Why did WFB fail? (serious question) I have my thoughts about it, but I want to hear why you thought it failed. Did you never try it? Started to but gave it up? Played for a long time before giving up? Die hard till the end?
WFB is dead and I want to know why.
I always wanted to buy into it and get an Empire army, but never pulled the trigger. For me it was the fact that to buy a full army it would take far too much time and money. It was too intimidating. And then when 8th rolled out and I heard the changes how magic was too over powering, more bigger monsters being the focus and the codexes weren't close to being balanced, I lost interest.
Also, I looked at beastmen, but when I heard how outmatched they were, I gave up the idea.
But that's me. Tell me why you think WFB died.
Bonus topic: Could it have been saved?
I believe so. All it would have taken was good rules that got people excited.
8th didn't kill the game here (though AoS certainly delivered a hard blow). There was still a nice contingent of players (for a backwater country like mine at least) that gathered en masse each year to train and elect players for the ETC and played quite regularly through the year. There was certainly a "player rotation" so to speak when 8th hit - random charge length, steadfast and the strong magic were the things that alienated the players that left at that time.
IMO it certainly could have gotten better here - the fan base was there to educate younger players. Some streamlining/fixing of the rules to appease older players, some price decreases to lure new ones and I could see it slowly expanding. GW is now pressuring 2 stores to distribute their products and is unsuccessful at both places - they certainly picked the "right" moment to expand here :| . There's one die-hard store that has distributed their products since time immemorial and still does, but it could've been so much better...
I moved away from a community that was almost exclusively 40K (in four years I never saw a game of WHFB happening in the local GWs) to a place that was around 60/40 in favour of Fantasy. It varies from place to place, and that was a bit of an eye opener for me.
In general, I'm pretty sure WHFB was failing to bring in enough money. GW is a big company after all, and in order to stay that way they have to make wise business choices that don't always please everyone out there. AoS is a new game with free rules and everyone's existing armies can be used - smart move. There's new armies to play, new models to invest in and a whole load of 'expansions' like the BRB and various campaign/scenarios to keep people interested. It's much easier to get into and costs nowhere near as much as WHFB ever did.
The main reason it died is because it wasn't making enough money, pure and simple. I think the idea of a new set of good rules wouldn't work; there would be just as many people unhappy with the changes. In bringing out a game with only four pages of rules and very clearly stated rules in each war scroll, there's very little to argue about. And even if a player finds something to argue about, the rules suggest rolling it off and getting on with the game.
I don't think WHFB will come back, and I don't think it needs to. There are plenty of cheaper alternatives. Kings of War is booming since July, not that it wasn't doing well already. KoW is cheaper and a number of people will tell you it's better than WHFB is/was anyways.
slowclinic wrote: I moved away from a community that was almost exclusively 40K (in four years I never saw a game of WHFB happening in the local GWs) to a place that was around 60/40 in favour of Fantasy. It varies from place to place, and that was a bit of an eye opener for me.
In general, I'm pretty sure WHFB was failing to bring in enough money. GW is a big company after all, and in order to stay that way they have to make wise business choices that don't always please everyone out there. AoS is a new game with free rules and everyone's existing armies can be used - smart move. There's new armies to play, new models to invest in and a whole load of 'expansions' like the BRB and various campaign/scenarios to keep people interested. It's much easier to get into and costs nowhere near as much as WHFB ever did.
The main reason it died is because it wasn't making enough money, pure and simple. I think the idea of a new set of good rules wouldn't work; there would be just as many people unhappy with the changes. In bringing out a game with only four pages of rules and very clearly stated rules in each war scroll, there's very little to argue about. And even if a player finds something to argue about, the rules suggest rolling it off and getting on with the game.
I don't think WHFB will come back, and I don't think it needs to. There are plenty of cheaper alternatives. Kings of War is booming since July, not that it wasn't doing well already. KoW is cheaper and a number of people will tell you it's better than WHFB is/was anyways.
But the real question is: why didn't it earn enough money? Is it just the idea of a massed battle fantasy game won't appeal to enough people? I don't see that. I think if done well it could absolutely be popular. Also, I don't think making good rules is ever a bad thing. I think good rules attract players that like good games. The problem is, I'm not sure GW is capable of making good rules anymore. But if they did, I think fantasy had just as much of a chance as anything else.
Agreed about KOW.
But the real question is: why didn't it earn enough money? Is it just the idea of a massed battle fantasy game won't appeal to enough people? I don't see that. I think if done well it could absolutely be popular. Also, I don't think making good rules is ever a bad thing. I think good rules attract players that like good games. The problem is, I'm not sure GW is capable of making good rules anymore. But if they did, I think fantasy had just as much of a chance as anything else.
Agreed about KOW.
I just don't think it attracted enough new players. Especially from a young person's point of view, 40K looks cooler. I started out in Fantasy when I was very young, and quickly noticed there was no-one nearby who played, but were all over 40K. This was going back to 10-14 years ago. I think a lot of people see GW and immediately see 40K, and that's the way things have been for a long time in my experience.
The second point wasn't explained wonderfully. "Good rules" suggests that the rules in place weren't good enough. People will find problems with any rule set that comes out. Each edition some armies get nerfed and others are improved greatly, creating quite a significant imbalance. That's not to say this doesn't happen in 40K, because it does and that's not going to change either. Good rules wouldn't result in an imbalanced game to the lengths that WHFB could be. At least in the way the rules play out in AoS, payers are less restrictive and can base games around a mutual acceptance of what's fair or not, which is harder to do when there's a point restriction. A WAAC player can still exist, but it's pretty obvious that it isn't going to be a fun game and I've seen players not getting games because of this attitude.
I think GW have made a choice based mostly on their profits. There's a big Horus Heresy game coming out in a few weeks, and almost everyone in my local GW are buzzing about it, far more than they did about AoS. This store was primarily WHFB before AoS came in. If a major release based around the Horus Heresy is there, that says a lot about where GW see strong returns.
We don't really know if WFB sales truly plummeted as much as it's been sometimes said. Games Workshop does not release detailed sales numbers for each game of theirs. We only know for certain their sales have fallen by around 25% since 2013, and while that could be due to a number of diverse reasons, it's mostly believed the main culprit was 40k 6th edition.
As for Fantasy, it had its golden age by the early 00s with its 6th edition, stagnated during 7th and had been in decline since late 7th (perhaps due to steadily increasing prices and game balance being thrown out of the window thanks to certain armybooks). 8th didn't seem to improve things around, rather the contrary, but we cannot really say it "killed" Fantasy because we don't know reliable, concrete numbers, only anecdotical evidence. I can say it pretty much killed Fantasy in my area, but that's just it, anecdotical evidence, nothing more.
Perhaps Fantasy was not failing that hard. At least not enough to scare GW to the point of scrapping the game. Instead the official death* of Fantasy could have been merely a corporate decision taken years ago, maybe even before GW's sales began to drop dramatically two-three years ago. In any case, I'd bet something the outcome of the Chapterhouse case speeded things up way, way faster than any sales numbers. Their latest financial report speaks of an intention of revamping their entire "stale" catalogue. Whatever that exactly means, I highly doubt 40k will be left in its current state for long, specially taking into account that after the Tau release there are only four main factions left to update to the current edition. It's not even been two years since 40k 7th edition was released and we're nearing the end of the release circle, so a "40k End Times" should be considered as a possibility.
* a game like WHFB belongs, first and foremost, to its players, and it will be alive as long as its players want it to live.
When I left gw in September of last year, fantasy accounted for around 7% of sales. It was dead. People had armies that they occasionally added to with new army books, but few new gamers got into it, and few existing players regularly bought new armies. It just didn't make money. Plus, don't forget that they had had 8 attempts at creating a solid rule set with balanced armies. They couldn't do it. The rules writers blame the community for deliberately trying to break the game with op lists (which they did, but in fairness more thorough playtesting, or beta testing involving the community would have resolved).
In the end, we vote with our wallets. Whfb just wasn't getting the votes.
JamesY wrote: When I left gw in September of last year, fantasy accounted for around 7% of sales. It was dead. People had armies that they occasionally added to with new army books, but few new gamers got into it, and few existing players regularly bought new armies. It just didn't make money. Plus, don't forget that they had had 8 attempts at creating a solid rule set with balanced armies. They couldn't do it. The rules writers blame the community for deliberately trying to break the game with op lists (which they did, but in fairness more thorough playtesting, or beta testing involving the community would have resolved).
In the end, we vote with our wallets. Whfb just wasn't getting the votes.
So, you say imbalanced armies and poor rules are to blame for the failing of fantasy?
What about the rules was so poor?
I agree with everything you've said up there. Although leaked information is never reliable, apparently a lot of 'inside sources' told of sales in Fantasy dropping dramatically. It's not much to go by, but seeing what people bought throughout the course of a day in various GWs, and I'm often in for 8-10 hours for painting sessions, 40K purchases outnumbered Fantasy purchases by at least 20:1 without exaggerating.
A 40K End Times could be possible. I like the idea of a Nids takeover or even the rest of the Necrons finally waking and cleansing the planets again. Even if that were to happen, I'd imagine it will be a considerable number of years before the game sees any significant changes.
Regarding your closing quote: Yes, absolutely. I still play Mordheim, and there's more dedication in the players I've met than there ever was when the game was 'alive'. Just looking at the AoS board, a majority of the posts towards tactics and army lists are still for WHFB. Granted, you can argue that AoS army lists are kind of redundant, but I still find the lack of general tactics a little disappointing.
@ mwhistorian No I never said that, I love whfb. I was saying that in reference to the op that a rewrite would solve the problem of poor sales, as if it was that easy.
JamesY wrote: @ mwhistorian No I never said that, I love whfb. I was saying that in reference to the op that a rewrite would solve the problem of poor sales, as if it was that easy.
I never said it would be easy.
But if 9th came out and solved the problems people had with 8th, (without the typical GW thing of changing other things to be worse) don't you think that would have helped sales? I do.
JamesY wrote: When I left gw in September of last year, fantasy accounted for around 7% of sales. It was dead. People had armies that they occasionally added to with new army books, but few new gamers got into it, and few existing players regularly bought new armies. It just didn't make money. Plus, don't forget that they had had 8 attempts at creating a solid rule set with balanced armies. They couldn't do it. The rules writers blame the community for deliberately trying to break the game with op lists (which they did, but in fairness more thorough playtesting, or beta testing involving the community would have resolved).
In the end, we vote with our wallets. Whfb just wasn't getting the votes.
So, you say imbalanced armies and poor rules are to blame for the failing of fantasy?
What about the rules was so poor?
Interesting… I'm not going to contest what JamesY is saying here, as it backs ups a lot of speculation I went with, but I didn't think it was that drastic all round. 7%? Wow.
The rules allowed OP players to justify their lists. AoS scrapping a points based system and promoting mutual agreements is one of the game's biggest triumphs, IMHO.
Although around my club WFB had it's fans, most people didn't like it because it was too complex in it's rules and because the magic system was way over powered. GW prices didn't help either. 40K remains extremely popular though.
They probably thought the same when they released 8th ed, and 7th...
Perhaps 9th ed might have been the one to save it, but the sales didn't warrant the investment in trying to improve it, or at least that seems to be the decision that was made.
I really enjoyed playing 8th edition Fantasy and thought it was a good game. The horrific spells like Pit of Shades could be very nasty to play against (especially for some armies like Lizard Men), and there were some loopholes in the rules that never got resolved. (Night Goblin Fanatic hits a regiment of just one RnF and a character. How are hits resolved? Etc)
I think the thing that killed it though was simple. The changes that meant you need 4 boxes to build a regiment rather than 1.
This was a combination of the horde rule, increasing minimum frontage to 5 models wide and dropping down to 10 models a box.
One of the best things AoS has going for it is as soon as you buy and assemble a box it's there ready to be used in your army.
JamesY wrote: When I left gw in September of last year, fantasy accounted for around 7% of sales. It was dead. People had armies that they occasionally added to with new army books, but few new gamers got into it, and few existing players regularly bought new armies. It just didn't make money. Plus, don't forget that they had had 8 attempts at creating a solid rule set with balanced armies. They couldn't do it. The rules writers blame the community for deliberately trying to break the game with op lists (which they did, but in fairness more thorough playtesting, or beta testing involving the community would have resolved).
In the end, we vote with our wallets. Whfb just wasn't getting the votes.
It's not my intention to call you a liar, but honestly I have a hard time believing such numbers.
Do you mean 7% overall sales or 7% sales regarding your area, region, country, whatever?
The part about the rules writers... holy cow. If they were competent at their jobs, people would not be able to break the game in the first place. The insane arms race (culminated by Ward's Chaos Daemons) that murdered 7th edition was not the players' fault.
In fairness, regular faqs would have helped immensely, and the khaine magic rules sorted the issue of high powered spells by making them hard to cast. I never thought hordes were as big a thing as people seemed to think, as you only really got the benefit of the bonuses if you were fighting another horde, unless you were monstrous infantry, in which case the unit was probably a third of your army anyway.
JamesY wrote: When I left gw in September of last year, fantasy accounted for around 7% of sales. It was dead. People had armies that they occasionally added to with new army books, but few new gamers got into it, and few existing players regularly bought new armies. It just didn't make money. Plus, don't forget that they had had 8 attempts at creating a solid rule set with balanced armies. They couldn't do it. The rules writers blame the community for deliberately trying to break the game with op lists (which they did, but in fairness more thorough playtesting, or beta testing involving the community would have resolved).
In the end, we vote with our wallets. Whfb just wasn't getting the votes.
It's not my intention to call you a liar, but honestly I have a hard time believing such numbers.
Do you mean 7% overall sales or 7% sales regarding your area, region, country, whatever?
The part about the rules writers... holy cow. If they were competent at their jobs, people would not be able to break the game in the first place. The insane arms race (culminated by Ward's Chaos Daemons) that murdered 7th edition was not the players' fault.
Believe me or don't I don't care at all, but it was 7% of overall sales, hence the drastic move with endtimes/aos. And I am not defending the opinions of the writers, only relaying them. I loved 8th ed, but I only game casually with friends, so issues were never a problem.
One, it failed because 40K was easier so people spent more money on 40K. GW seeing this promoted 40K more. Most releases were 40K models, new 40K factions are released etc. So people buy more 40K and less fantasy. So GW releases more 40K stuff and less fantasy stuff to capture the sales. It starts a cycle that feeds itself. Armies went years without new updates. Meanwhile 40K is chugging them out with some new beautiful plastic sculpts while fantasy has the same ugly kits that have been out for 20 years. Think about it, for years you got less and less fantasy releases, but then GW releases a bunch of books and miniatures for end times and all of a sudden people start getting back into fantasy. However it was too little too late and then GW drops it for AoS.
Second reasons I think is the rising prices. As GW raises prices people only have so much money to spend. So if you have a fixed amount of money to spend on miniatures and the prices go up, you have to choose where to spend that money.If 40K is more popular you spend your money on that. Sure some people only play one system or another but a lot played both.
Third reason is kind of linked to the second but 6th, 7th and 8th edition each required more miniatures (especially 8th). While its coold to field hundreds of mini's on the table it got tedious to paint them all. I felt like I was painting wound counters, you rolled so many dice and pulled mini's off the table so fast why bother painting them all? Add in the rising cost as mentioned in #2 and lack of new miniatures from #1 and eventually you just said forget it and went onto something else.
We wrote: One, it failed because 40K was easier so people spent more money on 40K. .
I don't think 'which one is easier?' is the primary consideration for most people when choosing a game. If I'm looking for a mass-battle game in a fantasy setting, it's not going to matter how easy another game in a completely different genre is to play... it's not going to be what I'm looking for.
Having said that, I wonder if we had reached a point where the WHFB settings relative generic-ness was working against it. While the generic high fantasy setting was precisely what appealed to me about it, given how much fantasy fiction has moved on from the sort of 'Elves/Dwarves/Barbarians and Dragons' stuff I grew up with, it's entirely possible that the setting was just too bland for newer (ie:younger) gamers. So in that regard, the blowing up of the Old World in favour of a bunch of mystic space bubbles would make a certain amount of sense.
From my perspective and experience there were a few reasons here:
1) moving in blocks turned a lot of people off.
2) the importance of the movement phase turned a lot of people off
3) the fact that if you screwed your movement or deployment off would put you at a big disadvantage turned a lot of people off especially as compared to 40k
4) fantasy in general (the setting) turned a lot of people off here
5) the number of models needed turned a lot of people off here. This is broken down into a few areas.
5a) total number of models exceeding 20-30 models turns a lot of people off
5b) having to take not elite core turns a lot of people off.
6) the size of the ruleset turned a lot of people off, particularly with games like xwing becoming popular that have a tiny rules pamphlet.
7) the people that were interested had a very deep second hand market to buy models off of, and I know about 90% of our fantasy players here never bought anything new if they didn't have to, sticking to ebay and local buy/sell groups to get hteir armies for 40% or even more of the total price.
Loved and still love the setting - got more and more disenchanted with the game.
There were some improvements (premeasuring) in 8th ed btu not enough to keep me playing - magic was more and more broken the more you played it and lots of stupid elements to it.
auticus wrote: From my perspective and experience there were a few reasons here:
1) moving in blocks turned a lot of people off.
2) the importance of the movement phase turned a lot of people off
3) the fact that if you screwed your movement or deployment off would put you at a big disadvantage turned a lot of people off especially as compared to 40k
4) fantasy in general (the setting) turned a lot of people off here
Hadn't WHFB been about blocks and movement since, I don't know, 3rd Edition? Or further back?
All these don't sound like anything that would kill 8th, especially with the popularity of KoW and Warthrone showing that block based fantasy games are still a viable market.
5) the number of models needed turned a lot of people off here. This is broken down into a few areas.
5a) total number of models exceeding 20-30 models turns a lot of people off
Agreed here. The Horde rules made big units the order of the day, especially since smaller units could be easily wiped off the table with the insane magic system that 8th brought in.
5b) having to take not elite core turns a lot of people off.
6) the size of the ruleset turned a lot of people off, particularly with games like xwing becoming popular that have a tiny rules pamphlet.
Not sure about the first, and the second could easily be alleviated with the IoB rulebook. That just seems like AoS prejudice. 40k's 6th and 7th edition rulebooks aren't particularly anything to sneeze at.
7) the people that were interested had a very deep second hand market to buy models off of, and I know about 90% of our fantasy players here never bought anything new if they didn't have to, sticking to ebay and local buy/sell groups to get hteir armies for 40% or even more of the total price.
Agreed again. GW's habit of increases prices and decreasing the amount of miniatures in a box is a big turn off when 30-40 units are kind of a must. Then you toss in big expensive monsters, crazier magic, etc.
Oh, and don't forget that GW didn't release ANYTHING for WHFB for the first 8-9 months after its release, and then came out with a terrible Orcs & Goblin book. 8th didn't start on the right foot.
Hadn't WHFB been about blocks and movement since, I don't know, 3rd Edition? Or further back?
All these don't sound like anything that would kill 8th, especially with the popularity of KoW and Warthrone showing that block based fantasy games are still a viable market.
I'm not responding globally. I'm just saying why fantasy wasn't huge here where I am.
I'm sure block fantasy games are a viable market, just not one that is going to net a company a bunch of money. Especially if they can just use existing models or use the deep 2nd hand market.
AOS prejudice has nothing to do with the thing on the size of rulebooks. Those people don't play 40k for the same reason. Big complex rulesets seem to turn more people off where I am than attract - though Infinity is picking up ground despite having one of the more complex systems out there right now.
Warhammer Fantasy never really got magic very well, at least to me. It ran through periods where magic was too complicated, then too strong, then way too random, I just never really felt like they got it "right". Didn't feel satisfying.
Other than that I think Warhammer Fantasy is a pretty perfect game system. And it's not dead; at least not to me, I'm still playing it.
To have succeeded with Fantasy, GW would have had to give it additional support and provide an incentive for people to be buying their miniatures.
I think 40k becoming such a pop culture phenomenon helped kill Fantasy (and many of GW's other ranges). First 40k is all over the pop culture, then it attracts a bunch of new players, then GW focuses on it over Fantasy, then there were oodles of people who couldn't find steady Fantasy groups but could find 40k groups everywhere. So they switch to 40k, even though they'd really rather be playing Fantasy. And over the years these people get into 40k and forget about Fantasy. GW showed that it wasn't able to solve this death spiral. They couldn't answer the question Why should I be playing Fantasy/Epic/Batlefleet Gothic/whatever else when I could be playing 40k instead and finding a more active community around me? The solution would have been to keep Fantasy miniatures more affordable for gamers general use and to try to highlight the things that made Fantasy unique and different from 40k. ("You like big tactics, being a mythological general- come play our Fantasy game! You can play that too!")
Sigmar is doomed- love it all you like, but it's just basically GW trying to port over the things that made 40K become a pop phenomenon and they aren't doing a good job with it. Age of Sigmar is boring and hollow.
Well I am friends with a manager and he said that his paints and supplies sold more than fantasy. When he told me that I was shocked personally and I starting to think WHY as well.
I personally think its multiple factors when ever I see a young kid come in he asks what do you like? Fantasy or sci fi? Armies and soldiers fighting for their gods. Or space marines super soldiers?
They commonly went with 40k plus GW pushing 40k so heavily because it was actually making money. Fantasy began to stagnate.
The difficulty of getting a valid army because of the price, I know people who hated ranking up and dat rulebook.
Now? In his store since AOS came out he is actually selling fantasy stuff. Why? I dunno people are buying stuff now the problem is there is such a huge difference in areas.
Now for GW the crux of it was it simply was not making money. I think this is a question that cannot be answered since there is a lot of factors and different reasons why fantasy did not sell.
I don't know if sci-fi is inherently more popular than fantasy. In the publishing world the opposite is true. Fantasy sells way more than sci-fi.
I think people want good games.
Ending the outrider program
Rising prices people where forced to pick one game
Kids like guns more then bows, 40k attracts the younger crowd.
The size of the game grew so much over each edition.. I played back in 3rd edition and came back in 8th. I was shocked how many models you needed now.
Lack of support from GW. Fantasy was second fiddle to 40k when I came to releases.
My list is based on personal experiences and talking to friends.
1. Prices. It just was not worth it anymore.
2. Army books. It almost assured some armies would fail against others.
3. Tournament playing style. Too much of a game of gotcha combos.
I am a pretty avid fan of WFB. It was almost impossible to have a fun and balanced game while most players were trying to get the game over in seconds with a 2 turn splatter.
In that respect I really am intrigued by the no points aspect of AOS. But why couldn't they just add that to WFB 8th?
I am still planning on collecting and building my oldhammer forces, but for me GW is no longer a part of the Warhammer hobby.
Fantasy was always more popular with the more adult segment of gamers. Partly through a combination of being more expensive and more tactically engaging, it was also more attractive to the competitive players as its rules were more balanced and skill was a greater component. 40k is more engaging for the shorter attention spans of younger players. Over time, GW went out of their way to alienate this segment of the gamer population by cutting support for competitive events and making the barrier to entry for WHFB even higher with rising prices. This lead to no new blood in the game itself.
This gives GW the false impression that people don't like WHFB. After all, sales are flagging. They interpret this as people being dissatisfied with the product instead of people being priced out of the game and large numbers of people with existing armies and not buying entire armies together. So they decide to scrap the product and roll out the crappy AoS, the exact opposite of what they should have done. Or at least had AoS be a new game and not replace WHFB.
I started playing Warhammer Online when it came out, and I really loved my dwarf engineer character. Eventually that led to me looking at dwarves in a Games Workshop store and I immediately ran into two problems:
1. (the big one) the dwarves were all dudes. What the heck. Where are the awesome dwarf women from the MMO?
2. the aesthetic wasn't that great. The models were super caricatured and chunky and didn't look a lot like the ones from the MMO, and also didn't compare well to the Lord of the Rings dwarves I was more familiar with from GW's strategy battle game.
Before I was aware of other issues, like "I hope you want to buy fifteen boxes of warriors or whatever," those were the showstoppers.
I don't buy the "kids like sci fi more than fantasy" or "WHFB is more popular among adults". It's anecdotal I know, but WHFB around here has always been a realm of kids more than adults just like 40k.
Actually, I wonder if that idea comes from America more than Europe.
I think there's several reasons....
1. I think the range outgrew the game's popularity. GW's revenue rides on their constantly releasing new stuff and eventually the range is too large to justify if the community isn't also large.
2. I think the idea of including ever larger monsters and whatnot was at odds with the idea of a regimental combat game and that reduced appeal.
3. I reckon when GW started expanding in to the USA 40k caught on and WHFB didn't so that WHFB became proportionally a much smaller slice of their sales.
4. Entry requirements were too high. Painting a regiment is more daunting than painting a squad of 10 for 40k.
5. 8th edition alienated a lot of existing customers but also made the bar for entry even higher. Prior to 8th it was very common to see games with less than 50 models a side, from 8th onwards that seemed like a rarity.
6. No Spehss Mareenz. WHFB never really had a poster boy army that GW could flog when it needed to drum up sales. WHFB was a game where all the armies were minor armies.
I'm sure there's other reasons but that's all that's coming to mind at the moment.
I have been active in 3 different metas, in 3 different parts of the state, over the years. In all cases, WHFB was something the 40+ and older crowd was playing(though they had 40k, and other games, too) while the younger people were playing 40k almost exclusively. I was unusual in that I had a WHFB army, on top of playing 40k. Only a couple people my age had WHFB armies.
I have been active in 3 different metas, in 3 different parts of the state, over the years. In all cases, WHFB was something the 40+ and older crowd was playing(though they had 40k, and other games, too) while the younger people were playing 40k almost exclusively. I was unusual in that I had a WHFB army, on top of playing 40k. Only a couple people my age had WHFB armies.
That's why I said "I wonder if that idea comes from America more than Europe" (unless your flag is lying and you aren't from the USA). Because in my experience kids love fantasy in general and the groups I've been involved with over the past 20 years always had a dominance of youngens in both WHFB and 40k.
Most of the older players I encounter tend to be in to historics.
I think WHFB died because 40k was bigger and filled a similar hole in the market. AoS is a better entrypoint into the hobby than WHFB, and also allows them to compete with popular skirmish style games.
Pre-AoSGW had two big products with similar demographics and business models. The business plan from GW would have been to diversify by consolidating their old playerbases into one range of miniatures (cut costs), and then producing a new product aimed at a different demographic and with a different business model. Specifically this new business model is built on a low barrier to entry (free rules, and playable with just a box or two of miniatures), followed by microtransaction style additional scenario rules and buying additonal miniatures.
It's too hard to tell if killing WHFB was the right move. It will be interesting to see if 40k sales go up as they would have hoped, and it will be interesting to see how big the pool of potential hobbyists is. I think the WHFB -> 40k transition will be weaker than expected because they pissed off the community. The poor implementation will probably hurt GW in the short term, but in the long term targetting wider audiences and piloting new business models could be very profitable. It was a very brave move that could backfire spectacularly.
I think GW's problem is that they see themselves as a separate hobby from the wider world of wargaming and miniature painting.
They do believe that they are The GW hobby(tm).
And that has led them to do this, killing Fantasy in order to seek out a new demographic but not once stopping to consider that they are competing with lots of other companies on the market to reach that demographic.
Also, while I know locally 7th had a strong enough community that the larger tourney's in the state would draw in 200 people they were struggling to pull 25 once 8th hit. I feel like after 8th hit the damage was done through and with some effort me and a friend (who both started with 8th) managed to rebuild a lot of the local scene. We weren't pulling 200 people to tourneys but we had regular games going and half of the local 40k community bought into Fantasy as well, saying it was a better game.
The 40k players, who are for the most part fairly competitive locally, enjoyed that 8th was more balanced than 6th/7th 40k, they enjoyed that movement played a massive role in the game, and even the magic phase (which I know a lot of 7th ed vets cite as a terrible change) was something that they found interesting.
I know for me personally though that I began to loose interest around the time the Chaos Demons book landed. I considered the core rules and the 8th ed army books that were released prior to that very well balanced and very good for competitive play. However Chaos Demons was a mess and what followed was not much better. I think the whole local community then began to drift back towards 40k then, being the more popular of the two if both games were going to be equally unbalanced.
Given my personal experience I think End Times and AoS were a big mistake, I think WHFB needed a fair bit of work to recapture people's attention but the game itself still had all that potential, GW simply squandered it with poor rules and lack of support.
It just got too big. Just in the last few years I was interested, local meta standard game size went from 1500 with the occasional 2000 to 2400 with fairly regular 3000+.
That's a very daunting prospect for new players, or anyone wanting to start a new force.
A dangerous mix of price increases, a necessity of a higher model count number per army and bad rules did Fantasy in.
If you want to compare it with 40k, use the genre and not the game itself. Sci-Fi is on a clear rise, while "traditional" Fantasy clearly is not.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
RoperPG wrote: It just got too big. Just in the last few years I was interested, local meta standard game size went from 1500 with the occasional 2000 to 2400 with fairly regular 3000+.
That's a very daunting prospect for new players, or anyone wanting to start a new force.
This. Couple it with the lack of low points games (à la Kill Team style) and you have a game that involves what... a 300€ investment up front.
I am still surprised they did not just merge the systems, call the game "warhammer" and just do army and campaign books for both universes................
I have been active in 3 different metas, in 3 different parts of the state, over the years. In all cases, WHFB was something the 40+ and older crowd was playing(though they had 40k, and other games, too) while the younger people were playing 40k almost exclusively. I was unusual in that I had a WHFB army, on top of playing 40k. Only a couple people my age had WHFB armies.
That's why I said "I wonder if that idea comes from America more than Europe" (unless your flag is lying and you aren't from the USA). Because in my experience kids love fantasy in general and the groups I've been involved with over the past 20 years always had a dominance of youngens only both WHFB and 40k.
Most of the older players I encounter tend to be in to historics.
I can relate to that. Except for 5-6 new players in his late teens or early 20s all our group is solidly 30-something and above with wives, kids and all that.
We do play historicals (FoW, FoG, BA, Hail Caesar) as well, but WHFB (well, 9th age from now onwards) is the game of choice.
The 40k crowd is noticeably younger and gravitates towards fantasy with the years (maybe it's that were a more laid back group and that tends to appeal more with age).
1-Breath mint or candy mint? Fantasy has always had this tension, it's a fantasy game with orcs and lizardmen and elfs and dragons and what ever, but plays like a medieval historical game with blocks of troops. This tension led to some of the wild swings in balance. We want bizarre creatures like dragons and mighty heroes and magic, but the game is still build around troops, cavalry and artillery, so the importance of the fantastic elements varied wildly from edition to edition.
2-Losing the edge For a long time Fantasy was a breath of fresh air. A dirty, grimy late-medieval world based on historical Europe. The use of German names for the Empire for example gave it a sense of reality that other fantasy worlds never had. Just compare a map of the Olde World to the world of Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms and the other two just pale.
Giving their world black powder weapons and steampunk vehicles just made it more interesting.
And then the heavy metal, shoulder pads, spikes and skulls look for Chaos just make it cool.
While I never liked Fantasy the game per se, I really liked the world.
But it seems everyone has learned from GW, fantasy worlds these days use a lot of these tropes so WHF no longer felt new.
3-Work load Others have talked about the model count and expense, I would add just the sheer workload for this game was terrible. An Empire soldier had a bare minimum of 5 parts, plus any flair you want to add. Plus painting and basing. All that for a 5 point model, one of 20, 30, 50, 100. GW needed to either make them more significant to make them work the work, or simpler models.
4-Failure to grow A big one for me, the Olde Worlde had tons of unexplored locals, Yind, Cathay, Araby, Nippon... Or just underused aspects, Pirates, Dogs of War, Chaos Dwarfs, Norse, Chaos Cultists... but it was over 10 years since the last new faction was introduced and they were just Ogres.
5-Too many similar factions Another biggie, sort of the opposite side of failure to grow, when it did 'grow' it was by splitting factions into smaller and smaller bits. 3 kinds of elf, 3 or 4 kinds of chaos (depends if you count Skaven), 3 kinds of animal men (Skaven, Beastmen, Lizard Men), 2 kinds of undead... etc.
More human factions would have been interesting since, well, we're all human and there's tons of real world history to mine. Trying to turn all these fictional, however iconic, races into different factions each with a dozen or more plastic kits just asked too much from stores and from customers.
6-Plastic No one else wants to say it, so I will. GW's plan to shift EVERYTHING to plastic means they have to pay huge start up costs for really marginal units. Plastic models are profitable when sold in bulk, special characters, elite units, rare to unique warmachines etc should be in resin or metal. The big monsters like dragons should be kits that can be used by as many armies as possible. Having 3 different dragons for Dark, Wood and High Elfs must have been killing them on inventory and mold costs. They should have done one dragon with 3 heads and riders like they did with the giant.
I can't speak for someone else, but as someone who seriously considered starting WHFB when the Lizardmen army came out in 2013, I can tell you why I ultimately didn't pick up the game:
1) No obvious starting point - Usually, there is some sort of starter box that has rules and stuff that gets you started, but Island of Blood was very expensive for two armies I had absolutely no interest in. I wanted Lizardmen. So I needed to get at least the giant, expensive rulebook (for a game I wasn't sure I wanted to play yet) and the Lizardman codex - so I'm spending a ton of money before I've bought even my first Lizardman model. Honestly, if Island of Blood had two armies I was interested in (which weren't many in WHFB), I'd be playing the game today. But High Elves and Skaven? Meh.
2) Rank and file miniatures are unappealing - I like to paint my models, but I do it slowly and give each one a lot of attention. It takes me two or three days to finish an individual model - but the results are worth it. But having a block of 30 skinks that all look the same, where you can't even really see the paint jobs when ranked up was daunting. And a single army could be dozens upon dozens, if not hundreds of models. That's pretty intimidating.
3) The fantasy was pretty generic stuff - I like Tolkien-esque fantasy as much as the next guy, but WHFB didn't do a lot in my eyes to differentiate itself. While there were a bunch of different and unique races in 40k that all looked cool, most of the WHFB units looked kind of similar. I mean, I can only barely tell you the difference between the Eldar and the Dark Eldar, but I couldn't tell you the difference between the Bretonnians and the Empire. The High Elves looked like the Dark Elves, but with a different painting scheme. Tomb Kings were undead, but Vampire Counts were... a slightly different undead? I loved the Lizardmen and even the Tomb Kings/Vampire Counts, but very little outside of that interested me - and some races, like the Skaven and Orcs, I actively disliked.
4) The price - Assuming I found an easy way in, was willing to put up with the rank and file stuff, and found enough interesting about the models to get me into the game, there was still the issue of price. That's still a concern with AoS, but AoS had a good starter box, some spectacular miniatures, and some very not-generic units, so I was already partially invested in the game before price even became an issue. If you want something bad enough, you can find the money for it. But the problem is, if you aren't sure yet whether you want something, excessive prices become a sword of damocles dangling over the entire process. Yeah, I like Lizardmen... but do I like them, like them? Enough to ultimately pay a few hundred bucks to play with them? Ultimately, the answer was no.
Both Warmachine and Age of Sigmar have really good introductions to the game in the form of starter boxes. Warmachine, especially, gives you an easy in for any faction of your choice. Both of them have free rulebooks (though WMH's is only free recently). They also look visually distinct from the generic fantasy or scifi that games like WHFB, Infinity, or Warpath give off. It's very easy to get into WMH and AoS, easy to want to keep with them. WHFB had several points against it (the number of models, startup, and cost) which, when taken together, was too intimidating and ultimately scared me off.
Sqorgar wrote: I can't speak for someone else, but as someone who seriously considered starting WHFB when the Lizardmen army came out in 2013, I can tell you why I ultimately didn't pick up the game:
1) No obvious starting point - Usually, there is some sort of starter box that has rules and stuff that gets you started, but Island of Blood was very expensive for two armies I had absolutely no interest in. I wanted Lizardmen. So I needed to get at least the giant, expensive rulebook (for a game I wasn't sure I wanted to play yet) and the Lizardman codex - so I'm spending a ton of money before I've bought even my first Lizardman model. Honestly, if Island of Blood had two armies I was interested in (which weren't many in WHFB), I'd be playing the game today. But High Elves and Skaven? Meh.
That is a problem with all of GW's games, it is not unique to WHFB. You'll notice AoS suffers from it too.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: 1-Breath mint or candy mint? Fantasy has always had this tension, it's a fantasy game with orcs and lizardmen and elfs and dragons and what ever, but plays like a medieval historical game with blocks of troops. This tension led to some of the wild swings in balance. We want bizarre creatures like dragons and mighty heroes and magic, but the game is still build around troops, cavalry and artillery, so the importance of the fantastic elements varied wildly from edition to edition.
That was always the cool thing about Fantasy. I've never had any real interest in historic rank-and-file style games, but rank and file with monsters thrown in is just an awesome concept.
GW have never done a great job of balancing anything though. Luckily WHFB for the most part had a more balanced core rules system than 40k, but it still wasn't great. I'd actually argue that it's easier to balance monsters in a game like WHFB than it is in 40k because you just need to make sure the monster is balanced against a similar priced rank and file unit
Probably the start up costs. But also the fact that it was hard to see.
You go to a GW store, and there is a good chance they are playing 40k, so you don't see fantasy being played. You see 40k being played. It's no fun playing a game by yourself, so you join up with existing players.
Maybe once you are an established player, you'll look to spread to another game. But then do you spend money on current plastic crack. Or new plastic crack?
Why? Obviously because they found it was unprofitable. It was unprofitable because the infrastructure needed to support the game; the shelf space, warehousing, design staff, books in print and so on, was about the same amount as required for 40K but the game was selling a lot less.
How did WHFB become unprofitable in the past five years, when from 1981 to 2010 it was a successful game? It was selling less for several reasons. One was that 8th edition was fairly unpopular with the player base, introducing some rules changes that established players didn’t like, such as variable charge distance. Another was that the price of rules and army books was increased hugely in 8th edition. The amount of figures needed for an army also went up. Both these changes made the game more difficult to start, or even to keep up with if you were an established player.
These reasons were all created by GW. Note that many of these causes have also been applied to 40K in 6th and 7th edition, and GW have seen sales fall 20%, but from a higher level that leaves the game still profitable.
Could GW have saved WHFB? Possibly not. GW’s accounting logic seems to have required the game to return such a large amount of revenue that prices had to be increased to the level that so many players dropped out that the game became non-viable. In some way, AoS is GW's attempt to salvage something from the wreckage of WHFB.
TL/DR: GW made a number of changes to the game that made it so much less popular that they had to can it.
Sqorgar wrote: I can't speak for someone else, but as someone who seriously considered starting WHFB when the Lizardmen army came out in 2013, I can tell you why I ultimately didn't pick up the game:
1) No obvious starting point - Usually, there is some sort of starter box that has rules and stuff that gets you started, but Island of Blood was very expensive for two armies I had absolutely no interest in. I wanted Lizardmen. So I needed to get at least the giant, expensive rulebook (for a game I wasn't sure I wanted to play yet) and the Lizardman codex - so I'm spending a ton of money before I've bought even my first Lizardman model. Honestly, if Island of Blood had two armies I was interested in (which weren't many in WHFB), I'd be playing the game today. But High Elves and Skaven? Meh.
That is a problem with all of GW's games, it is not unique to WHFB. You'll notice AoS suffers from it too.
There was also a handy batallion box... but I guess that's not a starting point.
Sqorgar wrote: I can't speak for someone else, but as someone who seriously considered starting WHFB when the Lizardmen army came out in 2013, I can tell you why I ultimately didn't pick up the game:
1) No obvious starting point - Usually, there is some sort of starter box that has rules and stuff that gets you started, but Island of Blood was very expensive for two armies I had absolutely no interest in. I wanted Lizardmen. So I needed to get at least the giant, expensive rulebook (for a game I wasn't sure I wanted to play yet) and the Lizardman codex - so I'm spending a ton of money before I've bought even my first Lizardman model. Honestly, if Island of Blood had two armies I was interested in (which weren't many in WHFB), I'd be playing the game today. But High Elves and Skaven? Meh.
That is a problem with all of GW's games, it is not unique to WHFB. You'll notice AoS suffers from it too.
There was also a handy batallion box... but I guess that's not a starting point.
For some armies it really wasn't.
Considering the size of your average game, they were also too small. Or the game too big.
Sqorgar wrote: I can't speak for someone else, but as someone who seriously considered starting WHFB when the Lizardmen army came out in 2013, I can tell you why I ultimately didn't pick up the game:
1) No obvious starting point - Usually, there is some sort of starter box that has rules and stuff that gets you started, but Island of Blood was very expensive for two armies I had absolutely no interest in. I wanted Lizardmen. So I needed to get at least the giant, expensive rulebook (for a game I wasn't sure I wanted to play yet) and the Lizardman codex - so I'm spending a ton of money before I've bought even my first Lizardman model. Honestly, if Island of Blood had two armies I was interested in (which weren't many in WHFB), I'd be playing the game today. But High Elves and Skaven? Meh.
That is a problem with all of GW's games, it is not unique to WHFB. You'll notice AoS suffers from it too.
Disagree. It is extremely simple to get into AoS. Even ignoring the starter, which I loved both factions in, the rules are free and you can pretty much buy any single box of units from any faction and play. You can literally pick a random box off the shelf and play the game.
Sqorgar wrote: I can't speak for someone else, but as someone who seriously considered starting WHFB when the Lizardmen army came out in 2013, I can tell you why I ultimately didn't pick up the game:
1) No obvious starting point - Usually, there is some sort of starter box that has rules and stuff that gets you started, but Island of Blood was very expensive for two armies I had absolutely no interest in. I wanted Lizardmen. So I needed to get at least the giant, expensive rulebook (for a game I wasn't sure I wanted to play yet) and the Lizardman codex - so I'm spending a ton of money before I've bought even my first Lizardman model. Honestly, if Island of Blood had two armies I was interested in (which weren't many in WHFB), I'd be playing the game today. But High Elves and Skaven? Meh.
That is a problem with all of GW's games, it is not unique to WHFB. You'll notice AoS suffers from it too.
There was also a handy batallion box... but I guess that's not a starting point.
For some armies it really wasn't.
Considering the size of your average game, they were also too small. Or the game too big.
Which armies, if I may ask? The High Elf one, for example, was just fine.
And we're not talking about buying pre-built armies for the average points used in a competitive match. We're talking about a solid starting point for building an army.
People don't play games just because they are easy to start. There's got to be more to it. People will start quite difficult games if the value proposition is right.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Besides, this thread is about why WHFB died rather than why AoS is awesome.
So, they've been touched on by others, but here are my top 3 reasons for WHFB being mothballed, with a note that I've only played the game since 5th ed, and that I'm a gamer, not much of a modeller:
1) The armies outgrew themselves. GW from 6th till 8th kept encouraging larger and larger armies, going from standard ranks being 4 models across, to 5, to hordes of 10 across, and steadfast meant you wanted very deep ranks. From blocks of 16-20 being ideal for your largest blocks, you went to possible bunkers of hundreds of models. While that was always a possibility even from 6th, the rules encouraged this growth, and GW encouraged it because they wanted people to expand armies that were 5-10-20 years old, and gain new sales.
The issue here was that eventually, with that growth that encouraged short term sales as armies were expanded to fit the new meta,combined with the removal of smaller skirmish games like Mordeheim, GW shot themselves in the foot in terms of recruiting new players. Who wants to start a game where you might need several blocks of 30-100 infantry? And it wasn't just infantry, the game seemed to want more of everything...
2) It lost focus as a tactical game. As much as people point to 7th as a start to the problems (which I'll talk about more on my next point), around here it was actually a very popular edition for the most part, and it was the release of 8th when there was a serious exodus of players. The reason for myself leaving the game, and many others I know, was that 8th shifted the game strongly away from the more decisive and tactical game that it was, and more to the soft, roll a bunch of dice to see what happens sort of things. Random charges, random terrain, and then you had steadfast (among other changes) meant maneuvering was far less decisive. And then there was Magic, which was more random yet more powerful than ever, turning games from careful positioning and planning into games of Yatzee. The game became all about these big random "cinematic" moments, over which you had little control. In this, it had lost it's niche as the more hard-nosed alternative to 40k's beer and pretzels approach, and so many players branched out into games that actually gave them what they wanted - such as myself, going to Warmachine, and others going to infinity or KoW.
3) The third, and actually least of the 3, is simply army balance. It's not nearly as much of a thing, as the two above, but it's worth a mention, because it's what started a lot of discontent at the end of 7th, that probably in some ways lead to 8th being what it was. 7th, in my opinion, was an excellent edition, the basic rules were actually pretty good, and it was a fair transition from 6th. However, and it's a big however, the issues with the edition came because of the huge imbalances between army books as the edition went on. You had poor, abused books like the O&G book, or the 6th ed Ogre Kingdoms books going up against things like Matt Wards 7th ed Demons - and of course that's going to cause a backlash. As I said, I loved 7th edition, but in our group, we had no demons players, no VC players and only one dark elves player who didn't take all the horrible stuff possible, so the edition worked well for our group. However, hearing about tournaments in which the top 4 lists were variants of the same demons list, or a new player going up against a double hydra DE list, I can see why people were grumbling about that. It was the least issue, however, because that sort of balance issue can be overcome, by comp, by handicapping, by not going all out to win in friendly games. However, GWs decision wasn't to balance the signal, but simply to turn up the noise-to-signal ratio, to mask the problem, and here the cure was worse than the disease.
So, the end result was that new players didn't want to start a game with such a large buy in, especially when they heard so much griping about balance, which lead to 8th where many of the older players left because it wasn't the game they wanted anymore (removing promoters/recruiters for the game and communities to foster new players), and buy in was now even bigger than ever. It was enough to leave the game floundering slowly until it was killed by AOS.
Sqorgar wrote: I can't speak for someone else, but as someone who seriously considered starting WHFB when the Lizardmen army came out in 2013, I can tell you why I ultimately didn't pick up the game:
1) No obvious starting point - Usually, there is some sort of starter box that has rules and stuff that gets you started, but Island of Blood was very expensive for two armies I had absolutely no interest in. I wanted Lizardmen. So I needed to get at least the giant, expensive rulebook (for a game I wasn't sure I wanted to play yet) and the Lizardman codex - so I'm spending a ton of money before I've bought even my first Lizardman model. Honestly, if Island of Blood had two armies I was interested in (which weren't many in WHFB), I'd be playing the game today. But High Elves and Skaven? Meh.
That is a problem with all of GW's games, it is not unique to WHFB. You'll notice AoS suffers from it too.
Disagree. It is extremely simple to get into AoS. Even ignoring the starter, which I loved both factions in, the rules are free and you can pretty much buy any single box of units from any faction and play. You can literally pick a random box off the shelf and play the game.
So where are the starter boxes for anything not Sigmarines or Khorne guys? Much like you lamented there not being in WHFB?
So where are the starter boxes for anything not Sigmarines or Khorne guys? Much like you lamented there not being in WHFB?
Like I said, you can literally grab any box you want and play the game. The rules are free and there are no army composition rules that require you to take a certain number of X before you play the game. For instance, I'm planning on starting a Seraphon army by just grabbing a box of warriors and integrating them into my Stormcast until I'm ready to get more.
So where are the starter boxes for anything not Sigmarines or Khorne guys? Much like you lamented there not being in WHFB?
Like I said, you can literally grab any box you want and play the game. The rules are free and there are no army composition rules that require you to take a certain number of X before you play the game. For instance, I'm planning on starting a Seraphon army by just grabbing a box of warriors and integrating them into my Stormcast until I'm ready to get more.
Then you're playing Stormcast with allies, really.
Then you're playing Stormcast with allies, really.
Not Seraphon.
I am, but a new player wouldn't be. A single box of Saurus Warriors would give you 20 models (two units worth) for $38, which is similar in scale to the Warmachine Battlegroup boxes for a beginner game.
Then you're playing Stormcast with allies, really.
Not Seraphon.
I am, but a new player wouldn't be. A single box of Saurus Warriors would give you 20 models (two units worth) for $38, which is similar in scale to the Warmachine Battlegroup boxes for a beginner game.
And that, at least on paper, is definitely easier to start gaming with, no doubt - provided you can find a player to play a game that small.
For the player base many people left WHFB when 8th came out but many players joined as well. It was probably a net loss but can't say it was dead or dying when the active community was having weekly games in the cities and yearly championships not counting the private in house games.
I would guess it was market saturation that slowed down the sales with GW trying to make up the difference with increase in prices. Something I think they did because it was the easiest solution short term because they need to show good profits to increase it's stock value. Same with the GW legal team trying to increase revenue by suing other companies and fans looking more like a parking clerk desperate getting revenue for the city council rather than a concerned company that wanted to protect it's IP. I think can make the same argument for easing on the IP licensing for electronic games platform whereas before they declined Blizzards request to use WHFB for warcraft they now give almost any video game developer the chance to make a GW electronic game in order to get some extra cash no matter the quality of the product.
Take that into conjunction of a steady 3% growing western economy sometimes going into on stagflation where consumers are more selective of their purchases and a niche expensive hobby like tabletop is not good for new players. That being said as the economy grows at around 3% people are getting richer so the old guard continue to make purchases but it made it harder to get new customers, especially with the hard entry price as pointed out in this thread. I don't think it was the rules that killed 8th, it was GW acting like the short term shareholder company that it is.
And that, at least on paper, is definitely easier to start gaming with, no doubt - provided you can find a player to play a game that small.
But that will depend on the community.
I think the AoS community will be a little more inviting, given that power gaming isn't easy with how AoS is set up. When I was (re)learning Warmachine, I had trouble finding people who were willing to play battlebox games because half the guys were training for a 50 pt tournament with a deathclock.
Dreadnok89 wrote: If you have all the rulebooks and models, why not just play? People are weird.
Have you not noticed the complete and utter balkanization of the WHFB communities?
We have- People continuing to play 8th, People playing 9th age, People going over to KoW, People playing AoS; then within AoS we have different comps used by different groups, with no-one really playing the same game.
Also, some people only have GW store to play in, where unless the store is willing to bend the rules dramatically you have to play the current edition on their premises.
I can't speak for other people, but personally, I believe that the most significant issue is that WHFB and 40k competed with each other for the many of the same dollars. The type of fan that is required to be a WHFB or 40k player is quite narrow:
- you must want to build a fairly large army - you have to want to play games that are many hours long - you have a decently large space to game with - the games are best enjoyed amongst regulars (rather than strangers/pickups) - a big chunk of the playerbase places an emphasis on painted minis - you must like the GW model aesthetic - you must like the GW style of gameplay - money can't be too big of an issue
Put all these together, and the universe of available players often falls down to people who like GW models and games for whatever reason -- and they must choose one of the two. Why not both? Well, cost putting money aside (and that's not insignificant), both of these games take a lot of time and energy to follow the rules, model the latest units, grow your army (or armies) and keep it competitive with the current meta. 40k and WHFB are games that demand not only a great initial investment of time and money, but also ongoing TLC to your army, well, for as long as you want to maintain it. Unless you don't have a day job, keeping two games the scale of 40k/WHFB up to date probably exceeds the time availability of most people.
It's much easier to choose one of them, and have a secondary game (or games) that's just a smaller, quicker, cheaper, fewer models, changes less frequently, et cetera. Or board games.
For me, personally, I chose 40k over WHFB because 40k just has more Cool Factor in it. Configurability is a huge factor, and the vehicles are a big part of it: futuristic vehicle kits are just more fun to build for me than griffons or dragons. Treeman Ancient remains one of my favorite models, but I can't really imagine building more than a couple; whereas, I could imagine a shelves full of titans or jets or tanks.
And then there are Space Marines. Yeah, I know some people can't stand how they get so much attention, but these guys are just such versatile models with a thousands of interchangeable parts in a huge number of kits.
What if GW had made Sigmarites 15 years ago, and put the number of options into that faction that they did into Astartes?
Well, maybe then it would have turned out differently for me. I'm not sure. But in the fantasy range, the configurability has always been so limited compared to the scifi range, and I'm not sure how they would have made vehicles for fantasy. I think scifi just lends itself to more modelling possibilities than fantasy. Maybe it's relevant and maybe not, but you'll also notice that there are a lot more scifi films than fantasy films that are produced. Is it something about the genre? I don't know: in my childhood, I far preferred fantasy to scifi, but these days, my fantasy is pretty much limited to Game of Throne, while I gobble up and endless stream of consumer scifi.
--
Edit -- to bring it around to AoS, I believe that GW has made an error in not trying to make AoS a smaller game. Sure, you can play it with any number of models, but you can do this with 40k, too. The reality is that people aspire to the army sizes typically displayed and sold, and GW army bundles picture the same, massive battle forces that require you to basically give up all your other entertainment time to make a reality.
I think GW needs a game that is more casual, encourages a smaller model count, and is more pickup friendly. Not because I want such a game, but because this would appeal to a different market, instead of chasing after the people who get excited about 40k, which I think is a lost cause... except maybe to sell a little bit of Stormcast and Chaos stuff here and there.
I can well understand the point about older gamers liking more tactical games. (Insert blather about frontal lobe development here) But I think that contributed to WHFB's death because saying WHFB was more tactical than 40K is like saying an ant is bigger than an amoeba. It had almost forgotten it was supposed to be a small skirmish/warband game, and thought a few token concessions made it a full-fledged, bona-fide mass battle game. And that's where I think a lot of it's problems came from.
- bloated figure counts and army sizes. Most mass battle games out there, barring a couple of WAB spinoffs, go by unit footprints and representative figure scales. All those who moved to KoW get just a taste of that. I know there are WFB fans out there horrified by the idea, of multibases and unit bases, and personally I still have some trouble with especially abstract figure scales ("Those two guys with funny hats on the end of the unit count as hundreds of grenadiers? Really?") but having fewer minis on a certain size of square or rectangle, representing a full, standard unit, has got to be easier on the wallet, right? Compared to a game with units based on gross numbers of minis and a skirmish-style 1:1 figure ratio, and especially one with specific rules that practically demand higher and higher gross numbers per unit, just so said unit can manage to stay on the table. (Hordes and Steadfast. What a racket.) I don't think it was helped by:
-- price. (You knew it was coming!) Not when the cost of the plastic human-sized minis for their 'mass battle' game often (almost always) outstripped the cost of metal minis from other manufacturers.
-- design. Bit of a vague, subjective matter; but I see people complaining that their scale-creeping, hyper-detailed, painstakingly painted, dynamically posed minis have to be squeezed on little, single bases into a big unit where they and the effect are lost. I think this is missing the point of mass battle games and the effect the units in them should have, but ironically, most mass battle rules might let them space their minis out a bit, even arranged more artfully, to show them off.
Then there's
- bad rules and confused rules. I read someone else on dakka today, mentioning how 40K tries to be about 10-storey war robots but still has to fiddle about with who's blinded by some sergeant's conversion field. Quite right, and I think that applied to WFB too. At various times it was crammed with big heroes, big monsters, big spells and big hordes, but you still had to fiddle about with individual infantrymen, working out who got hit and wounded and had their armour punched through, how many had to be hauled out of the back rank, how many were left in the back rank making the difference between winning and running... and aaall the individual special rules applied to most units... Like I said, it was a skirmish game trying to be a mass battle game, but couldn't really decide which it wanted to be.
-- any wonder it took so long to play?
-- it's touted as being tactical thanks to some maneuvre mechanics, but most other mass battle games start at that level of tactics. WFB tried filling in the gaps with those reams of special rules, random effects, and mathhammery listbuilding. Those grainy, skirmishy, kid-friendly aspects collided with the ostensibly tactical, big-army end and again, it turned out as a game that couldn't decide what it wanted to be. And folk decided it didn't satisfy them, whichever side they wanted.
Bottle wrote: I really enjoyed playing 8th edition Fantasy and thought it was a good game. The horrific spells like Pit of Shades could be very nasty to play against (especially for some armies like Lizard Men), and there were some loopholes in the rules that never got resolved. (Night Goblin Fanatic hits a regiment of just one RnF and a character. How are hits resolved? Etc)
I think the thing that killed it though was simple. The changes that meant you need 4 boxes to build a regiment rather than 1.
This was a combination of the horde rule, increasing minimum frontage to 5 models wide and dropping down to 10 models a box.
One of the best things AoS has going for it is as soon as you buy and assemble a box it's there ready to be used in your army.
There was nothing stopping people doing that in 8th, sure you don't get the bonus of a hoard but then if everyonr just uses what's in the box it makes no difference. Worked well for us so far.
Bottle wrote: I really enjoyed playing 8th edition Fantasy and thought it was a good game. The horrific spells like Pit of Shades could be very nasty to play against (especially for some armies like Lizard Men), and there were some loopholes in the rules that never got resolved. (Night Goblin Fanatic hits a regiment of just one RnF and a character. How are hits resolved? Etc)
Sorry to nitpick, but the rules are clear on that.
Goblin fanatic hits are distributed as shooting, so you roll for hits and, since there are less than 5 RnF models in the unit you have to distribute them equally between the models remaining (so if you roll 4 hits, 2 have to go to the character and 2 to the soldier, if you roll 3 you decide who gets two).
If there was a character and 2 RnF you would have to divide the hits between the three of them and so on.
And that, at least on paper, is definitely easier to start gaming with, no doubt - provided you can find a player to play a game that small.
But that will depend on the community.
I think the AoS community will be a little more inviting, given that power gaming isn't easy with how AoS is set up. When I was (re)learning Warmachine, I had trouble finding people who were willing to play battlebox games because half the guys were training for a 50 pt tournament with a deathclock.
Powergaming will always exist, regardless of the system. It always depend on the local community alone, not the system. People seem to believe that a system like AoS doesn't encourage power gaming, when nothing could farther from the truth - any system encourages powergaming the moment you put a model next to another and come to the conclusion that model A performs better than B for exactly the same cost (wound,scroll, gold piece, whatever).
For example, about 7-8 years ago I was very active in a L5R community. That community was very hard gamewise, but always fair. Cheaters were found and either shown the error of their ways or literally cast from the community altogether, and we were always willing to help and teach new players the ropes, literally giving away hundreds of cards to new players at a given time.
But were the decks made always striving to competitively be the best possible? Damn right. Is that powergaming?
Edit: Actually, when you think about it, what better system is there to powergame on when AoS's basic premise is "bring whatever you want."
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Dreadnok89 wrote: If you have all the rulebooks and models, why not just play? People are weird.
And the point of this comment is to what, to push on for further alienation?
The reason why I haven't found a lot of powergaming in Age of Sigmar isn't because its not easy to do, because it is, its because power gaming in Age of Sigmar is kind of pointless.
Age of Sigmar appeals to people playing for the experience of playing the game, and more cooperative story telling like an RPG, rather than people playing to try to prove they are the better player by winning.
Powergaming will always exist this is true, but powergaming and competitive gaming are to me synonyms (I don't consider powergaming to be "WAAC" or "TFG") and AOS is simply not a system that competitive players will enjoy.
Thats why I think AOS is not conducive to powergaming. Not because you can't do it but because the type of people that are building the hardest lists possible are not going to be interested in it.
Powergaming will always exist, regardless of the system. It always depend on the local community alone, not the system. People seem to believe that a system like AoS doesn't encourage power gaming, when nothing could farther from the truth - any system encourages powergaming the moment you put a model next to another and come to the conclusion that model A performs better than B for exactly the same cost (wound,scroll, gold piece, whatever).
Power gaming is about minmaxing - getting the maximum amount of X for the minimum amount of Y. But when Y is undefined, you can't decide what the value of X should be. That's why so many people are infuriated at the lack of points. There's no Y?!?! There's no limitations to what I can play with? I can just drop Nagash whenever I want? Does not compute! Next time Captain Kirk needs to talk down an enemy AI, he just needs to ask them to minmax AoS.
Edit: Actually, when you think about it, what better system is there to powergame on when AoS's basic premise is "bring whatever you want."
It's more like, "bring whatever you want and work with your opponent to build a fun gaming experience". AoS, as written, is not a competitive system. Without any limitations, and opponents that won't play against brutes, powergaming in AoS would be trying to create as fair-looking a battle as possible.
auticus wrote: The reason why I haven't found a lot of powergaming in Age of Sigmar isn't because its not easy to do, because it is, its because power gaming in Age of Sigmar is kind of pointless.
Age of Sigmar appeals to people playing for the experience of playing the game, and more cooperative story telling like an RPG, rather than people playing to try to prove they are the better player by winning.
Powergaming will always exist this is true, but powergaming and competitive gaming are to me synonyms (I don't consider powergaming to be "WAAC" or "TFG") and AOS is simply not a system that competitive players will enjoy.
Thats why I think AOS is not conducive to powergaming. Not because you can't do it but because the type of people that are building the hardest lists possible are not going to be interested in it.
So, and again, it's not about the system - it's about the community. The System may encourage something (just like FB encouraged a different kind of wargaming to AoS) but that doesn't mean the community can't do what they want with it to suit their prefered playing style - e.g Azyr Comp.
Powergaming will always exist, regardless of the system. It always depend on the local community alone, not the system. People seem to believe that a system like AoS doesn't encourage power gaming, when nothing could farther from the truth - any system encourages powergaming the moment you put a model next to another and come to the conclusion that model A performs better than B for exactly the same cost (wound,scroll, gold piece, whatever).
Power gaming is about minmaxing - getting the maximum amount of X for the minimum amount of Y. But when Y is undefined, you can't decide what the value of X should be. That's why so many people are infuriated at the lack of points. There's no Y?!?! There's no limitations to what I can play with? I can just drop Nagash whenever I want? Does not compute! Next time Captain Kirk needs to talk down an enemy AI, he just needs to ask them to minmax AoS.
Edit: Actually, when you think about it, what better system is there to powergame on when AoS's basic premise is "bring whatever you want."
It's more like, "bring whatever you want and work with your opponent to build a fun gaming experience". AoS, as written, is not a competitive system. Without any limitations, and opponents that won't play against brutes, powergaming in AoS would be trying to create as fair-looking a battle as possible.
auticus wrote: The reason why I haven't found a lot of powergaming in Age of Sigmar isn't because its not easy to do, because it is, its because power gaming in Age of Sigmar is kind of pointless.
Age of Sigmar appeals to people playing for the experience of playing the game, and more cooperative story telling like an RPG, rather than people playing to try to prove they are the better player by winning.
Powergaming will always exist this is true, but powergaming and competitive gaming are to me synonyms (I don't consider powergaming to be "WAAC" or "TFG") and AOS is simply not a system that competitive players will enjoy.
Thats why I think AOS is not conducive to powergaming. Not because you can't do it but because the type of people that are building the hardest lists possible are not going to be interested in it.
So, and again, it's not about the system - it's about the community. The System may encourage something (just like FB encouraged a different kind of wargaming to AoS) but that doesn't mean the community can't do what they want with it to suit their prefered playing style - e.g Azyr Comp.
Powergaming will always exist, regardless of the system. It always depend on the local community alone, not the system. People seem to believe that a system like AoS doesn't encourage power gaming, when nothing could farther from the truth - any system encourages powergaming the moment you put a model next to another and come to the conclusion that model A performs better than B for exactly the same cost (wound,scroll, gold piece, whatever).
Power gaming is about minmaxing - getting the maximum amount of X for the minimum amount of Y. But when Y is undefined, you can't decide what the value of X should be. That's why so many people are infuriated at the lack of points. There's no Y?!?! There's no limitations to what I can play with? I can just drop Nagash whenever I want? Does not compute! Next time Captain Kirk needs to talk down an enemy AI, he just needs to ask them to minmax AoS.
Edit: Actually, when you think about it, what better system is there to powergame on when AoS's basic premise is "bring whatever you want."
It's more like, "bring whatever you want and work with your opponent to build a fun gaming experience". AoS, as written, is not a competitive system. Without any limitations, and opponents that won't play against brutes, powergaming in AoS would be trying to create as fair-looking a battle as possible.
There IS a Y in AoS - it's your deployment space.
Yes very true - it is about the community and the type of people involved.
Spinner wrote: I'd argue that Y, in this context and with reference to the powergaming attitude, is 'how much you're willing to pay GW'.
There's a huge assumption in that if you spend $3,000 on models, your opponent will just play with you, allowing you to field your army of 20 Bloodthirsters and Skarbrand. More likely, the person who has spent that bundle of money in order to win through an advantage of models will not be able to find anyone willing to play them more than once, hate the game, and quit.
Spinner wrote: I'd argue that Y, in this context and with reference to the powergaming attitude, is 'how much you're willing to pay GW'.
There's a huge assumption in that if you spend $3,000 on models, your opponent will just play with you, allowing you to field your army of 20 Bloodthirsters and Skarbrand. More likely, the person who has spent that bundle of money in order to win through an advantage of models will not be able to find anyone willing to play them more than once, hate the game, and quit.
And if he is the only other guy at the store who you can play against you don't get a game either.
Ostracizing people is bad for a community and a terrible go to for how to balance a game.
Spinner wrote: I'd argue that Y, in this context and with reference to the powergaming attitude, is 'how much you're willing to pay GW'.
There's a huge assumption in that if you spend $3,000 on models, your opponent will just play with you, allowing you to field your army of 20 Bloodthirsters and Skarbrand. More likely, the person who has spent that bundle of money in order to win through an advantage of models will not be able to find anyone willing to play them more than once, hate the game, and quit.
And if he is the only other guy at the store who you can play against you don't get a game either.
Ostracizing people is bad for a community and a terrible go to for how to balance a game.
Of course it's not bad for a community, as long as it's not them who are being ostracized.
In this case do note that they are gleefully ignoring the Sudden Death Rule that that has been previously been praised as being so good as a balacing mechanism or even the fact that using as much models as you want in an AoS match is encouraged in those glorious 4 pages of rules.
So... what does a guy wanting to field - for fun - his 3000$ worth of Khornate models (who by chance has 10 BT's and Skarbrand in it because he really likes the actually rather fluffy idea of a list mirroring a Khorne Bloodhunt) and a guy playing a really competitive, hard list because he enjoys (aka has fun) playing competitively have in common?
Wait, wait, I got this... I know! The chances the "not competitive players" have of winning that game.
Looking at big, expensive models like Nagash or the Tau Storm Keel, I'm not surprised that people spending that much money want to use them in games. That's how you show them off.
Unless we accept the idea that people buy kits for the sake of merely owning them in a cupboard.
It's like 8 square feet. You could deploy actual people in your deployment space.
Look at you ignoring my point again
So... let's for once imagine that you're playing a scenario with a much more limited deployment space, which I am pretty sure AoS has them - what stops me from keeping me spearmen at home and bringing the exact amount of Phoenix Guard, as they are statistically superior? They have the exact same 20mm bases so they occupy the exact same space on the deployment field - let's call this the "Base Fingerprint". If I wanna powerplay I'll just take a nice big dump on my statistically inferior units and bring the very best I can field from my extensive HE collection.
Nothing in the rules is stopping me from doing this. Actually, let me repeat this - it's actually encouraged to bring whatever models you want and how many you want.
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Kilkrazy wrote: Looking at big, expensive models like Nagash or the Tau Storm Keel, I'm not surprised that people spending that much money want to use them in games. That's how you show them off.
Unless we accept the idea that people buy kits for the sake of merely owning them in a cupboard.
Of course, only us horrible 20% of TFGWAAC "players" dare trod that horrible path of... Using the big, expensive models to game!!!!
I was buying a lot more 40k than whfb, but I alwas had whfb in mind. The day I got my first million (and the day is coming... I have lot of luck at dice so why wouldn't I in lottery), I would buy so much of it that I would then lit my cigaretes and crack pipes with stormvermin minis, pick my teeth with grave guard halberdiers and make cupboards out of garden of morr pieces and hellpit abominations stacked one on another.
I'm sure there were lot of people like me, with long term plans for whfb, or waiting for problems to be fixed, for a new book, whatever. People who put whfb on hold but weren't finished with it.
It failed for many reasons already listed but I'd like to single out one - turning a 100+ pages ruleset game into casual dicefest. While I liked 8th, I would never get into the game if it was actual back then, whfb had a reputation of quite a tactical game and they really shouldn't have touched that to apeal to casuals, it was never going to anyway. It was just a step into wrong direction and the point where they lost a lot of players. I'm positive that good, scalable ruleset and new releases would make it earn more than AoS will ever earn, especialy with incoming Total War game.
Btw I don't get a point about ranked units looking bad and making detailed paintjob pointless. I love the look of ranked units and cry tears of awe seeing them beutifuly painted/ converted/ posed.
The worst thing is that whfb wasn't doomed, at worst they could have left it direct only to save shelf space, stop making codieces to save on writing books and just relese rules for new models, erratas etc. Or just introduce AoS style rules for old world as an introductory game, no one would mind. But no they just had to try to shoehorn lame space marine wannabes into it and go bonkers with their pathetic attempts at copyrights.
auticus wrote: From my perspective and experience there were a few reasons here:
1) moving in blocks turned a lot of people off.
2) the importance of the movement phase turned a lot of people off
3) the fact that if you screwed your movement or deployment off would put you at a big disadvantage turned a lot of people off especially as compared to 40k
4) fantasy in general (the setting) turned a lot of people off here
5) the number of models needed turned a lot of people off here. This is broken down into a few areas.
5a) total number of models exceeding 20-30 models turns a lot of people off
5b) having to take not elite core turns a lot of people off.
6) the size of the ruleset turned a lot of people off, particularly with games like xwing becoming popular that have a tiny rules pamphlet.
7) the people that were interested had a very deep second hand market to buy models off of, and I know about 90% of our fantasy players here never bought anything new if they didn't have to, sticking to ebay and local buy/sell groups to get hteir armies for 40% or even more of the total price.
I find it funny that points 1-5 are all advantages to me. Ofc big units get somehow unwieldy when you go over 50 also limit the number of units making the game less tactical but hey, they look good and just nerfing the steadfast a bit and lowering prices per box could do wonders here.
Kilkrazy wrote: WHFB was always a block movement game. Have people recently decided they don't like block movement games, for some obscure aesthetic reason?
I think ranked armies were more common with historical games, but most people come into the hobby via skirmish-style games these days.
30 years of WHFB has done nothing to get people to come into the hobby?
My opinion is that disliking rules that put figures in ranks is a relatively minor reason for WHFB falling off. I think the complication of rules, unpopular changes, and sheer expense were more important.
Kilkrazy wrote: WHFB was always a block movement game. Have people recently decided they don't like block movement games, for some obscure aesthetic reason?
I think ranked armies were more common with historical games, but most people come into the hobby via skirmish-style games these days.
'These days' being the last five years. Tastes haven't changes that much. Most people still come into the hobby via gw. Dismissing ranked games as the territory of 'historical games' is rather naive. Prior to 'these days', fantasy was pretty much 'the alternative' to 40k. And for thirty odd years, this rank-based game has been quite obviously in the limelight, was quite obviously one of 'the big two' and and had been successful for thirty years. Without historical players.
Regarding the point about folks coming into the game via skirmish games - that's partially true, especially in the last five years, but let's look at the reasons for this. This model has been successful because of a Low(er) cost of entry, with less of an emphasis on front loaded costs and an easier way to 'build up' your armies, along with a focus on balanced gameplay. Which are all things newer companies sold themselves on as an alternative to what gw wasn't doing or what gw's was doing wrong. Which reinforces the point that fantasy died not because ranked games belong to the historical playing crowd or skirmish games are popular but because of a combination of it being poorly handled, badly maintained with regard to poor overall direction and design, gw's contemptuous and sneering attitude to the fans, unbalanced and clunky rules, unpopular rules (8th random charges on their own drove a lot of fantasy players away) horrendous buy in costs - especially with the focus on lots of troops, and gw cutting the contents of their boxes by half, and all of this being front loaded because the game isn't user friendly at smaller scales. Assume for a second that fantasy could be promoted with some or all of these features fixed, and it would sell itself.
Essentially, gw's policies drove away and alienated the veteran players( and in a word-of-mouth based hobby, this is a death knell) whilst simultaneously putting up massive 'not welcome' and 'not interested' signs for any potential newer players. It's a shame really, but it was inevitable.
Kilkrazy wrote: 30 years of WHFB has done nothing to get people to come into the hobby?
Maybe the first 20-25 years, sure, but I don't think WHFB was doing much of that recently. In fact, I've never seen a WHFB game in person, and I've seen people playing 40k at the comic book shop for years.
My opinion is that disliking rules that put figures in ranks is a relatively minor reason for WHFB falling off. I think the complication of rules, unpopular changes, and sheer expense were more important.
I don't think complicated rules are a turn off (most miniature games seem to like it, with several of them being some seriously obtuse gaming experiences), unpopular changes only lose existing players and don't affect new ones, and expense is obviously not hurting 40k as much as it hurt WHFB. I'd say what killed WHFB was the ranked units and the dwindling interesting in generic fantasy.
What's interesting is that I've seen MANY people painting their Imperial Assault figures. People have always painted their boardgame minis, but where I'd seen one or two fully painted Descent sets, I've seen dozens of painted Imperial Assault figures with multiple tutorials on YouTube. And Skirmish mode seems more popular than the campaigns. I think hybrid games like SW:IA and X-Wing are probably bringing more people into the hobby than even 40k currently is. And I'd say that Imperial Assault is about medium complexity (more than the collectible miniatures/heroclix) and has a pretty significant cost. The core goes for $100 retail and each figure expansion is $10-$15 for one or two figures - which is GW territory. Never underestimate the power of a good license and heroes over hordes.
Sigvatr wrote: Entry barrier. Just that. You don't get new players by forcing them to invest hundreds of dollars into a game beforehand.
This. 40k has a lower buy-in, smaller units, etc.
40k-ing the prices of the Fantasy models just drove away younger players - when you need the BRB, Armies book, then multiple boxes to field a single unit... or you could just buy an XBox or PlayStation instead.
Sigvatr wrote: Entry barrier. Just that. You don't get new players by forcing them to invest hundreds of dollars into a game beforehand.
This. 40k has a lower buy-in, smaller units, etc.
40k-ing the prices of the Fantasy models just drove away younger players - when you need the BRB, Armies book, then multiple boxes to field a single unit... or you could just buy an XBox or PlayStation instead.
I think GW should have pushed Warhammer Warbands harder so that new players actually had an entry point. I always found Warbands pretty fun, even before Warbands came out my mates and I more often than not played small games in the 500-1000pt range.
I reckon the Warbands rules could have been refined and published as a booklet which was pushed with newer players. Instead 8th edition went the opposite direction and encouraged much larger games which were out of the realms of possibility for new players.
From what I've seen WHFB just got incredibly bloated for buying an army especially in 8th. The focus on infantry meant that getting a normal sized army equals buying 150-200 models for normal sized armies and upwards of 300+ for horde armies like skaven. Compared to 40k you only need like 40-50 models for a solid sized army. What's worse though is that both games generally pay the same rate per model so WHFB 3x the amount of models means paying 3x the price to buy into the game which is a huge deterrent and gaining new players. Old players just weren't buying anything except for the occasional new unit that gets released since they already had massive long standing collections of models from 20+ years of play.
Ultimately GW wasn't making money from any part of WHFB's player base, old or new.
I think the biggest issue with WHFB going the way of the dodo is the combination of relatively high model count armies and relatively high monetary cost for each of those models.
There is still an interest in this style of massed combat fantasy battle game, at least in my area. The FLGS has started hosting KoW tournaments, and the first one (with only a couple weeks worth of notice) had 16 players. That's on the upper end of what was typical for the WHFB tournaments that the same store used to hold regularly.
The time and money investment to start any tabletop wargame is large. It's not a decision made lightly, so many of us do a little research on the internet. In the case of WHFB, the prospective player is then greeted by forums full of people saying how broken and unfun the game is. It's no surprise they decided to stay away.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'm not saying that's the whole reason. Just a contributing factor. I agree with what a lot of you have said. Getting back into the hobby, I pushed through the negativity because I love the 40k setting so much.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I think a lot of the time fantasy never gets a look-in because 40k is so appealing/publicised.
Kavish wrote: The time and money investment to start any tabletop wargame is large.
Yeah, I lost plenty of sleep agonizing over the $60 I spent to play Frostgrave.
Don't paint over the topic with such a broad brush. Yes, some tabletop games are more expensive to get into and build up to a "standard" game size. But 8th edition pushed that standard size way past where it had been, and GW's constant price increases and box content decreases made getting to that level very difficult.
Kavish wrote: The time and money investment to start any tabletop wargame is large. It's not a decision made lightly, so many of us do a little research on the internet. In the case of WHFB, the prospective player is then greeted by forums full of people saying how broken and unfun the game is. It's no surprise they decided to stay away.
Not all wargames are a large money investment, WHFB was one of the worst. It's also one of the worst from a time investment standpoint, but frankly I don't think most new players consider the time (which is why we end up with so many half painted armies on ebay). It's usually after you've tried and failed to paint an army that you start to consider the time investment.
But you're probably not wrong about the negative online feedback making matters worse. That's what happens when you bring out a new edition (8th) that pisses off a lot of your existing customer base. I think AoS is going to suffer a similar problem and it's why I tihnk GW had terrible timing with AoS. AoS is always going to be judged next to WHFB because GW chose to kill WHFB and then release AoS. I reckon they'd have been better off having an overlap, the only downside then would have been it would be harder to make the transition to circular bases.
I've literally bought an infinity army on a whim that cost me less than the cost of the hardback WHFB core rulebook... I daresay the price of just a rulebook and army book scared off FAR more people than the imbalance anyone would have seen on forums.
In fact just a two or three years back we on this subforum were encouraging in 40k players to start WHFB because it was so much better balanced.
Not playing devils advocate here because I think 8th's biggest problem was the cost, but even Frostgrave and Infinity would be expensive for a first time gamer due to the scenery involved to really have a fun experience.
Once you've got a good range of scenery, of course skirmish games become very reasonable investments. The Frostgrave book is mighty tempting :-)
We used to play games using books and cereal boxes for scenery. Then we upgraded to boxes under a green sheet (for hills!) and a few bits of polystyrene packaging painted grey. Now with MDF scenery it's never been cheaper to get a good looking table set up.
Whilst you probably need more scenery for skimish games (Frostgrave/Infinity/40K) than mass battle games (Fantasy, Hail Caesar, KoW), you can get started for almost nothing.
Herzlos wrote: We used to play games using books and cereal boxes for scenery. Then we upgraded to boxes under a green sheet (for hills!) and a few bits of polystyrene packaging painted grey. Now with MDF scenery it's never been cheaper to get a good looking table set up.
Whilst you probably need more scenery for skimish games (Frostgrave/Infinity/40K) than mass battle games (Fantasy, Hail Caesar, KoW), you can get started for almost nothing.
That's what I was thinking. I've never played Infinity (have little to no interest in that sort of game) but do you actually need to buy terrain?
I don't think I've ever bought terrain aside from trees because I couldn't make them myself. Most of my terrain for the first few years I was in to wargaming came from cardboard, primarily sourced from cereal boxes, occasionally from supermarkets, once I lashed out and bought a big sheet of polystyrene which got turned in to a couple of castles, a Lizardmen style pyramid, hills, etc.
Bottle wrote: Not playing devils advocate here because I think 8th's biggest problem was the cost, but even Frostgrave and Infinity would be expensive for a first time gamer due to the scenery involved to really have a fun experience.
Once you've got a good range of scenery, of course skirmish games become very reasonable investments. The Frostgrave book is mighty tempting :-)
Well, that depends. If first time gamers do what my friends and I did when we first started, you use books, boxes, and other household items. I remember my Space Marines defending a LEGO fort from an Ork force twice its size. And then, for nostalgia's sake, a friend and I played 40k back in January that looked like this:
Spoiler:
It's only after being in the hobby for years that I can put down a table that looks like:
And when it comes to terrain, that's middling at best.
Herzlos wrote: We used to play games using books and cereal boxes for scenery. Then we upgraded to boxes under a green sheet (for hills!) and a few bits of polystyrene packaging painted grey. Now with MDF scenery it's never been cheaper to get a good looking table set up.
Whilst you probably need more scenery for skimish games (Frostgrave/Infinity/40K) than mass battle games (Fantasy, Hail Caesar, KoW), you can get started for almost nothing.
That's what I was thinking. I've never played Infinity (have little to no interest in that sort of game) but do you actually need to buy terrain?
I don't think I've ever bought terrain aside from trees because I couldn't make them myself. Most of my terrain for the first few years I was in to wargaming came from cardboard, primarily sourced from cereal boxes, occasionally from supermarkets, once I lashed out and bought a big sheet of polystyrene which got turned in to a couple of castles, a Lizardmen style pyramid, hills, etc.
Add to this that you can make some very good looking terrain out of foamcore for pretty much any system, be it fantasy or sci-fi, with just a few €'s mores of investment, and you got some horribly cheap scenery.
You need various types of terrain for all land wargames. There are many ways to get hold of it.
Making stuff yourself can be fun and is fairly cheap. You can spiff it up with professional detailing parts like what Antenociti's Workshop do.
There are many commercial kits available, ranging from fish tank ornaments to licensed SF modular buildings for Infinity and of course GW's various Fantasy and Imperial Neo-Gothic offerings..
Are they? Their plastic terrain kits seem to be very comparable in price to other companies, MDF is cheaper but looks a lot worse. Especially the 40k stuff like the Manofactorum is pretty good value.
Bottle wrote: Not playing devils advocate here because I think 8th's biggest problem was the cost, but even Frostgrave and Infinity would be expensive for a first time gamer due to the scenery involved to really have a fun experience.
Once you've got a good range of scenery, of course skirmish games become very reasonable investments. The Frostgrave book is mighty tempting :-)
Well, that depends. If first time gamers do what my friends and I did when we first started, you use books, boxes, and other household items. I remember my Space Marines defending a LEGO fort from an Ork force twice its size. And then, for nostalgia's sake, a friend and I played 40k back in January that looked like this:
It's only after being in the hobby for years that I can put down a table that looks like:
And when it comes to terrain, that's middling at best.
PLEASE tell me the gift tin actually counted as trees, and that the beer had special rules to allow you to take one.
1) matty ward, he single handedly destroyed the whfb game that I started wargaming in 5th ed
2) terrain relating in games, 10 wide formations makes it impossible to use terrain, it became irrelevant
3) model count, in 6th and 7th the 5-7 man wide formation seem optimal; 8th became a fantasy apocalypse game
Mymearan wrote: Are they? Their plastic terrain kits seem to be very comparable in price to other companies, MDF is cheaper but looks a lot worse. Especially the 40k stuff like the Manofactorum is pretty good value.
The GW kits are good value if you want a GW kit that is very GW themed and don't mind paying the premium price. Howevver, cheaper alternatives abound. Examples:
GW Imperial Sector = $120.
Pegasus Hobby Gothic City Building Large Set = $33.
GW Baleful Realmgates (2) = £35.
Petsathome.com Temple Gate (2) fish tank ornament = £24 (Currently on a three for two offer, so actually you get three of them for £24.
Pegasus Hobby Gothic City Building Large Set = $33.
And the only thing you need to make those 40k-identifiable are skulls (obviously) and imperial aquilas. You get a couple of those from ebay + some Oyumaru and Kneadatite and you are set for life.
Pegasus kits are great but they aren't readily available over here unfortunately. I've been looking for them for quite a while but it seems they're much easier to get in the US. Other than those, most plastic terrain like "Battlefield in a box", historical buildings etc are pretty much on par with GW from what I've seen.
PLEASE tell me the gift tin actually counted as trees, and that the beer had special rules to allow you to take one.
Ha, unfortunately not. The tin was just LoS blocking terrain, and the only special rule the beer had was to make my friend and I mix up his 6th ed rulebook and our combined remembrance of 5th edition's rules.
Big Mac wrote: 1) matty ward, he single handedly destroyed the whfb game that I started wargaming in 5th ed
2) terrain relating in games, 10 wide formations makes it impossible to use terrain, it became irrelevant
3) model count, in 6th and 7th the 5-7 man wide formation seem optimal; 8th became a fantasy apocalypse game
This point is actually my main issue with the meta surrounding AoS. 8th ramped the model count to dizzying heights, and End Times pushed that even further by introducing massive, Apocalypse like models and encouraged you to have an army of the proper size to field the big models.
The have said they work 2 years out for model releases, so that mean AoS has been in production for at least two years, maybe longer.
They KNEW they were gonna put out a skirmish fantasy game with a suggested model count of 100 figures at the same time they were pushing players to buy MASSIVE armies for rules and games they were no longer going to support.
Back on topic I think model count was a huge factor in WHFB dying out. you can get started in 40k for about 400 dollars, fantasy was 800 to even have a small force, a little less for an elite army and A LOT more if it was a horde army.
PLEASE tell me the gift tin actually counted as trees, and that the beer had special rules to allow you to take one.
Ha, unfortunately not. The tin was just LoS blocking terrain, and the only special rule the beer had was to make my friend and I mix up his 6th ed rulebook and our combined remembrance of 5th edition's rules.
It was still a fun table to see, when we started it was kitchen floor, CD trays and this tub of Easter island heads my buddy found at a garage store. we still reminisce over the many battles of Easter island.
Mymearan wrote: Are they? Their plastic terrain kits seem to be very comparable in price to other companies, MDF is cheaper but looks a lot worse. Especially the 40k stuff like the Manofactorum is pretty good value.
I can tell that you have never tried to assemble one of these cursed things (the 40k imperial sector) . I don't need to compare their prices as someone has actually done it and no doubt more will follow. Their fantasy terrain is VERY expensive to the point that it makes 4ok terrain seem acceptable .
I don't think AoS will scale well to 100 figures a side size of games. I know games that size are a problem in 40K, because of slowness of movement and fighting, and the movement and fighting rules in AoS are very similar to 40K. (Individual figure movement, TLoS sighting, and individual figure To Hit, To Wound, To Save rolls.)
Kilkrazy wrote: I don't think AoS will scale well to 100 figures a side size of games. I know games that size are a problem in 40K, because of slowness of movement and fighting, and the movement and fighting rules in AoS are very similar to 40K. (Individual figure movement, TLoS sighting, and individual figure To Hit, To Wound, To Save rolls.)
I was just using the number from the rules, something something typically 100 figures a side for an evening battle.
I think it works best with under 50 and good deployment to avoid the mosh pit in the middle. I Don't actually think there was malice on GW's part, same as I any company pushing out old stock to clear the way of new stock. I feel like army size creep is just an extension of both players liking larger, cinematic games and of course selling more miniatures. They were however selling end times with massive armies and models while re-designing the game to use 100.
It's just really bad, being used to playing between 3500-4500 point games with a horde army, then switching to AoS.
Kilkrazy wrote: I don't think AoS will scale well to 100 figures a side size of games. I know games that size are a problem in 40K, because of slowness of movement and fighting, and the movement and fighting rules in AoS are very similar to 40K. (Individual figure movement, TLoS sighting, and individual figure To Hit, To Wound, To Save rolls.)
A very big difference is that all models in an AoS unit have the same stats and weapons, with the exception of one or two special weapons in some units. You just grab a fistful of dice and throw them twice, and your opponent rolls all his saves at once. There are no characters or mixed units to worry about.
Kilkrazy wrote: I don't think AoS will scale well to 100 figures a side size of games. I know games that size are a problem in 40K, because of slowness of movement and fighting, and the movement and fighting rules in AoS are very similar to 40K. (Individual figure movement, TLoS sighting, and individual figure To Hit, To Wound, To Save rolls.)
It's the number of warscrolls which is going to slow you down, not the individual models. If you had two units of 50 models each, it'll go a lot faster than ten units of ten models each. LoS is just a laser pointer away, and thanks to the 3" buffer around the models (use a 3" stick), movement actually requires less precise measuring (anywhere within that 3"? Stop at the stick).
And as for GW terrain - it's cheaper than LEGO (new Ghostbusters firehouse is $350). Heck, half the reason I play miniatures now is that I can't afford LEGO sets anymore.
Powergaming will always exist, regardless of the system. It always depend on the local community alone, not the system. People seem to believe that a system like AoS doesn't encourage power gaming, when nothing could farther from the truth - any system encourages powergaming the moment you put a model next to another and come to the conclusion that model A performs better than B for exactly the same cost (wound,scroll, gold piece, whatever).
Power gaming is about minmaxing - getting the maximum amount of X for the minimum amount of Y. But when Y is undefined, you can't decide what the value of X should be. That's why so many people are infuriated at the lack of points. There's no Y?!?! There's no limitations to what I can play with? I can just drop Nagash whenever I want? Does not compute! Next time Captain Kirk needs to talk down an enemy AI, he just needs to ask them to minmax AoS.
Edit: Actually, when you think about it, what better system is there to powergame on when AoS's basic premise is "bring whatever you want."
It's more like, "bring whatever you want and work with your opponent to build a fun gaming experience". AoS, as written, is not a competitive system. Without any limitations, and opponents that won't play against brutes, powergaming in AoS would be trying to create as fair-looking a battle as possible.
Powergaming is about making an army that is more powerful than the other guy's although it superficially looks the same power.
Points are one way to do it, if the unit values are incorrect and allow min-maxing.
In AoS power gamers will just take the same number of models and wounds as the other army but pick combos that are more effective.
If GW waited for Warhammer Total War to release and released some stuff to coincide with it, there could have potentially been a revival, with the Total War game bringing in new players
but instead, we now have two very separate settings and new players are going to be confused and dont know wtf is going on with the lore and miniatures
When they go to the GW website first thing they'll notice is, WTF is this weird fantasy space marine crap? Where the hell is Warhammer Fantasy?
BobtheConquistador wrote: If GW waited for Warhammer Total War to release and released some stuff to coincide with it, there could have potentially been a revival, with the Total War game bringing in new players
but instead, we now have two very separate settings and new players are going to be confused and dont know wtf is going on with the lore and miniatures
When they go to the GW website first thing they'll notice is, WTF is this weird fantasy space marine crap? Where the hell is Warhammer Fantasy?
Yeah, Dawn of War introduced huge loads of new players (me included) to 40k. Total War has an even greater popularity, it could have brought in many, many new players. While the potential is still there for AoS (the miniatures remain the same, after all), I still think it is a wasted opportunity for GW.
Yeah, Dawn of War introduced huge loads of new players (me included) to 40k. Total War has an even greater popularity, it could have brought in many, many new players. While the potential is still there for AoS (the miniatures remain the same, after all), I still think it is a wasted opportunity for GW.
I don't think there is a lot of overlap between video gamers and mini gamers. I mean, I played Dawn of War, Space Marine, Squad Command, and even Chaos Gate, but I never became a 40k player. It seems to me that Warhammer Total War is drawing more attention for being a fantasy Total War than a Warhammer licensed video game.
There is no doubt that video games can get players into tabletop games. It's not like taking heroin, but at the minimum you access a potential audience who otherwise might have totally ignored traditional games. There is plenty of empirical evidence to support the success of video games in boosting their tabletop counterparts.
Dawn Of War created a swell of youngsters coming into 40K.
Publishers of traditional boardgames, like Carcassone and Settlers Of Catan, have reported not only good sales of their digital versions but also a following increase in sales of the physical version.
There are boardgames like Gears Of War and Doom directly based on the videogame release. Even Civilisation, a board game based on a video game based on a board game.
Of course, Total War:Hammer isn't going to bring anyone to WHFB due to GW canning the game before the video version gets released. This merely is another example of their apparently non-existent marketing strategy.
Of course, Total War:Hammer isn't going to bring anyone to WHFB due to GW canning the game before the video version gets released. This merely is another example of their apparently non-existent marketing strategy.
There is the question of how long they were willing to hang on to a product judged non-profitable with the hope that a game that is to be released next year would potentially bring some new players. FB just lost its critical mass and a new one (for such a large game) takes a lot of time to gather. They may have chosen to start repairing the problem earlier (well earlier for them at least - most people consider it several aeons late).
Of course, Total War:Hammer isn't going to bring anyone to WHFB due to GW canning the game before the video version gets released. This merely is another example of their apparently non-existent marketing strategy.
There is the question of how long they were willing to hang on to a product judged non-profitable with the hope that a game that is to be released next year would potentially bring some new players. FB just lost its critical mass and a new one (for such a large game) takes a lot of time to gather. They may have chosen to start repairing the problem earlier (well earlier for them at least - most people consider it several aeons late).
They could've introduced AoS as a side game (along with the Stormcast releases - even creating them as an army for FB, who knows!) and updated the rest of the Armybooks (I'm looking at you, Brets!) to prepare for TW:W.
And then release a simpler, newbie friendly (hopefully more balanced) 9th ed of FB to cash in on TW:W.
They could have, but their reasons are their own. It has been posted many times since - they may have wanted to bring the entire attention to AoS (veterans and newbies). There certainly are ways to keep a developed game supported to a certain extent, but whether this would be viable for a game as large as FB, I cannot tell.
I think they were smart enough to realize that releasing AOS alongside WHFB instead of removing WHFB would have been akin to peeing into the wind. There would have been no point, much like the boxed games they put out that don't really do anything, AOS would have died on day 1 as a game.
auticus wrote: I think they were smart enough to realize that releasing AOS alongside WHFB instead of removing WHFB would have been akin to peeing into the wind. There would have been no point, much like the boxed games they put out that don't really do anything, AOS would have died on day 1 as a game.
I don't think that's true. Necromunda, GorkaMorka and Space Hulk being released alongside 40k didn't result in them dying on day 1 or Mordheim alongside WHFB.
Even things like Warbands gained some traction in spite of only being White Dwarf releases. I'm sure if it was supported and expanded on it would have stuck around as well.
Of course it's somewhat important that a game is half decent to begin with as well.
auticus wrote: I think they were smart enough to realize that releasing AOS alongside WHFB instead of removing WHFB would have been akin to peeing into the wind. There would have been no point, much like the boxed games they put out that don't really do anything, AOS would have died on day 1 as a game.
Agreed. I find the AoS system preferrable to Fantasy, but I never would have gone through all the rebasing and would have never tried it out
auticus wrote: I think they were smart enough to realize that releasing AOS alongside WHFB instead of removing WHFB would have been akin to peeing into the wind. There would have been no point, much like the boxed games they put out that don't really do anything, AOS would have died on day 1 as a game.
Agreed. I find the AoS system preferrable to Fantasy, but I never would have gone through all the rebasing and would have never tried it out
But you don't have to rebase your models to try AoS.
I think for every player who wouldn't have tried AoS if WHFB still existed there'd be at least 1 player who would have tried AoS instead of just completely quitting.
If GW released AoS alongside WHFB but stopped updating WHFB and only updated AoS, I reckon anyone who was going to play AoS would have still played it and it wouldn't have accumulated nearly as harsh of a spiteful response from people who don't want to play it.
I think if AoS was released alongside WHFB it would have been treated as the smaller skirmish game while WHFB was the larger mass battle.
Both would have been played side by side, by the same people as the models work for both.
People would never play WHFB under 2000 points, it would just be AoS, then people wouldn't play AoS with 100+ models, that would just be a game of WHFB.
WHFB and Mordheim coexisted for a long time and they complimented each other, not hurt each other.
I actually think he just used the wrong example.
. I don't need to compare their prices as someone has actually done it and no doubt more will follow. Their fantasy terrain is VERY expensive to the point that it makes 4ok terrain seem acceptable 
