Looks like Forgeworlds Aeronautica Imperials will return.

From Atia on Bolter and Chainsword:

via Adeptus Astartes

from "The Eye" at GWHQ.

"Prepare yourself for a new boardgame involving flyers from all of the factions. It's call warplane or something like that, I'll get the name tomorrow as I forgot it... but you can play eldar, chaos, space marine and orks"

The first "specialist game" to be released and will be announced any time now!

Posters have been seen in the staff areas at GWHQ.

basically the concept of the old Aeronautica Imperialis

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/318131-rumours-first-specialist-game-soon-aeronautica-imperialis/

Bit late aren't you?

I think it deserves it's own thread. The other thread isn't one I check for the new specialist game that's being released.

Yep, good idea it gets its own topic

 zedmeister wrote:
Bit late aren't you?

Not to late, but necessary.

I'm intrigued by this. I never played the original AI, but I loved the models and thought about getting into it until they stopped making it. I'll keep an eye out here.


Now if we could just skip ahead to Battlefleet Gothic...

I'm interested, I hope it actually is Aeronautica Imperialis and I hope the models come back, they were awesome little models and I still need to finish off my Imperial squadron.

It was a game I was interested in, but the price just for the book was more than I thought worth while. I would definitely be interested in a boxed game version.

 CptJake wrote:
It was a game I was interested in, but the price just for the book was more than I thought worth while. I would definitely be interested in a boxed game version.

It was definitely an excessively expensive game. The models themselves were very pricey as well, unfortunately I doubt it'll come through any cheaper with a fresh release.

The books were very good, but if all you wanted to do was play the game, they only contained a few pages of rules so made it difficult.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
It was a game I was interested in, but the price just for the book was more than I thought worth while. I would definitely be interested in a boxed game version.

It was definitely an excessively expensive game. The models themselves were very pricey as well, unfortunately I doubt it'll come through any cheaper with a fresh release.

The books were very good, but if all you wanted to do was play the game, they only contained a few pages of rules so made it difficult.

If it's another boxed game, I expect it will be plastic and so could well have a value proposition similar to the Calth box(ie, fairly spectacular relative to the old prices). What worries me on further reflection is we might end up with another Dreadfleet situation. Not in terms of the product being meh, but of the sales not being what GW had hoped and them cacking all over future release plans as a result - I know this new division is supposed to be semi-autonomous in the same way FW has been, but given the involvement of GW-proper in terms of plastics production I doubt they'll be quite as hands-off as they have been in the past. It just seems odd that they wouldn't kick off with a known quantity like Epic or BFG - AI was fun, but given the price issues you mention and it was a resin FW product it's not going to give a nostalgia boner to anywhere near as big of an audience as some of the bigger ex-SG properties would.

I vaguely remember reading the book had like 16 pages of rules. I had always hoped they would have released that via a free download.

We'll see, a boxed version may still be expensive, but it should contain everything you need to play, and I would think would have plastic figures. I'll be keeping an eye out for it.

If only it could use the X-Wing rules.

I reckon AI is being chosen partly because the rules are already written and partly the models are already in CAD. Tool in plastic, tweak and rework the rules into a new book. Chuck in some counters, box up, job done. A boxed game that's cheap as chips to produce. Release the models as plastic upgrades if the game does well enough...

 BrookM wrote:
If only it could use the X-Wing rules.

I thought both AI and X Wing just used a version of Wings of War rules?

Loved the AI books - compared to other GW books - especially Codexes .army books - i thought they were cheap considring the quality of the product.

Enjoyed the games I played of AI (far more than X Wing tbh)

 Mr Morden wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
If only it could use the X-Wing rules.

I thought both AI and X Wing just used a version of Wings of War rules?

Loved the AI books - compared to other GW books - especially Codexes .army books - i thought they were cheap considring the quality of the product.

Enjoyed the games I played of AI (far more than X Wing tbh)

It was cheap considering the books as a whole, because the books contained a lot more than just the rules, lots of background and awesome colour pictures. But that creates a barrier to entry because if you just want the rules to play a game the books were expensive given there was only a few pages of rules in them.

 BrookM wrote:
If only it could use the X-Wing rules.

Why not just do this?
There so many X-Wing ships around now that you can easily find a fitting stat card one for the AI flyers.
There are even point calculators around, plus fantastic online squad builder http://xwing-builder.co.uk/build#.


To be honest I am tempted atm to do a Robotech and Wing Commander conversion set based on X-Wing.

Hopefully they make the Thunderbolt smaller, as it was drastically out of scale.

Well that would be a must buy for me depending on how the aircraft look

Missed AI completely back in the day. What scale is it? BFG size?
Could its rules be adapted to fit 40k scale flyers just for laughs?

 Ratius wrote:
Missed AI completely back in the day. What scale is it? BFG size?
Could its rules be adapted to fit 40k scale flyers just for laughs?

BFG scale would make the models mere pinpricks on the tabletop It uses the same scale as Epic did, approximately 6mm.

 Ghaz wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
Missed AI completely back in the day. What scale is it? BFG size?
Could its rules be adapted to fit 40k scale flyers just for laughs?

BFG scale would make the models mere pinpricks on the tabletop It uses the same scale as Epic did, approximately 6mm.

I was under the impression the Forge World resin aircraft were a bit bigger than the GW metal ones for the same aircraft.

 CptJake wrote:

I was under the impression the Forge World resin aircraft were a bit bigger than the GW metal ones for the same aircraft.

Nah, the GW Metal Epic aircraft were woefully under scaled. The majority of the AI models were originally released for Epic (for 3rd Edition no less).

The FW epic models were all actually in scale with the infantry, whereas the GW metal ones were generally significantly undersized. That's where the discrepancy came from.

It's a boardgame setup. And we've seen that GW's latest boardgame efforts besides the now old Space Hulk have not been very good.

Most of the aircraft from Forge World were in scale; the Imperial Thunderbolt Fighter was far too big.

It's good for AI, but not so good for Epic, as now the aircraft look far too big compared to the ground vehicles.

 BrookM wrote:
If only it could use the X-Wing rules.

I have said that on several occasions! The AI system was so close already, all it really needs is the dial system and I think it would be great.

 AAN wrote:
Why not just do this?

I've said that on several occasions, too, but haven't gotten around to it. Frankly, yes - I'd rather someone else did the work. That's why I'm willing to pay for a game rulebook, right?

But if they re-release AI with the same exact rules, it will need a fix before I'll want to play it much. Maybe we'll find some game designer who is eager to do that, and willing to write it all up for us. Know anyone like that, Agis?

- H8

So only four factions, and it's allegedly called "Warplane"...

If there were Tau I'd probably be interested, but considering none of the factions appeal to me, and GW hasn't released a good board game since fething Space Hulk (which is old as dirt), I'm probably gonna pass.

Betrayal at Calth was actually a pretty good board game. Just sayin.....

Assassin one is fun but nothing super special. The only real crappy release was dreadfleet and even that's fun if you don't mind to much random.

Why would they implement space marine flyers before the Imperial Navy? The space marines just don't have the same kind of scale or impact in the air as the Imperial Navy.

I'm a big fan of X-wing as it is so this could be right up my street depending on the variety and quality of the models, anything Eldar, (all varieties!) Ork, Imperial Guard and Tau would make it an irresistible proposition.

 Hulksmash wrote:
Betrayal at Calth was actually a pretty good board game. Just sayin.....

Assassin one is fun but nothing super special. The only real crappy release was dreadfleet and even that's fun if you don't mind to much random.

+1. Calth is particularly fun. If anything there's a visible upward trend in the quality of both the value proposition of the models in the box and the rules, if you look at recent history. They even reprinted Space Hulk with some new bits. There was a time to be unreasonably skeptical about new board games from GW, but it's behind us.

Sounds interesting, particularly if in 6mm. Aircraft are the one aspect of my Epic armies that are woefully absent!

 Ratius wrote:

Could its rules be adapted to fit 40k scale flyers just for laughs?

They did this at a FW open day, once. Made some upscaled AI bases and maneuver cards, and used FW 40k scale aircraft in a BIG open space.

It looked absolutely awesome, from the pictures I saw.

 Sledgehammer wrote:
Why would they implement space marine flyers before the Imperial Navy? The space marines just don't have the same kind of scale or impact in the air as the Imperial Navy.

Space Marines always come first, irrespective of their appropriateness.

Do Marines even have suitable aircraft?

Thanks to FW, they do now.

@BrookM - I can just see it. New game! Use your existing models! All you need to do is have 24 Forge World flyers each!

By the way, I love the Xipher pattern interceptor. I wish its rules weren't so bad. Will probably still buy one at some point :X

Xiphon.

Of course, you've also got the Thunderhawk Gunship, Thunderhawk Transporters, Storm Eagle, Fire Raptor, Xiphon and with possibilities for the Caestus, Dreadclaw and Kharybdis.

Space Marines make a lot of sense when you realise they can tie them into 30k. Bolt on the Lightning, Avenger, Thunderbolt, the 4 or more Marauder variants, vulture, vallyrie, etc etc and you've got quite a lot of choice for Imperial Aircraft already.

 Hulksmash wrote:
Betrayal at Calth was actually a pretty good board game. Just sayin

Indeed.

The game itself is very playable.

Well worth checking out.

A bit dissapointed that it seems that the first 3 specialist games that will be released are games that I either have no interest in (epic, AI), or that i'm fed up with (blood bowl).

Can't wait for NEvromunda, Inquisotor or Mordheim

An Aeronautica Imperialis like game will be acceptable only with Epic scale models, but if the rumors are true and there will be 4 factions I presume GW will release a lot of different types of airplanes. My FW Epic Vampire Hunter is waiting.

It's weird because I had pretty much forgotten about Aeronautica Imperialis.

I have the books but never actually played the game.

I have also never really been a fan of games like X-Wing, I tried it but didn't really get on with it.

However strangely the idea of playing a game "like" X-Wing but with 40K models has got me quite excited.

I have to say I have bought all of the boxed games (Space Hulk, Execution Force, BaC) and found them all to be quite good fun so I have high hopes for this.

Personally though I think 6mm is too small a scale for this outside of the context of Epic. In other words if it's a standalone game I would prefer it to be a marginally bigger scale, maybe 10mm, just so I can play with the tiny plastic planes but still be able to enjoy painting them.

Having said that if it then eventually ties into a larger setting such as Epic I wouldn't mind too much.

Either way this is a game that's come pretty much out of left field for me, wasn't expecting them to do this at all, but if it does come out I don't doubt I'll buy it.

If GW releases a boxset with plastic models, I will be buying into it. I enjoy the 40K IP and would gladly spend money on a second 40K universe game that does not require the same level of buy in as Warhammer 40K.

I'm also assuming GW would produce additional items for a Specialist game in the future with this new relaunch. I think this is what killed the other games in the past as most folks didn't want to pay good money for a game that the company did not support, FLGS could not stock and had little to no player base.

Aeronautica Imperialis? A pretty unimpressive release from SG. Other than the ease of production by piggybacking on existing design work, why would this be more popular the second time around, as opposed to BFG or Necromunda? Also, for those of you hoping for extended support of these standalone boxed games, then you better buy the crap out of them. Just because GW resurrected SG, doesn't mean they're going to pour money into expansions for games that don't sell like they did the first time around. This is 2016 and GW doesn't touch low-volume, low-margin product anymore.

Hold the slim branch of hope in one hand, wield the hammer of doubt in the other

Well it appears that the new SG will be sold through stores, unlike AI in its first incarnation, which was sold only through the FW web store. Additionally it's perfectly reasonable to expect this to be available as a boxed starter, perhaps even with plastic components, rather than a book and a bunch of comparatively expensive resin models that you're essentially buying from a photo.

Equally, if this is indeed IA:2nd Edition then there's a possibility that the rules may have been refined for extra playability and have had any sharp edges rounded off, meaning it may well appeal to fans of the original, even if they own it all already.

It's also perfectly reasonable to see games that require less development, design and tooling time to come out first.

Anyone expecting extended support for SGs is likely going to be disappointed, as SG have never had extended support, but some sort of "ticking over" support now looks more likely, with a refresh every few years, which is a world away from the current status quo.

As for low volume, low margin? The "Start Collecting" bundles have already disproved the low margin, whether they're low volume or not really depends on the quality of the product, GW has the customers, they just need to make something a lot of them want to buy.

I will pass on AI, but I'll be all over BFG as I really want to run a rogue trader RPG campaign. Someday. Maybe.

That said, I'm looking forward to how they're going to handle the specialist games. Maybe they're starting with a less popular specialist game first to see how well their new approach will work? i.e., let's not completely feth this up with something popular like bloodbowl, epic or BFG?

/speculation

StraightSilver wrote:
Personally though I think 6mm is too small a scale for this outside of the context of Epic. In other words if it's a standalone game I would prefer it to be a marginally bigger scale, maybe 10mm, just so I can play with the tiny plastic planes but still be able to enjoy painting them.

Because AI shares the same scale as Epic it makes sense that AI would be released preceding or following the release of Epic itself.

Personally, if this is genuinely AI and GW don't botch it, I'll be buying it. I love AI, both the game and the models. The rules were easy to learn and difficult to master, the models were brilliantly detailed and most of them looked pretty cool to me.

But I'm holding my breath in case this either isn't AI or in case GW make a mess of it. It they pull it together nicely I'll buy it all, maybe twice

As much as I'd love GW to release Epic again, at this point I don't really see me buying in to Epic, it was a good game but I just don't see me spending the time to assemble an army for it. But I can definitely see myself buying up on AI.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Hopefully they make the Thunderbolt smaller, as it was drastically out of scale.

I don't believe it was, the Thunderbolt is pretty big. The FW Thunderbolt has the same wingspan as a Valkyrie, but is significantly bulkier. FW tend to make their models more realistically scaled, so I'd trust FW's scaling more than the tiny metal Thunderbolts that the main GW made for Epic.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Well it appears that the new SG will be sold through stores, unlike AI in its first incarnation, which was sold only through the FW web store. Additionally it's perfectly reasonable to expect this to be available as a boxed starter, perhaps even with plastic components, rather than a book and a bunch of comparatively expensive resin models that you're essentially buying from a photo.

True, just being on hand in a store may improve sales.

Equally, if this is indeed IA:2nd Edition then there's a possibility that the rules may have been refined for extra playability and have had any sharp edges rounded off, meaning it may well appeal to fans of the original, even if they own it all already.

This is where you might see some push-back from existing AI fans and where GW has the potential to drop the ball. How much mucking with existing rules does GW do? Rounding off edges sounds nice, but it's not really GW's thing, is it? Why make minor tweaks when you can re-work the whole thing? GW wants new customers, so demolishing old rules is their MO.

Anyone expecting extended support for SGs is likely going to be disappointed, as SG have never had extended support, but some sort of "ticking over" support now looks more likely, with a refresh every few years, which is a world away from the current status quo.

The older versions of SG explored plenty of nooks and crannies that GW wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole nowadays. If they release a remake of Necromunda with two gangs, how many other gangs would you expect to see down the line? Ratskins? Scavvies? Ash wastes nomads? Individual characters like Kal Jericho, the Redeemer, or the Caller? No fething way.

As for low volume, low margin? The "Start Collecting" bundles have already disproved the low margin, whether they're low volume or not really depends on the quality of the product, GW has the customers, they just need to make something a lot of them want to buy.

Boxed sets would be the high-volume, high-margin stuff. Expansions would be the low-volume, low-margin stuff, but it's the kind of stuff that the proponents of SG want to see and believe in their heart-of-hearts that GW will start producing again. I don't believe it. The new SG is being spun-off as a way to produce boxed games. It's not meant to cater to vets or people who want niche products. Those are days gone bye for GW.

 zedmeister wrote:
Of course, you've also got the Thunderhawk Gunship, Thunderhawk Transporters, Storm Eagle, Fire Raptor, Xiphon and with possibilities for the Caestus, Dreadclaw and Kharybdis.

Space Marines make a lot of sense when you realise they can tie them into 30k. Bolt on the Lightning, Avenger, Thunderbolt, the 4 or more Marauder variants, vulture, vallyrie, etc etc and you've got quite a lot of choice for Imperial Aircraft already.

I didn't mind that Space Marine flyers were mostly just transports and support aircraft and that they lacked a proper "airforce" with fighters. It gave more character and uniqueness to the Imperial Navy.

But then GW can't release anything without appeasing the majority of Space Marine fans.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I didn't mind that Space Marine flyers were mostly just transports and support aircraft and that they lacked a proper "airforce" with fighters. It gave more character and uniqueness to the Imperial Navy.

But then GW can't release anything without appeasing the majority of Space Marine fans.

Yeah, it's a little grating in some ways. Still, Marines in Epic and AI were never that popular compared with 40k - Marines in AI are really just three units and one of those was the Hyperios! The rest of the Imperial forces were all Imperial Navy aircraft.

As for Epic, if you wanted an Imperial army you played Imperial Guard or Titans. That wasn't to say Marines weren't good. They really shined in Epic and play as they do in the backstories - very fast moving rapid strike force that appear out of nowhere and hammer you to bits and then redeploying before you can counter attack.

 the_Armyman wrote:

Anyone expecting extended support for SGs is likely going to be disappointed, as SG have never had extended support, but some sort of "ticking over" support now looks more likely, with a refresh every few years, which is a world away from the current status quo.

The older versions of SG explored plenty of nooks and crannies that GW wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole nowadays. If they release a remake of Necromunda with two gangs, how many other gangs would you expect to see down the line? Ratskins? Scavvies? Ash wastes nomads? Individual characters like Kal Jericho, the Redeemer, or the Caller? No fething way.

As for low volume, low margin? The "Start Collecting" bundles have already disproved the low margin, whether they're low volume or not really depends on the quality of the product, GW has the customers, they just need to make something a lot of them want to buy.

Boxed sets would be the high-volume, high-margin stuff. Expansions would be the low-volume, low-margin stuff, but it's the kind of stuff that the proponents of SG want to see and believe in their heart-of-hearts that GW will start producing again. I don't believe it. The new SG is being spun-off as a way to produce boxed games. It's not meant to cater to vets or people who want niche products. Those are days gone bye for GW.

Agreed. Anyone expecting more than a self-contained boxed set is kidding themselves. There's simply no way that modern GW is going to maintain open-ended, full product lines for AI, and BFG, and BB, and... Personally, I'm still not convinced that we'll see plastic Heresy kits beyond the Calth box. These are for all intents and purposes board games, which happen to have wargaming-quality miniatures inside.

AI was/is a really fun, and in my opinion, tactically deep game...more so than x-wing. You had a handful of 'maneuver' cards which you chose from in secret, just like the dials in x-wing...these cards had to be placed somewhere in the model's path, and changed its direction, but also the altitude and speed. The key thing here was altitude and there was a notion of conservation of energy, along with the concepts of gravity assist and momentum that really made it seem much more of a realistic (than x-wing) tactical simulation game.

Certain weapon systems could only fire down to the altitude band below your plane, some could only target up, and some could only fire on the altitude band you were currently on. As was stated before, the concept and basic rules were easy to learn, and difficult (yet rewarding) to master. They had rules for ground based anti-air artillary, and many factions had bombers, so ground strike and bombing run scenarios were a real part of this game (and super fun)...not to mention the potential for linking games with 40k and/or BFG in an epic campaign style. Another example: factions had troop transports, which made for cool scenarios where you could try to shoot down your enemies' landing forces, affecting reinforcements in your next 40k game...

I'm pretty excited to see this get resurrected, and hope it doesn't change much (or get watered down to the 1-dimensional combat that is x-wing). My faction of choice was Tau though, so hopefully it is expanded beyond the 4 factions in the core set.

Howdy ^^

Just want to say I'm just the messanger (or in other words, i'm doing the news & rumours threads @ b&c in general), so don't shoot me ^^

Last information I got was that we may see one or two games before Blood Bowl, with Blood Bowl scheduled for end of this year, with Orks and Humans (test models done) aswell as Dwarfes and Nurgle (design step done) as initial teams.

Both Adeptus Titanicus and AI would make sense since FW can just scale down the CAD3D versions of their titans and flyers, and AI was FW's baby back then, keep that in mind

I'd really like them to combine the two,

swarms of flyers attacking 'king kong' style titans and each other would be cool

 the_Armyman wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Well it appears that the new SG will be sold through stores, unlike AI in its first incarnation, which was sold only through the FW web store. Additionally it's perfectly reasonable to expect this to be available as a boxed starter, perhaps even with plastic components, rather than a book and a bunch of comparatively expensive resin models that you're essentially buying from a photo.

True, just being on hand in a store may improve sales.

Equally, if this is indeed IA:2nd Edition then there's a possibility that the rules may have been refined for extra playability and have had any sharp edges rounded off, meaning it may well appeal to fans of the original, even if they own it all already.

This is where you might see some push-back from existing AI fans and where GW has the potential to drop the ball. How much mucking with existing rules does GW do? Rounding off edges sounds nice, but it's not really GW's thing, is it? Why make minor tweaks when you can re-work the whole thing? GW wants new customers, so demolishing old rules is their MO.

But this isn't GW proper, this is the new SGS which is apparently composed of FW and some new imported talent. It's apparently semi-autonomous in the same way FW is, so tarring the new versions of SG with the GW brush is possibly premature, maybe completely inaccurate.

Anyone expecting extended support for SGs is likely going to be disappointed, as SG have never had extended support, but some sort of "ticking over" support now looks more likely, with a refresh every few years, which is a world away from the current status quo.

The older versions of SG explored plenty of nooks and crannies that GW wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole nowadays. If they release a remake of Necromunda with two gangs, how many other gangs would you expect to see down the line? Ratskins? Scavvies? Ash wastes nomads? Individual characters like Kal Jericho, the Redeemer, or the Caller? No fething way.

Again, this isn't GW proper, so as FW has the capability and freedom to do random bits and pieces for the latest IA or HH book, I see no reason that this won't happen with SGS. They'll have a capacity to produce small run models in resin, which has a substantially lower upfront cost than plastic, so it's totally feasible we could get even more niche than has gone before. Now, we may pay £60+ for a 10 person gang and £10+ for weapons packs, but I can see it happening.

As for low volume, low margin? The "Start Collecting" bundles have already disproved the low margin, whether they're low volume or not really depends on the quality of the product, GW has the customers, they just need to make something a lot of them want to buy.

Boxed sets would be the high-volume, high-margin stuff. Expansions would be the low-volume, low-margin stuff, but it's the kind of stuff that the proponents of SG want to see and believe in their heart-of-hearts that GW will start producing again. I don't believe it. The new SG is being spun-off as a way to produce boxed games. It's not meant to cater to vets or people who want niche products. Those are days gone bye for GW.

Again, already answered. SGS has the capacity to do small run niche stuff, and apparently can get time on the HIPs presses, so, right now, the perfect compromise is still in the table.

For me AI would be one of the best things they could release. Taking probably the nichest title that GW released and had very little promotion at the time and opening it up to a wider audience (not to mention the compatability with Epic) would be really great for those of us who completely missed it the first time around.

 the_Armyman wrote:
Other than the ease of production by piggybacking on existing design work, why would this be more popular the second time around, as opposed to BFG or Necromunda?

Maybe the re-launch will fail and it won't be significantly more popular, but the lack of earlier popularity is an argument in its favor. GW doesn't make much money by publishing BFG 2.0 and giving all the former BFG players a new rulebook to use with their vast stockpiles of old models. They make money by selling to new customers who are buying entire armies for the new game. AI has enough of a core of former players to do some of GW's marketing work for them, but there aren't that many models available and the ones that are sell for ridiculously high prices. The vast majority of potential AI players will be buying new stuff from GW.

AI could be a bit of a gamble in the sense that I don't know how many people like the idea of 6mm aircraft. I love them, but I don't know how many other people would be interested in it. But I guess tying in to Epic helps.

The more I think about it, the less I think they'll do plastics for AI unless they massively change the rules. AI is only really suited for games of 10 aircraft or less per side, the only way plastics would be viable is if they remove the variety and only let each faction have a couple of aircraft types each. Either that or they change the rules to encourage much larger forces.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I'd really like them to combine the two,

swarms of flyers attacking 'king kong' style titans and each other would be cool

The problem with combining them is they happen in different time scales, not impossible but a bit clumsy. An entire game of AI would probably span only a couple of turns of Epic.

All this talk about Aeronautica is wonderful. Still, I'd laugh my arse off if it turned out to be a remake of Bommerz over da Sulphur River.

 Breotan wrote:
All this talk about Aeronautica is wonderful. Still, I'd laugh my arse off if it turned out to be a remake of Bommerz over da Sulphur River.

It could easily be that. Sulpher River is basically a board game, a few bits of card for the board, a dozen or so aircraft, small rulebook, whack a $100 price tag on it and hope for the best.

AI isn't really a board game, it's a smaller scale wargame that needs a wider array of products.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

AI isn't really a board game, it's a smaller scale wargame that needs a wider array of products.

Even then, the needed products for a starter isn't that large:

Two sets of aircraft
Dice
Rules and Rosters
Manoeuvre cards
Maybe a few counters for ground targets.

That's it.. They don't really need terrain as it's aerial combat, but they did some nice scenario pieces at one point for airfields and the like. They have all that. Retool in plastic, new design box and book, job done. Hardly any development work needed.

Also, if they did want go try to cash in on X-Wings success then void craft would be a no brainer expansion should the initial release do well. Fury interceptors, Starhawk Bombers, Doomfire Bombers, etc etc.

 zedmeister wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

AI isn't really a board game, it's a smaller scale wargame that needs a wider array of products.

Even then, the needed products for a starter isn't that large:

Two sets of aircraft
Dice
Rules and Rosters
Manoeuvre cards
Maybe a few counters for ground targets.

That's it.. They don't really need terrain as it's aerial combat, but they did some nice scenario pieces at one point for airfields and the like. They have all that. Retool in plastic, new design box and book, job done. Hardly any development work needed.

Also, if they did want go try to cash in on X-Wings success then void craft would be a no brainer expansion should the initial release do well. Fury interceptors, Starhawk Bombers, Doomfire Bombers, etc etc.

Yeah but what I was saying is if they want it to be a standalone product rather than a starter for a more involved game (which requires more investment) then it'll probably be more like Sulphur River rather than AI.

 Peregrine wrote:

 the_Armyman wrote:
Other than the ease of production by piggybacking on existing design work, why would this be more popular the second time around, as opposed to BFG or Necromunda?

Maybe the re-launch will fail and it won't be significantly more popular, but the lack of earlier popularity is an argument in its favor. GW doesn't make much money by publishing BFG 2.0 and giving all the former BFG players a new rulebook to use with their vast stockpiles of old models. They make money by selling to new customers who are buying entire armies for the new game. AI has enough of a core of former players to do some of GW's marketing work for them, but there aren't that many models available and the ones that are sell for ridiculously high prices. The vast majority of potential AI players will be buying new stuff from GW.

What gave you the impression that I believe BFG will just be BFG 2.0 that allows the older players to use the same models? I firmly believe all of these new SG offerings will either be incompatible with old rules or they'll alter scales/game mechanics significantly. There will be no free rides to the good old games of yesteryear: pay up or GTFO!

I just questioned starting with a lukewarm offering rather than something people have been clamoring for to really make a huge splash. And yes, before the pedants chime-in with "b-but Betrayal at Calth was SG's first game and it made a huge splash". That was before we knew BaC was made by this new studio, so there was no hype to be generated by the connection of the two.

I assume the AI reboot will be an Xwing clone. Then they will be disappointed when they figure out 40k doesn't have the same brand draw as Star Wars
.
As for the post above mine, well, the few blood bowl models we have seen would argue otherwise - they seem to be compatible with older models. So far, at least.

Why are folk being so cynical about this new stuff? I mean, I can get normal GW Customer Apprehension Disorder, we all get that, but we're talking about, essentially, "Forge World but with plastic production access and permission to use specialist game assets". Given at least some of the folk in this new division were responsible for EF and BaC, two reasonably good games one of which was filled with starter box-value levels of plastic, why are folk assuming they're just going to shat out a series of overpriced shoddy board games and ignore them?

A lot of the guys in charge of this semi-autonomous group are some of the few left at GW who seem to share some of the "old guard" attitudes and tastes, people who were passionate about the SGs. I'm not saying everyone should be vacantly hyped, but as it stands there's no reason to assume that the new versions are going to be designed to actively feth over players with existing SG collections.

As for the practicalities of doing SGs as we knew them, it's not particularly difficult. If they want to go all-plastic, they can follow the current premium miniature boardgame trend; core box with everything you need to play a 2 or 4 player game, then preset "expansion" boxes. It won't allow as diverse a range as the older method did, but it hardly means their only choice is to put out a 1v1 box and then ignore it. Even if they do find their access to plastic production limited to producing the core sets; so? The new group can go the other way as well and tap into FW's resin production capacity. That won't result in as good a value proposition for the customer, but it would allow them to put out a self-contained core box and then add to it over time with new factions and new models for the ones in the core set.

Again; no hype necessary, some of you will know exactly how cynical I generally am about GW, but from what we've heard so far I'm willing to dial that back from active cynicism to cautious optimism. If it turns out what we've heard is wrong, or if they end up squandering the opportunity they have here, that'll be a shame, but as it stands assuming that will be the case isn't supportable IMO.

To me AI is more of a "safe bet" play because it's not that old and they were recently selling stuff for it. They know there's still a crowd for it. I'm not sure how big the crowd is, but it doesn't rely too heavily on the nostalgia factor.

It won't take too much to re-release a large portion of the stuff either.

I see the "bigger" stuff coming down the road at key moments in their sales cycles. Something like Bloodbowl or EPIC would best serve them around an even or year end.

If the SGS is smart about it, they'll rework the rules to be compatible with any future version of Epic. Alternatively, they incorporate some basic form of AI rules into Epic down the line.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Why are folk being so cynical about this new stuff? I mean, I can get normal GW Customer Apprehension Disorder, we all get that, but we're talking about, essentially, "Forge World but with plastic production access and permission to use specialist game assets". Given at least some of the folk in this new division were responsible for EF and BaC, two reasonably good games one of which was filled with starter box-value levels of plastic, why are folk assuming they're just going to shat out a series of overpriced shoddy board games and ignore them?

If I am cynical., it's because 20 years of experience with GW, with the last 10-12 especially, has made me this way. I watched the rise and fall of Specialist Games, and am worried about seeing hiatory repeat itself.

GW hasn't done a boardgame " starter" that they haven't immediately and completely lost interest in expanding since, what.....Battlefleet Gothic? I am still very doubtful the Heresy box set will ever see an additional release.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Why are folk being so cynical about this new stuff? I mean, I can get normal GW Customer Apprehension Disorder, we all get that, but we're talking about, essentially, "Forge World but with plastic production access and permission to use specialist game assets". Given at least some of the folk in this new division were responsible for EF and BaC, two reasonably good games one of which was filled with starter box-value levels of plastic, why are folk assuming they're just going to shat out a series of overpriced shoddy board games and ignore them?

If I am cynical., it's because 20 years of experience with GW, with the last 10-12 especially, has made me this way. I watched the rise and fall of Specialist Games, and am worried about seeing hiatory repeat itself.

GW hasn't done a boardgame " starter" that they haven't immediately and completely lost interest in expanding since, what.....Battlefleet Gothic? I am still very doubtful the Heresy box set will ever see an additional release.

Again though; has FW done anything to deserve such cynicism? Because the new SGS is ostensibly being granted similar levels of autonomy to FW, and is being run by the guy who previously ran FW. Now sure, GW-proper could decide in 6, 12, 18 months time to just dissolve the new team, but given the givens that requires the assumption that said team will fail to make money, which I very much doubt will be the case.

GW didn't kill the old SGs out of spite, they killed them because they weren't making enough money. Now, they weren't making enough money IMO because GW at the time were idiots who couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag, but it wasn't arbitrary. This new CEO seems willing to experiment, and it seems from the outside as if the FW guys are being rewarded for making a success of the Heresy with the chance to make a success of the SGs - providing they do(and I think they will), there won't be any reason to drop them again.

As for the Heresy plastics; isn't one of the folk that said we'd see those kits broken out on their own eventually Sad Panda, who's yet to be wrong?

 AegisGrimm wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Why are folk being so cynical about this new stuff? I mean, I can get normal GW Customer Apprehension Disorder, we all get that, but we're talking about, essentially, "Forge World but with plastic production access and permission to use specialist game assets". Given at least some of the folk in this new division were responsible for EF and BaC, two reasonably good games one of which was filled with starter box-value levels of plastic, why are folk assuming they're just going to shat out a series of overpriced shoddy board games and ignore them?

If I am cynical., it's because 20 years of experience with GW, with the last 10-12 especially, has made me this way. I watched the rise and fall of Specialist Games, and am worried about seeing hiatory repeat itself.

GW hasn't done a boardgame " starter" that they haven't immediately and completely lost interest in expanding since, what.....Battlefleet Gothic? I am still very doubtful the Heresy box set will ever see an additional release.

See, for me, also staring at 20 or so years with GW games, I could care less about the 'boxed game' or 'boardgame' or whatever rules GW pushes out for the SGs. I just want the models. The models.

I am fully capable of playing Gothic, Mordheim, Necromunda, LoTR, AI, etc using whatever rules I like - whether they're the original rules (whch still work, we still play all of the above using those rules), or new rules that GW pushes out. Frankly, the original SG rules are pretty solid all around and great for our club play. I'd like models so that I can expand my collection/options in these systems, or re-buy models I had, but sold or traded off.

So as far as GW and FW for SG, I want them to act like a model company, that's it.

I would not want them to turn it into x-wing - frankly, the game play in x-wing leaves me cold and bored. After all, x-wing, AI, etc are all based on historicals air combat games like Blue Max (from 20 years ago or so), so its not like they're anything new as far as mechanics go. And AI offers more flexibility with actual range bands, however simplified, than x-wing, which I like (not to mention troop drops, anti-air, etc.

It would be nice if Sadpanda could comment to this. I hope the rumor is true.

I'm a little sad that the first SG is probably the one I care least about - with the second (Titan legions) also being rumoured to be in the pipeline.

Sad for personal reasons of course - objectively I hope these do really well and blow away expectations and help the SGS flourish into something grand and exciting.

I think I'll definitely try Bloodbowl when it comes. It is not a game that has appealed to me before, but approaching it like I would a boardgame (so, super competitively and trying to play "the game" of it) and only needing 10 or so models makes me excited at the prospect!

Anyway, I wish AI success!

 Cruentus wrote:
See, for me, also staring at 20 or so years with GW games, I could care less about the 'boxed game' or 'boardgame' or whatever rules GW pushes out for the SGs. I just want the models. The models.

I am fully capable of playing Gothic, Mordheim, Necromunda, LoTR, AI, etc using whatever rules I like - whether they're the original rules (whch still work, we still play all of the above using those rules), or new rules that GW pushes out. Frankly, the original SG rules are pretty solid all around and great for our club play. I'd like models so that I can expand my collection/options in these systems, or re-buy models I had, but sold or traded off.

So as far as GW and FW for SG, I want them to act like a model company, that's it.

I would not want them to turn it into x-wing - frankly, the game play in x-wing leaves me cold and bored. After all, x-wing, AI, etc are all based on historicals air combat games like Blue Max (from 20 years ago or so), so its not like they're anything new as far as mechanics go. And AI offers more flexibility with actual range bands, however simplified, than x-wing, which I like (not to mention troop drops, anti-air, etc.

This is exactly my position with respect to SGs, too. Primarily, nice box sets of related models. I would take the crappiest, most horrible rules for games in the whole world to have a tiny bit better models, because I can play the models with whatever rules I want, or change them in whatever way suits me, but I can't really improve the models, if I don't like them.

The exception to this is when a board game introduces some fresh, new, idea or concept -- like the way Bloodbowl did. In this case, the theme/concept/ideas are more important to me than the actual mechanics of the rules. Of course, if I can have it all, why not!

 Talys wrote:

 Cruentus wrote:
See, for me, also staring at 20 or so years with GW games, I could care less about the 'boxed game' or 'boardgame' or whatever rules GW pushes out for the SGs. I just want the models. The models.

I am fully capable of playing Gothic, Mordheim, Necromunda, LoTR, AI, etc using whatever rules I like - whether they're the original rules (whch still work, we still play all of the above using those rules), or new rules that GW pushes out. Frankly, the original SG rules are pretty solid all around and great for our club play. I'd like models so that I can expand my collection/options in these systems, or re-buy models I had, but sold or traded off.

So as far as GW and FW for SG, I want them to act like a model company, that's it.

I would not want them to turn it into x-wing - frankly, the game play in x-wing leaves me cold and bored. After all, x-wing, AI, etc are all based on historicals air combat games like Blue Max (from 20 years ago or so), so its not like they're anything new as far as mechanics go. And AI offers more flexibility with actual range bands, however simplified, than x-wing, which I like (not to mention troop drops, anti-air, etc.

This is exactly my position with respect to SGs, too. Primarily, nice box sets of related models. I would take the crappiest, most horrible rules for games in the whole world to have a tiny bit better models, because I can play the models with whatever rules I want, or change them in whatever way suits me, but I can't really improve the models, if I don't like them.

The exception to this is when a board game introduces some fresh, new, idea or concept -- like the way Bloodbowl did. In this case, the theme/concept/ideas are more important to me than the actual mechanics of the rules. Of course, if I can have it all, why not!

I'm the opposite, well, I still want good models but without good rules the whole prospect of specialist games is rather pointless to me. It needs to have good enough rules for me to want to go to my mates and say "hey this looks like fun lets give it a go" and then get enough gameplay to justify spending the time on the models.

The exception might be BAC where everyone just needs to feed their chronic space mareenz addiction, but I'd say something like dread fleet was killed by its rules.

I think a game needs to have good rules to be successful enough for GW bothering to make more models for it.

AI had good rules, it suffered because most people didn't even know it existed and the rules were troublesome to get your hands on. I don't really think the AI rules need much tweaking, they were so simple yet allowed for a lot of depth in gameplay.

I still think the key failure of Dreadfleet (aside from not being Bloodbowl as everyone was expecting) was that it didn't have any where to go. The models had no use outside of the game and there was no prospect of any expansions/add-ons, which meant it was just a very expensive, self assembly board game.

Whether this is actually AI or a new game inspired by AI/X-wing, this is the lesson the new specialist games division needs to learn. Make it a bit open ended, with room for new forces, models etc. Make it in a scale that can tie into other products (e.g. 6mm for Epic) and, it the information embargo has truly been lifted, let us know that you're doing that because there will be more to come!

They could have expanded Dreadfleet more if it was popular to start with.

AI doesn't really have any more room for expansion other than being the same scale as Epic, but for an Epic game you usually want even less aircraft than you want in AI itself. Unless they want to turn Epic in to a flyer heavy game, which I'm not really sure would be of benefit to it.

When the Rumor is really true, soon we will see more Informations appear.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Hopefully they make the Thunderbolt smaller, as it was drastically out of scale.

I don't believe it was, the Thunderbolt is pretty big. The FW Thunderbolt has the same wingspan as a Valkyrie, but is significantly bulkier. FW tend to make their models more realistically scaled, so I'd trust FW's scaling more than the tiny metal Thunderbolts that the main GW made for Epic.

Oh it was, as can easily be proved by using a ruler, a calculator and the "real" dimensions published in Forge World's own books. The Thunderbolt is bigger, but even taking that into account, the scale is still off.

to whoever mentioned Bommerz over da Sulphur River. I've still got that (albeit missing the Ork planes :( ), and it would make quite a fun wee game, or even an expansion for an IA boxed game; simply put it in WD like they did with the rules expansions for Execution Force and Betrayal at Calth, or those wee card-based games involving Imperial Knights or Smaug. Or combine the two; make the Sulphur River campaign (or the larger war that it was part of) the focus of the IA boxed game, and base the scenarios around it.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Hopefully they make the Thunderbolt smaller, as it was drastically out of scale.

I don't believe it was, the Thunderbolt is pretty big. The FW Thunderbolt has the same wingspan as a Valkyrie, but is significantly bulkier. FW tend to make their models more realistically scaled, so I'd trust FW's scaling more than the tiny metal Thunderbolts that the main GW made for Epic.

Oh it was, as can easily be proved by using a ruler, a calculator and the "real" dimensions published in Forge World's own books. The Thunderbolt is bigger, but even taking that into account, the scale is still off.

I just measured one of my AI Thunderbolts, it's 56mm wingspan (including the little nodules on the wing tips). My AI book says a "real" Thunderbolt is 16.06m. 6mm scale is 1/285, so the 6mm scale Thunderbolt should be 16.06*1000/285 = 56.35mm. So FW's AI model for the Thunderbolt is correct to the millimetre.

I've sunken to a new low, rivet counting on an imaginary aircraft

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
They could have expanded Dreadfleet more if it was popular to start with.

Dreadfeelt was a game written from the start to be played with a limited number of capital ships.

IA on the other hand has access a large variety of units that can be purchased in "squads" and SGS can expand the existing roster of fliers for each faction effectively without limits. The Tau alone offer more chance to sell product that the whole Dreadfeelt box did.

As for AI interlocking with Epic, all you need is maybe 30% of your AI collection to be functional in Epic for it to be worth the effort on SGS's part.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I'd really like them to combine the two,

swarms of flyers attacking 'king kong' style titans and each other would be cool

A 40K version of Ogre. That would be awesome.

 His Master's Voice wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
They could have expanded Dreadfleet more if it was popular to start with.

Dreadfeelt was a game written from the start to be played with a limited number of capital ships.

IA on the other hand has access a large variety of units that can be purchased in "squads" and SGS can expand the existing roster of fliers for each faction effectively without limits. The Tau alone offer more chance to sell product that the whole Dreadfeelt box did.

I don't know what written limitations DF had but I don't imagine they'd be harder to expand than AI.

AI had a large range of aircraft simply because someone at FW decided to do it. It's not really a practical game to play with more than a dozen or so aircraft (that would be a large game), it was just "unbound" in the sense they didn't place any limitations within the rules themselves, but because you record your moves before each turn and have things you need to keep track on it gets cumbersome with lots of aircraft. The actual roster sheets released by FW had only 8 slots on them, beyond that keeping track of things becomes a chore.

Okay, so you're talking about the scale of the game rules. I'm talking about the scale of potential sales. There's simply much more stuff to make and sell to players in AI compared to Dreadfleet.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

I'm the opposite, well, I still want good models but without good rules the whole prospect of specialist games is rather pointless to me. It needs to have good enough rules for me to want to go to my mates and say "hey this looks like fun lets give it a go" and then get enough gameplay to justify spending the time on the models.

The exception might be BAC where everyone just needs to feed their chronic space mareenz addiction, but I'd say something like dread fleet was killed by its rules.

I think a game needs to have good rules to be successful enough for GW bothering to make more models for it.

AI had good rules, it suffered because most people didn't even know it existed and the rules were troublesome to get your hands on. I don't really think the AI rules need much tweaking, they were so simple yet allowed for a lot of depth in gameplay.

Not to make this about the quality of the rules for SGs, but I think that consistently, they've been the best games that GW has put out, in terms of least amount of tweaking needed to play and enjoy the game. They also had the benefit of not having legacy rules issues to contend with (40k, WHFB).

What made games like AI inaccessible was the cost of the planes, and the fact that they were FW only purchases. If GW/FW can re-release as plastics, and in starter sets, that might make it more accessible, particularly if they end up in GW stores and LGSs.

Someone mentioned Titan Legions. I have the old rules, but would love to have access to more and cheaper Epic Scale titans.

I have high hopes for the SG re-releases/updates by the new team.

 Cruentus wrote:
What made games like AI inaccessible was the cost of the planes, and the fact that they were FW only purchases.

Honestly, the planes weren't that expensive, especially considering the fact that you didn't need to buy very many of them to make a complete army. The thing that made AI inaccessible was GW's complete refusal to promote it. It's very hard to justify investing anything in a new game when nobody else plays it and you have to do all the work of recruiting people to play with. And it's even harder when most of those people you might try to recruit have never even heard of the game. If GW fixes this mistake and markets the game properly it could be a much bigger success even if the prices don't change at all.

I loved AI, and have a ton of models.
They stopped supporting it.


I loved BFG, and have a TON of models (you don't want to know).
They stopped supporting it.

I love 40k, have TONS of models (you really don't want to know).

It feels like they have stopped supporting the game*.
* Until GW recognizes that there is an active living GAME for 40k, its hard to get a lot of enthusiasm for it, or any other product by this company.

While I can get very nostalgic for many older games (really enjoyed AI, even had tons of terrain for missions, etc.) I barely have enough time for the gaming I do now.

The idea of AI returning, and being supported is an attractive one - however, fool me once .....

I mean twice....

I mean....

Anyway, you get the idea.

His Master's Voice wrote:Okay, so you're talking about the scale of the game rules. I'm talking about the scale of potential sales. There's simply much more stuff to make and sell to players in AI compared to Dreadfleet.

I guess I'm not really following your logic as to why? Surely the potential to sell stuff just comes down to peoples love of either 6mm sci-fi aircraft or 1/1200 scale fantasy ships?

There's a huge range of potential ships you could have made for Dreadfleet if people were interested in buying them and someone was interested in making them.

Peregrine wrote:

 Cruentus wrote:
What made games like AI inaccessible was the cost of the planes, and the fact that they were FW only purchases.

Honestly, the planes weren't that expensive, especially considering the fact that you didn't need to buy very many of them to make a complete army. The thing that made AI inaccessible was GW's complete refusal to promote it. It's very hard to justify investing anything in a new game when nobody else plays it and you have to do all the work of recruiting people to play with. And it's even harder when most of those people you might try to recruit have never even heard of the game. If GW fixes this mistake and markets the game properly it could be a much bigger success even if the prices don't change at all.

They were expensive enough, I found the invoice from my first order of AI; 1 blister of Thunderbolts, 1 of Lightnings, 1 of Ork Fightas and 1 of Fighta Bommers and both rulebooks and it came to just under £100 before shipping and £112 after shipping. If you actually collected enough to play some of the scenarios it really added up, I think one scenario was 8 Thunderbolts on one side, so that's like £52 just of Thunderbolts. If you wanted a 150pt squadron for most factions you'd be spending well over £100.

You could have started off with less, but I think even if you'd only got 1 blister from 2 factions + the rules it would come to about ~£60 (I can't remember the cost of only 1 rulebook, I bought them as a bundle). That's not too high compared to other starter sets, but most starter sets come with more than 4 models

The reason AI didn't go far was a mixture of price, the fact you could only get it from FW, lack of promotion and I think not enough interest in 6mm aircraft.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
my first order of AI; 1 blister of Thunderbolts, 1 of Lightnings, 1 of Ork Fightas and 1 of Fighta Bommers and both rulebooks and it came to just under £100 before shipping and £112 after shipping.

That's actually pretty cheap. Remember that those planes are sold in packages of two, so even if you assume the books were free you're paying £12.5 (or $18ish) per plane. If the books were half of that order then it's down to about the same price per model as X-Wing ships. And, unlike most GW games, you don't need very many of them to play. $150 or so gets you both rulebooks and a "standard" game worth of planes for your chosen faction. And that price gets even lower if, as we'd expect, the rules are combined into a single book and you don't need to buy an expansion book to get a few updates.

Any word on Necromunda, Gorkamorka, or Space Hulk?

Inquiring minds want to hope for the best.....

 Peregrine wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
my first order of AI; 1 blister of Thunderbolts, 1 of Lightnings, 1 of Ork Fightas and 1 of Fighta Bommers and both rulebooks and it came to just under £100 before shipping and £112 after shipping.

That's actually pretty cheap. Remember that those planes are sold in packages of two, so even if you assume the books were free you're paying £12.5 (or $18ish) per plane. If the books were half of that order then it's down to about the same price per model as X-Wing ships. And, unlike most GW games, you don't need very many of them to play. $150 or so gets you both rulebooks and a "standard" game worth of planes for your chosen faction. And that price gets even lower if, as we'd expect, the rules are combined into a single book and you don't need to buy an expansion book to get a few updates.

Well what I said was I think it's "expensive enough", by which I meant given the circumstances it was expensive enough for someone to want to buy it, put the stuff in their online shopping cart and then go "erm, maybe not".

It was mostly cheaper per ship than X-wing, but obviously weren't prepainted and you didn't get anything fancy in the blister other than the dial base and you typically use more aircraft in a game than X-wing (which is a good thing IMO, I prefer playing with more aircraft).

It's always a mixture of factors. The price becomes an issue because you're buying it blind, which is both a promotion issue and the fact you can only get it from FW (so no chance to flick through the rules before buying) and you probably don't know what to buy (do I just need 2 fighters, maybe 4 fighters, maybe 2 fighters and a bomber, maybe 4 fighters and a bomber, maybe 4 fighters and a bomber and a couple of transports?). Like 40k, there was no real "standard game" defined. The larger scenarios are sort of the 200-300pt range per side, which would probably cost you about £200+. If you weren't playing the scenarios I'd say 150pts is probably a good size, and you're looking at more like £100-150GBP, probably a bit more if it's something like Orks that have cheaper point aircraft but the same $$ price per aircraft. Eldar would have been the cheapest given they had the most expensive aircraft (points wise) but cost the same price per aircraft as any other faction.

Promotion is definitely a big problem though, not denying that. The AI book has a copyright date of 2006, I didn't even know the game existed until about 2011.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grot 6 wrote:
Any word on Necromunda, Gorkamorka, or Space Hulk?

Inquiring minds want to hope for the best.....

At this stage we aren't even all that confident on the AI stuff

I doubt we'll be getting another Space Hulk for a little while, they released that just last year.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I just measured one of my AI Thunderbolts, it's 56mm wingspan (including the little nodules on the wing tips). My AI book says a "real" Thunderbolt is 16.06m. 6mm scale is 1/285, so the 6mm scale Thunderbolt should be 16.06*1000/285 = 56.35mm. So FW's AI model for the Thunderbolt is correct to the millimetre.

I've sunken to a new low, rivet counting on an imaginary aircraft

My apologies for doubting you. I'll need to check mine now. I'm sure that the Thunderbolt was a different scale to the Nightwing, Barracuda and Warhound titan I measured, but perhaps they were too small.

davethepak wrote:
I loved AI, and have a ton of models.
They stopped supporting it.

It was rather annoying that all the Epic models disappeared; typically, the day before I decided to order some. Other than that, the rulebook and supplement had all the rules for the available miniatures; it was a complete game.

With hindsight, it would be nice to have the rules for all the flyers released for 40k since sixth edition, but they all appeared after AI was cancelled.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I just measured one of my AI Thunderbolts, it's 56mm wingspan (including the little nodules on the wing tips). My AI book says a "real" Thunderbolt is 16.06m. 6mm scale is 1/285, so the 6mm scale Thunderbolt should be 16.06*1000/285 = 56.35mm. So FW's AI model for the Thunderbolt is correct to the millimetre.

I've sunken to a new low, rivet counting on an imaginary aircraft

My apologies for doubting you. I'll need to check mine now. I'm sure that the Thunderbolt was a different scale to the Nightwing, Barracuda and Warhound titan I measured, but perhaps they were too small.

Well now you've got me interested

Nightwing looks to be a bit undersized, my NW are 37mm long and they should be 12m full size which means 42mm in 6mm scale.

Ork Fighta; model is 42mm wingspan, should be 45.6mm at 1/285.

Ork Fighta Bommer; model is 54mm, should be 63mm at 1/285

Ork Bommer; model is 91mm, should be 84mm

Hellblade; model is 54mm, should be 48mm at 1/285

So assuming 1/285 is what they were targeting, the Thunderbolt is spot on, Ork Fighta, Fighta Bommer and Eldar Nightwing are slightly undersized, Hellblade and Bommer are slightly oversized.

It was rather annoying that all the Epic models disappeared; typically, the day before I decided to order some. Other than that, the rulebook and supplement had all the rules for the available miniatures; it was a complete game.

Tell me about it. I was in the middle of collecting AI when it died. When I heard about it I straight away went to the FW store and tried to buy a full Imperial squadron and my CC company blocked the transaction and locked my card. By the time I got it sorted out it was all gone

Few things GW have done over the years have pissed me off more than that. Killing a game without any notification or a decent opportunity to finish off collections before they went down. As much as it pisses me off they killed WHFB, at least I can still buy the models, and they are slowly letting LotR die but with enough opportunity for players to round out their forces.

Let's stick to Aeronaticus Imperialis in this thread, as it's the topic.

New and rumours about other games will have their own threads when there is any information available.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Tell me about it. I was in the middle of collecting AI when it died. When I heard about it I straight away went to the FW store and tried to buy a full Imperial squadron and my CC company blocked the transaction and locked my card. By the time I got it sorted out it was all gone

Oh god, that day. Thankfully I managed to get most of the AI stuff I wanted except for the Manta, including (probably) the last Lightning fighters FW ever sold (they came back into stock very briefly and immediately went out of stock forever when my order went through). I had to give up on the Tau BFG fleet I was trying to get because of a similar credit card issue. But that was just ridiculous, stuff was going out of stock forever in the few minutes between putting it in your cart and getting through checkout.

 Peregrine wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Tell me about it. I was in the middle of collecting AI when it died. When I heard about it I straight away went to the FW store and tried to buy a full Imperial squadron and my CC company blocked the transaction and locked my card. By the time I got it sorted out it was all gone

Oh god, that day. Thankfully I managed to get most of the AI stuff I wanted except for the Manta, including (probably) the last Lightning fighters FW ever sold (they came back into stock very briefly and immediately went out of stock forever when my order went through). I had to give up on the Tau BFG fleet I was trying to get because of a similar credit card issue. But that was just ridiculous, stuff was going out of stock forever in the few minutes between putting it in your cart and getting through checkout.

You probably got my Lightnings after my CC company cancelled the payment

In the end all I got was an Ork squadron. I wanted an Imperial squadron more than anything and also wanted a couple of smaller squadrons for Tau and Eldar but didn't get them. Managed to pick up an Eldar squadron 2nd hand for a decent price after the fall though.

What was the main appeal of this game? I missed out on it. Is this the game that the Marauder and all that belongs to, or something else?

Edit: Removed OT comment.

You know, it would be weird if they put out a new Aeronautica Imperialis game and not include the Imperial Navy, seeing as the name of the game is their name, but in High Gothic.

 Stormwall wrote:
What was the main appeal of this game? I missed out on it. Is this the game that the Marauder and all that belongs to, or something else?

Not in any particular order:

- Excellent looking sculpts
- At a scale where you could actually have dogfights
- Could use the planes in Epic as well
- Very tactical in that you had to really plan ahead and second guess the other player (Getting on the tail of another plane gave you a special rule where you could shadow its movement)
- Ammo and fuel were limited meaning that, again, you had to plan and time your attacks
- Not just dogfights, but troop landings and bombing runs were part of the game
- Rules were simple and elegant
- You got to use phrases like "This bogie is all over me!" and "Bandits at 2 o'clock"!

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I guess I'm not really following your logic as to why? Surely the potential to sell stuff just comes down to peoples love of either 6mm sci-fi aircraft or 1/1200 scale fantasy ships?

There's a huge range of potential ships you could have made for Dreadfleet if people were interested in buying them and someone was interested in making them.

It's like the difference between making a game where you can only ever use Knight sized units and normal 40K where you can use Knight sized units. One of those will always sell more.

 Stormwall wrote:
What was the main appeal of this game? I missed out on it. Is this the game that the Marauder and all that belongs to, or something else?

Edit: Removed OT comment.

Well at it's core the main appeal was having aerial dogfights in the 40k universe. Aircraft in regular 28mm games of 40k is kind of stupid, the aircraft are out of scale and the rules have to be wonky to allow them on the table.

AI was a game built around the aircraft, so it let you play them properly.

Beyond that, it had good models, it had good rules which were very simple (most the rules were covered in a handful of pages) yet gave a real tactical depth which meant they took a long time to master and allowed for interesting games (compared to many wargames which just involve moving a bunch of models toward each other, rolling a bunch of dice and removing a bunch of models, AI was a much more nuanced game).


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 His Master's Voice wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I guess I'm not really following your logic as to why? Surely the potential to sell stuff just comes down to peoples love of either 6mm sci-fi aircraft or 1/1200 scale fantasy ships?

There's a huge range of potential ships you could have made for Dreadfleet if people were interested in buying them and someone was interested in making them.

It's like the difference between making a game where you can only ever use Knight sized units and normal 40K where you can use Knight sized units. One of those will always sell more.

I'm still not really following you, do you mean because DF didn't use an existing scale (where as AI uses the same scale as Epic)?

Because AI is a game "where you can only ever use Knight sized units". You can use aircraft and AA units. That's about it.

If you make a game where you try and mix the rules of Epic and AI, it doesn't really work because they happen on different time scales (1 Epic turn is probably an entire game of AI). You get the same problem 40k has where the aircraft are shoehorned in.

AI is as much of a dead end as Dreadfleet in terms of a game in and of itself, the only expansion it has is that being 6mm the models can be used for Epic, but I think that's of more value if Epic comes out first so people have Epic armies they can expand with flyers rather than the other way around (since flyers are only a very small part of Epic).

I managed to get a couple each of Thunderbolts, Nightwings and Barracudas - just enough to try out the game - and a Marauder and the ground-attack Marauder.

I was toying with getting some Ork fightas and a few AA vehicles and doing a 3D board for Bommerz over da sulphur river (perhaps to run as a public participation game at wargames shows), but nothing ever came of it.

 zedmeister wrote:

 Stormwall wrote:
What was the main appeal of this game? I missed out on it. Is this the game that the Marauder and all that belongs to, or something else?

Not in any particular order:

- Excellent looking sculpts
- At a scale where you could actually have dogfights
- Could use the planes in Epic as well
- Very tactical in that you had to really plan ahead and second guess the other player (Getting on the tail of another plane gave you a special rule where you could shadow its movement)
- Ammo and fuel were limited meaning that, again, you had to plan and time your attacks
- Not just dogfights, but troop landings and bombing runs were part of the game
- Rules were simple and elegant
- You got to use phrases like "This bogie is all over me!" and "Bandits at 2 o'clock"!

Also height/altitude, which is something X-Wing for example lacks.

To be fair, it's set in space so that sort of energy management isn't relevant (and even in-atmosphere, I think Star Wars fighters have so much thrust available that it doesn't matter).

What makes Aeronautica Imperialis a better successor to Wings of War/Glory than X-Wing is the variety of mission types available. Not just dogfights, there's photo-reconnaissance, bombing runs, aerial insertion/extraction and interception missions.

Plus aircraft had ammunition limits. A Thunderbolt had ... six( ?) turns-worth of shots available for its autocannon, but only two for the lascannon, so you had to make your shots count.

TBF there's plenty of scenarios for X Wing, they even include punch out tokens for them in the expansions if necessary, it's just they seldom get played.

There's room in my life for AI and X Wing though, so I'm not really bothered!

I know - I'm just about to start playing through them all with a couple of friends, rather than more boring 100-point dogfights.

And yes, I don't buy into a game because of the rules; I buy in because of the models and the setting, so I'd like loads of X-Wings and loads of Thunderbolts!

When is the next Forgeworld Event?

I guess, when Aeronautica Imperialis truely will come in the first half of 2016, on such a Event they would tell us this.