. I live with it in ASOIAF, but it's not what I think looks cool.

I'm still curious how they're going to deal with the issue of ranking up models, WHFB was already becoming stupidly hard to rank up models, I have fond memories of a friend pretty much quitting WHFB when he painted a unit of 30 models then realising afterwards he couldn't get them to rank up, with AOS models it's dialled that to 11.

No point in creating a game meant to bring back the feel of WFB and the Old World and then try to make it a bunch of other things instead too. Product designers definitely make stupid decisions, but that one is just a little too easy to avoid.

They're not worried about selling this to AoS players, if they want more models, they can just buy AoS models. Sorry guys.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I'm still curious how they're going to deal with the issue of ranking up models, WHFB was already becoming stupidly hard to rank up models, I have fond memories of a friend pretty much quitting WHFB when he painted a unit of 30 models then realising afterwards he couldn't get them to rank up, with AOS models it's dialled that to 11.

That's exactly part of why I suspect that if they're using any modern models, it'll pretty much have to be on round bases. Not only does the increased spacing give the sculpts more room to breathe, it also lets you rotate them as needed to make them fit.

If we're getting a totally new model range with zero overlap, then of course anything's possible.

(Also, there's no need to have any significant extra space in between the bases- if it's done like this, then the frontage pretty much is just base diameter multiplied by number of models. That gap can actually be zero if it's a single molded piece of plastic and not multiple layers of MDF.)

 catbarf wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I'm still curious how they're going to deal with the issue of ranking up models, WHFB was already becoming stupidly hard to rank up models, I have fond memories of a friend pretty much quitting WHFB when he painted a unit of 30 models then realising afterwards he couldn't get them to rank up, with AOS models it's dialled that to 11.

That's exactly part of why I suspect that if they're using any modern models, it'll pretty much have to be on round bases. Not only does the increased spacing give the sculpts more room to breathe, it also lets you rotate them as needed to make them fit.

If we're getting a totally new model range with zero overlap, then of course anything's possible.

Yeah, there's limited number of options. Maybe we get a new range that's similar in scale to the old WHFB range (which was already a tight fit), maybe they space out the models more, not sure what other options there is.

(Also, there's no need to have any significant extra space in between the bases- if it's done like this, then the frontage pretty much is just base diameter multiplied by number of models. That gap can actually be zero if it's a single molded piece of plastic and not multiple layers of MDF.)

That's true, I guess I was thinking in terms of most plastic movement trays I've seen that have some material between the bases and some material between the outermost base and the edge. They could do them very tight.

I do tend to think that because GW have shown images of old-style WHFB bases in their promotional/teaser material, the most probable outcome is we get that style of base rather than round-to-square movement trays.

 ph34r wrote:
I suppose players could always use a movement tray with cutouts and just say "ok that's actually 20 guys because that's the correct size rectangle for 4x5" but maybe that subtracts from the core experience of squares of tons of lil dudes I dunno

The movement tray should then be separatable. What happens with casualties and your 5x4 is now 2x5+3?

tneva82 wrote:

 ph34r wrote:
I suppose players could always use a movement tray with cutouts and just say "ok that's actually 20 guys because that's the correct size rectangle for 4x5" but maybe that subtracts from the core experience of squares of tons of lil dudes I dunno

The movement tray should then be separatable. What happens with casualties and your 5x4 is now 2x5+3?

I'd be surprised if GW try to do cross compatibility between WHFB square and AOS rounds, I think the most likely outcome is we just get square bases like they used to be, maybe different sizes than we used to have but probably nothing compatible with AOS (what used to be on a 20mm base will become 23mm or something silly like that, lol).

Except if GW upscales the base sizes, which they almost certainly will, it wouldn't make much sense to not match the round size brackets.

We're back to rounds again? Will Warmaster scale be next?

 Just Tony wrote:
We're back to rounds again? Will Warmaster scale be next?

It makes sense if you think about it, that way they can keep the round bases small enough to fit on traditional sized movement trays.

Square bases worked fine before the constant scale creep, computer sculpting should make it easier to rank them up. I know every model doing a monopose ballet dance is all the rage right now, but what's the point of doing WHFB if they aren't on tightly packed squares?

AoS models being incompatible with TOW is a selling point

 Just Tony wrote:
We're back to rounds again? Will Warmaster scale be next?

Clearly, the image in the teaser was of a “regiment base” which will hold the entire unit at the correct scale.

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:
*GW advertising the return to square bases with a promo shot indicating as much*

Dakkadakka: "Let's debate how they're going to release this new game on round bases in movement trays because..."

Because if GW don't the market will because many will want to use the same models in both AoS and Old World and might not want to have to collect the same army twice to put them on different bases.


How many want to do that is hard to say, it depends on how well Old World picks up on its own and how well AoS maintains itself. Old World is a very bold move by GW because they are literally competing with themselves with the same scale and fantasy setting system in their own library.

 His Master's Voice wrote:
Except if GW upscales the base sizes, which they almost certainly will, it wouldn't make much sense to not match the round size brackets.

Old FB models would look REALLY weird on 32mm squares though...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
We're back to rounds again? Will Warmaster scale be next?

It makes sense if you think about it, that way they can keep the round bases small enough to fit on traditional sized movement trays.

Then they wouldn't have AOS cross-compatibility and whole point goes moot. Why not just have squares?

 Just Tony wrote:
We're back to rounds again? Will Warmaster scale be next?

I'm expecting oval bases myself. There's no way the game is going to use rounds or squares.

Hexagons are bestagons! Models will be set up three per one large hexagonal base, set up so they rank up when interleaved correctly.

Even if they wanted to copy Asoiaf I don't see how they could fit AoS on movement trays without having a ridiculous frontage and spacing between the models. They're too big and overly dynamic.

Square bases are one of the things we actually know for definite about this game, are we really going to have discussions about round bases and movement trays and stuff every time there’s any news?

Definitely square! Warhammer: The Old World is a reinvention of the classic rank-and-file game of Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Regiments move in ranked-up units, and strategic manoeuvring into position to launch or receive a critical charge will be as much a key part of the game as it ever was.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/07/21/square-bases-and-kislev-ascendant-see-your-questions-about-warhammer-the-old-world-answered/

 ImAGeek wrote:
Square bases are one of the things we actually know for definite about this game, are we really going to have discussions about round bases and movement trays and stuff every time there’s any news?

Definitely square! Warhammer: The Old World is a reinvention of the classic rank-and-file game of Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Regiments move in ranked-up units, and strategic manoeuvring into position to launch or receive a critical charge will be as much a key part of the game as it ever was.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/07/21/square-bases-and-kislev-ascendant-see-your-questions-about-warhammer-the-old-world-answered/

Yes. It’s part of the Cycle. First there’s the irrational disbelief it’s even happening, then there’s the base discussions, then is either the scale issue or the List of Reasons why {Your Faction} Will Never Come Back.

tneva82 wrote:


Old FB models would look REALLY weird on 32mm squares though...

Sure they would, but new WFB models would look pretty okay on those. In fact, the old WFB clanrats currently come with 25mm rounds. Putting them on 25mm squares for the new game wouldn't change much, but would allow people with AoS stuff to instantly and fairly painlessly convert it to WFB use. Especially since it would allow GW to produce a range of supplementary products that cater to both square and round based regiments.

I imagine all TWO kits will come with upscaled square bases that match the corresponding rounds to broaden the early adoption population.

Except it stuffs everyone who ever used any 20mm models in WFB... Will be interesting how GW play the base size game given the 25 round vs 20 square difference...

 Overread wrote:

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:
*GW advertising the return to square bases with a promo shot indicating as much*

Dakkadakka: "Let's debate how they're going to release this new game on round bases in movement trays because..."

Because if GW don't the market will because many will want to use the same models in both AoS and Old World and might not want to have to collect the same army twice to put them on different bases.


How many want to do that is hard to say, it depends on how well Old World picks up on its own and how well AoS maintains itself. Old World is a very bold move by GW because they are literally competing with themselves with the same scale and fantasy setting system in their own library.

"Don't the market"? What does that even mean?!!??!?!?



The problem is that AOS players are now petrified that this release will cannibalize their playerbase and are in full cope and seethe mode over it. The prevailing theory is that AOS being the only game in town (heh, perfect opportunity for that idiom) in a GW sense keeps WFB players in their playerbase. This is why they gak on any progress that this game might be making developmentwise, doomsay any press releases, and constantly feed debunked fan theories back into the mix on the regular to chatter the feth out of any press releases. Notice that those tactics move the actual news posts down about five pages. This isn't a bug, it's a feature.

Cope and seethe? Are you on 4chan or something? Calm down child, it's a game of toy soldiers. Very few in the AoS crowd gives a rats ass about ToW. It's a totally different demographic now. They're not all going to jump ship because an old game is coming back, and I'm sure vice versa. Despite GW would love that everybody has armies for everything they make I'm sure.

 Just Tony wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:
*GW advertising the return to square bases with a promo shot indicating as much*

Dakkadakka: "Let's debate how they're going to release this new game on round bases in movement trays because..."

Because if GW don't the market will because many will want to use the same models in both AoS and Old World and might not want to have to collect the same army twice to put them on different bases.


How many want to do that is hard to say, it depends on how well Old World picks up on its own and how well AoS maintains itself. Old World is a very bold move by GW because they are literally competing with themselves with the same scale and fantasy setting system in their own library.

"Don't the market"? What does that even mean?!!??!?!?


The problem is that AOS players are now petrified that this release will cannibalize their playerbase and are in full cope and seethe mode over it. The prevailing theory is that AOS being the only game in town (heh, perfect opportunity for that idiom) in a GW sense keeps WFB players in their playerbase. This is why they gak on any progress that this game might be making developmentwise, doomsay any press releases, and constantly feed debunked fan theories back into the mix on the regular to chatter the feth out of any press releases. Notice that those tactics move the actual news posts down about five pages. This isn't a bug, it's a feature.

Ok....
I said it both ways that Old World could out-compete AoS and that AoS could out-compete Old World. Heck I've earlier noted that if one game really did fall flat on its face chances are GW could simply roll the models into the other game without much work.
Furthermore the market is the customers - if GW doesn't provide ways to cross play the armies then people will come up with their own methods. Just the same as how they came up with methods to run Demons in both 40K and Old World back in the day.

All these base ideas make perfect sense, if we assume that GW is trying to tantalise AoS players into the Old World for some reason. I don’t see why, as they would then be cannibalising their own sales… would an AoS fan suddenly up their hobby spend to play both? Probs not.

It would seem like the sensible bet is that GW is after the cash of those that have slipped out of their bubble, the guys still happily playing older WHFB or migrated to Kings of War or something like that. Suddenly invalidating large swathes of these people’s current armies by some large scale basing change is a risky move, given that these people have already proved resistant to rebasing to play the new hotness.

The thing said "comes round again".

Therefore boomerang bases.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The thing said "comes round again".

Therefore boomerang bases.

Seems irrefutable to me

Luke82 wrote:
All these base ideas make perfect sense, if we assume that GW is trying to tantalise AoS players into the Old World for some reason. I don’t see why, as they would then be cannibalising their own sales… would an AoS fan suddenly up their hobby spend to play both? Probs not.

It would seem like the sensible bet is that GW is after the cash of those that have slipped out of their bubble, the guys still happily playing older WHFB or migrated to Kings of War or something like that. Suddenly invalidating large swathes of these people’s current armies by some large scale basing change is a risky move, given that these people have already proved resistant to rebasing to play the new hotness.

I mostly agree, while I could see the merit in some of these ideas, I doubt GW are going to try and accommodate peoples' AoS collections. However I think there's a good chance they do go for square bases but also change the base size slightly.

 RustyNumber wrote:
Except it stuffs everyone who ever used any 20mm models in WFB... Will be interesting how GW play the base size game given the 25 round vs 20 square difference...

By the end of WFB's lifespan, most infantry base sizes were inadequate for the models they were supposed to support. Trying to place 2022 GW models on them would upgrade the situation to woeful inadequate.

Hell, I remember the old, one piece plastics and how well those could fit on ranked up bases. 45 degree Clanrats, anyone?

Luke82 wrote:
It would seem like the sensible bet is that GW is after the cash of those that have slipped out of their bubble, the guys still happily playing older WHFB or migrated to Kings of War or something like that. Suddenly invalidating large swathes of these people’s current armies by some large scale basing change is a risky move, given that these people have already proved resistant to rebasing to play the new hotness.

I suspect people vastly overestimate how much GW is banking on the old guard to carry the product. They already chose to not be a GW customer once, with a certain amount of vehemence in many cases. Getting some of them back would be nice, but I assume GW has bigger market expectations than a fraction of the current WFB and KoW playerbase.

Yeah, I have a hard time believing that GW is still going to use 20mm bases. It's not even about height, but GW's models tend to be pretty beefy as well. Even skinny humans like Traitor Guard would be very packed on a 20mm and might have some of their gear get in the way of each other. Dwarfs got wide, too.

May be worth remembering that Blood Bowl models prior to the resurrection of Specialist games were on 25mm bases with pitches to match, and GW didn't hesitate to go up to 32mm bases and just sold new pitches that fit the embiggened models. I could see Old World go the same. Technically you'd still be able to use your old 20mm based collection by spacing them out on a regimental base, if you're not bothered by how that looks. That may be as much of a comprise as we can expect from GW, since they said they want people to be able to use their old armies. Technically viable, but not in such a way that it fetters new model design.

Well GW also said previous models would be usable.

So unless they are going to use 25/32 square bases for even old models...

And GW hasn't ever actually required or expected regimental bases and it doesn't work that well neccessarily as you needed to know exact spot specific models were.

GW always says earlier models can be used. And with movement trays it doesn't always matter how big your base is, so long as the movement tray itself is the right dimensions and can track health of the unit well. In the end with movement tray games the models are purely there as an ID And health marker. The game doesn't rely on real line of sight (in the same way skirmish games do) and the movement is as a single block.

The only debate is on how many models you can or cannot rank up for the visual aspect and for the ease of tracking wounds

All the models that came from WHFB are one thing, most barely fit in their old bases. Good luck getting the models made for AoS to fit anywhere in a square formation, movement trays would have to be huge.

Old orcs are difficult enough to rank up. Even going from the old Empire plastics to the 7th(?) edition ones is a tough task. New Chaos/Vampires? no chance.

WHFB fans are adept at ranking up new stuff on old base standards… just check the FB pages anytime anything that fits in the Old World is released and you can see folks ranking them up, new chaos and vamps included.

I’ve even got Stormcast happily ranked up on 25s, they make great bases for Slaanesh warriors.

Luke82 wrote:
WHFB fans are adept at ranking up new stuff on old base standards… just check the FB pages anytime anything that fits in the Old World is released and you can see folks ranking them up, new chaos and vamps included.

I’ve even got Stormcast happily ranked up on 25s, they make great bases for Slaanesh warriors.

Anything I've seen requires turning the models in odd directions, everything looks awkward and bad, doesn't fit at all, unless you have pictures to show?

Goose LeChance wrote:
New Chaos/Vampires? no chance.

People who play WHFB are a masterwork of patience at getting units to rank up and proving people wrong about AoS models and square bases.







You may have a point regarding the new Chosen(they're BIG), but for the majority of the line, someone's figured it out with patience.

It's often not hard to get the models in a line, but once you hit the 2nd rank, and even if you do manage to get them lined up you need to number the bases because you'll never get them to line up again if you forget the order.

Which has been a thing for decades. That's part and parcel to playing the game.

 Platuan4th wrote:
Which has been a thing for decades. That's part and parcel to playing the game.

Still fecking annoying and a point many people hate, lol. When I started WHFB all my armies ranked up reasonably well (maybe not everything did across the range, I dunno, but my armies did).

 Platuan4th wrote:

Goose LeChance wrote:
New Chaos/Vampires? no chance.

People who play WHFB are a masterwork of patience at getting units to rank up and proving people wrong about AoS models and square bases.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

You may have a point regarding the new Chosen(they're BIG), but for the majority of the line, someone's figured it out with patience.

As much as i am impressed by your puzzle solving with the ranking, foot overhang with the ogor triggers me on a base level.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

Goose LeChance wrote:
New Chaos/Vampires? no chance.

People who play WHFB are a masterwork of patience at getting units to rank up and proving people wrong about AoS models and square bases.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

You may have a point regarding the new Chosen(they're BIG), but for the majority of the line, someone's figured it out with patience.

As much as i am impressed by your puzzle solving with the ranking, foot overhang with the ogor triggers me on a base level.

*Ogre

 Overread wrote:
GW always says earlier models can be used. And with movement trays it doesn't always matter how big your base is, so long as the movement tray itself is the right dimensions and can track health of the unit well. In the end with movement tray games the models are purely there as an ID And health marker. The game doesn't rely on real line of sight (in the same way skirmish games do) and the movement is as a single block.

The only debate is on how many models you can or cannot rank up for the visual aspect and for the ease of tracking wounds

Well. You would need mark edges of spefific models...

You don't think trays are going to face off each other face to face center point to center point? Players will aim to have no more models in combat than neccessary. If corner to corner isn't allowed then.

XXXXXX
--YYYY--

Where YYYY's don't overlap even 1mm left or right...

tneva82 wrote:

You don't think trays are going to face off each other face to face center point to center point? Players will aim to have no more models in combat than neccessary. If corner to corner isn't allowed then.

I'd be very surprised if TOW doesn't have a rule requiring maximization of frontage contact considering it's been in the game since 6th ed.

Luke82 wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

Goose LeChance wrote:
New Chaos/Vampires? no chance.

People who play WHFB are a masterwork of patience at getting units to rank up and proving people wrong about AoS models and square bases.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

You may have a point regarding the new Chosen(they're BIG), but for the majority of the line, someone's figured it out with patience.

As much as i am impressed by your puzzle solving with the ranking, foot overhang with the ogor triggers me on a base level.

*Ogre

I know what i said.

Ranking puzzle is something I don't miss. It was pain with models that were designed to rank up, it would be a nightmare with the current models. Increasing the base sizes to match their round equivalents would alleviate the issue and make the game playable with either base shape.

Base size increase is possible, they already pushed it to the limit long before AoS.

It still won't make the giant AoS models fit in a square tray without heavy conversion work, unless the space between each model is large enough to fit the action poses. AoS models weren't designed to rank up... It's going to look bad.

Ranking puzzle can be avoided with round bases + movement trays. I've switched my Skaven to that system and never looked back since.

I'm with BertBert on this; my Plaguebearers are so much easier to do work with on round bases in a movement tray designed to hold rounds.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:
Which has been a thing for decades. That's part and parcel to playing the game.

Still fecking annoying and a point many people hate, lol. When I started WHFB all my armies ranked up reasonably well (maybe not everything did across the range, I dunno, but my armies did).

You haven't played Chaos and built chaos knights if you can state this with a straight face.... same with barbarians for that matter.


Sincerly someone that recently built 10 chaos knights and an lord and banner bearer based upon chaos knight kit.



Ironically the blood warriors fit perfectly on bases for reasons i only can assume as them being initially planed for squares.

Personally i wouldn't be mad if GW would give us a bit bigger base sizes for cav.

 Overread wrote:
Because if GW don't the market will because many will want to use the same models in both AoS and Old World and might not want to have to collect the same army twice to put them on different bases.

GW want you to buy their models twice. Why would they make things easier for you?

If you want to go out and make a movement tray to fit round bases into a square formation, I'm sure they'd happy for you to try.

 Overread wrote:
Old World is a very bold move by GW because they are literally competing with themselves with the same scale and fantasy setting system in their own library.

They wouldn't really be competing products though. Based on what we know, the old world is going back to some amalgam of the previous game's rules. AoS is fundamentally a different game in every capacity from WFB of old. The setting isn't really comparable either. AoS is a much "higher" fantasy game than WFB was. The only similarity is they're both "fantasy."

 Platuan4th wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

You don't think trays are going to face off each other face to face center point to center point? Players will aim to have no more models in combat than neccessary. If corner to corner isn't allowed then.

I'd be very surprised if TOW doesn't have a rule requiring maximization of frontage contact considering it's been in the game since 6th ed.

You can maximize yourself without maximizing opponents. That was usual through 2000's.

Center to center maximize both required in 8e to give magical infinite movement once you touch with charge move.

Shifted and amended all to round bases and AoS, not going back to squares ever again!

At this point this would be trolling x2.

Been a bit cold with the old world news I just moved away from all that years ago with the implosion. Bit cheeky to even suggest its back.

 Overread wrote:
GW always says earlier models can be used. And with movement trays it doesn't always matter how big your base is, so long as the movement tray itself is the right dimensions and can track health of the unit well. In the end with movement tray games the models are purely there as an ID And health marker. The game doesn't rely on real line of sight (in the same way skirmish games do) and the movement is as a single block.

The only debate is on how many models you can or cannot rank up for the visual aspect and for the ease of tracking wounds

Which would be turning the model removal aspect of WHFB and turning into a game of KoW. Something the WHFB players are always eager to call laughable.
Also, if the newer models don't rank up on their 20mm/25mmn squares, isn't that just pointing towards proof of scale creep?

When it's finally released, I can see the initial box set being like the new HH one. Two sets of opposing identical human models, and you can pick a huge selection of colour schemes to say where they're from.

Not Online!!! wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:
Which has been a thing for decades. That's part and parcel to playing the game.

Still fecking annoying and a point many people hate, lol. When I started WHFB all my armies ranked up reasonably well (maybe not everything did across the range, I dunno, but my armies did).

You haven't played Chaos and built chaos knights if you can state this with a straight face.... same with barbarians for that matter.


Sincerly someone that recently built 10 chaos knights and an lord and banner bearer based upon chaos knight kit.



Ironically the blood warriors fit perfectly on bases for reasons i only can assume as them being initially planed for squares.

Personally i wouldn't be mad if GW would give us a bit bigger base sizes for cav.

Well, I started back in 5th edition, I have no idea if Chaos knights ranked up in 5th edition, I seem to recall they were so expensive that people wouldn't usually take more than 1 rank of them anyway

But yeah, I didn't collect Chaos, the armies I did collect back then ranked up fine.

So that thing yesterday turned out to be nothing?

What thing? I’ve missed something, haven’t I?

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:What thing? I’ve missed something, haven’t I?

Eiríkr wrote:
This went up briefly before being removed.

Eirikr's post a couple of pages back in this thread..

EDIT : gah, ninja'd by Tim the Biovore

Maybe its for next wednesday

It's the exact same image and text that was used for the initial announcement in 2019.

I think it was a mischeduled post that they quickly removed because it wasn't supposed to be posted.

I also think it was mistake. As in the last round of news they told us not to expect anything more until the new year.

 Rihgu wrote:
It's the exact same image and text that was used for the initial announcement in 2019.

I think it was a mischeduled post that they quickly removed because it wasn't supposed to be posted.

The date of the original announcement was the 15th November 2019 though, which was a Friday, not a Wednesday.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 Rihgu wrote:
It's the exact same image and text that was used for the initial announcement in 2019.

I think it was a mischeduled post that they quickly removed because it wasn't supposed to be posted.

The date of the original announcement was the 15th November 2019 though, which was a Friday, not a Wednesday.

You're right, looking at the initial announcement the text is identical except for the parenthetical.

It could have still been a mischeduled post. If they initially set it to post on the 15th of November (2022) without noticing it was 2022, they'd see that the next day was Wednesday. If they then realized, oh, that was scheduled for the wrong year, never cancelled the original post, and made a new one for the correct year (2019) they would change it to the Friday as the calendar would show that to be the next day.

 NAVARRO wrote:
Shifted and amended all to round bases and AoS, not going back to squares ever again!

At this point this would be trolling x2.

Been a bit cold with the old world news I just moved away from all that years ago with the implosion. Bit cheeky to even suggest its back.

The funny thing is that you didn't need to, AOS can be played on Square bases with no problems

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:
GW want you to buy their models twice. Why would they make things easier for you?

Because people more or less won't. They'll pick AoS or TOW and stick with one system. The same people who would play both if their minis could be used in both--something that expands the community for both games, and community sells miniatures. The minority of people who are willing to buy full armies for both systems? They will do it either way.

If you want to go out and make a movement tray to fit round bases into a square formation, I'm sure they'd happy for you to try.

I'd rather buy one of the wide range of products that have been available for years to do exactly that, personally.

And don't discount those who would somehow make their bases modular.

You can just play AOS and leave WHFB players alone

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:
*GW advertising the return to square bases with a promo shot indicating as much*

Dakkadakka: "Let's debate how they're going to release this new game on round bases in movement trays because..."

Regardless of what GW does there will be some 3rd party trays suitable for rounds because there's lots of folks who converted theirs or want to use AoS figures.

NinthMusketeer wrote:

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:
GW want you to buy their models twice. Why would they make things easier for you?

Because people more or less won't. They'll pick AoS or TOW and stick with one system. The same people who would play both if their minis could be used in both--something that expands the community for both games, and community sells miniatures. The minority of people who are willing to buy full armies for both systems? They will do it either way.

If you want to go out and make a movement tray to fit round bases into a square formation, I'm sure they'd happy for you to try.

I'd rather buy one of the wide range of products that have been available for years to do exactly that, personally.

Just like all those people who didn't start playing 40K when it was introduced.


Oh, wait...




Maybe, JUST maybe, people will potentially play both. And those that won't wouldn't have played those games anyway, so what's lost? NOW people who wanted M:TG x 40K with bows get it, and those that want brick on brick action will get what they want. Why is it so important for some to gak on the other?


Rhetorical question, one I answered earlier...

Goose LeChance wrote:You can just play AOS and leave WHFB players alone

Absolutely fething exalted.

ok, what is the chance that GW is still having nothing to show off but just re-posting the same picture once in a while by "accident" to keep people talking and waiting (aka the hypetrain going)?

are we going to see anything real in 2023 at all or just some random stuff in the blog with writing "soon" and nothing else for the next 3 years?

 Just Tony wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:
Shifted and amended all to round bases and AoS, not going back to squares ever again!

At this point this would be trolling x2.

Been a bit cold with the old world news I just moved away from all that years ago with the implosion. Bit cheeky to even suggest its back.

The funny thing is that you didn't need to, AOS can be played on Square bases with no problems

The OCD in me could not have a mix of squares and round bases on the table.
It's too late for me I guess.
The good thing about infantry blocks is that you could actually model some mini dioramas inside the blocks and the army actually looked more like a proper army rather than a large skirmish/group of independent minis as AOS does.

Maybe the most reasonable approach on how this will turn out is asking us: how would Homer Simpson release WHtoW if he was in charge?

 Overread wrote:
GW always says earlier models can be used. And with movement trays it doesn't always matter how big your base is, so long as the movement tray itself is the right dimensions and can track health of the unit well. In the end with movement tray games the models are purely there as an ID And health marker. The game doesn't rely on real line of sight (in the same way skirmish games do) and the movement is as a single block.

The only debate is on how many models you can or cannot rank up for the visual aspect and for the ease of tracking wounds

FB isn't movement tray game though. Number of models matters on footprint.

XXXX
XXXX
-XX-

Has different impact on play than.

XXXX
XXXX
XXXX

You can fail or male charge based on is there model in corner or not.

Then of course the unit could go from

XXXX
XXXX
XXXX

To:

XX
XX
XX
XX
..You get the point.

So simply having movement tray and fitting as many models as you can isn't doable. Unless you can remove parts of movement base away as need be. Sort of magnetic movement tray where there's 20/25/32/40/whatever squares you can attach and reattach on the fly.

 kodos wrote:
ok, what is the chance that GW is still having nothing to show off but just re-posting the same picture once in a while by "accident" to keep people talking and waiting (aka the hypetrain going)?

are we going to see anything real in 2023 at all or just some random stuff in the blog with writing "soon" and nothing else for the next 3 years?

Fingers crossed for another map!




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Garfield666 wrote:
Maybe the most reasonable approach on how this will turn out is asking us: how would Homer Simpson release WHtoW if he was in charge?

The reason we keep coming back to this is that GW already has too many games, too much product for even their own stores to stock.

And this is not Mordheim, or Necromunda (which their own stores do not have room to stock) this is a huge product line.

So yeah, this is exactly how Homer Jay Simpson would do it.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

And this is not Mordheim, or Necromunda (which their own stores do not have room to stock) this is a huge product line.

.

Maybe direct only or something like LOTR product rotation cycles?
Yes WFB had more lines than any specialist games.

My GW stocks all the big specialist games?
Necromunda was the worst one to reference. I’ve never not seen that or Blood Bowl in a GW around my travels.

Here is hoping they will do at least 18 different orc clans by resin upgrade heads unique for each clan.
And also a big armoured troll for each clan.

 Fayric wrote:
Here is hoping they will do at least 18 different orc clans by resin upgrade heads unique for each clan.
And also a big armoured troll for each clan.

Each with unique clan traits and stratagems!

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:
Which has been a thing for decades. That's part and parcel to playing the game.

Still fecking annoying and a point many people hate, lol. When I started WHFB all my armies ranked up reasonably well (maybe not everything did across the range, I dunno, but my armies did).

You haven't played Chaos and built chaos knights if you can state this with a straight face.... same with barbarians for that matter.


Sincerly someone that recently built 10 chaos knights and an lord and banner bearer based upon chaos knight kit.



Ironically the blood warriors fit perfectly on bases for reasons i only can assume as them being initially planed for squares.

Personally i wouldn't be mad if GW would give us a bit bigger base sizes for cav.

Well, I started back in 5th edition, I have no idea if Chaos knights ranked up in 5th edition, I seem to recall they were so expensive that people wouldn't usually take more than 1 rank of them anyway

But yeah, I didn't collect Chaos, the armies I did collect back then ranked up fine.

Tbf Chaos knights either were the quintessential doomrocket unit, deathstack unit or outclassed overpriced garbage... So use varied highly, atleast if i remember correctly. And often small units because pts wise they eat the allocation.

Overall though if you want 2 ranks prepare to amputate tails in the front row, and barding in the back row. There is no way around that, then there is the standard bearer which is horrific , the horses and warriors being very closely sized compared to the bases makes a singular mistake punishing to the nth degree for the whole rank....

Yeah annoying, suffering incarnate.

Personally, in several aspects of design (in particular movement and basing) I'm hoping for something similar to cool mini or not's a song of Ice and fire. It has the feel of a ranked game with none of the fiddly nonsense associated with whfb. The game is essentially base agnostic but model numbers are relevant to the fighting capability of a unit.

I think that it would be better however if the units had miniatures placed closer together to give units an appearance more similar to the ranked formations of whfb.

The Black Adder wrote:
Personally, in several aspects of design (in particular movement and basing) I'm hoping for something similar to cool mini or not's a song of Ice and fire. It has the feel of a ranked game with none of the fiddly nonsense associated with whfb. The game is essentially base agnostic but model numbers are relevant to the fighting capability of a unit.

I think that it would be better however if the units had miniatures placed closer together to give units an appearance more similar to the ranked formations of whfb.

GW has said rules are based on older editions...so nope not happening. It will be with individual models as before ranked up.

The Black Adder wrote:
Personally, in several aspects of design (in particular movement and basing) I'm hoping for something similar to cool mini or not's a song of Ice and fire. It has the feel of a ranked game with none of the fiddly nonsense associated with whfb. The game is essentially base agnostic but model numbers are relevant to the fighting capability of a unit.

I think that it would be better however if the units had miniatures placed closer together to give units an appearance more similar to the ranked formations of whfb.

I dunno, there's things I like about ASOIF, but the units don't feel like solid slabs of infantry like they do in WHFB.

And ASOIAF models are 32mm with more realistic proportions compared to GW's 32mm heroic as feth scale. Look how much space they need on the trays.

Goose LeChance wrote:
more realistic proportions compared to GW's

I pass specially looking how O&G became a Kruelboys baffling boring more realistic design.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
So that thing yesterday turned out to be nothing?

Until we see something real this is all just a bunch of nothing.

Yeah 3 years and still nothing of substance

Shocking that.
Almost like the very first article said it might be three or more years before any sort of releases were seen.

 Gert wrote:
Shocking that.
Almost like the very first article said it might be three or more years before any sort of releases were seen.

I hear you. But I don't think I was the only one expecting something during these three years. In GWs defence, they probably expected to be able to show us something too.

 Ohman wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Shocking that.
Almost like the very first article said it might be three or more years before any sort of releases were seen.

I hear you. But I don't think I was the only one expecting something during these three years. In GWs defence, they probably expected to be able to show us something too.

They have. They showed us a lot of concept art.

This isn't just adding a few new units or whatever. They're starting with Kislev, a brand new faction for all intents and purposes.

Sure, they were off to a decent start. Probably expecting to keep updating with renders and stuff on a regular basis.

In GW's defence, when they announced the game they had little to no idea of how iffy things would get with Covid. I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that without Covid we'd've probably seen a lot more by now.

Yeah, I'm as ready to criticize GW as anyone but it would be unfair not to account for Covid in the picture.

Agreed!

Honestly I would not have blamed GW if they'd shelved Old World because of Covid. A huge project like that at a time when GW's back end and production is in a mess and needs catching up and all - an ideal moment to shed a huge project and focus on core selling/active model lines.

 Overread wrote:
Honestly I would not have blamed GW if they'd shelved Old World because of Covid. A huge project like that at a time when GW's back end and production is in a mess and needs catching up and all - an ideal moment to shed a huge project and focus on core selling/active model lines.

Not to mention that the influence and hype over Total Warhammer III has waned.

The best time to have resurrected it would have been at II's release date, then maybe do something to coincide with III. You would have had plenty of eyes on Warhammer Fantasy, lots of youtubers talking about lore, video-game only players potentially coming into the market. Maybe even release character packs for factions with models based on the video game versions.

Instead they got AoS which, while having it's own merits, doesn't match up with the Old World.

They could have had a mini-LotR moment.

The popularity of II is why this is happening, there's no way they could have launched with II. I have a feeling they originally wanted to launch with III but Covid and the product and stock rebuild delays there prevented that happening

I would pay good money to know the whole story behind the plan to do End Times followed by AoS, etc. Even into what AoS was intended to be, I know there's the theory about mini factions and all but afaik never any evidence.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I would pay good money to know the whole story behind the plan to do End Times followed by AoS, etc. Even into what AoS was intended to be, I know there's the theory about mini factions and all but afaik never any evidence.

Somewhere on Dakka there's a letter/post that went into great detail about certainly how AoS wound up not having any formal rules at launch. It was all about appeasing a select upper manager and underlings basically working hard to work for the managers interests and such. Which you can 100% see from a firm that was very open about not doing community feedback.



The whole aspect about micro-armies is something I've theorized and I think its a fairly solid idea. My impression is that AoS at launch was intending to be a boutique model line. The 4 Grand Alliance system was so the game would have only 4 major factions into which each army would slot into. GW would then be free to drop micro-armies (one release wave) and test the waters. If they sold like crazy they'd get more release waves and build up to a bigger force. If they sold badly they'd just be a one and done and might even get rotated out and dropped. That way GW would be focusing on what sells the best the whole time and wouldn't "waste" resources trying to promote and improve sales on weaker forces. Along with that there'd be the poster Sigmar army which I suspect was going to ape marines with multiple chambers of different warrior groups.
With four major factions "players" could game with any one of the four and armies would just be flavourful designs. Honestly if GW had gone down that pathway in a BETTER style it could have been a miniatures agnostic game approach, which isn't all bad. But they weren't really building or looking at anything for players.

You can see all these hallmarks in the release - from the joke rules, through to the dropping of multiple army lines at launch (eg GW before that point and right now would have invested into Tomb Kings and such and pushed them up to improve sales rather than just abandon them). GW were also pretty open about it being a boutique line and I recall Kirby in at least one shareholder message saying that most of their customers were collectors not players (which is interesting as a stat when you've a firm that also admits they don't do community feedback*)


I suspect we might never get concrete info, but those are my impressions based on what they did at the start.



*my guess is that they looked at how many customers were buying in GW stores and then kept a log of how many were gaming in GW stores and found the disparity there. Whcih of course totally overlooks everyone playing outside of GW stores and whole swathes of "I collect but I want to play one day/when my situation changes" people.

 Overread wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I would pay good money to know the whole story behind the plan to do End Times followed by AoS, etc. Even into what AoS was intended to be, I know there's the theory about mini factions and all but afaik never any evidence.

Somewhere on Dakka there's a letter/post that went into great detail about certainly how AoS wound up not having any formal rules at launch.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/786577.page

I believe this is what you are referring to.

tneva82 wrote:

The Black Adder wrote:
Personally, in several aspects of design (in particular movement and basing) I'm hoping for something similar to cool mini or not's a song of Ice and fire. It has the feel of a ranked game with none of the fiddly nonsense associated with whfb. The game is essentially base agnostic but model numbers are relevant to the fighting capability of a unit.

I think that it would be better however if the units had miniatures placed closer together to give units an appearance more similar to the ranked formations of whfb.

GW has said rules are based on older editions...so nope not happening. It will be with individual models as before ranked up.

I suppose it depends how much is 'based on old editions' and how much is new design. Even trying to merge several editions together they are going to have to patch the game with new rules. To my mind you could easily get a song of Ice and fire unit formations into an old edition of whfb without much fiddling.

What aspects of whfb design do we think they will retain?

What are the core mechanics that need you stay to make it feel like whfb?

I wouldn’t mind it at all if they incorporated bits of Warmaster; specifically the bits where characters are vital for command and control but their personal impact on direct combat is minimal.

 nels1031 wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I would pay good money to know the whole story behind the plan to do End Times followed by AoS, etc. Even into what AoS was intended to be, I know there's the theory about mini factions and all but afaik never any evidence.

Somewhere on Dakka there's a letter/post that went into great detail about certainly how AoS wound up not having any formal rules at launch.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/786577.page

I believe this is what you are referring to.

What struck me from this story back when it came out was how the most reasonable explanation for a thing could end up being... far too reasonable. GW publishing Skitarii and Mechanicus as two books out of sheer corporate greed would have been a preferable alternative to the actual driver behind that decision.

Government shutdowns kind of put a damper on how people plan long term, and trade...

I'll give GW a pass because of that.

Can't wait for the old world!

I prefer square bases think it's an excellent move. This will of course remove the AoS models since not only are they shipped with round bases, many of them won't fit (or their profile will not fit) a square base of the corresponding WHFB size -- I've tried.

Another reason to not show off much Old World stuff yet is to avoid stepping on upcoming previews and releases that are much sooner. They could probably show off more, but if it isn't coming out for a year, it will sour some people both on the wait and on the other stuff GW wants to sell in the next 3 to 6 months.

The Black Adder wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

The Black Adder wrote:
Personally, in several aspects of design (in particular movement and basing) I'm hoping for something similar to cool mini or not's a song of Ice and fire. It has the feel of a ranked game with none of the fiddly nonsense associated with whfb. The game is essentially base agnostic but model numbers are relevant to the fighting capability of a unit.

I think that it would be better however if the units had miniatures placed closer together to give units an appearance more similar to the ranked formations of whfb.

GW has said rules are based on older editions...so nope not happening. It will be with individual models as before ranked up.

I suppose it depends how much is 'based on old editions' and how much is new design. Even trying to merge several editions together they are going to have to patch the game with new rules. To my mind you could easily get a song of Ice and fire unit formations into an old edition of whfb without much fiddling.

What aspects of whfb design do we think they will retain?

What are the core mechanics that need you stay to make it feel like whfb?

Uuh the inidivudal models ranked up is so integral part of rules remove that and it's different game all together.

Why not go for mix of d10,s d12 and d20 and drop d6's while at it?

Make just 3 stats for each unit(move, attack, defence)?

we never know what GW is up to

but "based on XY" can mean anything, and does not say something about what will stay and what will be changed

"based on 7th Edition with some stuff from all Editions and something new"

this is what we have and yes maybe they reduce stats to 3 as something new, or expand them to 15 as something from the past that comes back

Goose LeChance wrote:
And ASOIAF models are 32mm with more realistic proportions compared to GW's 32mm heroic as feth scale. Look how much space they need on the trays.

GW's models being hero scale doesn't have much effect on how much space they need. 5th edition Bretonnians were more realistically scaled and ranked up in nice tight formations.

 kodos wrote:
we never know what GW is up to

but "based on XY" can mean anything, and does not say something about what will stay and what will be changed

"based on 7th Edition with some stuff from all Editions and something new"

this is what we have and yes maybe they reduce stats to 3 as something new, or expand them to 15 as something from the past that comes back

Going to regiments without worry about how many models there is would be based basically by having names in it. Game play wise would be totally different.

It's like saying songs of fire and ice rules are based on FB rules. Are they?

Seriously what's with this focus on coming up with most unlikely ideas that contradict what GW has told rather than think what might actually happen? People want to set up themselves to be dissapointed? Then complain that GW betrayed them when they didn't deliver something they never said they would deliver?

tneva82 wrote:

 kodos wrote:
we never know what GW is up to

but "based on XY" can mean anything, and does not say something about what will stay and what will be changed

"based on 7th Edition with some stuff from all Editions and something new"

this is what we have and yes maybe they reduce stats to 3 as something new, or expand them to 15 as something from the past that comes back

Going to regiments without worry about how many models there is would be based basically by having names in it. Game play wise would be totally different.

It's like saying songs of fire and ice rules are based on FB rules. Are they?

Seriously what's with this focus on coming up with most unlikely ideas that contradict what GW has told rather than think what might actually happen? People want to set up themselves to be dissapointed? Then complain that GW betrayed them when they didn't deliver something they never said they would deliver?

This is the logic chain. Break interest in W:TOW through constant chatter. Spam wishlisting in case GW is reading and think that 6 people represent the entire gaming community. Hopefully (in their mind) get the game shitcanned so everyone will just play World Of Warhammer: The Gathering like they were supposed to after End Times and maybe, just maybe, get Warmaster brought back for the 17 people that actually played it when it was out.

I just hope this does not go the route of 40k Armageddon a few years back. An amazing ruleset where you could use your existing collection that got dropped right upon relase with no support or expansions...
GW cannot do full model ranges of all old armies right away, so existing WH players will be needed in some way to play the game. So the old basing should still be legit somehow.
On the other hand they want to sell miniatures, not only a rulebook, so they will make sure there is some incentive to buy a new "old world" army or replace an existing one...
Will be interresting to see what this all will be like.

They will push Kislev and Cathay as the main line, FW doesn't really do a lot of different products compared to GW. I think they will go back to selling big, expensive resin pieces for the older edition races like they did before.

Also re-release Tamurkhan Chorfs

tneva82 wrote:
Seriously what's with this focus on coming up with most unlikely ideas that contradict what GW has told rather than think what might actually happen? People want to set up themselves to be dissapointed? Then complain that GW betrayed them when they didn't deliver something they never said they would deliver?

the other way around, people talking about the stupid things because GW is very likely doing something stupid
so if the mess up but not as bad as we predicted it has a positive effect
if they mess up exactly as predicted, we were expecting it anyway so no surprised rage

it is just expecting that GW won't mess up what will lead to disappointment and were the complains about betrayal will come from (aka the reaction when such fundamental parts of the game will change)

expecting anything but the worst and you will be disappointed, and I can predict there will be a lot of disappointed people, either by the rules or the model release

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Goose LeChance wrote:
And ASOIAF models are 32mm with more realistic proportions compared to GW's 32mm heroic as feth scale. Look how much space they need on the trays.

5th edition Bretonnians were more realistically scaled and ranked up in nice tight formations.

Yeah that's what I'm saying, GW models keep getting bigger, the weapons alone are massive on new models and most of them are 32mm heroic scale.

Anyone wanting their AOS models to work in TOW is basically asking for the removal of tight formations.

If someone wants to chop up their giant dancing models to fit in formation that's fine, but it's no longer WHFB if GW goes the ASOIAF route with the bases. It would affect the rules, unit size and aesthetics. Song minis take up less space than current GW models too.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Goose LeChance wrote:
And ASOIAF models are 32mm with more realistic proportions compared to GW's 32mm heroic as feth scale. Look how much space they need on the trays.

GW's models being hero scale doesn't have much effect on how much space they need. 5th edition Bretonnians were more realistically scaled and ranked up in nice tight formations.

Eh, their horses were way undersized. I love my Brets, but the 5 edition knights look like they are riding ponies rather than large destriers.

actually, the old horses are in the right scale, it was the light cavalry that came later which was too big

Goose LeChance wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Goose LeChance wrote:
And ASOIAF models are 32mm with more realistic proportions compared to GW's 32mm heroic as feth scale. Look how much space they need on the trays.

5th edition Bretonnians were more realistically scaled and ranked up in nice tight formations.

Yeah that's what I'm saying, GW models keep getting bigger, the weapons alone are massive on new models and most of them are 32mm heroic scale.

Anyone wanting their AOS models to work in TOW is basically asking for the removal of tight formations.

If someone wants to chop up their giant dancing models to fit in formation that's fine, but it's no longer WHFB if GW goes the ASOIAF route with the bases. It would affect the rules, unit size and aesthetics. Song minis take up less space than current GW models too.

You do realize that there's plenty of current AoS models that are nothing more than the old WHFB kits now packed with new round bases, don't you?
If those models worked ranked up in WHFB 8e, they'll work ranked up again..... (some people might want/need to rebase some stuff)

Hell, 90% of my Sigmar armies are just my old WHFB stuff. Most still on their square bases. And the stuff that's new to Sigmar - my Idoneth & Kharadan & Stormcast & such? I don't expect them to be part of this new game.
I suspect that I'll be fine.

Hm, what are the kits that have been released for AoS covering units also in WHFB? Chaos Warriors come to mind as having ranking troubles, but then the Chosen and Ogroids look like they'd rank up fine.

The new Chosen might rank up but I'm extremely sceptical about them fitting a 25mm base. Similarly, while it might be possible to rank the new Chaos Warriors, I don't think it's something you can expect a newbie to do.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Hm, what are the kits that have been released for AoS covering units also in WHFB?

There's not that much I guess (chiefly because a lot of factions get only 1 new model per edition) but there's also no reason to assume units introduced in AoS wouldn't be ported back into their corresponding TOW faction.

Gloomspite Gitz and all sorts of Daemons come to mind that were done in AoS times -both resculpts and new units - and would for sure be retrofitted into TOW.

Now that we're considering it... there's some significant base size increases in the monster department. Nobody surely thinks they're going to stick greater demons back on a 50x50?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Hm, what are the kits that have been released for AoS covering units also in WHFB? Chaos Warriors come to mind as having ranking troubles, but then the Chosen and Ogroids look like they'd rank up fine.

There's entire armies that other than 1-3 kits & different bases are still the same models they were selling at the close of WHFB.
For my Cities? The only new kit showing on GWs site is the Galen/Dorelia Ven Denst witchhunters. Every other kit is a veteran of 1+ editions of WHFB.
Seraphon? Only the new version of Kroak, Starblood Stalkers, & a terrain piece are AoS new.
Skaven? Beasts of Chaos? Gloomspite? Etc? Same story. A few new pieces, otherwise same old army now on round bases....

Seriously, scroll through GWs site & make a list

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Hm, what are the kits that have been released for AoS covering units also in WHFB?

There's not that much I guess (chiefly because a lot of factions get only 1 new model per edition) but there's also no reason to assume units introduced in AoS wouldn't be ported back into their corresponding TOW faction.

Gloomspite Gitz and all sorts of Daemons come to mind that were done in AoS times -both resculpts and new units - and would for sure be retrofitted into TOW.

Now that we're considering it... there's some significant base size increases in the monster department. Nobody surely thinks they're going to stick greater demons back on a 50x50?

Thirsters had already gone to the 100×150 so I don't see any reason the other greater daemons wouldn't be upsized.

As for new units, it's the fluff. Many simply did not exist in the Old World (or did not exist until End Times), and shoehorning them in would no doubt provoke a... negative response. Others did exist in fluff only (Tzaangors) or could be reasonably included by extrapolation (Tzaangor Shaman) without issue. Hard to say what they'll do.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Hm, what are the kits that have been released for AoS covering units also in WHFB? Chaos Warriors come to mind as having ranking troubles, but then the Chosen and Ogroids look like they'd rank up fine.

From the top of my head:

Orcs and Goblins
Squig Herd
Squig Hoppers
Stone Trolls
Goblin Wolf Riders (soon)

Warriors of Chaos
Chaos Warriors
Chaos Knights
Chaos Chosen

Daemons of Chaos
Great Unclean One
Beast of Nurgle
Lord of Change
Flesh Hounds of Khorne
Keeper of Secrets
Fiends of Slaanesh

Vampire Counts
Skeleton Warriors
Zombies
Dire Wolves
Fell Bats
Blood Knights
Black Coach

Lizardmen
Lord Kroak

I didn't include any small individual characters such as Skaven Warlock Bombardier, Master Assassin, Vampires on foot etc. because they are not really relevant in this context.

Thanks!

ccs wrote:

You do realize that there's plenty of current AoS models that are nothing more than the old WHFB kits now packed with new round bases, don't you?
If those models worked ranked up in WHFB 8e, they'll work ranked up again..... (some people might want/need to rebase some stuff)

Of course the old models that were taken from WHFB will still rank up on square bases.

New stuff made for AOS? not so much...

Goose LeChance wrote:

ccs wrote:

You do realize that there's plenty of current AoS models that are nothing more than the old WHFB kits now packed with new round bases, don't you?
If those models worked ranked up in WHFB 8e, they'll work ranked up again..... (some people might want/need to rebase some stuff)

Of course the old models that were taken from WHFB will still rank up on square bases.

New stuff made for AOS? not so much...

Nothing you can't fix, actually. Just a question of putting the right miniatures at the right places. And using a good knife to cut and glue parts that are too much in the way of others.

It didn't take me long to do that, in the end :



It's pretty much doable with any other AoS miniature, TBH. Also depends which game you intend to play with them. Not all square base and movement trays are equal sizes, after all.

I've had to cut off the arms of whats-it-called warcry chaos barbarian warband that used bone/stone weapons because some of their duel weapon minis are too wide. Chaos Warriors so far seems to fit well and looked well enough with the older WHFB CW minis.

I feel like if you're having to cut off arms/weapons, that's a pretty solid indicator that the models do (/did) not, in fact, rank up...

I'm pretty interested in how they're going to treat Empire. Guns were always worded to be a fairly recent addition to the Empires arsenal, at least the pistols and flintlock muskets they're modelled with.

I wonder if GW will revert them to basic matchlocks or remove handheld guns entirely?

I’m pretty sure they had blackpowder weapons then, in previous canon, but in terms of gameplay? They might end up being one-shot but high strength as older guns tended to go for larger bores and powder charges to make up for unreliability by increasing impact.

Historically the biggest deal with powder weapons was getting consistent powder; obviously the dwarves have this licked but they (naturally) charge serious money for it, if it’s available at all, so that stuff is unlikely to make it into peasant militia rifles when there are cannon to feed. So the rifles get whatever the local alchemist has come up with this week, based on what supplies he could get in last week.

 Mr_Rose wrote:
I’m pretty sure they had blackpowder weapons then, in previous canon, but in terms of gameplay? They might end up being one-shot but high strength as older guns tended to go for larger bores and powder charges to make up for unreliability by increasing impact.

Historically the biggest deal with powder weapons was getting consistent powder; obviously the dwarves have this licked but they (naturally) charge serious money for it, if it’s available at all, so that stuff is unlikely to make it into peasant militia rifles when there are cannon to feed. So the rifles get whatever the local alchemist has come up with this week, based on what supplies he could get in last week.

It's actually pretty recent as the date set in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st & 2nd edition was 1991 IC, that's when the Imperial Gunnery School was built in Nuln and cannons started to get used. Dwarfs Guns & Steel had it that the dwarf high king gave consent for the expatriat dwarfs to help the elector count build it, and 2nd edition Companion book basically just said it drained the province's coffers for a decade before they saw return to the investment. (1E page 40 & 109, 2E page 99). Also 4th edition roleplay also added in 2000 IC the von Tassenick count of Nordland refused to the new-fangled guns to his state troops. Incidentally it does make guns available to empire mercenaries in Mordheim since that's 2000 IC.

That puts the guns of the empire to near the end of the Time of Chaos - Age of Three Emperors - Great War Against Chaos (1359 - 1547, 1547 - 2304 IC).

 Lord Damocles wrote:
I feel like if you're having to cut off arms/weapons, that's a pretty solid indicator that the models do (/did) not, in fact, rank up...

Yeah, recently assembled some vulkites and no way they would rank up decently. Nor look any good* if they did. Some though, like Hearthguard, I believe they were originally designed and planned for an End Times release then pushed back.

*Not that their poses look good anyways.

Jarms48 wrote:
I'm pretty interested in how they're going to treat Empire. Guns were always worded to be a fairly recent addition to the Empires arsenal, at least the pistols and flintlock muskets they're modelled with.

I wonder if GW will revert them to basic matchlocks or remove handheld guns entirely?

Blackpowder in general should be around; setting looks to be around 200 (ish) years or so after Mordheim and they had flintlocks then.

Guns predated the steam tank right? And wasn’t the inventor of that around 2000.
So I guess they’d had at least 500 years of time up to End Times/original setting.

Jarms48 wrote:
I'm pretty interested in how they're going to treat Empire. Guns were always worded to be a fairly recent addition to the Empires arsenal, at least the pistols and flintlock muskets they're modelled with.

I wonder if GW will revert them to basic matchlocks or remove handheld guns entirely?

Personally I am expecting a retcon so the Empire can use all their old miniatures in the new setting.

Grail Seeker wrote:

Jarms48 wrote:
I'm pretty interested in how they're going to treat Empire. Guns were always worded to be a fairly recent addition to the Empires arsenal, at least the pistols and flintlock muskets they're modelled with.

I wonder if GW will revert them to basic matchlocks or remove handheld guns entirely?

Personally I am expecting a retcon so the Empire can use all their old miniatures in the new setting.

Maybe. On the one hand that would be the thing to help entice old players into it, on the other hand when does GW not take the opportunity to shoot itself in the foot for the sake of "new shiny"

Danny76 wrote:
Guns predated the steam tank right? And wasn’t the inventor of that around 2000.
So I guess they’d had at least 500 years of time up to End Times/original setting.

yeah, Steam Tank was around the 2000, yet we still have matchlock as standard state troop weapon in 2500, with wheelock for elites/heroes and dwarfs use flintlock

there did not happen a lot regarding weapon development in 500 years where in real live it took ~150 years from the matchlock to the flintlock,

The Empire is one of the later users of gunpowder, the Dwarfs have known about it for millienia but it took a long time to sanction it for use in warfare.

Cathay had gunpowder weapons 2000 years before Sigmar as they sold them to Lahmia at that time to fight Nagash and they proved very effective.

A primitive canon was used in the battle against Nagash led by Sigmar, blasting Krell.

Handguns are much later but I don't think we have a definative date - but firearms are a option in the Mordheim game set in 2010.

 kodos wrote:

Danny76 wrote:
Guns predated the steam tank right? And wasn’t the inventor of that around 2000.
So I guess they’d had at least 500 years of time up to End Times/original setting.

yeah, Steam Tank was around the 2000, yet we still have matchlock as standard state troop weapon in 2500, with wheelock for elites/heroes and dwarfs use flintlock

there did not happen a lot regarding weapon development in 500 years where in real live it took ~150 years from the matchlock to the flintlock,

Fantasy in general, as a genre, has a piss poor conception of timescales.

Of course, one could also say that just because a technology can advance doesn't mean it will. The Chinese discovered gunpowder in the 9th or 10th century, but they were never as fast to develop it as the Europeans and Muslims who acquired it a few hundred years later. Outside of artillery and rocketry, Chinese firearms developed into rudimentary hand cannons and then didn't change much for 500 years. The Europeans and Ottomans meanwhile took the weapons and went hogwild developing them.

Technology is also not a linear thing. There are many inventions that are discovered and then lost. Even in today's world with the internet and the super easy and free exchange of knowledge there are still things that get developed, discovered and then lost.

There's also a load of other things that can happen. For example look at 3D printing. It's been around since the 80s and yet its not until the last few years that its really taken off in a big way. Not through any technological discovery, but because the firm holding the patents had them expire and could no longer restrict access and charge a fortune for the licence.

Many firms might buy up tech like that and sit on it. Perhaps just to prevent the competition using it; perhaps because they intend to use it and then never get the money together. Perhaps the market just never moves the right way etc...


Look at how the development of antibiotics shut down research in alternatives because we had a solution that worked. Now we are having to go back to older research and less funding research and look at countries that were locked out of some antibiotics for alternatives, some of which are way behind where they could have been had they had proper investment.



There are so many many things that can change stuff up and cause technology to stagnate, go backwards or for major revelations to go undiscovered for generations when they are so simple.

Also, wizards.

Fantasy as a Genre is usually good at time scale and some are very good

the problem with Warhammer is that the nations are real live copies frozen in time

Estelia, Tilea, Bretonnia, the Empire and Kislev are different parts of Europe at a specific time so there cannot be a big development over 2000 years because than they would lose their unique setting

Yet some interesting real life development, Rifles were manufactured for several hundred years, but not adapted to military service at a larger scale until the Minie/Lorenz bullet was developed that allowed for the same rate of fire with rifled muskets as with smoothbore ones

Yet something like the Flintlock replaced the Matchlock very quick for obvious reasons (saver and more reliable) while the wheelock was kept for longer but not on standard military weapons as it was more expensive to make

In addition early gunpowder weapon developments were driven by siege artillery and less by infantry weapons in Europe but light anti infantry cannons and grenades in China

From Warhammer models, we "know" that Dwarfs have breach loading rifled cannons, and flintlock or percussion lock guns which most likely are rifles (no sign of breach loading so a Minie style bullet) and this is most likely their secret technology which they don't share

Yet Dwarfs sell weapons and the progressive weapon smiths who have troubles with the conservative ones, live and work in the Empire, so that over a period of 500+ years, the unreliable, and unsave matchlock was not replaced by a flintlock although there are people who know how to make it is not really believable

Dwarves are hyper protective over their technology. There is every chance that if you were found to be trading advanced weapons to another race you'd likely be imprisoned in some dwarfish fashion.

They would then set too in tracking down and recovering any of the sold items and ensuring others didn't recreate it.


Which is another aspect to consider, its one thing to buy and use a weapon but its another to make them. Native Americans, from my limited understanding, would trade for guns, but lacked the proper infrastructure and in-community knowledge to replicate the technology. Plus it was likely easier to just trade for more.

Heck consider how many things in your very house you use every single day but you could never re-create them. You might understand the theory of how they work and even are made ,but actually making them is vastly different.


So there might well be limited on what even the progressive dwarves are allowed and tolerated to trade with other races.


Plus don't forget 500 years to humans isn't the same as it is to dwarves. 500 years is many generations of men, but that might just be 1 single dwarf generation (I forget how old their upper limit is but its certainly into the 100s of years).



Warhammer, like many wargames, does have an element of frozen in time going on. Heck most wargames are like that, even those based on real world situations are often frozen on very specific time periods. Fantasy and sci-fi games do tend to lean into the greater extremes on this though. They do rely heavily on a lot of circumstances holding many things in limbo. Just look how the 40K setting bends over backwards to maintain its limbo status for 10-000 years

 kodos wrote:
Fantasy as a Genre is usually good at time scale and some are very good

the problem with Warhammer is that the nations are real live copies frozen in time

The second line defines basically all fantasy as a genre. Little of it has a real sense of meaningful progression, let alone one that follows anything realistic in terms of scale. Take a look at AsoiF sometime. Anything before the Dragons show up is a completely wackadoo sense of time passing and how long things last. Fantasy throws around 'thousands of years' like its candy and human civilization on Earth has basically gone from bronze to digital in 3500 years. Most fantasy timelines are replete with what we could criticize Warhammer of. It's not unique to this setting.

Honestly if anything I'd say Warhammer fantasy is better than most since it actually bothers to try and provide a complex chain of history. Most fantasy doesn't.

If anything I think the only major fantasy series that actually shows a real world style advance is Discworld!

 Overread wrote:
If anything I think the only major fantasy series that actually shows a real world style advance is Discworld!

Malazan is pretty applauded for making use of the author's anthropological knowledge. The setting has a pretty fantastic sense of how cultures evolve, grow, rise, fall, and transform.

Honestly fantasy has gotten better at this as time has gone on, but it's still common for the phrase 'stood for thousands of years' to get thrown around. And fantasy loves the trope of older Romanesque civilizations being more advanced than the ones that follow.

In all of human history, almost nothing has lived a thousand years. It's damned impressive when anything lasts more than 2-300 years up until the early modern age and advances in communication made it easier to maintain centralized states without having to make dangerous power compromises with regional rulers.

 LordofHats wrote:

 kodos wrote:
Fantasy as a Genre is usually good at time scale and some are very good

the problem with Warhammer is that the nations are real live copies frozen in time

The second line defines basically all fantasy as a genre. Little of it has a real sense of meaningful progression, let alone one that follows anything realistic in terms of scale. Take a look at AsoiF sometime. Anything before the Dragons show up is a completely wackadoo sense of time passing and how long things last. Fantasy throws around 'thousands of years' like its candy and human civilization on Earth has basically gone from bronze to digital in 3500 years. Most fantasy timelines are replete with what we could criticize Warhammer of. It's not unique to this setting.

Honestly if anything I'd say Warhammer fantasy is better than most since it actually bothers to try and provide a complex chain of history. Most fantasy doesn't.

I wouldn't use real world history as an example of how society is bound to progress, from around ~500AD to ~1200AD, Europe largely stagnated on a macro level. In Britannia over about 50-75 years, people devolved from an urban prosperous society to living in wooden houses and thinking giants built the crumbling ruins they lived amongst. The Bronze Age collapse occurred. A few new pathogens destroyed American societies and one particularly virulent one nearly destroyed Medieval Europe, just when it was regaining some level of economic prosperity after the collapse of Rome nearly a thousand years previously (technologically it was still a mixed bag). China largely stagnated on a technological basis for centuries under the Qing.

Yes ASOIAF is a bit whackadoo in it's numbers, it's also poor in terms of it's military numbers as well. However the idea that society is progressing on one uniform always progressing path is far from true, even in our world, let alone one with magic and other species that can compete with humans.

Not really. The 'Dark Ages' is something historians of the Middle Ages have been trying to get rid of for ages. Technology and society never stagnated. People living in the Renaissance simply liked to portray themselves as reclaiming a golden age spirit lost to time.

And beyond that, the Bronze Age is not a purely European phenomena. It applied to Asia and Africa as well, and really until the early modern period none of these regions were of significantly greater sophistication than the others. The Americas were behind, but the earliest complex civilizations in the Americans begin appearing around the same time the Bronze Age was ending.

I'm not making an argument that progress is inevitable.

Change is, and things tend to change a lot in 100 years, let alone 200 or 300. Globally speaking, anything lasting more than a few centuries is impressive. Things change rapidly in real human terms. It's fantasy of course and its scale and grandeur is part of the appeal. I'm only saying obsessing over how the Empire didn't follow a rapid progression is kind of calling the black kettle a black kettle. That's what a black kettle is.

Dark Age and Renaissance are very local development which affected other regions but were used as focus point
as yes, Britain went thru a Dark Age with the Romano-Britons leaving and the Saxons taking over, but not all of Europe for several hundred years

the Renaissance came up because the Southern Europeans discovered that the ancient writings still exist in the north where important information was written in parchment which lasts centuries were in the south papyrus was still in use and therefore written information from previous times only available as fragments if someone took care and copied it on a regular basis over centuries

Progress and Growth are not necessarily combined, for a technology to succeed it must be the right time with the right needs and the right materials must be available

as I wrote Rifles existed for centuries, but higher rate of fire was more important than accuracy of a single shot, hence it was not used in masses until there was the possibility to increase the rate of fire
same for breach loading weapons, it was the combination of the brass cartridge and the percussion cap that made it possible to use in masses (breach loading rifled musket with wheellock and steel cartridge existed as a hunting gun ~1650, but it took 250 years until the concept became a military standard)


For Fantasy Settings in general, well Lord of the Rings does a very good progression of time and development (from magic being strong and an everyday thing to something exotic while technology based on or mixed with magic is lost and new things developing)

A Song of Ice and Fire might be different but in general it is inspired by the Wars of the Roses, and the setting is late Medieval England with Dragons so while time scale and pacing is off for a better story, it was never meant to be a progressive time scale a wider historic scale (it is more like how people think the Dark Age in England was and that it turned straight into the late medieval period, missing that there are a 1000 years of events in between)

 LordofHats wrote:
Honestly if anything I'd say Warhammer fantasy is better than most since it actually bothers to try and provide a complex chain of history. Most fantasy doesn't.

a Calander with events is not unique to Warhammer and the developments are not really there at all, it just stretches 500 years of history over 2500 years fills in the gabs (which is very well done), hence the technological advance is stretched as well without much thinking about if this makes any sense or not

 Overread wrote:
Dwarves are hyper protective over their technology. There is every chance that if you were found to be trading advanced weapons to another race you'd likely be imprisoned in some dwarfish fashion.

They would then set too in tracking down and recovering any of the sold items and ensuring others didn't recreate it.

Which is another aspect to consider, its one thing to buy and use a weapon but its another to make them. Native Americans, from my limited understanding, would trade for guns, but lacked the proper infrastructure and in-community knowledge to replicate the technology. Plus it was likely easier to just trade for more.

Heck consider how many things in your very house you use every single day but you could never re-create them. You might understand the theory of how they work and even are made ,but actually making them is vastly different.

well, there is a difference if you say Russia cannot build an M1 Abrahams, or Russia cannot build tracked vehicles and use HEAT shells because the M1 is a highly protected technology

and for a country that has the industrial base and even produces weapons similar advanced but different (Volley Fire Gun) with some foreign engineers working there (aka Imperial Dwarfs are a thing) reverse engineering is not only possible but very likely, especially for something that increases safety and reliability while being as simple to produce

the Empire models just did not use something else because they are modelled after the historical counterpart, who used certain weapons and adjusting them for in-game technological level was not seen as necessary (or they never thought of it at all because the Empire State Troops is the army of the HRE in 1450 and therefore must look exactly like those)

The reason why most fantasy settings have thousands of years without cultural or technological changes with the exception of the used trope of "Technologically advanced proto-empire converts into pseudo medieval kingdoms" is because making a fantasy world is hard enough. Making a fantasy world for each 200 year period , to reflect cultural and historical evolution is even harder. Even Sci-fi settings suffer this. Look at Star Wars, old republic vs new republic, theres "advancements" but more similar to Iphone 8 to Iphone 10 than what 10.000 years should have accomplished.

 LordofHats wrote:

 kodos wrote:

Danny76 wrote:
Guns predated the steam tank right? And wasn’t the inventor of that around 2000.
So I guess they’d had at least 500 years of time up to End Times/original setting.

yeah, Steam Tank was around the 2000, yet we still have matchlock as standard state troop weapon in 2500, with wheelock for elites/heroes and dwarfs use flintlock

there did not happen a lot regarding weapon development in 500 years where in real live it took ~150 years from the matchlock to the flintlock,

Fantasy in general, as a genre, has a piss poor conception of timescales.

Of course, one could also say that just because a technology can advance doesn't mean it will. The Chinese discovered gunpowder in the 9th or 10th century, but they were never as fast to develop it as the Europeans and Muslims who acquired it a few hundred years later. Outside of artillery and rocketry, Chinese firearms developed into rudimentary hand cannons and then didn't change much for 500 years. The Europeans and Ottomans meanwhile took the weapons and went hogwild developing them.

The Japanese too, at least until the Sengoku Jidai ended and Tokugawa put a ban on everything European.
But yeah, technological advancement isn't exactly linear. It's not like a strategy game where you have a tech tree and a step by step progression. There's a lot of different factors at play, such as geography, local resources and politics.

Of course, making a complex geo-political landscape in a setting from scratch (complete with a viable economic system of course) is really, really hard, so much writers just cheat and throw in what they want.

I think it's a good omen that this thread remains one of Dakkas most active dispite there being no news for months at a time.

Let's hope the entusiasm remains high after release!

 Galas wrote:
The reason why most fantasy settings have thousands of years without cultural or technological changes with the exception of the used trope of "Technologically advanced proto-empire converts into pseudo medieval kingdoms" is because making a fantasy world is hard enough. Making a fantasy world for each 200 year period , to reflect cultural and historical evolution is even harder. Even Sci-fi settings suffer this. Look at Star Wars, old republic vs new republic, theres "advancements" but more similar to Iphone 8 to Iphone 10 than what 10.000 years should have accomplished.

Actually it might be easier for the writer, its harder for the reader.

Consider how most people consider historical periods as a single concept in their minds eye. Say Romans and people think of hundreds of years and thousands of miles as basically some abomination amalgamation of it all squished together into one time period. Same for the Medieval age or many others. Unless you actually study it, our concept of the past is very vague and generalist.

And this mostly works because unless we are studying or doing something in-depth related to an historical period and region; we don't need that level of fine understanding to chat about it casually.


Furthermore in a book you can only cover so much information to the reader before they get overwhelmed and lost. The story gets lost in the woods of detail and history and such. So having fairly static elements lasting for a long time and such works well to convey things to the reader without going into so much detail that the start of the book his the Silmarillion history lesson for the setting. Even Lord of the Rings doesn't need you to read all the background information to enjoy Lord of the Rings. If you do then you can enjoy some elements deeper; you get what a Balrog is the moment its mentioned; you understand the threat of the Dark Lord and the like. You can appreciate it on a deeper level, but you don't have to to enjoy the story itself.

 Ohman wrote:
I think it's a good omen that this thread remains one of Dakkas most active dispite there being no news for months at a time.

Let's hope the entusiasm remains high after release!

Enthusiasm?! I am waiting patiently for GW´s next train wreck while happily staying with 9th Age. You told me to leave and I won´t be coming back, Gee-Dubs.

 LordofHats wrote:
Not really. The 'Dark Ages' is something historians of the Middle Ages have been trying to get rid of for ages. Technology and society never stagnated. People living in the Renaissance simply liked to portray themselves as reclaiming a golden age spirit lost to time.

And beyond that, the Bronze Age is not a purely European phenomena. It applied to Asia and Africa as well, and really until the early modern period none of these regions were of significantly greater sophistication than the others. The Americas were behind, but the earliest complex civilizations in the Americans begin appearing around the same time the Bronze Age was ending.

I'm not making an argument that progress is inevitable.

Change is, and things tend to change a lot in 100 years, let alone 200 or 300. Globally speaking, anything lasting more than a few centuries is impressive. Things change rapidly in real human terms. It's fantasy of course and its scale and grandeur is part of the appeal. I'm only saying obsessing over how the Empire didn't follow a rapid progression is kind of calling the black kettle a black kettle. That's what a black kettle is.

The 'Dark Ages' is indeed an outdated and too generalist term, outside of Britain at least which genuinely did experience something like that, thus why I avoided the term. It doesn't change the fact that Europe was technologically, infrastructurally and economically inferior to Rome until it started to match and surpass it some time around 1000-1200 (even as late as the 1700s/1800s for some engineering/infrastructure aspects), depending on what specific areas you wanted to look at. Leaving that aside, an individual free human's experience wasn't vastly different from 0AD to about 1800AD, that's a prolonged period when for the average people the core experience of humanity didn't change.

That's not to say GRRM's daft stuff like the Starks ruling for 1,000s of years makes any sense but you can easily argue for societies to remain relatively stagnant economically/militarily for centuries. Culture tends to be more subject to flux.

Yeah. I know things changed and advanced but people overvalues how the living experience of your average peasant farmer changed from 500 BC to 1500 AC or even latter.

My great grandparents were living in shacks and small houses, sleeping with cows and donkeys, and living of the land with hand tools and no electricity or running water (No tractors or whatsoever) circa 1900 , because they were from a small village in Galicia, Spain.

Mechanically, early guns shouldn't be that difficult to copy with the Empire's technology. The quality might not be quite the same as what the dwarves are making. But the basic mechanisms are easy to replicate if there's one available to study for even a short bit of time. These aren't steam tanks or flying machines that we're talking about. Issues would likely be focused on gunpowder quality, and building enough of them before the modern assembly line. Based on my admittedly limited understanding of firearms development, I think you could reach firearms technology of the early nineteenth century and still have that apply. It's not until the middle of that century (the Gatling gun -introduced in 1862 - is a decent though not absolute marker, imo) that you start to require a level of precision work unavailable in the Empire.

 Overread wrote:

 Galas wrote:
The reason why most fantasy settings have thousands of years without cultural or technological changes with the exception of the used trope of "Technologically advanced proto-empire converts into pseudo medieval kingdoms" is because making a fantasy world is hard enough. Making a fantasy world for each 200 year period , to reflect cultural and historical evolution is even harder. Even Sci-fi settings suffer this. Look at Star Wars, old republic vs new republic, theres "advancements" but more similar to Iphone 8 to Iphone 10 than what 10.000 years should have accomplished.

Actually it might be easier for the writer, its harder for the reader.

Consider how most people consider historical periods as a single concept in their minds eye. Say Romans and people think of hundreds of years and thousands of miles as basically some abomination amalgamation of it all squished together into one time period. Same for the Medieval age or many others. Unless you actually study it, our concept of the past is very vague and generalist.

And this mostly works because unless we are studying or doing something in-depth related to an historical period and region; we don't need that level of fine understanding to chat about it casually.


Furthermore in a book you can only cover so much information to the reader before they get overwhelmed and lost. The story gets lost in the woods of detail and history and such. So having fairly static elements lasting for a long time and such works well to convey things to the reader without going into so much detail that the start of the book his the Silmarillion history lesson for the setting. Even Lord of the Rings doesn't need you to read all the background information to enjoy Lord of the Rings. If you do then you can enjoy some elements deeper; you get what a Balrog is the moment its mentioned; you understand the threat of the Dark Lord and the like. You can appreciate it on a deeper level, but you don't have to to enjoy the story itself.

Yup. I have learned that when writing settings I need to go back at the end and write an abridged de-detailed version that people can keep track of on the fly. Tropes are really helpful for that; I can say 'like Vikings' and deliver an immense amount of cultural and historical depth about a fictional faction with two words.


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Eumerin wrote:
Mechanically, early guns shouldn't be that difficult to copy with the Empire's technology. The quality might not be quite the same as what the dwarves are making. But the basic mechanisms are easy to replicate if there's one available to study for even a short bit of time. These aren't steam tanks or flying machines that we're talking about. Issues would likely be focused on gunpowder quality, and building enough of them before the modern assembly line. Based on my admittedly limited understanding of firearms development, I think you could reach firearms technology of the early nineteenth century and still have that apply. It's not until the middle of that century (the Gatling gun -introduced in 1862 - is a decent though not absolute marker, imo) that you start to require a level of precision work unavailable in the Empire.

At the same time something like rifling or the functionality of a bullet shape would be incredibly easy to miss and have humans shrug, going 'well it's not Dwarfen, makes sense it doesn't work as well'.

 Galas wrote:
Yeah. I know things changed and advanced but people overvalues how the living experience of your average peasant farmer changed from 500 BC to 1500 AC or even latter.

My great grandparents were living in shacks and small houses, sleeping with cows and donkeys, and living of the land with hand tools and no electricity or running water (No tractors or whatsoever) circa 1900 , because they were from a small village in Galicia, Spain.

A lot, and i mean a lot, of people still functionally live like that today - it may even be that in absolute, though not relative, numbers more people live like that today than did around 1900, considering that the world population back then was a fifth of the population today.

and a very big difference, that makes this actual possible are modern fertilizers as living from the land you own was more difficult 100/150 years ago and "the land" not able to feed that many people

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
At the same time something like rifling or the functionality of a bullet shape would be incredibly easy to miss and have humans shrug, going 'well it's not Dwarfen, makes sense it doesn't work as well'.

which was also the main change in gun development in modern times, the shape and design of the bullet, which was a round ball for a very long time for several different reasons

while rifling was adopted very early, the first guns came up ~1350 the first rifling ~1450, but it took until ~1850 for modern bullets
one reason for this was that the principle of a rotation stabilised ammunition for better accuracy and range was already used for arrows, and that part is a little harder to miss as humans in the Empire would see that the arrows fired at them by elves look a little different to their own and if they used those to shoot back they would also fly better than their own (unlike a deformed bullet)

There's also the example of Mesoamerica.

No metallurgy (other than gold jewelry), no wheels (other than toys) and yet build monumental stone structures and mega cities.

Technology can skip steps, you'll suffer from it, but it can.

It's another interesting example of how worldbuilding for games is influenced by the game design and production constraints of those games. In this case, the constraint of "we want these models to be usable in a variety of settings and time periods" engendered a period of stagnation in technology and fashion in the Empire.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
There's also the example of Mesoamerica.

No metallurgy (other than gold jewelry), no wheels (other than toys) and yet build monumental stone structures and mega cities.

Technology can skip steps, you'll suffer from it, but it can.

It can also be repeatedly lost and rediscovered, like the link between vitamin C, citrus fruit and the prevention of scurvy, or stagnate because all the pieces are there, but nobody takes the steps to link them up to something greater. The greeks for example had iron railed cartways that they used to transport goods over moderate distances, they had all sorts of sophisticated machinery with gears and levers, and they had simple steam engines they used for entertainment purposes, but they never came up with the idea to make a practical steam engine, or they came up with it and failed to make it work well enough to be worth the effort.

Things like metallurgy and material science matter too.

IIRC it's not that China didn't fight wars, didn't weaponize gun powder and didn't need weapons to survive. But the quality of their metals and the fact they had not developed screws to seal the back of a cannon made their weapons impractical.

It was only when European metal and engineering met Chinese gunpowder that guns became practical.

So I know about the Greek and their proto steam engines but I'm not sure they could have made that leap with the other limitations on their technology.

 Galas wrote:
Yeah. I know things changed and advanced but people overvalues how the living experience of your average peasant farmer changed from 500 BC to 1500 AC or even latter.

To be fair, the average living experience of 99% of humanity did not significantly change much at all between 5000 BC and 16-1700 AD. Farmers, laborers, and craftsmen generally lived more or less the same basic life across that entire period. It's really only in the early modern period when literacy started rising and economics began advancing a middle class that daily life and living really started to transform for the typical person.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Things like metallurgy and material science matter too.

IIRC it's not that China didn't fight wars, didn't weaponize gun powder and didn't need weapons to survive. But the quality of their metals and the fact they had not developed screws to seal the back of a cannon made their weapons impractical.

It was only when European metal and engineering met Chinese gunpowder that guns became practical.

So I know about the Greek and their proto steam engines but I'm not sure they could have made that leap with the other limitations on their technology.

They also show that you can get too good at one technology too fast (pottery and porcelain) and that means you just never develop the alternative that is useful in many other ways (glass working)

 kodos wrote:
and a very big difference, that makes this actual possible are modern fertilizers as living from the land you own was more difficult 100/150 years ago and "the land" not able to feed that many people

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
At the same time something like rifling or the functionality of a bullet shape would be incredibly easy to miss and have humans shrug, going 'well it's not Dwarfen, makes sense it doesn't work as well'.

which was also the main change in gun development in modern times, the shape and design of the bullet, which was a round ball for a very long time for several different reasons

while rifling was adopted very early, the first guns came up ~1350 the first rifling ~1450, but it took until ~1850 for modern bullets
one reason for this was that the principle of a rotation stabilised ammunition for better accuracy and range was already used for arrows, and that part is a little harder to miss as humans in the Empire would see that the arrows fired at them by elves look a little different to their own and if they used those to shoot back they would also fly better than their own (unlike a deformed bullet)

Also being able to build guns with interchangable parts on an industrial scale was not possible until the later 19th century IIRC?

Society plays a part - the Romans did not advance much because they did not need or want to and partly due to slavery - they were great at polishing known tech but pretty poor at new tech - also as they Empire was made interdependant that caused huge problems when it began to fall apart.

Population does seem to have declined in the "Dark Ages"?

 Mr Morden wrote:


Population does seem to have declined in the "Dark Ages"?

Regional rises and falls in population are common in history. Singling out the decline in population following the fall of the Western Empire as 'unique' is fallacious. Anytime there is a serious disruption in trade, food, and state structure, population drops.

On top of that, it's not even thought that the population really fell appreciably anymore. The Age of Migrations has encompassed a larger and large timescale as scholarship has advanced. It's pretty common now for it to include the entire period of the late empire up through the Early Middle Ages and the Viking Age as the tail end of this period (archeologists and anthropologists have been leading on this rather than historians). It's very difficult to actually track regional populations and the dynamics of the period skews data because so many populations were moving en mass throughout this period. Part of this is a direct result of Roman success with infrastructure plus social and political changes on the Eurasian Steppe and Northern Europe. Roman roads and internal policies made it very easy for large population groups to move through Europe faster than they could leave appreciable bodies of evidence for us to track.

Maybe the population fell, but we're not so sure anymore. Tracking population data lacking any sort of census has always been a crap shoot. There's a lot of strong arguments being made that it probably didn't. We just lost a reliable way to actually the gauge the populations we're dealing with because they started moving around so much.

It was called the Dark Ages for a time because the number of books produced in the period did drop, but that too is probably a questionable thing to single out since this period still saw a general rise in literacy. It's generally rare to see the term Dark Ages used outside of British scholarship, and on that I'd argue that British Scholars are just being stubborn. Most historians want to kill the phrase because they think it has too much baggage that runs counter to newer developments and discoveries.

As mentioned earlier.
Magic. Plays a huge role in advancement or not.
Also the other not mentioned, near constant war. In both settings that certainly stagnated things..




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 Overread wrote:
If anything I think the only major fantasy series that actually shows a real world style advance is Discworld!

Brandon Sanderson ahas a lot of advancement in his settings.

Danny76 wrote:
As mentioned earlier.
Magic. Plays a huge role in advancement or not.
Also the other not mentioned, near constant war. In both settings that certainly stagnated things..

Which is some ways ironic, given the advancements driven by war in the real world.

 Dawnbringer wrote:

Danny76 wrote:
As mentioned earlier.
Magic. Plays a huge role in advancement or not.
Also the other not mentioned, near constant war. In both settings that certainly stagnated things..

Which is some ways ironic, given the advancements driven by war in the real world.

War can both drive advancements and hold it back. It does make governments more likely to experiment; however at the same time it can kill your greatest minds; it can destroy huge amounts of key infrastructure; it can destroy information storage as well. War might encourage more free spending, but it can also cause a lot of loss as well. Heck just look how in the last years since WW2 we have advanced in the west by insane lengths - you don't build a Hadron Collider during war times unless you modify it to lob super-deadly atoms at your enemy.


Really in the end its necessity that helps drive innovation. War creates a necessity and can often be a catalyst for the ignoring of dogma, especially if you start losing. It can encourage more free thinking to rise ot the top in desperation. However you can similarly have a non-wartime period with necessity and a government and political and social system that encourages investment in the sciences and further study.

Again look how far we've come with co-operation, peace times, trade of information and technology across boarders, wider education, greater access to information.

It takes more than just war. The Greeks used, more or less, the same form a fighting for nearly a 1000 years between the Classic age and late antiquity. They kept using it for centuries even after it was proven ineffective by new tactics.

The last recorded deployment of a Greek Phalanx in combat was in the 4th century AD.

War, in and of itself, does not necessarily encourage change. China was fighting wars for ages and never developed firearms much past where they got to in the 13th century. The Ottomans and the Europeans were fighting almost constantly, yet the European states started leaving the Ottomans behind in firearms development rapidly in the 18th century.

I think its fallacious to associate war with encouraging development. It can, but not necessarily. Development is as much a product of attitude as it is pressure, plus someone having the idea to try something and the capacity to push it forward.

There's still no clear answer why Norse explorers discovered the Americas, Europeans in England and France reported it, and yet no one seemed to follow up on that. Greenland was abandoned late in the 14th and 15h centuries in connection with the Little Ice Age, but there's really nothing that explains the complete derth of interest in going somewhere Europeans had learned was there. Presumably economics. There was no apparent money to be made on the vaguely defined distant landmass, so no one with the capacity to send people there past a certain point bothered to even look.

Sometimes, people just don't do something even when it starts looking like it should be obvious in hindsight.

 LordofHats wrote:


To be fair, the average living experience of 99% of humanity did not significantly change much at all between 5000 BC and 16-1700 AD. Farmers, laborers, and craftsmen generally lived more or less the same basic life across that entire period. It's really only in the early modern period when literacy started rising and economics began advancing a middle class that daily life and living really started to transform for the typical person.

In his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Winston Churchill observed that the standard of living achieved in Roman Britain would not be exceeded until the Victorian era.

The Romans were able to cultivate grapes, their villas had central heating, running water, excellent sanitation, etc.

Another issue is that we don't know just how much technology was lost over time.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:


To be fair, the average living experience of 99% of humanity did not significantly change much at all between 5000 BC and 16-1700 AD. Farmers, laborers, and craftsmen generally lived more or less the same basic life across that entire period. It's really only in the early modern period when literacy started rising and economics began advancing a middle class that daily life and living really started to transform for the typical person.

In his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Winston Churchill observed that the standard of living achieved in Roman Britain would not be exceeded until the Victorian era.

The Romans were able to cultivate grapes, their villas had central heating, running water, excellent sanitation, etc.

Another issue is that we don't know just how much technology was lost over time.

That has little to do with the Romans or anything sophisticated.

That's all about climate. The great eruption of El Chichon in 540 had a radical impact on global weather and temperature patterns (amplified by an even earlier eruption in the 4th century I'm not sure I'm remembering right?) and began a global cooling period that would culminate in the Little Ice Age in the 14th to 19th centuries (notice the time scale?). People in Britain didn't magically forget how to grow grapes (that idea itself is silly when you think about it). Weather patterns made it impossible. Shifts in population and weather made the larger Roman cities impractical, plus the arrival of the Angles and the Saxons who established new population centers and political structures that also still had running water and heating. That gak never went away with Romans. That's a complete myth. What did go away was building things in concrete. Roman infrastructure wasn't that unique. It was just made from materials that last a long time and wasn't worth tearing down to build other things in.

And honestly, why people stopped building things in concrete is kind of its own story.

To be fair to Mr. Churchill, archeologists only started picking at this thread in the past 20 years. Some argue the entire Age of Migration can ultimately be connected back to the climate disruptions caused by the El Chichon eruption. Which is in the Americas by the way. Volcanos be fething it all up in Eruope in 540 >.> There's a pretty good book on this that goes heavy into it; Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings. Neil Price proposes the Viking Age itself can ultimately be traced to social and political changes caused by El Chichon. Great read, if a bit dry in some parts.

Yeah, a lot of people forget that the Dark Ages meant more that there was less preserved material for study (or less had been found) than for the Roman period which came before. Hence a "dark" patch in history that was harder to study after a period that is honestly a lot easier to study it seems.


And yeah climate has always been a huge thing. I recall that the Azteks weren't defeated just by Spanish and smallpox, but also huge climatic shifts that destroyed their harvests. They were already broken and starved and damaged.

Same as the Native Americans in the north had gone through a massive collapse (though I forget the triggers for that one)





Of course it doesn't help that the Dark Ages get used in media a lot so many people have a skewed understanding. Though it always amazes me that Arthurian style fantasy and stories often tend to show a very civilized, advanced and developed setting; and yet that is also "dark ages"

 Overread wrote:


And yeah climate has always been a huge thing. I recall that the Azteks weren't defeated just by Spanish and smallpox, but also huge climatic shifts that destroyed their harvests. They were already broken and starved and damaged.

The Aztecs were defeated because the Spanish were able to build a coalition of their enemies and overthrow them. It wasn't like 100 Spaniards with matchlocks did the deed. No, they had thousands of willing allies who wanted the Aztecs gone.

Setting aside the various theories (which realistically will never be resolved), the point is that there is no inherent reason for societies to experience technological advancement. If something works, they just keep doing that.

Thus, it's perfectly plausible that the Old World would get to matchlocks or even flintlocks and then stall out. It was "good enough."

 Overread wrote:
Yeah, a lot of people forget that the Dark Ages meant more that there was less preserved material for study (or less had been found) than for the Roman period which came before. Hence a "dark" patch in history that was harder to study after a period that is honestly a lot easier to study it seems.

To be honest, there isn't that much less material.

The problem is the nature of what was being written shifted and there was a period in the late 6th and and 7th centuries where everyone in Western Europe was too busy fighting to keep track of everything. The records we have are quite numerous but they're contradictory as all hell. King Arthur is a great example even. There's at least a dozen historical, semi-historical, and quasi-historical figures mentioned in records about this period who have been proposed a historical basis for King Arthur. And we're not even sure how many of them were real, different names for the same guy/s, or were made up after the fact and added in by fanbois of early Arthurian Myth (there were people writing about Arthur and his Kingdom as early as the 8th century, this myth got up and started running fast).

What's notable of this period isn't a lack of records, but a lack of clarity in the records we have. Everyone was simply too busy warring to have time to record everything and what ended up being recorded comes at the end of a major period of cultural and linguistic development that makes figuring out who is talking about what and where and who a Gordian Knot of confusion.

I recall that the Azteks weren't defeated just by Spanish and smallpox, but also huge climatic shifts that destroyed their harvests. They were already broken and starved and damaged.

This has been proposed but I think the people proposing it are light on real evidence. By all accounts Central Mexico was doing pretty well when the Conquistadors arrived but said Conquistadors burned so much gak down it's possible they weren't. The Aztecs, Mixtecs, and the Maya kept paper records. Almost none survived the book burnings.

Though it always amazes me that Arthurian style fantasy and stories often tend to show a very civilized, advanced and developed setting; and yet that is also "dark ages"

It goes hand in hand with the romanticization of Arthur's Britan as a gleaming city on a hill in the wake of the Western Empire's collapse. Without a doubt, people living in the Roman world certainly thought they were living the end times, but I mean come on who wouldn't? Thing is they weren't the only people alive then and what was a cataclysm to the Western Roman domain was a swelling period of development and opportunity for others.