I think the GW copy write protection comes from the strange names (orruks rather than orcs) combine with the very pronounced new esthetics.
Lumineth may be high elves, but they are high elves with a strong elemental bent that is nothing like anyone was producing before. The same can be said for almost any faction in AOS. They take the basic faction from WFB and turn some dial on it from 5 up to 11 to create a unique spin on that faction. This creates models that other produces are unlikely to copy. Additionally, it makes such a copy harder to defend as not being "stolen" from their IP.
Dysartes wrote: Why would you object to legacy allies at this point anyway? They're in pretty much the same boat as all bar two factions today as it is.
And as it is, I'm now convinced GW actually DOES have a plan for at least one of them. Why are repeater crossbows listed in the main rules when Dark Elves are the only army that uses them?
Because despite what some people think, the Legacy armies are just as valid a part of the game as Tomb Kings etc.
Dysartes wrote: Why would you object to legacy allies at this point anyway? They're in pretty much the same boat as all bar two factions today as it is.
For the poster you're addressing it's been evident that it's pure schadenfreude. Their emotional investment in trying to convince everyone of the impossibility of official TW factions being expanded -- not to mention the similar way they've historically spoken to anyone making a "why can't they do xenos armies in system X" lamentation in other threads -- has always given their game away.
Overread wrote:The whole "AoS was improving GW copyright protection over what Old World did" is something people keep saying, but honestly I don't buy it. There's just nothing inherent within AoS that offers more protection save for a product name change. Heck several armies are almost 100% Old World models and even when they've been updated they are often replaced with very similar designs.
It was not about that it actually did something but that a manager thought it must be done
people forget that during that time GW banned fan-fiction, argued that forums are not allowed to talk about points cost and thought they send copyright letters to people who quote the rules text on discussions about rule questions
their paranoia was that strong during that days that blowing up the world because the IP has no future is making the most sense
specially as their idea of selling the new game was the same as selling the old game and that did not work out well
Manfred von Drakken wrote:And as it is, I'm now convinced GW actually DOES have a plan for at least one of them. Why are repeater crossbows listed in the main rules when Dark Elves are the only army that uses them?
would not be the first rule in a GW rulebook that ends up not being used by anyone at the end of an edition
MaxT wrote: Or the ones initially sent out weren't the final version. Who here hasn't accidentally sent copy of final v2.1 instead of copy of copy of final v2.1 ?
I think you'll find the current legal versions are actually copy of copy of final v2.1 FINAL NO ACTUALLY FINAL USE THIS ONE DEBORAH.doc
More proof, in case anyone needs it, that all the stuff about Kislev that GW showed was total bunk. They used assets from a video game and tried to say it was development for The Old World.
GW tend to view the world in 3 month bursts with marketing. They've also been clear that they are getting the existing/previous armies out first. So that will at least mean a good chunk of time before they touch any new armies. That's honestly nothing new and the same info we've had for a while now since they previewed the TK and Brets.
and foreseeable future can mean anything from 12 months to 12 years
I don't know what to tell you. Words have an agreed on meaning in English.
Overread wrote:GW tend to view the world in 3 month bursts with marketing. They've also been clear that they are getting the existing/previous armies out first. So that will at least mean a good chunk of time before they touch any new armies. That's honestly nothing new and the same info we've had for a while now since they previewed the TK and Brets.
Yes you are correct, it is nothing new, GW to their credit has been very up front lately that they are not doing anything with Kislev. What they aren't being up front about is that the initial stuff was straight up fabrication.
Yes you are correct, it is nothing new, GW to their credit has been very up front lately that they are not doing anything with Kislev. What they aren't being up front about is that the initial stuff was straight up fabrication.
No, it just means that they aren't leading with Kislev and Cathay. Both appear very clearly in the BRB and yes whilst they've used video game assets to make artwork of them in the book that's nothing new there either
Most likely GW's approach could be the result of several elements
1) A desire to get existing armies out because if they started with "new" ones they'd know they'd get a lot of complaints from former customers about not getting their army released yet.
2) Management might want to see actual numbers and sales figures before investing in moulds for two fully new armies. This might be especially because the whole project got messed up during Covid - heck perhaps the original budget was used to do other things so the team has to re-justify their project. Hence again going with a lower cost restoration to get actual sales figures to justify army wide investments
3) Development of them isn't yet finished and GW chose to thus release existing armies instead of pushing for a further off release date. This might even just be part of them slotting this in around other things and getting it out in the market sooner rather than later.
4) They might have thought sales would be higher for old armies with old models if they released them first rather than a totlaly brand new pair of armies with all new models then followed by "old" models because GW can't afford to justify the cost of re-vamping every single army at once.
And gw's forseaable future means anything past 3 months they are super tight lipped. Beyond 6 months they tell even less. Over year? Nope not happening.
So when gw says not in forseeable future could come out in may. Their community marketing team doesn't know that long so saying truth
Stormonu wrote: I broke down and bought the Brettonia set - waiting for it arrive, and was looking over my incomplete High Elf army only to realize that GW discontinued most of the High Elf models (I guess Lumineth replaced them?). Are any of the TOW High Elf minis still sold by GW at this time?
Lumineth are Lumineth, the High Elves were pulled from Cities of Sigmar in stages since 2015, with the last few leaving the most recent Battletome to bring them back in to The Old World. None of them are currently sold at this time, but most should be back once High Elves receive their Arcane Journal, though when that might be is anyone's guess
Lumineth are High Elves that can be copyrighted; that's literally the only difference. The aesthetic is generally the same.
.
alextroy wrote: I think the GW copy write protection comes from the strange names (orruks rather than orcs) combine with the very pronounced new esthetics.
Lumineth may be high elves, but they are high elves with a strong elemental bent that is nothing like anyone was producing before. The same can be said for almost any faction in AOS. They take the basic faction from WFB and turn some dial on it from 5 up to 11 to create a unique spin on that faction. This creates models that other produces are unlikely to copy. Additionally, it makes such a copy harder to defend as not being "stolen" from their IP.
There is nothing about either of those that is "more copyrightable". Names are covered by trademarks, not copyright. And them having a different more unique aesthetic doesn't offer any more protection, because you don't own themes/ideas/styles. They own the specific model sculpt itself, not the aesthetic design that it has.
tneva82 wrote: And gw's forseaable future means anything past 3 months they are super tight lipped. Beyond 6 months they tell even less. Over year? Nope not happening.
So when gw says not in forseeable future could come out in may. Their community marketing team doesn't know that long so saying truth
That doesn't really make that much sense when previously already said they would be released for it at some point. Won't say they're coming at some point if they're more than 3-6 months away, when they already said they were coming years ago when there was a much longer gap.
It’s been nearly a month and we still haven’t seen wave 2 of TK/Brets (with things we know are in but weren’t in Wave 1) or wave 1 of Orcs which we know is coming.
Depending on if they’re pairing factions or not for the remainder, at 1-2 months per faction we’re looking at 9-18 mths to release the core factions which would be ‘foreseeable future’.
This is a perfect case study for why people get disappointed when their thing does not come out.
GW is literally calling it out, voluntarily, in their article that Kislev is not on the menu for the Old World. That means they think it is important to be as clear as possible that this thing is NOT happening. Nobody made them write that - they chose to do so because it is important to them that you understand this.
The responses? "Nah, that doesn't mean anything, could even be released in May, whatever, nothing new here."
Working at GW must feel like that guy trying to get Patrick Star to admit that the wallet is his.
Darnok wrote: There is no new edition coming to 40K in the foreseeable future either. I am still confident to take bets on it happening around summer 2026.
Which given the definition of the word, would make it.....foreseeable.
You want to take bets on when Kislev is showing up?
Darnok wrote: There is no new edition coming to 40K in the foreseeable future either. I am still confident to take bets on it happening around summer 2026.
Which given the definition of the word, would make it.....foreseeable.
You want to take bets on when Kislev is showing up?
If the game is successful, the game will evolve and where GW takes it is up to them...if not it will die again. I'm not sure why people can't accept this...
It is important to note that GW officals said during the release/hype up for Adeptus Titanicus that there was not going to be an Epic transition. That Epic wouldn't happen/come back, but it did come out about 5 years or so later.
There's nothing stopping GW from doing campaign books that will bring in other factions, like an Elven Civil War which would introduce Dark Elves. Cathay being invaded by Chaos which might pull in Ogre Kingdoms, Chaos Dwarfs, and Cathay. A Lustria book for Skaven and Lizardmen. So much is just possibility right now with GW, time will tell if they can manage the game system along with their other games/IP's.
caladancid wrote: I don't know what to tell you. Words have an agreed on meaning in English.
and I am long enough around that I know that everything GW marketing is saying will be "technically correct" in the best case
anything that haven't seen already a pre-order announcement is not "foreseeable"
also "never" has a defined meaning, yet for GW is a "we have not yet decided"
Mr.Pickels wrote: It is important to note that GW officals said during the release/hype up for Adeptus Titanicus that there was not going to be an Epic transition. That Epic wouldn't happen/come back, but it did come out about 5 years or so later.
There's nothing stopping GW from doing campaign books that will bring in other factions, like an Elven Civil War which would introduce Dark Elves. Cathay being invaded by Chaos which might pull in Ogre Kingdoms, Chaos Dwarfs, and Cathay. A Lustria book for Skaven and Lizardmen. So much is just possibility right now with GW, time will tell if they can manage the game system along with their other games/IP's.
There's a bit of a difference between something like "That's not planned at the moment" and the "They're not going to be part of this project/game, even as we update the narrative" for TOW.
I think the most problematic thing with Kislev right now is that GW has revived whole ranges of old models of a very specific charming style, and if we would see new Kislev they would be of a more modern style.
Perhaps not a big problem, but I think if they had dropped brand new kislev lots of people would assume their favourite faction is about to get an update, and rather wait than getting the old models. .
Perhaps not a big problem, but I think if they had dropped brand new kislev lots of people would assume their favourite faction is about to get an update, and rather wait than getting the old models. .
Yep and I think that might be why GW have gone with old models first. Because they can't just do 10 or so FULL armies worth of new models in a row for one game.
Now a few armies, like High Elves are already reasonably full of new models; but some are just chock full of old stuff.
I figure doing it this way gets the old-school fans active; gets sales metrics and data and tells GW if its going to work. IT could be they launched Old World and -- it fizzled because for all the online chatter no one took it up or they were all in other games/AoS. From there GW can allocate more resources.
I still figure we'll see Kisleve and Cathay either as an end of edition release or a big 2.0 release leading into the next game. It all depends on how fast GW can get the current roster of models out and on if they want to then do the new armies or go into an update path and start doing more updates for the existing armies. It also depends on if Old World is going to join the 3 year development cycle for editions.
After the return of Genestealer Cults, Sisters and Squats (Votann), never discount GW as never (re)doing something.
It’s looking like this will be a case that all the Old World will return at some point, they’re just dribbling and doling it out between their main moneymakers. When they run out of old stuff to reissue, they’ll likely turn their attention to new forces like Kislev and Cathay - but we’re probably talking 3-5 years at least.
Mr.Pickels wrote: It is important to note that GW officals said during the release/hype up for Adeptus Titanicus that there was not going to be an Epic transition. That Epic wouldn't happen/come back, but it did come out about 5 years or so later.
There's nothing stopping GW from doing campaign books that will bring in other factions, like an Elven Civil War which would introduce Dark Elves. Cathay being invaded by Chaos which might pull in Ogre Kingdoms, Chaos Dwarfs, and Cathay. A Lustria book for Skaven and Lizardmen. So much is just possibility right now with GW, time will tell if they can manage the game system along with their other games/IP's.
There's a bit of a difference between something like "That's not planned at the moment" and the "They're not going to be part of this project/game, even as we update the narrative" for TOW.
easy, they can just call this "project" done and open a new project on the fly in 12 months and call it "technically correct"
we may see a return of army books right after the 9 journals are done, specially as any new faction will need a full army book without rules in the other books
it really just depends on how long GW will take to get the remaining 7 journals out, we may even get a series of campaign books, than a new edition so that they count this as new project and maybe the first army with a full army book are Dark Elves because by that time they have fallen from AoS and were replaced with something different
Im opposite. Legacy factions taking core allies is a non-issue for me. Core factions taking legacy allies is a backdoor for legacy stuff in core games when I'd prefer to not play with legacy stuff (to clarify - I'm ok with having games against or with legacy armies on occasion, but I'd really prefer to play core-only most of the time. Allowing core factions to take legacy allies creates potentially awkward situations where myself/others of the same mindset could be taken by surprise and have to tactfully work out how to turn down the game or ask your opponent to modify their list, etc.).
I take it you're a tournament player? Every game must count towards practice against a tournament worthy opponent?
And those GW diehards who just so happened to have invested years in the 'wrong' faction and have been booted out the old world now, can sod off?
Lovely way to split the community for the sake of following GW's tournament only rules. I expect in 40k you no longer play on 6' x 4' and only play on official 5' x 3'8 tables.
Sheesh.
Haven't touched a tournament for any GW game since ~2011 nor more broadly for any tabletop wargame since ~2014, so... no.
Dysartes wrote: Why would you object to legacy allies at this point anyway? They're in pretty much the same boat as all bar two factions today as it is.
And as it is, I'm now convinced GW actually DOES have a plan for at least one of them. Why are repeater crossbows listed in the main rules when Dark Elves are the only army that uses them?
Because despite what some people think, the Legacy armies are just as valid a part of the game as Tomb Kings etc.
Not to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Mind you I say that as someone who still has my Ogre Kingdoms army set up for WHFB, and likewise has a Chaos Dwarf army ready to go, and is eyeing a dark elf army. The legacy armies are a tier above fanmade in my eyes. I'll have an occasional game with them and enjoy them as hobby projects, but at GW has made abundantly clear, "they aren't part of the journey" and they clearly have no long term future as GW moves forward with updates and revisions to the core factions and leaves them behind with power creep.
Dysartes wrote: Why would you object to legacy allies at this point anyway? They're in pretty much the same boat as all bar two factions today as it is.
For the poster you're addressing it's been evident that it's pure schadenfreude. Their emotional investment in trying to convince everyone of the impossibility of official TW factions being expanded -- not to mention the similar way they've historically spoken to anyone making a "why can't they do xenos armies in system X" lamentation in other threads -- has always given their game away.
if thats what you have to tell yourself to make yourself feel better? I'm sorry I hurt you.
Dysartes wrote: Why would you object to legacy allies at this point anyway? They're in pretty much the same boat as all bar two factions today as it is.
For the poster you're addressing it's been evident that it's pure schadenfreude. Their emotional investment in trying to convince everyone of the impossibility of official TW factions being expanded -- not to mention the similar way they've historically spoken to anyone making a "why can't they do xenos armies in system X" lamentation in other threads -- has always given their game away.
Nah. Warcoms definition of "forseeable future" is somewhere between a week and three months. A month before the current daemon prince kit was released I commented on a facebook post (don't remember the context) about how I was hoping for a resculpted daemon prince kit. Warcom responded to the effect of "we haven't heard anything about one but we'll be sure to share news about it if we ever do!" or something to that. Lo and behold a few weeks later they literally previewed the exact model. And thats just one personal anecdote, over the years theres been a number of other examples of Warcom saying "we don't know anything" or "we have no news about this" etc. only for a few weeks or months later that exact thing to happen.
Now, if this was one of the articles written by a member of the design studio, then I would take the message seriously - but its not.
phandaal wrote: This is a perfect case study for why people get disappointed when their thing does not come out.
GW is literally calling it out, voluntarily, in their article that Kislev is not on the menu for the Old World. That means they think it is important to be as clear as possible that this thing is NOT happening. Nobody made them write that - they chose to do so because it is important to them that you understand this.
The responses? "Nah, that doesn't mean anything, could even be released in May, whatever, nothing new here."
Working at GW must feel like that guy trying to get Patrick Star to admit that the wallet is his.
Ehh. Yes, but also no. Theres a lot of news that GW puts out and either people never read or understand it to mean something completely different than what it actually says. This is something that those who follow the company know closely should know better about, because they've made exact statements like this on numerous occasions only for it to happen a short span later. Likewise, the frequency with which they say things are coming "soon" only for them to not show up until much later. Point is that the warcom team generally doesn't know much aside from the limited window that GW provides them - which is actually very limited. I think it was Louise Sugden who said post-departure that often Warcom were amongst the last within the company to know about upcoming releases, etc.
The truly bizarro world interpretation of this bit of news is from those who are reading it and saying "well clearly we won't see Kislev for many many years, if at all".
Fayric wrote: I think the most problematic thing with Kislev right now is that GW has revived whole ranges of old models of a very specific charming style, and if we would see new Kislev they would be of a more modern style.
Perhaps not a big problem, but I think if they had dropped brand new kislev lots of people would assume their favourite faction is about to get an update, and rather wait than getting the old models. .
Why would that be a problem for Kislev and not for Bretonnia (or to a lesser extent Khemri) who are getting a handful of new kits in a modern style? Theres certainly a part of me that thinks its foolish of me to throw my cash at the current kits for both factions instead of just waiting it out a couple years to buy the inevitable resculpts, but then I'd basically have to sit on the sidelines until that happened barring the occasional game with my legacy armies.
Stormonu wrote: After the return of Genestealer Cults, Sisters and Squats (Votann), never discount GW as never (re)doing something.
It’s looking like this will be a case that all the Old World will return at some point, they’re just dribbling and doling it out between their main moneymakers. When they run out of old stuff to reissue, they’ll likely turn their attention to new forces like Kislev and Cathay - but we’re probably talking 3-5 years at least.
A couple of the legacy factions (vampire counts, DE, Skaven) *were* some of WHFBs big moneymakers. Tomb Kings and Bretonnia were actually the least played and lowest selling range of minis in the game, along with Beastmen and Wood Elves. HE IIRC was the top-selling overall, Empire, Orcs/Goblins, and Warriors of Chaos were towards the upper middle/lower top-end.
Stormonu wrote: I broke down and bought the Brettonia set - waiting for it arrive, and was looking over my incomplete High Elf army only to realize that GW discontinued most of the High Elf models (I guess Lumineth replaced them?). Are any of the TOW High Elf minis still sold by GW at this time?
Lumineth are Lumineth, the High Elves were pulled from Cities of Sigmar in stages since 2015, with the last few leaving the most recent Battletome to bring them back in to The Old World. None of them are currently sold at this time, but most should be back once High Elves receive their Arcane Journal, though when that might be is anyone's guess
Lumineth are High Elves that can be copyrighted; that's literally the only difference. The aesthetic is generally the same.
.
alextroy wrote: I think the GW copy write protection comes from the strange names (orruks rather than orcs) combine with the very pronounced new esthetics.
Lumineth may be high elves, but they are high elves with a strong elemental bent that is nothing like anyone was producing before. The same can be said for almost any faction in AOS. They take the basic faction from WFB and turn some dial on it from 5 up to 11 to create a unique spin on that faction. This creates models that other produces are unlikely to copy. Additionally, it makes such a copy harder to defend as not being "stolen" from their IP.
There is nothing about either of those that is "more copyrightable". Names are covered by trademarks, not copyright. And them having a different more unique aesthetic doesn't offer any more protection, because you don't own themes/ideas/styles. They own the specific model sculpt itself, not the aesthetic design that it has.
As I'm not a copyright lawyer, I have no idea if this is true or not.
But I'd bet the GW management BELIEVED that to be the case when they made the decision. Of course, hat doesn't make THEM right either...
My Brettonia set just arrived, been sifting through it. I've only glanced through the rulebook, but really feel I could just use my behemoth 8E rulebook and I'm a bit disheartened that at the price of the set, it didn't come with a full "army" book (paperback mini would have been acceptable) instead of just a flier for the enclosed forces.
Still, I expect I'm going to have fun with this, so I'm off to start assembling and then painting ....
and foreseeable future can mean anything from 12 months to 12 years
I don't know what to tell you. Words have an agreed on meaning in English.
Overread wrote:GW tend to view the world in 3 month bursts with marketing. They've also been clear that they are getting the existing/previous armies out first. So that will at least mean a good chunk of time before they touch any new armies. That's honestly nothing new and the same info we've had for a while now since they previewed the TK and Brets.
Yes you are correct, it is nothing new, GW to their credit has been very up front lately that they are not doing anything with Kislev. What they aren't being up front about is that the initial stuff was straight up fabrication.
Hell, they're barely doing anything with TOW in its entirety, bar releasing old outdated models
Mr.Pickels wrote: It is important to note that GW officals said during the release/hype up for Adeptus Titanicus that there was not going to be an Epic transition. That Epic wouldn't happen/come back, but it did come out about 5 years or so later.
There's nothing stopping GW from doing campaign books that will bring in other factions, like an Elven Civil War which would introduce Dark Elves. Cathay being invaded by Chaos which might pull in Ogre Kingdoms, Chaos Dwarfs, and Cathay. A Lustria book for Skaven and Lizardmen. So much is just possibility right now with GW, time will tell if they can manage the game system along with their other games/IP's.
There's a bit of a difference between something like "That's not planned at the moment" and the "They're not going to be part of this project/game, even as we update the narrative" for TOW.
To be honest, the later can never be true, cause numerous unforeseen things can happens in the future (new blood getting involved in the project, bigger ressources allocations etc). But presently, it seems rather obvious that the safe bet is that Kislev won't happens in the near to medium term (I'd say 5 years at least)
Stormonu wrote: My Brettonia set just arrived, been sifting through it. I've only glanced through the rulebook, but really feel I could just use my behemoth 8E rulebook and I'm a bit disheartened that at the price of the set, it didn't come with a full "army" book (paperback mini would have been acceptable) instead of just a flier for the enclosed forces.
Still, I expect I'm going to have fun with this, so I'm off to start assembling and then painting ....
I hear you but you do have enough for a 1250 point game, great for learning. And if you wanna build a list, https://old-world-builder.com/ Has been really helpful for me.
Stormonu wrote: My Brettonia set just arrived, been sifting through it. I've only glanced through the rulebook, but really feel I could just use my behemoth 8E rulebook and I'm a bit disheartened that at the price of the set, it didn't come with a full "army" book (paperback mini would have been acceptable) instead of just a flier for the enclosed forces.
The very broadest strokes might be similar; that’s true of basically every other edition though. The details are very different, between the more subtle changes to the toughness and weapon skill tables and the sudden appearance and relevance of troop and formation types, and so you’d make many mistakes using the 8e book.
For example I saw someone ask earlier if ranks were four wide or five in this version; the answer is: either or neither, depending on your troop type.
Im opposite. Legacy factions taking core allies is a non-issue for me. Core factions taking legacy allies is a backdoor for legacy stuff in core games when I'd prefer to not play with legacy stuff (to clarify - I'm ok with having games against or with legacy armies on occasion, but I'd really prefer to play core-only most of the time. Allowing core factions to take legacy allies creates potentially awkward situations where myself/others of the same mindset could be taken by surprise and have to tactfully work out how to turn down the game or ask your opponent to modify their list, etc.).
I take it you're a tournament player? Every game must count towards practice against a tournament worthy opponent?
And those GW diehards who just so happened to have invested years in the 'wrong' faction and have been booted out the old world now, can sod off?
Lovely way to split the community for the sake of following GW's tournament only rules. I expect in 40k you no longer play on 6' x 4' and only play on official 5' x 3'8 tables.
Sheesh.
Haven't touched a tournament for any GW game since ~2011 nor more broadly for any tabletop wargame since ~2014, so... no.
Dysartes wrote: Why would you object to legacy allies at this point anyway? They're in pretty much the same boat as all bar two factions today as it is.
And as it is, I'm now convinced GW actually DOES have a plan for at least one of them. Why are repeater crossbows listed in the main rules when Dark Elves are the only army that uses them?
Because despite what some people think, the Legacy armies are just as valid a part of the game as Tomb Kings etc.
Not to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Mind you I say that as someone who still has my Ogre Kingdoms army set up for WHFB, and likewise has a Chaos Dwarf army ready to go, and is eyeing a dark elf army. The legacy armies are a tier above fanmade in my eyes. I'll have an occasional game with them and enjoy them as hobby projects, but at GW has made abundantly clear, "they aren't part of the journey" and they clearly have no long term future as GW moves forward with updates and revisions to the core factions and leaves them behind with power creep.
Dysartes wrote: Why would you object to legacy allies at this point anyway? They're in pretty much the same boat as all bar two factions today as it is.
For the poster you're addressing it's been evident that it's pure schadenfreude. Their emotional investment in trying to convince everyone of the impossibility of official TW factions being expanded -- not to mention the similar way they've historically spoken to anyone making a "why can't they do xenos armies in system X" lamentation in other threads -- has always given their game away.
if thats what you have to tell yourself to make yourself feel better? I'm sorry I hurt you.
Dysartes wrote: Why would you object to legacy allies at this point anyway? They're in pretty much the same boat as all bar two factions today as it is.
For the poster you're addressing it's been evident that it's pure schadenfreude. Their emotional investment in trying to convince everyone of the impossibility of official TW factions being expanded -- not to mention the similar way they've historically spoken to anyone making a "why can't they do xenos armies in system X" lamentation in other threads -- has always given their game away.
Nah. Warcoms definition of "forseeable future" is somewhere between a week and three months. A month before the current daemon prince kit was released I commented on a facebook post (don't remember the context) about how I was hoping for a resculpted daemon prince kit. Warcom responded to the effect of "we haven't heard anything about one but we'll be sure to share news about it if we ever do!" or something to that. Lo and behold a few weeks later they literally previewed the exact model. And thats just one personal anecdote, over the years theres been a number of other examples of Warcom saying "we don't know anything" or "we have no news about this" etc. only for a few weeks or months later that exact thing to happen.
Now, if this was one of the articles written by a member of the design studio, then I would take the message seriously - but its not.
phandaal wrote: This is a perfect case study for why people get disappointed when their thing does not come out.
GW is literally calling it out, voluntarily, in their article that Kislev is not on the menu for the Old World. That means they think it is important to be as clear as possible that this thing is NOT happening. Nobody made them write that - they chose to do so because it is important to them that you understand this.
The responses? "Nah, that doesn't mean anything, could even be released in May, whatever, nothing new here."
Working at GW must feel like that guy trying to get Patrick Star to admit that the wallet is his.
Ehh. Yes, but also no. Theres a lot of news that GW puts out and either people never read or understand it to mean something completely different than what it actually says. This is something that those who follow the company know closely should know better about, because they've made exact statements like this on numerous occasions only for it to happen a short span later. Likewise, the frequency with which they say things are coming "soon" only for them to not show up until much later. Point is that the warcom team generally doesn't know much aside from the limited window that GW provides them - which is actually very limited. I think it was Louise Sugden who said post-departure that often Warcom were amongst the last within the company to know about upcoming releases, etc.
The truly bizarro world interpretation of this bit of news is from those who are reading it and saying "well clearly we won't see Kislev for many many years, if at all".
Fayric wrote: I think the most problematic thing with Kislev right now is that GW has revived whole ranges of old models of a very specific charming style, and if we would see new Kislev they would be of a more modern style.
Perhaps not a big problem, but I think if they had dropped brand new kislev lots of people would assume their favourite faction is about to get an update, and rather wait than getting the old models. .
Why would that be a problem for Kislev and not for Bretonnia (or to a lesser extent Khemri) who are getting a handful of new kits in a modern style? Theres certainly a part of me that thinks its foolish of me to throw my cash at the current kits for both factions instead of just waiting it out a couple years to buy the inevitable resculpts, but then I'd basically have to sit on the sidelines until that happened barring the occasional game with my legacy armies.
Stormonu wrote: After the return of Genestealer Cults, Sisters and Squats (Votann), never discount GW as never (re)doing something.
It’s looking like this will be a case that all the Old World will return at some point, they’re just dribbling and doling it out between their main moneymakers. When they run out of old stuff to reissue, they’ll likely turn their attention to new forces like Kislev and Cathay - but we’re probably talking 3-5 years at least.
A couple of the legacy factions (vampire counts, DE, Skaven) *were* some of WHFBs big moneymakers. Tomb Kings and Bretonnia were actually the least played and lowest selling range of minis in the game, along with Beastmen and Wood Elves. HE IIRC was the top-selling overall, Empire, Orcs/Goblins, and Warriors of Chaos were towards the upper middle/lower top-end.
You should try on 6x5 tables. The extra deployment zone really does open up tactical possibilities, especially in 40K. It also reduces the possibility of table flees on the panic roll.
For everyone who has been waiting with bated breath for confirmation about how buying Made to Order from the Aussie webstore works:
(spoiler tagged so the other 100% of you can skip over it)
Spoiler:
I am reliably informed by Oz GW customer service that anything from different warehouses (i.e. countries) is charged separately for shipping purposes.
This applies to all deliveries, including home addresses--not just delivering to GW shops.
Therefore, if you try to combine, say, $50 of regular stuff that ships from the Oz warehouse with $50 of 'Made to Order' items that ship from the UK, in order to get over the $85 threshold for free shipping, you'll instead shoot yourself in the foot and be charged double shipping instead of no shipping (since you're purchasing less than $85 from each warehouse).
If you only want one or two MtO items for the Old World, you may have to either pay shipping, or get something you don't really want to reach the free shipping threshold, since you can't just chuck in a paintbrush or some other useful thing to get over the line like you normally could.
(You can however back out when you get to the 'delivery/shipping' page of the checkout process, which is before the actual payment screen, if you realise you've doubled your shipping accidentally and need to change your cart.)
On the bright side it seems cheaper to get Forgeworld free shipping now that's all under the same webstore.
The recent pricing of the Damels of the Lady at $84 strikes me as especially suss in this context.
Prometheum5 wrote: Banking on any of the current Old World factions to be getting full line resculpts any time in the relevant future still seems delusional to me.
Indeed. If they had stones for that, surely they would have started with Bretonnians and Tomb Kings.
FWIW on the live stream last night Valrak said that there would be a "wave 2" for the core factions later on (presumably after they have done their first releases) with more characters etc.
It was only a throwaway comment in the context of the absence of models for Emperor Sigusmund/King Louen Orc-Slayer etc, so no more context to give you. But didn't appear to be supposition on his part.
Stormonu wrote: My Brettonia set just arrived, been sifting through it. I've only glanced through the rulebook, but really feel I could just use my behemoth 8E rulebook and I'm a bit disheartened that at the price of the set, it didn't come with a full "army" book (paperback mini would have been acceptable) instead of just a flier for the enclosed forces.
The very broadest strokes might be similar; that’s true of basically every other edition though. The details are very different, between the more subtle changes to the toughness and weapon skill tables and the sudden appearance and relevance of troop and formation types, and so you’d make many mistakes using the 8e book.
For example I saw someone ask earlier if ranks were four wide or five in this version; the answer is: either or neither, depending on your troop type.
That was actually me asking about the ranking. As you probably guessed, I haven’t much time with WHFB (one game of 5th, about three of 8th) - so I’m not attached to a particular ruleset, especially as I also have access to Kings of War, One Page Rules, Dragon Rampant and even old Battlesystem rulebooks lying about. If I get about to playing, I’ll probably just stick to the 8E rules, as I still have my army books for those (High Elves, Vampire Counts, Lizardmen and whatever the last edition Brets had a book for - I think 6th?). I’ve got no regular opponent, so it’s probably going to me playing myself or a friend I let use one of my other armies anyways.
My more immediate decision is bases - my other armies are on the old bases and I’m debating buying/making smaller bases to match those, and possibly pick up spaced trays if I need to “convert up” to the new size.
MaxT wrote: I don’t think “GW plans to release more models for its announced supported factions” would be a surprise to anyone.
I dunno, there’s probably someone out there still claiming TOW is low effort/vapourware.
Literally in this thread... the idea that GW is prioritizing getting the 9 factions out and playable first AND THEN is going to prioritize updating their model ranges and introducing additional factions seems pretty reasonable/logical/obvious to me.
I don't see were this has anything to do with the "low effort" claim as that one was never about how get things first but what the faction get to be playable
and by now "playable" is rather stretched of you don't already own a large enough collection to model a TOW army from it
nathan2004 wrote: Spaced out trays work great, I can vouch for those....hopefully Gdubs allows them in tournaments.
A lot of tray companies are offering them with grid lines marking the "correct" base size, so I don't really see why they wouldn't allow them since bringing back past players was most of the point.
Well, there is a blurb in the new rulebook, "Matched play requires the correct base size" (paraphrased), so its likely expected for GW sponsored games you'll have to upbase (and the book pictures seem to indicate that at least the elvin models had their smaller bases glued onto larger bases).
But I won't be playing in any tournaments, so it doesn't matter to me - in fact, I've already ordered smaller bases. Though I could only find one seller for cavalry bases with the slots already cut out.
If you don’t want to rebase your older models individually, you are welcome to pop them onto a movement tray with the right footprint. In practice, movement trays are a useful tool, even if your army is on the right base size, as it speeds up gameplay and makes for more accurate unit manoeuvring.
In the original article that talked about the new base sizes. So I think it's pretty safe to say they'll be fine with using the trays.
I'm the only one in this thread, yes, but not the only one in the TOW playerbase. We seem the minority, for now, but I expect that attitude will shift over time.
MaxT wrote: I don’t think “GW plans to release more models for its announced supported factions” would be a surprise to anyone.
I dunno, there’s probably someone out there still claiming TOW is low effort/vapourware.
Low effort and vapourware are two different things.
I still think it's low effort, at least based on what we've seen so far. Several years in development and we get a few characters, rules that are just an incremental step from what we had, then the rest is a remake of pre-existing models.
If they'd released this the year they announced it, I might have thought they'd put some effort into it, but we know they've been working on it for a while, so it feels like a backburner type project.
MaxT wrote: I don’t think “GW plans to release more models for its announced supported factions” would be a surprise to anyone.
I dunno, there’s probably someone out there still claiming TOW is low effort/vapourware.
Low effort and vapourware are two different things.
I still think it's low effort, at least based on what we've seen so far. Several years in development and we get a few characters, rules that are just an incremental step from what we had, then the rest is a remake of pre-existing models.
If they'd released this the year they announced it, I might have thought they'd put some effort into it, but we know they've been working on it for a while, so it feels like a backburner type project.
Pretty much. It sure does not feel like TOW spent five years in development. What it looks like is they had a plan to do something grand originally (including Kislev, which was one of their big selling points), and somewhere along the line that work got scrapped and we got what we got. And what we got was a pared-back version of the original plan that was put together in less time. Judging from some of the additions to the rules, it looks to me like it happened some time around the development of 10th Edition 40k.
Maybe people feel like if they acknowledge this, it takes away from their ability to like what we did get? Who knows.
There's a lot of different potential reasons and its likely not just one big reason but many.
I even proposed earlier that GW did it this way around so that they'd start the game with older models rather than start with new ones for two full new armies and then release old models which would appear VERY old and clunky after brand new ones.
Esp if part of the draw is to get people BACK into play not just fresh into the game; then putting the old stuff up and getting a lot of armies out the door fast is important.
Maybe one of the original plans was JUST for 2 new factions for a year or more. To slow grow like they've done with their 30K edition games in various forms. However someone likely argued strongly that that would likely backfire with slow sales and a lot of "HEY GW why can't I buy old models for my old army that I've already got" etc...
So yes its very possible that they started with a bigger budget and that got cut or diverted; however its equally possible that another contributing factor was the desire to draw old players back in to bolster the launch and that part of that was bringing back older stuff with reworked moulds; new stuff and updated stuff.
Covid may have partially scrapped or have changed their plans for the Old World.
This release strikes me much like the Index release of 40K 8E. I could see if it sells well that it will enter the 2-3 year release cycle like AOS and 40K. As if GW doesn't already have enough on its plate...
With the production limitations gw is having keeping up with demand as is, it probably makes sense to maximize profits by mostly reusing existing molds, with a few new centerpiece models for now. Then the investment in new molds that would just replace existing kits could be diverted, which would explain why LI and Solar Aux for heresy have so many unique sprues in a relatively limited time.
On the release cycle, it would be nice if it spread to a 4 year cycle, with 40k, Sigmar, Horus Heresy, and Old World all getting updates as a result. Not necessarily full new editions, but revisions would be nice to address balance and new introductions by various armies over the 4 year span.
Years ago they sold me on Cathay and Kislev, and now those factions are still not coming in the foreseeable future. Feels enough like vapor ware to me.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Years ago they sold me on Cathay and Kislev, and now those factions are still not coming in the foreseeable future. Feels enough like vapor ware to me.
I donlt think they could have made anywhere enough models - they can't even keep up with the demand for old models - having a complete new range for Cathay and Kislev would mean us Whales would want large amounts.
It would def mean not releasing new Marines for a good few months
MajorWesJanson wrote: With the production limitations gw is having keeping up with demand as is, it probably makes sense to maximize profits by mostly reusing existing molds, with a few new centerpiece models for now. Then the investment in new molds that would just replace existing kits could be diverted, which would explain why LI and Solar Aux for heresy have so many unique sprues in a relatively limited time.
On the release cycle, it would be nice if it spread to a 4 year cycle, with 40k, Sigmar, Horus Heresy, and Old World all getting updates as a result. Not necessarily full new editions, but revisions would be nice to address balance and new introductions by various armies over the 4 year span.
I'm hoping for Old World and HH that it goes the way of middle earth: an updated starter every couple of years with really minor clarifications and revisions in the main rulebook. The 3 year cycle doesn't help 40K at all.
However there's a point at which helping the bottom line and not the game results in hurting the bottomline.
I think GW has started to notice this with their campaign books which is why they are doing a lot more lore stuff in the AoS ones including marketing it that way more so online as well. Because they realise that rules wise they are a LOT for what amounts to a handful of rule updates
Manfred von Drakken wrote: Isn't the popular theory that it's not supposed to help the game, it's supposed to help the bottom line?
Everything is to help the bottom line, the question is always only do you wanna make steady long term profit or do you wanna cannibalize it for more money right this moment and then die. WotC went down the second path and I think it's gonna be a healthy lesson for everybody.
Overread wrote: However there's a point at which helping the bottom line and not the game results in hurting the bottomline.
I think GW has started to notice this with their campaign books which is why they are doing a lot more lore stuff in the AoS ones including marketing it that way more so online as well. Because they realise that rules wise they are a LOT for what amounts to a handful of rule updates
Hasn't so far. Their profits are high and they literally cant meet with demand aka they can't sell much more models as is.
Isn't the popular theory that it's not supposed to help the game, it's supposed to help the bottom line?
Does anyone actually play 40k any more? I just assumed they bought any army, bought the books, get half way through reading them and painting the army then the next edition came out?
I do really wonder these days how many people actually PLAY the current editions of games workshop games, I can barely get through reading the rulebooks they're so badly written.
For a while I've wondered if the reason GW does so well is that people are sold on the idea of playing a game more than they actually play the games
there is a "what you wish for 11th" topic already and there were a lot of posting on FB and reddit from people who started with 9th that they almost finished painting their first army and some more hateful posts that the 3 year cycle is not liked and they were not expecting that when starting
a new game has the advantage of having everyone at the same level again and also removes the option to compare with previous versions (as there is no direct equivalent of armies, balance and cost if everything is different), and this appeals more to those who play a lot were the bad rules get boring fast and who have a large enough collection of not care about changes
yet people who did not knew about that are disappointed and this can turn a bad reputation very fast despite white knights defending it (this is were "it helps the bottom line" comes from as the only one who benefits of releasing a new game under the same name every 3 years is GW, as this cuts cost by a lot, generate reliable new release sales and the expectation of quality is very low because if you don't like it just wait 3 years for the next one)
for TOW, the cycle must be much slower as the main goal of the game is to drag the "old guard" back in and prevent them from finally wandering off (the connection to the company is strong but won't last forever)
yet this does mean we won't see a Necromunda like burning the books, because that game was made for the same audience and it worked
Question to people owning Water Trolls. I read somewhere that there are problems with building them because some parts are not aligning well to each other. Is that true? If yes what surprises exactly should I expect?
Shadow Walker wrote: Question to people owning Water Trolls. I read somewhere that there are problems with building them because some parts are not aligning well to each other. Is that true? If yes what surprises exactly should I expect?
And do the new plastics fit on 40mms? Not sure if they were originally an old world release.
Thanks guys. I don't think we'll see them reboxed to include the square bases, so looks like it'll be AoS boxes and then get the bases separately then.
For a while I've wondered if the reason GW does so well is that people are sold on the idea of playing a game more than they actually play the games
I reckon that's been true for a long time actually (even back in the 90s). People spend vastly more time dreaming about the armies they'll one day have, and the games they'll eventually play, than they do actually playing games.
But that's one of the reasons it works so well as a hobby. You can think about it all day long for weeks on end when you have no chance of getting in a game.
Boardgames, on the other hand, I find to be 'switch on / switch off'. You take a boardgame off the shelf, play it and have a great time... and then put it away and forget about it till next time. Unless you're making custom content for it or something. The hobby side of boardgaming mostly seems to consist of buying more boardgames. For any one boardgame, there's not much else to do between actual games.
With a tabletop wargame you can collect, convert, paint, list-build, read up on the fluff, come up with your own fluff, and when you're truly desperate, clean mould lines.
Isn't the popular theory that it's not supposed to help the game, it's supposed to help the bottom line?
Does anyone actually play 40k any more? I just assumed they bought any army, bought the books, get half way through reading them and painting the army then the next edition came out?
I do really wonder these days how many people actually PLAY the current editions of games workshop games, I can barely get through reading the rulebooks they're so badly written.
For a while I've wondered if the reason GW does so well is that people are sold on the idea of playing a game more than they actually play the games
My local Warhammer store is literally packed with a dozen people playing 40k and kill team basically any day of the week. My FLGS which has 9 tables is busy 4/7 nights a week with Warhammer guys
Isn't the popular theory that it's not supposed to help the game, it's supposed to help the bottom line?
Does anyone actually play 40k any more? I just assumed they bought any army, bought the books, get half way through reading them and painting the army then the next edition came out?
I do really wonder these days how many people actually PLAY the current editions of games workshop games, I can barely get through reading the rulebooks they're so badly written.
For a while I've wondered if the reason GW does so well is that people are sold on the idea of playing a game more than they actually play the games
Plenty when you look out of dakkadakka where primary hobby is complain.
Outside dakka? Games aplenty. When you don't waste time complaining plenty of time to play
I've got 6 river trolls and don't remember them being overly difficult to put together. But it is over 10 years ago now. They are meant to look a bit malformed so I didn't feel there were any problems.
I don't think the 3 year lifespan of 40k overly hurts things. Mainly because I think Peachy or someone said said the standard lifespan of a GW customer is only about 18 months to 2 years.
I feel there's this real divide between people who are worried their stuff won't be valid by 2030 or 2035 (mainly online tbh) - and people who've bought stuff literally today, are going to assemble and undercoat it tomorrow, splash some paint on it over the week, and get a game with it next Saturday. By next Christmas they however may well have got bored of the whole hobby and moved on to something else.
Was pondering the axe wielding knight, but couldn’t justify the cost. Already have the lance guy and figure I can kitbash others as I have a few extra plastic knights above what I need.
Isn't the popular theory that it's not supposed to help the game, it's supposed to help the bottom line?
Does anyone actually play 40k any more? I just assumed they bought any army, bought the books, get half way through reading them and painting the army then the next edition came out?
I do really wonder these days how many people actually PLAY the current editions of games workshop games, I can barely get through reading the rulebooks they're so badly written.
For a while I've wondered if the reason GW does so well is that people are sold on the idea of playing a game more than they actually play the games
My local Warhammer store is literally packed with a dozen people playing 40k and kill team basically any day of the week. My FLGS which has 9 tables is busy 4/7 nights a week with Warhammer guys
I was being kind of sarcastic when I said does "anyone" play, I know some people do, it's pretty busy down at the local gaming store here as well.
I just wonder how much of GW's success is people playing versus people collecting, there are other games that I see people playing but they don't have the financial success of GW's products so clearly they aren't played as broadly or maybe GW has more collectors contributing to their success.
Can confirm that I've been collecting space marines since 1993 and still haven't painted enough to fill 2000 points. Last actual 40K game I played was 8th edition (though I've been playing lots of Kill Team).
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I just wonder how much of GW's success is people playing versus people collecting, there are other games that I see people playing but they don't have the financial success of GW's products so clearly they aren't played as broadly or maybe GW has more collectors contributing to their success.
GW themselves once said that the majority of people are collectors/painters (hence why they focus more on the collectors style of models) and from surveys running on the larger online communities it was like 50% who play only 1-2 games per year (or not at all)
that reddit has a dedicated sub for people who play GW games that is just a fraction of the size of the general sub for each game and even half the size of the sub about 40k lore also tells us what people prefer
Matt.Kingsley wrote: Yeah mine also arrived this week, same with everyone else I know that bought them.
Meanwhile I'm still waiting on the stuff I preordered that first Saturday to even ship
This prompted me to actually check the tracking link I got sent on the 5th, and I gotta say I wasn't expecting to see "Current Status: Damaged (05/02/2024)"
However that's just what it says on the GW tracking page, following through to both Royal Mail and Australia Post shows no suggestion of damage
I'll find out in the next few days, I guess, but that's one hell of an addition to the list of things wrong with Warhammer dot com if it's not true
I don't think the 3 year lifespan of 40k overly hurts things. Mainly because I think Peachy or someone said said the standard lifespan of a GW customer is only about 18 months to 2 years.
Given that I've been doing this for 20 years, and most of the other players I know have 5-30+ years in the hobby, I've always found that stat hard to believe.
lord_blackfang wrote: I suspect about 3/4 of the product sold doesn't even get unwrapped.
If that were true I'd expect gw to have gone out of business due to an excess of second hand product being resold
I don't think the 3 year lifespan of 40k overly hurts things. Mainly because I think Peachy or someone said said the standard lifespan of a GW customer is only about 18 months to 2 years.
Given that I've been doing this for 20 years, and most of the other players I know have 5-30+ years in the hobby, I've always found that stat hard to believe.
Bit of a survivor bias. Most customers aren't players, and most players are friend groups who don't go down to the LGS to throw dice. In the 16 years I've been in the hobby, I've introduced a lot of friends and the attrition rate after the first few years is well over half, while those that stuck around for more than that are all still going. If you're really in it, you're in it for the long run, and anyone liable to drop it isn't likely to make a big entrance in the first place
Playing the games is a relative small part of the hobby for me. And still, most of my projects are aimed at a possible game list. So, the gaming is the framework and motivation, even if building, painting, watching bat reps, reading books and keeping up with the online community is by far a bigger part of the hobby than actually playing some casual games with my friends.
well, from my original group 20+years ago who started with Warhammer Fantasy, I am the only one left doing wargames at all
from the group after that playing Warhammer Fantasy and later 40k, none plays GW games any more some switched from wargaming to RPGs and from the current group there are only 2 of us who had previously played GW games and are looking into TOW not talking about people I see coming and going while I was playing in clubs
so from personal experience I would say the majority of people accept a single Edition change
so depending on when they started something between 3-6 years
they might keep collecting and painting if this was the main hobby anyway or stick with an old Edition to play at home
Matt.Kingsley wrote: Yeah mine also arrived this week, same with everyone else I know that bought them.
Meanwhile I'm still waiting on the stuff I preordered that first Saturday to even ship
This prompted me to actually check the tracking link I got sent on the 5th, and I gotta say I wasn't expecting to see "Current Status: Damaged (05/02/2024)"
However that's just what it says on the GW tracking page, following through to both Royal Mail and Australia Post shows no suggestion of damage
I'll find out in the next few days, I guess, but that's one hell of an addition to the list of things wrong with Warhammer dot com if it's not true
One of mine said the exact same thing (they sent it across two packages for some reason, both arriving days apart). Not even a scratch. I could have put the two boxes side by side and would not have been able to tell you which was the "damaged" one.
There’s also an element of lies, damn lies and statistics involved. If someone buys (or is given as a gift) a starter box but never opens it, they were in the hobby for all of 5 minutes. Doesn’t need many of those to drag down the average.
Ofc actual business analysts take into account all of that, but the throwaway “average” comment lacks all context.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Years ago they sold me on Cathay and Kislev, and now those factions are still not coming in the foreseeable future. Feels enough like vapor ware to me.
I donlt think they could have made anywhere enough models - they can't even keep up with the demand for old models - having a complete new range for Cathay and Kislev would mean us Whales would want large amounts.
It would def mean not releasing new Marines for a good few months
They didn’t have to tease those factions in the first place. Once they did, they should have put aside the space marines to make it happen, if that’s what it took.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Years ago they sold me on Cathay and Kislev, and now those factions are still not coming in the foreseeable future. Feels enough like vapor ware to me.
I donlt think they could have made anywhere enough models - they can't even keep up with the demand for old models - having a complete new range for Cathay and Kislev would mean us Whales would want large amounts.
It would def mean not releasing new Marines for a good few months
They didn’t have to tease those factions in the first place. Once they did, they should have put aside the space marines to make it happen, if that’s what it took.
Didn't demand blow up during the pandemic, leading to a supply crunch and production limitations? Could that have led to some registering of plans?
And it may be easy to say drop some Space Marines to make room for preferred army x, but I think the company is going to have different calculations on trading off sales of their flagship army and product line in favor of a devoting that expense and attention for a new faction for unlaunched/recently launched third tier game system.
The media team and the high level executives who sign checks team are different groups of people, and I think in the efforts to hype Warhammer Total War 3 some speculative plans were overstated. They may be totally true, in the full length of time, but I doubt GW management would have teased those armies SO many years out from their eventual release. Which may still be 3 to 5 years away. They did abruptly stop hyping them after that, I think for this reason.
Matt.Kingsley wrote: Yeah mine also arrived this week, same with everyone else I know that bought them.
Meanwhile I'm still waiting on the stuff I preordered that first Saturday to even ship
This prompted me to actually check the tracking link I got sent on the 5th, and I gotta say I wasn't expecting to see "Current Status: Damaged (05/02/2024)"
However that's just what it says on the GW tracking page, following through to both Royal Mail and Australia Post shows no suggestion of damage
I'll find out in the next few days, I guess, but that's one hell of an addition to the list of things wrong with Warhammer dot com if it's not true
One of mine said the exact same thing (they sent it across two packages for some reason, both arriving days apart). Not even a scratch. I could have put the two boxes side by side and would not have been able to tell you which was the "damaged" one.
How bizarre. Glad it all worked out fine. Mine arrived today and, sure enough, was in fact a bit crushed on one side, but the box was mostly empty space so none of the contents were damaged. Honest mistake, looks like someone just had a lapse of judgement in stacking things rather than an outright mistreatment, so I'm not bothered in the least.
I don't think the 3 year lifespan of 40k overly hurts things. Mainly because I think Peachy or someone said said the standard lifespan of a GW customer is only about 18 months to 2 years.
Given that I've been doing this for 20 years, and most of the other players I know have 5-30+ years in the hobby, I've always found that stat hard to believe.
lord_blackfang wrote: I suspect about 3/4 of the product sold doesn't even get unwrapped.
If that were true I'd expect gw to have gone out of business due to an excess of second hand product being resold
In my experience, observing ~100 WH "players" at a middle school wargaming club I ran for 10years the dominating MO was:
-be excited
-get parents to buy 3 boxes
-open one box
-assemble 5 models
-paint half of a model
-ditch the hobby
Out of this huge group I think 2 dudes stayed with the hobby after leaving my school. A few managed to get a partly painted small force to the table and try to play, mostly with what they believed the rules were.
So yeah, anecdotal evidence, survivorship bias, availability bias - we can't know for sure, really.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Add to this the modern sales strategy of GW, artificial scarcity/ FOMO driven offers of big, attractive boxes which adult hobbyists can afford relatively easily and buy them for a short burst of dopamine without much thought for whether they actually need another army/boxed game, whether they have the time to paint and play or actual opponents to play this new game with.
No, buy, dopamine surge, open box, second dopamine surge, enjoy the smell of fresh sprues and off to the closet it goes. Western consummerism at its finest.
Matt.Kingsley wrote: Yeah mine also arrived this week, same with everyone else I know that bought them.
Meanwhile I'm still waiting on the stuff I preordered that first Saturday to even ship
This prompted me to actually check the tracking link I got sent on the 5th, and I gotta say I wasn't expecting to see "Current Status: Damaged (05/02/2024)"
However that's just what it says on the GW tracking page, following through to both Royal Mail and Australia Post shows no suggestion of damage
I'll find out in the next few days, I guess, but that's one hell of an addition to the list of things wrong with Warhammer dot com if it's not true
One of mine said the exact same thing (they sent it across two packages for some reason, both arriving days apart). Not even a scratch. I could have put the two boxes side by side and would not have been able to tell you which was the "damaged" one.
How bizarre. Glad it all worked out fine. Mine arrived today and, sure enough, was in fact a bit crushed on one side, but the box was mostly empty space so none of the contents were damaged. Honest mistake, looks like someone just had a lapse of judgement in stacking things rather than an outright mistreatment, so I'm not bothered in the least.
Well that's good to hear, would have sucked if you had to wait 180 days for customer service to get you a replacement
I don't think the 3 year lifespan of 40k overly hurts things. Mainly because I think Peachy or someone said said the standard lifespan of a GW customer is only about 18 months to 2 years.
Given that I've been doing this for 20 years, and most of the other players I know have 5-30+ years in the hobby, I've always found that stat hard to believe.
Bit of a survivor bias. Most customers aren't players, and most players are friend groups who don't go down to the LGS to throw dice. In the 16 years I've been in the hobby, I've introduced a lot of friends and the attrition rate after the first few years is well over half, while those that stuck around for more than that are all still going. If you're really in it, you're in it for the long run, and anyone liable to drop it isn't likely to make a big entrance in the first place
Yeah, I've been around GW games for just over 20 years... most of the people that I see down at the FLGS have been doing it for 1 or 2 decades. But when I started, there was a lot of fresh blood, the FLGS had a mixture of old guys through to teens. Now it's mostly old guys who have been doing it for a long time.
But I'd hazard a guess that the people you see at the FLGS and club aren't the bulk of GW's sales anyway, it's difficult to say for sure though.
I think the other thing is that clubs/playgroups can often form up around a certain generation group and they manage to persist in an area without having any real active drive to get new people in.
So they tend up with the same generation partly because that's who was around when they started and that's who casually drifts in to join and tends to last out because when you're the 1 teen that turns up to the over 30s club - even if they are welcoming and nice - the generational gap can be an issue.
A lot of groups don't push growth all that much - heck despite being a super geeky hobby its amazing how many groups don't even have a functional facebook/website up and running (and by functional I mean they post regular content; organise events and so forth). Let alone any local marketing/advertising (and by that I mean going as far as perhaps a poster in the local game store window).
So yeah clubs can form up and not be representative of the whole playing body of gamers within an area. There might be many smaller groups that are just one or two friends playing at home or even playing at a school/other education body club - which are often (by their nature) pretty much only going to be students and facility staff members.
Groups that are much much more active at drawing in new people (often helped by being run at the game store if its big) tend to maintain a broader spread of age groups within them and can end up more diverse and larger. However that often requires quite a bit of work and energy from those at the top of the club in running it and pushing to get new people in. Advertising/reaching out; running demo days and events to get new people in and so forth
Sadly, there are no Old World players in my area that I know of - everyone sold off their army when 8th ended and has been sour on the idea of getting back in. If they're into GW, they're playing 40K or possibly Bloodbowl - I haven't seen an AoS game or tournament at the FLGS going on (even though they have AoS for sale).
Also, I suspect the "customer for 18 months" also has a factor that once you have an army up and painted, unless you're going to buy a new army, you aren't buying any more even though you may still be playing. Since you aren't in the market for getting new rules/models you aren't a GW customer any more.
Overread wrote: I think the other thing is that clubs/playgroups can often form up around a certain generation group and they manage to persist in an area without having any real active drive to get new people in.
So they tend up with the same generation partly because that's who was around when they started and that's who casually drifts in to join and tends to last out because when you're the 1 teen that turns up to the over 30s club - even if they are welcoming and nice - the generational gap can be an issue.
A lot of groups don't push growth all that much - heck despite being a super geeky hobby its amazing how many groups don't even have a functional facebook/website up and running (and by functional I mean they post regular content; organise events and so forth). Let alone any local marketing/advertising (and by that I mean going as far as perhaps a poster in the local game store window).
So yeah clubs can form up and not be representative of the whole playing body of gamers within an area. There might be many smaller groups that are just one or two friends playing at home or even playing at a school/other education body club - which are often (by their nature) pretty much only going to be students and facility staff members.
Groups that are much much more active at drawing in new people (often helped by being run at the game store if its big) tend to maintain a broader spread of age groups within them and can end up more diverse and larger. However that often requires quite a bit of work and energy from those at the top of the club in running it and pushing to get new people in. Advertising/reaching out; running demo days and events to get new people in and so forth
That's true, though I was more talking about the store than the club, seeing who comes in to play games and buy stuff. The local store has several clubs that play there but also people (like me) just buy the stuff, maybe have a chat, but play elsewhere.
Could just be all the young kids buy their plastic crack online instead of in stores though.
Also, I suspect the "customer for 18 months" also has a factor that once you have an army up and painted, unless you're going to buy a new army, you aren't buying any more even though you may still be playing. Since you aren't in the market for getting new rules/models you aren't a GW customer any more.
I think this can only be true for the rare gamers who are actually all about the game. Gamers who love to convert or paint will get more pleasure from new minis than from keeping, and maybe repainting, the same minis year after year.
I've never met anyone with the discipline to only purchase, build, and paint a single army list at a single points value and never make another purchase again. Most people eventually collect additional stuff so they can modify and tweak their lists, buy into one or more additional factions, or fall into the meta-chasing mindset where they are rotating armies every however many months trying to keep up with the latest competitive hotness.
Nigel Stillman is either a hobby unicorn or a dirty liar.
chaos0xomega wrote: I've never met anyone with the discipline to only purchase, build, and paint a single army list at a single points value and never make another purchase again. Most people eventually collect additional stuff so they can modify and tweak their lists, buy into one or more additional factions, or fall into the meta-chasing mindset where they are rotating armies every however many months trying to keep up with the latest competitive hotness.
Nigel Stillman is either a hobby unicorn or a dirty liar.
Our experiences are identical.
The iron of Stillman's premise is that it would indeed remove the grognard once they have an army and leave room for new blood constantly. The unfortunate side of this is that the "whales" keep this hobby going more than anyone else.
I have seen this with historical gamers, but not in the way that they build a certain points costs, but the overall goal is to aim for a certain historical army to build and paint and play with it yet those projects are certainly larger than the usual 2k army from GW games
the assumption that you need an ever changing game to keep people buying is something that in my optionion is far from reality as in people rather buy every option from an army over time instead of the exact amount needed to play a single army list or buy a 2nd army
In my experience the "build your army up to around 2k points (or whatever the local standard is/was) and then really slow down" is pretty common.
I think the whole "I've written down this list, and I will now buy, build and paint it and that's it, the end, forever" mentality to be crazy. But the whole "I'm at 5k points worth of Space Marines and don't expect to stop before 10k, no I don't have a problem" to be a bit weird too.
I mean I've got a friend who's keen to rejoin the hobby because of TOW. He was however against it due to the feeling he'd need to commit at least £500 (and the rest) to get started (needing models, rules and paints/tools etc). But he's managed to find his 25~ year old dwarf army. With a bit of creative accounting (I suspect he's being too character heavy to work in practice) he reckons he's at nearly 2k points. So when Dwarfs get a release, he can just buy a couple of kits to round out his collection and that will be fine to get started. A £100 every few months is affordable in a way that a big lump sum isn't (with the feeling that until you have a standard sized army, you have nothing).
Historically that was one issue with Old World having sales problems. The game back then "worked" at around 1.5K points. 1K it was so-so and at 500 points it basically didn't really work well at all for most factions.
So hitting 1.5-2K really was the sweet spot you wanted to be at. Which burned people out who were new.
40K was also starting to suffer the same issues until GW went hard on marketing Killteam and even now Combat Patrol as not just smaller format games but games (esp KT) with their own rules; books; marketing and products. Ergo allowing people to have game formats that work at the smaller model count and are built around it.
Easing people up toward the higher point values with the view that when people are active and engaged they are doing that "a bit here and there" addition to their army. That works great when you can play a KT game with that new box on its own; or augment your KT army with it easily. etc...
The issue was "ok you need 4 heroes and 3-4 battleforces and perhaps a monster to get your army going at 2K points - see you there".
So one thing I'm expecting to see once Old World has got the classic armies out is indeed its own version of Underworlds/Warcry/Killteam/Combat Patrol
And yeah most long term fans who are not on super strict budgets will generally keep buying because GW were sure to make building and painting part of the hobby marketing to attract people. So people still want to build and paint models in their free time not just play. So they either hyper focus on one army and make it huge or they drift into other armies. Heck part of GW doing more game formats is the realisation that this happens and that if GW has more game formats and styles - yep - those customers can drift into something else without having to leave the GW ecosystem. Even if those game saren't selling as much as Space Marines do; they are still generating profit and they are retaining people within the GW marketing and ecosystem. That means when their main army gets a wave of new models and updated models - BOOM - those people are ripe for the plucking and suddenly "Oh I'm going to rebuild my X army with the new models and add that new character ooh and the new codex " etc...
Tyel wrote: In my experience the "build your army up to around 2k points (or whatever the local standard is/was) and then really slow down" is pretty common.
I think the whole "I've written down this list, and I will now buy, build and paint it and that's it, the end, forever" mentality to be crazy. But the whole "I'm at 5k points worth of Space Marines and don't expect to stop before 10k, no I don't have a problem" to be a bit weird too.
I mean I've got a friend who's keen to rejoin the hobby because of TOW. He was however against it due to the feeling he'd need to commit at least £500 (and the rest) to get started (needing models, rules and paints/tools etc). But he's managed to find his 25~ year old dwarf army. With a bit of creative accounting (I suspect he's being too character heavy to work in practice) he reckons he's at nearly 2k points. So when Dwarfs get a release, he can just buy a couple of kits to round out his collection and that will be fine to get started. A £100 every few months is affordable in a way that a big lump sum isn't (with the feeling that until you have a standard sized army, you have nothing).
I dug my partly finished Bretonnians out. I have about 1700pts-ish of units in Old World points, and then 10 characters, so I am easily above 2000 for variety.
Picking up the new Foot Knights and maybe another Knights of the Realm box would do it for me.
That's just to have models to convert into Grail Knights, since I don't find the Official Grail Knights to be a significant enough difference to justify the price.
The rebasing feels daunting, but I think I will be using regiment bases with spacers rather than cracking off models.
But to your point, I am much more inclined to give TOW a shot since I am not starting from scratch.
Now if I could only find the Rulebook & Forces book in stores...
Yep and I figure right now GW's core target market for Old World are old fans with old armies; or at least enough hobby dedication and connection that they are building the "army of their dreams they never got to build" and are more willing to soak that 2K army point target in models.
Once we are past the historical armies and models it when we should see the gears shift as new armies come out attracting fresh players; and GW's marketing should also shift. We might see Mordhiem or some similar concept game appear or a Killteam or something that creates those low point engagement games for people building up fresh.
Which does not mean we don't get fresh people starting now; just that they won't be the core marketing focus right now
the sales problem of old Warhammer was not really the size, given that 40k sold better and was not really playable in smaller size either (outside of community versions, but that worked for both)
but the main problem being that playable units were not always the iconic ones and rarely the ones in the army boxes
so people buying the units they like and/or starting with a box, and then realized that to actually play the game they need something different (worst case a different faction)
and this turned people down and let them leave
for something else, are there any rumours for expected dates on the missing units or if we see a stand alone release for the core units?
Orcs Warriors box (one without archers) - do I see it properly (on various internet pics) that there are no straps on their shields/shield arms = you simply glue the shield to a hand?
Shadow Walker wrote: Orcs Warriors box (one without archers) - do I see it properly (on various internet pics) that there are no straps on their shields/shield arms = you simply glue the shield to a hand?
Shadow Walker wrote: Orcs Warriors box (one without archers) - do I see it properly (on various internet pics) that there are no straps on their shields/shield arms = you simply glue the shield to a hand?
Correct.
That sucks, I really hate when minis are like that.
Overread wrote: ; and GW's marketing should also shift. We might see Mordhiem or some similar concept game appear or a Killteam or something that creates those low point engagement games for people building up fresh.
We have nothing of the sort for Horus Heresy, I expect nothing of the sort for TOW.
TBH, I expect spin-offs like Warmaster or Man O War before we see low-points format support for TOW. I could see a re-release of Mordheim happening, but not necessarily one which overlaps with TOW.
Overread wrote: ; and GW's marketing should also shift. We might see Mordhiem or some similar concept game appear or a Killteam or something that creates those low point engagement games for people building up fresh.
We have nothing of the sort for Horus Heresy, I expect nothing of the sort for TOW.
That's a technically inaccurate statement when Zone Mortalis exists and there are several people who literally only play ZM Heresy.
As SgtEeveel suggests, it's so you could leave off the shield if for whatever reason you wanted literally the baseline unit with no upgrades.
I get it but still it would be nice to either have some additional hands with straps for the shields or they could go the Skaven clan rats route,
where you have straps on the shield and then they fit the hand that could otherwise be left without a shield if you prefer that option.
Overread wrote: ; and GW's marketing should also shift. We might see Mordhiem or some similar concept game appear or a Killteam or something that creates those low point engagement games for people building up fresh.
We have nothing of the sort for Horus Heresy, I expect nothing of the sort for TOW.
That's a technically inaccurate statement when Zone Mortalis exists and there are several people who literally only play ZM Heresy.
Eh.. I guess? Zone Mortalis isn't really a product you buy though. Its not a boxed game like Kill Team, nor is it a format backed by specific products like combat patrol.
HH is a strange beast though and has Marines who generally don't seem to need any marketing to fly off the shelves. Very few to not other game systems could take 1 single faction and create a dozen alternate designs of that same faction concept and then sell them as their own entire separate game.
(and yes I know there's a few more unique models for each marine group and non-marines in there; but at its core its 1 design concept repeated)
But you are right GW might just decide that they don't want to "push" Old World and won't worry about recruitment as much as in their core games.
Shadow Walker wrote: I get it but still it would be nice to either have some additional hands with straps for the shields or they could go the Skaven clan rats route,
where you have straps on the shield and then they fit the hand that could otherwise be left without a shield if you prefer that option.
It would have been nice but straps were uncommon during the era when the orc kit was released. Orc Warriors, Goblins, Night Goblins, Skaven Clanrats, Skeletons, High Elf Warriors, Dark Elf Warriors, Dwarf Warriors etc all lack straps. It works for most of the models because you can't really see the hands very well behind the shields anyway.
Yeah sometimes you find that esp if you get into 3D printing where designers can put details on EVERYTHING and then you print the model and realise - oh wait that part is entirely inaccessible with a brush so that whole area will be black anyway.
Or you find that the tiny tiny detail is so tiny you have to break out a single hair brush to try painting it
Or it just ends up overly busy.
Sometimes you don't need hyper detail in all the places for a model on the tabletop
ThoughI still feel cheated that the Soulblight BloodKnights don't have any detailing under the horse body - sure its hidden mostly by the barding and such but still I'd have liked something under there instead of just flat no detail plastic.
Well, I was just at my FLGS, talking to the young lady behind the counter. She said that they had sold out of the main rulebook almost instantly, and people were calling every day to see if it was back in stock.
They've still got 1 or 2 of the Brett & TK army boxes and Arcane Journals, but nothing else for TOW. No games on the store schedule yet, either.
Shadow Walker wrote: I get it but still it would be nice to either have some additional hands with straps for the shields or they could go the Skaven clan rats route,
where you have straps on the shield and then they fit the hand that could otherwise be left without a shield if you prefer that option.
It would have been nice but straps were uncommon during the era when the orc kit was released. Orc Warriors, Goblins, Night Goblins, Skaven Clanrats, Skeletons, High Elf Warriors, Dark Elf Warriors, Dwarf Warriors etc all lack straps. It works for most of the models because you can't really see the hands very well behind the shields anyway.
Remember some metal sculpts had big round knobs on the arm that went into a dent at the back of the shield, to make it easier to glue it in to place I suppose. So no straps or handle but a big cylinder connecting the arm to the shield if you looked closer
Shadow Walker wrote: I get it but still it would be nice to either have some additional hands with straps for the shields or they could go the Skaven clan rats route,
where you have straps on the shield and then they fit the hand that could otherwise be left without a shield if you prefer that option.
It would have been nice but straps were uncommon during the era when the orc kit was released. Orc Warriors, Goblins, Night Goblins, Skaven Clanrats, Skeletons, High Elf Warriors, Dark Elf Warriors, Dwarf Warriors etc all lack straps. It works for most of the models because you can't really see the hands very well behind the shields anyway.
Remember some metal sculpts had big round knobs on the arm that went into a dent at the back of the shield, to make it easier to glue it in to place I suppose. So no straps or handle but a big cylinder connecting the arm to the shield if you looked closer
Yes, I do remember those! And some of them actually HAD a little strap modelled on the hand, the Kevin Adams Orc Boys come to mind.
The local GW here sold out the core rulebook very quickly but still had copies of RH and FoF. The sales dude wasn’t sure when he would get more rulebooks.
Shadow Walker wrote: I get it but still it would be nice to either have some additional hands with straps for the shields or they could go the Skaven clan rats route,
where you have straps on the shield and then they fit the hand that could otherwise be left without a shield if you prefer that option.
It would have been nice but straps were uncommon during the era when the orc kit was released. Orc Warriors, Goblins, Night Goblins, Skaven Clanrats, Skeletons, High Elf Warriors, Dark Elf Warriors, Dwarf Warriors etc all lack straps. It works for most of the models because you can't really see the hands very well behind the shields anyway.
Remember some metal sculpts had big round knobs on the arm that went into a dent at the back of the shield, to make it easier to glue it in to place I suppose. So no straps or handle but a big cylinder connecting the arm to the shield if you looked closer
If you go back far enough, the shields had a hole in the middle that let them fit onto the big round knob.
Stormonu wrote: Dammit GW, why didn’t you print enough copies of Forces of Fantasy? It’s sold out everywhere I look. ;/
We've been over this, because they're training you to be desperate for their product
Which will train the google fu and 3d printers...
Now where do i find decent goblin alternatives that are easily available?
MyMiniFactory has ya covered - if you don't want to print yourself, there's folks selling them already printed.
My FLGS has a boxed set of Tomb Kings, and that's it - no books or other kits. Usually they've got extra copies about, but not this time. Miniature Market's all sold out as well. That's left me playing around with some army builders to get a sense of what does what, and what I need to buy/print to fill out my army (Brets, Vampires, High Elves, Lizardmen) to 1,500 points or so (with maybe some alternate extras if I want to swap out/try some stuff). I'd like to have the new books, but I'm not paying outrageous prices for them - if it comes down to it, I still have my 8E books. The new forces books seem very much like indexes and the way they did the army books having only special characters - I do NOT like and will probably skip.
For some reason, I'm having a hard time relearning this game and deciding whether to stick with 8E rules I have in full or the piecemeal portions I can access for the new. Advantages and disadvantages to both and it makes my head hurt, especially with the keywords/special abilities soup for each army.
Shadow Walker wrote: Orcs Warriors box (one without archers) - do I see it properly (on various internet pics) that there are no straps on their shields/shield arms = you simply glue the shield to a hand?
Correct.
That sucks, I really hate when minis are like that.
All the old Warhammer kits are like that. The shields are modeled as just a shield. The left arm is modeled as just a left arm. The shield is optional so the arm doesn't have straps on it. The shield doesn't have straps on it because they hadn't thought of doing that yet.
Grail Seeker wrote: I think roadmaps are becoming less and less common as fanbases prove themselves unable to handle them.
So many times a company will produce a roadmap, come back later and say the roadmap has changed or is delayed and then the "fans" go on the warpath.
Its a lot of risk without a lot of upside.
Sorry but that sounds like bs to me. The key is communication, GOOD communication, not trying to lead on the fans. The vast majority of fans understand that various factors can throw things into disarray and can deal with a delay here and there. A few people might complain, but the vast majority of people get it, mistakes are made, suppliers fail to deliver, ships sink, whatever, we get it, gak happens.
Legions Imperialis is a great example of communication but bad communication that is borderline so bad that they might be better off not communicating at all (which is not a great alternative!).
Grail Seeker wrote: I think roadmaps are becoming less and less common as fanbases prove themselves unable to handle them.
So many times a company will produce a roadmap, come back later and say the roadmap has changed or is delayed and then the "fans" go on the warpath.
Its a lot of risk without a lot of upside.
Sorry but that sounds like bs to me. The key is communication, GOOD communication, not trying to lead on the fans. The vast majority of fans understand that various factors can throw things into disarray and can deal with a delay here and there. A few people might complain, but the vast majority of people get it, mistakes are made, suppliers fail to deliver, ships sink, whatever, we get it, gak happens.
Legions Imperialis is a great example of communication but bad communication that is borderline so bad that they might be better off not communicating at all (which is not a great alternative!).
You really can't think of an example of a company communicating regularly and the fanbase getting angry over it. Really?
The Total War team - Warhammer adjacent, at one time were very communicative about what was going on. They received a lot od praise and their community lead did talks about how they were able turn around a community that was largely considererd hostile and toxic.
They started pulling back from communication (prior to their other issues, mind. This was still during TW:Wahammer 2) when their staff starting getting harassed, threatened, and even followed home from work.
The problem is fans treat a roadmap as promises and reality is that most firms have to deal with the ups and downs of development and budget changing what appears in the roadmap.
Or if not what then when.
It's doubly a pain when its things outside of the firm's control
THAT said I think honestly what a lot of people into miniatures and wargames want when they ask for a roadmap isn't necessarily the specifics of what is coming (that's nice to get) but a sense that the army/faction/game is getting long term support from the parent company.
Ergo that the game is envisioned ot be a long term thing not a "oh yeah we cancelled that after 6 months."
As for less common, GW never really did them before. The most is 3 months projection from preview events. Everything else is uncommon.
I think the other factor is updates on the roadmap. Fans are MUCH more accepting when you say "here's the roadmap and X isn't coming now because of Y reason and Z is being delayed because of Y reason as well".
If its just a roadmap and then silence until a different roadmap appears; that annoys people.
I suspect that a roadmap that projects too far into the future encourages customers to save their money for far future release rather than buying whatever the new hotness is. The marketing folks probably want people to focus on the latest releases.
Bah, roadmaps. Either they reveal to much, or they dont reveal enough.
Nobody want to be told there is no Goblin sky pirates for at least another 6 months.
It's definitely a marketing decision as that will help drive success or failure for the game but at least we know O&G are next...Just wonder when we are getting foot knights and the rest of the Bret/TK ranges.
Hopefully Gdubs has figured out their production issues. Stores here in Texas (DFW area) are running low on inventory besides their flagship store in Grapevine.
nathan2004 wrote: It's definitely a marketing decision as that will help drive success or failure for the game but at least we know O&G are next...Just wonder when we are getting foot knights and the rest of the Bret/TK ranges.
Hopefully Gdubs has figured out their production issues. Stores here in Texas (DFW area) are running low on inventory besides their flagship store in Grapevine.
Perry miniatures has awesome men at arms that'd fit the bill more than apptly.
I came to this forum because GW refused to show their hand of what was coming down the pipe until it was practically enroute to the store. Meanwhile, TSR/WotC was putting out catalogs that were 6 months to a year out.
It would not kill GW to be more open about what's in the works, but they're gonna do their own thing.
but this is what GW is thinking, that nobody would impulse buy stuff (or start a new faction) if they knew that the box/faction they actually wanted is coming next month
and with people just buying what they want/need they won't make any profit
and now we can debate if GW would make more or less money if they do things differently
but for now it works, and people on the web are saying that this kind marketing is healthy for the game, because GW games are the most popular ones
Stormonu wrote: I came to this forum because GW refused to show their hand of what was coming down the pipe until it was practically enroute to the store. Meanwhile, TSR/WotC was putting out catalogs that were 6 months to a year out.
It would not kill GW to be more open about what's in the works, but they're gonna do their own thing.
Also, WotC hasn't updated their D&D website for over a year. Did you know that Spelljammer is forthcoming for August 16, 2022!?!?!? Better pre-order now!
Grail Seeker wrote: You really can't think of an example of a company communicating regularly and the fanbase getting angry over it. Really?
Of course I can, I even gave you an example, Legions Imperialis
I'm still waiting for the "sooner than you think" drop pods to come out
The Total War team - Warhammer adjacent, at one time were very communicative about what was going on. They received a lot od praise and their community lead did talks about how they were able turn around a community that was largely considererd hostile and toxic.
They started pulling back from communication (prior to their other issues, mind. This was still during TW:Wahammer 2) when their staff starting getting harassed, threatened, and even followed home from work.
I don't follow CA enough to know what you're referring to, but I'd question whether staff getting harassed had to do with a decision to clearly communicate.
Communication can be done badly, CA in recent months is a perfect example of how to communicate badly. I don't know if they were doing that stuff back in the time period you were talking about, but yes, if a company can't figure how how to communicate, maybe they shouldn't, but that doesn't inherently make communication bad. I do remember CA at one point was doing these long unnecessary blog style posts, is that the time period you're talking about?
It's not really that hard, you say what your roadmap is, when things go wrong, you put out a post saying "sorry, due to unforeseen circumstances, this product has been delayed, we want to make sure it's right and if we tried to release it on that date it wouldn't be, we can't give a new timeline right now, please bear with us and we'll let you know when we have a new date locked in!"
If there is a specific circumstance that led to the delay that can be shared, then share it (I appreciate sometimes the delays can't be shared for one reason or another, especially for a publicly traded company, but often they can).
What you don't do is "sooner than you think", "coming out this month" followed by two weeks later "coming out later this year".
One mistake you often see companies make, is when something is delayed, let people know, but then they keep talking about the product when it's better to shut up and wait until their timeline is shored up before continuing to market it. Trying to keep the hype train rolling through bad news is a minefield.
One mistake you often see companies make, is when something is delayed, let people know, but then they keep talking about the product when it's better to shut up and wait until their timeline is shored up before continuing to market it. Trying to keep the hype train rolling through bad news is a minefield.
The other is saying there's a problem once or not saying anything at all and waiting until you have positive news.
Keeping the hype train going normally comes from a constantly shifting or unknown deadline that ends up extending the hype machine way beyond where it can be effective.
However similarly going dark/silent is even more damaging. You ;might be working darn hard every day but your fans see nothing and that leads them to speculate and go wild with theories and ideas and before you know if you've whipped up a storm of complaints and disgruntled people and so forth. Some will even question if the whole thing has been cancelled and that might mean they sign off your entire company not just switch to another product in the lineup (if you've got that of course).
So yeah saying the wrong things is bad but so too is saying nothing at all.
One mistake you often see companies make, is when something is delayed, let people know, but then they keep talking about the product when it's better to shut up and wait until their timeline is shored up before continuing to market it. Trying to keep the hype train rolling through bad news is a minefield.
The other is saying there's a problem once or not saying anything at all and waiting until you have positive news.
Keeping the hype train going normally comes from a constantly shifting or unknown deadline that ends up extending the hype machine way beyond where it can be effective.
However similarly going dark/silent is even more damaging. You ;might be working darn hard every day but your fans see nothing and that leads them to speculate and go wild with theories and ideas and before you know if you've whipped up a storm of complaints and disgruntled people and so forth. Some will even question if the whole thing has been cancelled and that might mean they sign off your entire company not just switch to another product in the lineup (if you've got that of course).
So yeah saying the wrong things is bad but so too is saying nothing at all.
I think if a company is clear about the delay then dialling back the marketing works fine.
Again to use Legions Imperialis as an example, when the August date fell through, they should have just said there's been a delay and they can't give more info on a new date just now. But instead they said something vague (I don't remember what it was now, was it "later this year" or something like that?) so people were on tenterhooks with each new announcement wondering if it's just about to launch until finally the last release window of the year when it finally dropped. They kept the hype going but at the cost of making a chunk of fans unhappy.
And then they couldn't keep it in stock anyway so realistically they probably should have pushed it to Jan, which would have been fine to do if they had originally just said "we can't give you an updated release date right now" instead of "later this year".
Games Workshop are in the enviable position of demand outstripping supply so far that it doesn't matter if they fumble all the time, even if they reduce the pool of people who want to buy it significantly, enough people still want to buy it that it sells out, lol.
The Green one wrote: Do we have anything more about the rumours about new minis for The Empire? Remember reading a rumour about new knights and militia.
That was the Hasting rumor about Empire coming with new Empire knights and a cannon but that rumor got debunked with the claim that TK they're getting a new chariot & "sand mummies" & O&G New boar chariot
Honestly with how thing are going along i simply just see them put out two resin heroes like they did with the Orc and Goblins since they're one of the faction that have the bulk of their army in plastic
We can pretty much rule out redone Dryads. They're still sold for AoS and angry sticks aren't even a neglected faction. If GW thinks they're serviceable for their main fantasy game, they're not going to make new ones for Old World. Best case is that AoS gets new ones down the line and the old models become Old World exclusives.
For now it's best to assume that if it's a plastic kit, there's zero chance for it to get remade for Old World. So far we got centerpiece characters and a new unit for Bretonnians that filled a gap in the army. There's a case to be made for Empire to get a similar treatment if GW wants to play up the three emperors thing, but the game is very low investment for now and the most pressing new releases alongside getting all the old stuff back into circulation are period accurate characters, most likely in resin.
Indeed, in the case an existing kit gets "locked" into AoS, we're more likely to see a return to old metals for the ToW version than a second plastic kit.
And it looks like ToW is dead on arrival in my area, I talked to the WHFB grognards yesterday and I'm more likely to try it than they are.
Olthannon wrote: I'm interested to see what they'll do with Wood Elves considering a lot of the range is part of AoS.
I'm wondering if we will see new Dryads and such.
High Elves are on my radar. I know there has been talk here about the feasibility of a MTO for Isle of Blood and that some of the model range survived for a while in Cities of Sigmar. My High Elf army from 8th is incomplete (basically a set of Isle of Blood + Dragon Princes + a box of spearmen), and I'd really like to flesh it out, especially with some Silver Helms, Phoenix Guard and a chariot.
(And Vampire Counts, of course. On the latter, with all the models still up on the website - even if most are "temporarily unavailable" - it's obviously pure spite that they've made this a legacy faction).
lord_blackfang wrote: Indeed, in the case an existing kit gets "locked" into AoS, we're more likely to see a return to old metals for the ToW version than a second plastic kit.
And it looks like ToW is dead on arrival in my area, I talked to the WHFB grognards yesterday and I'm more likely to try it than they are.
Interesting it's alive and well here in the Dallas, Tx area with fairly large numbers coming out for open gaming events.
If it's feet were carrying a bomb i'd be tempted to say empire pigeon bombs. But the bird isn't really a pigeon so that probably isn't it. Probably something goofier like halflings or Blood Bowl.
Don't know if this is news, but the Warcom article for Total War state that:
* Fans of Warhammer: The Old World should note that there aren’t any current plans to bring Kislev or Grand Cathay to the tabletop for the foreseeable future.
* Fans of Warhammer: The Old World should note that there aren’t any current plans to bring Kislev or Grand Cathay to the tabletop for the foreseeable future.
Previously, as many of you will know I was very much on board with "Kislev are obviously coming soon, just because they haven't been mentioned since the early announcements doesn't mean they were canceled", etc. Likewise, during one of the previous articles they mentioned Kislev wouldn't be released in the forseeable future and I basically eye-rolled because the mooks at warcom have demonstrated time and again to not really know anything beyond what was on the immediate horizon.
BUT.
The above statement is a bit different - saying there aren't any "current plans" to do so is a bit of a more clear-throated statement (as is the the fact that they felt the need to state it for a second time) that theres no intention to move forward with them. Thats not just a "we haven't seen or heard anything about these guys being released". Instead, thats legitimately "there are no intentions of releasing these guys in the near future". The use of the term "current", also implies that there was a plan at some point to release them, and that plan was changed.
So, here is me saying that I am changing my stance and siding with those of you who were spitting outrage about what seemed like some imagined change in scope or intention or plan, etc. It seems you were right, and I was wrong.
Orc and Goblin Tribes
Empire
Wood Elves
High Elves
Dwarfen Mountain Holds
Warriors of Chaos
That's the list of full armies in the Big Rule book with big model photo splashes of full armies which are likely GW's primary focus. That's 6 full army releases; each one of which could be one to two waves and that's excluding any "made to order" waves (of which each might get at least one). Not to mention any fill-in models and releases that they've not yet shown off.
So "foreseeable future" considering GW thinks in 3Month brackets for marketing and yeah it makes sense. We've 1-2 years of releases just to get the old armies out of the door and on the tables again. Yes each one is going to be fairly chunky release, but even so its going to take time to get them out. Cathay and Kislev are clearly coming after.
I've mused a few times that they might even be the spearhead of 2nd Edition Old World.
Not everybody thinks like executive boards do, it's an unfair advantage for those who can, but that's life. They were never, ever, planning to spend a huge amount of money to develop Kislev and Cathay model ranges to drop on this side game at release. The fact that it has been five years since their disconnected marketing team even mentioned it, and of course no word from any higher up that this was real, was really all the clue you needed. It's like mom said "maybe" to your request five years ago and hasn't brought it up since, that's a pretty clear hint. Let's see how the old army releases go over the next two years, I bet they'll do well, and then we'll see them expand the range.
Kislev and Cathay both had several articles talking about them early in the marketing. Furthermore they BOTH appear as distinct mentions in the Big Rule Book.
Almost any new big game launch would have required the creation of at least 1 if not 2 armies (and lets face it unless its Space Marines you really can't get away with anything else in GW's roster with just 1 faction mirror-matching in civil war).
What I think is clear is that the focus went from developing entirely new armies to re-issuing old ones and that reason for that could be budget; could be projected sales; it could even be from user feedback (lots of people asking for XYZ favourite models to come back into print). It might also be that after Covid and so forth, the budget for this got wiped out by other things and increased running costs mean that it has to justify itself. So it might be that they've got all the ground work done; but they need a lot of old stuf to sell well to show that its worth the investment.
Another reason I've thought is that if GW knew they couldn't do LOTS of armies very fast with new models; so went back to using older models; they might well have pushed Kislev and Cathay to be at the end (or start of 2nd edition) so that all the old stuff goes out the door first. Otherwise you get a block of two armies with awesome new modern sculpts followed by over a half dozen with old style models. Which would likely really mute the impact of the game. Done the other way around there's disgruntlement that 2 armies that are new aren't hter;e but clearly outweighed by the joy and sales of the 2 returned armies.
* Fans of Warhammer: The Old World should note that there aren’t any current plans to bring Kislev or Grand Cathay to the tabletop for the foreseeable future.
Previously, as many of you will know I was very much on board with "Kislev are obviously coming soon, just because they haven't been mentioned since the early announcements doesn't mean they were canceled", etc. Likewise, during one of the previous articles they mentioned Kislev wouldn't be released in the forseeable future and I basically eye-rolled because the mooks at warcom have demonstrated time and again to not really know anything beyond what was on the immediate horizon.
BUT.
The above statement is a bit different - saying there aren't any "current plans" to do so is a bit of a more clear-throated statement (as is the the fact that they felt the need to state it for a second time) that theres no intention to move forward with them. Thats not just a "we haven't seen or heard anything about these guys being released". Instead, thats legitimately "there are no intentions of releasing these guys in the near future". The use of the term "current", also implies that there was a plan at some point to release them, and that plan was changed.
So, here is me saying that I am changing my stance and siding with those of you who were spitting outrage about what seemed like some imagined change in scope or intention or plan, etc. It seems you were right, and I was wrong.
You know what- respect for this.
The amount of mental contortions it takes to STILL think GW was going to release these guys is astonishing.
Domandi wrote: Don't know if this is news, but the Warcom article for Total War state that:
* Fans of Warhammer: The Old World should note that there aren’t any current plans to bring Kislev or Grand Cathay to the tabletop for the foreseeable future.
I’m glad they said it instead of continuing a lie of omission.
Hopefully this will give some of the more tenacious GW defenders some food for thought.
* Fans of Warhammer: The Old World should note that there aren’t any current plans to bring Kislev or Grand Cathay to the tabletop for the foreseeable future.
Previously, as many of you will know I was very much on board with "Kislev are obviously coming soon, just because they haven't been mentioned since the early announcements doesn't mean they were canceled", etc. Likewise, during one of the previous articles they mentioned Kislev wouldn't be released in the forseeable future and I basically eye-rolled because the mooks at warcom have demonstrated time and again to not really know anything beyond what was on the immediate horizon.
BUT.
The above statement is a bit different - saying there aren't any "current plans" to do so is a bit of a more clear-throated statement (as is the the fact that they felt the need to state it for a second time) that theres no intention to move forward with them. Thats not just a "we haven't seen or heard anything about these guys being released". Instead, thats legitimately "there are no intentions of releasing these guys in the near future". The use of the term "current", also implies that there was a plan at some point to release them, and that plan was changed.
So, here is me saying that I am changing my stance and siding with those of you who were spitting outrage about what seemed like some imagined change in scope or intention or plan, etc. It seems you were right, and I was wrong.
Thank you for posting this. I appreciate this could be a difficult admission, and I’m pleasantly surprised by your candor.
"It’s taken more than three decades, but light is finally being shed on the mysterious eastern realm of Cathay. Though this nation’s first full appearance in the world of Warhammer can be seen in the just-released Total War: Warhammer III, Cathay will also be coming to the tabletop in the upcoming Warhammer: The Old World. And now, there’s a map."
chaos0xomega wrote: So, here is me saying that I am changing my stance and siding with those of you who were spitting outrage about what seemed like some imagined change in scope or intention or plan, etc. It seems you were right, and I was wrong.
That's alright, I was an early Epic scale theorist.
Currently it looks to me like ToW had at least 3 development phases
1) Fake news phase, literally just posting gak for the sake of making noise and drawing attention from competitors
2) Big development phase, it's obvious a lot of hard work went into the book and all faction lists, including "legacy"
3) Cutbacks, someone high up decides that Epic is getting 30 sprues and ToW is getting 2, and to squat half the factions after they've already been written
It might be a reach, but I wouldn't be shocked if years ago they thought they'd be doing a Kislev/Cathay Starter set for TOW, and at some point this idea either died a death, or proved too much work.
If I was cynical, its perhaps that Warhammer 3 has been by far the least successful Warhammer Total War game - and GW may have thought (not unreasonably) people just wouldn't be overly interested in those two factions, versus hitting the nostalgia with Brets/TKs.
I didn't think it would be soon (<5 years) or even necessarily plastic, but I had believed that there surely would be some relevant pay-off to those early articles
It's amazing looking back with the veil now lifted, the original Old World announcement pre-dates the whole Cursed City debacle, and still I persisted in thinking GW's word might be worth something
I am glad they at the very least admitted the factions were cancelled rather than just leaving up the old "they're coming!" articles and letting people wait.
They needed to be more obvious about it but... still.
Have to say, cutting out two major new factions- reducing TOW to, apparently, just resurrecting WHFB with half the factions excised, and a handful of new kits for the remainder- does suggest a substantially reduced commitment to the product.
I would *swear* that in the last two months a different warcom article had a footnote about not expecting Cathay and Kislev any time soon/for a long time. To the point I'm perplexed that everyone is freaking over this latest news article. Perhaps a case of dejavu or a misremembered sentence about other factions?
It's a shame that after all that work put into the rules, and probably the warmest reception online to a GW product in living memory - I've never seen so many single-focus hobby channels drop what they were doing to cover a new game exclusively - this looks like it will be treated as the unwanted stepchild. Tho I suppose that's exactly what it is for the management, a game they were "forced" to make by the market.
It would be one thing if they showed off the digital renders or actual models, but y’all are delusional if you thought Kislev and Cathay would be the launch armies for TOW. In four years they didn’t show anything more than concept art for Kislev, and Cathay only got formally announced about 2 years ago. Not a single digital render or model for either.
And as someone else said, if they did start strong with all new models people wouldn’t be willing to buy the old models that are showing their age. You’d also still be complaining that they’re being too slow with releases and that your faction of choice isn’t available to buy right now.
RustyNumber wrote: I would *swear* that in the last two months a different warcom article had a footnote about not expecting Cathay and Kislev any time soon/for a long time. To the point I'm perplexed that everyone is freaking over this latest news article. Perhaps a case of dejavu or a misremembered sentence about other factions?
Yes, there was a one off note about how kislev would not be releasedvin the foreseeable future, but in warcom terms that pretty much just means "within the next month".
They doubled down by including such a statement a second time, which means it wasn't just a one-off throwaway line by a clueless copy writer but instead a directed PR effort to message expectations to customers.
The new statement is also more extreme, it's not just that they won't be released on the short term - it's that there aren't any plans to do so, which means kislev and Cathay are at best 3-5 years away at an absolute minimum because of how long the product development cycle and manufacturing lead times are. The absence of plans means they basically arent in development at all at this point, and basically the only reason gw would share a statement like that is if they expect that won't be changing anytime soon.
So yeah, we are "freaking out" because this is actually very different from what anyone was previously led to expect.
zend wrote: It would be one thing if they showed off the digital renders or actual models, but y’all are delusional if you thought Kislev and Cathay would be the launch armies for TOW. In four years they didn’t show anything more than concept art for Kislev, and Cathay only got formally announced about 2 years ago. Not a single digital render or model for either.
And as someone else said, if they did start strong with all new models people wouldn’t be willing to buy the old models that are showing their age. You’d also still be complaining that they’re being too slow with releases and that your faction of choice isn’t available to buy right now.
Nobody thought they would be launch armies, you are wholly misconstruing the discussion if that's the position you're coming from. Kislev was actually the second army announced for the game (after Empire, which wasnt even really announced, just assumed based on the inclusion of 4 empire symbols on a map) and the first that was "confirmed" to be receiving new models. Cathay wasn't far behind.
The absence of renders or photos of actual models is meaningless. I don't need to see those things to know that they are working on an Emperors Children army for 40k, or that there will be plastic mechanicum or mk2/4/5 kits for Horus Heresy, or plastic chaos dwarves or new skaven miniatures for Age of sigmar. These are all obvious questions of when, not if. Announcing Kislev and Cathay however many years ago put them in the same category. The new statement however moves them out of "when, not if" and into "if, not when". They aren't just denying that these factions are going to be released soon, they are denying that there's any plans to release them at all, and that's a pretty stark change from the previous messaging that they were being worked on for eventual release into the game.
Tyel wrote: It might be a reach, but I wouldn't be shocked if years ago they thought they'd be doing a Kislev/Cathay Starter set for TOW, and at some point this idea either died a death, or proved too much work.
If I was cynical, its perhaps that Warhammer 3 has been by far the least successful Warhammer Total War game - and GW may have thought (not unreasonably) people just wouldn't be overly interested in those two factions, versus hitting the nostalgia with Brets/TKs.
I never assumed they'd have been launch factions anyway but the reception to TW:W3 may have contributed to whatever decision this is, though I'm not sure I'd agree. Personally I don't think Kislev and Cathay are responsible for the response to TW3; there seemed to be plenty of interest in them prior to release and genuine excitement over exploring some completely 'new' forces and corners of the setting. It seemed poorly received, primarily because the main campaign structure was just a bit crap (plus some technical issues). Siege battles had undergone some unpopular changes and it was generally just jarring going from the incredibly expansive end-state of TW2 to the limited offering of TW3. TW2 likewise launched with a narrative campaign nobody really wanted to play, passed on to a different development team to implement updates (Mortal Empires) and create the DLC and grew into the broadly enjoyed, successful behemoth it did. TW3 probably should have been on a similar trajectory, despite CA not learning from their feedback and doubling down into an even more limited, banal, narrative campaign at launch but corporate decisions, poor fixes and limited DLC have just tanked the reputation of the game.
Which is a long-winded way of saying that, if GW's decision here is based on a perceived lack of interest in Kislev/Cathay as factions due to TW3's issues, then it's probably the wrong conclusion on their part. I'd have to imagine that there's a lot more to it, whether that be internal company politics (or even 'real world' politics and concern over optics), production concerns or any combination of factors (not to mention the potential for sheer stupidity or poor judgement). It does feel like TOW is going to have to fight with one hand behind its back for quite a while to be considered a 'success' but the sheer volume of interest in the product launch should (...should...) at least give the management a kick up the proverbial to see the potential they have.
The absence of renders or photos of actual models is meaningless. I don't need to see those things to know that they are working on an Emperors Children army for 40k, or that there will be plastic mechanicum or mk2/4/5 kits for Horus Heresy, or plastic chaos dwarves or new skaven miniatures for Age of sigmar. These are all obvious questions of when, not if. Announcing Kislev and Cathay however many years ago put them in the same category. The new statement however moves them out of "when, not if" and into "if, not when". They aren't just denying that these factions are going to be released soon, they are denying that there's any plans to release them at all, and that's a pretty stark change from the previous messaging that they were being worked on for eventual release into the game.
You’ve got that backwards. Saying they’re in The Old World is meaningless UNTIL THEY SHOW THE MODELS IN SOME FORM. Yeah, new Emperor’s Children models are coming at some point, but UNTIL THEY SHOW THE MODELS the release could be anywhere from next year to 5 years from now. In fact, getting 30k Daemonic Fulgrim is a pretty clear indicator that the 40KEC release is not coming soon.
Let’s compare to something from AOS. Cities of Sigmar update was announced in May 2022 and had digital renders of the some sculpts shown at announcement. They officially came out last year. What’s the obvious differences here? Ding ding ding, they were shown because they intended to release them relatively soon. Just like we actually know that Orcs and Goblins are the next intended release, because they’ve already shown their core box, what models are returning, and their Arcane Journal.
Armies can exist within the setting without getting released right away. Yes, Kislev and Cathay are in the setting. No, they won’t be released any time soon, and you’re a fool for thinking otherwise without having seen the models in some form.
I think the writing was on the wall for a late Cathay/Kislev when GW announced they were going to relaunch multiple old model ranges at once. Yes some, like High Elves, are pretty new ranges; but some (Eg brets) have a lot of old stuff that even reworked is not going to stand up to fully modern sculpts.
So yeah any "new" fully new armies are going to be at least around 2 years away as GW covers all the old armies in one big go. We still have only two armies out there and I believe Orks are next, so there's still more than half to go just to cover the old stuff.
Old first then the new - the other way around would likely have seen the old armies get insanely bad sales because they'd be overshadowed.
Of course GW can sometimes take a VERY long time. We only just got a couple of the Tyranid special character models and that was after over a decade since they appeared in the codex. There's still several missing too!
Wouldn't be the first time the higher ups fethed up.. wraithknight 7th ed anyone?
Or how the GW mainteam handled FW armies and units from 8th onwards (e.g. not at all).
I'm not saying there isn't conflict in GW - but this idea of "look, they were going to include all the factions because of the rules" is mega suspect to me and kind of undermines the whole rumour.
Mini release schedules are far more lengthy than rules writing.
This is where I think we can get arguments over GW's schedule. As said - Emperor's Children are almost certainly coming. We can therefore guess GW have earmarked them for either near the end of 10th or 11th. They have to fit in a schedule for all their other releases, which they have probably roughly mapped out to 3-5 years.
If however you believe that for rules, you have to imagine that 10th 40k was being drafted before 9th edition had been released. Or that End Times was being written up before 8th fantasy was released. Its not likely - and indeed we can see how rules evolve on much shorter time scales. (And how GW tie themselves up, because books are "completed" but can't take account of any changes GW subsequently makes in the next 6-9 months or so.) Pure digital rules can be on an ever shorter window between being complete and then issued.
I mean hands up - I didn't and don't find Kislev or Cathay especially interesting. I'd much rather have them bring back Skaven, Dark Elves, Lizardmen etc. I can imagine that they had some champion internally - and if that guy got sidelined, or left, just gave up the fight, other people may have gone "nah, ditch this, see how the initial wave of old factions goes, where we can bank on some nostalgia."
I think it's less a case of a champion in the studio and more a case of "We're designing these two factions already, may as well design them in a way that we have the option to release them as armies".
Platuan4th wrote: I think it's less a case of a champion in the studio and more a case of "We're designing these two factions already, may as well design them in a way that we have the option to release them as armies".
GW have shown time and again that they will give the minimum effort required, or less. Anything good is surely a result of individual developers' enthusiasm rather than any management decisions.
We've got 2 launch factions & then 7 other supported factions.
Presuming those come one per quarter (an optimistic thing to assume) then we're looking at launch + 2 years just to get the factions we know are supported back in production, a handful of characters each and maybe the odd new unit or two.
They are 100% not going to be talking about whatever it is they intend to do after that period now.
Jan 2026 releases have not become more or less likely to be Kislev or Cathay based upon what's in that total war article.
Vorian wrote: We've got 2 launch factions & then 7 other supported factions.
Presuming those come one per quarter (an optimistic thing to assume) then we're looking at launch + 2 years just to get the factions we know are supported back in production, a handful of characters each and maybe the odd new unit or two.
They are 100% not going to be talking about whatever it is they intend to do after that period now.
Jan 2026 releases have not become more or less likely to be Kislev or Cathay based upon what's in that total war article.
Jan 2026 might not have any releases depending how the prior 2 years go.
I'm never going to believe in any power struggle between something named "The Main Studio" and this pygmy thing in Jersey. Also, the Heresy is very big and successful and GW have a clear policy of hamstringing it via the use of resin. They want clear water between their main lines and the pseudohistorical side games.
Also nice to see a bunch of shelf stackers over on reddit think they know GW's business better than them.
Overread wrote: So far they've sold out on Brets and TK - so if nothing else sales are beating what GW can supply.
Without knowing the scale of the production volumes that doesn't mean a lot to be honest. There's plenty of comments of people in here disillusioned with old world or not having anyone else in their group to play with having bought a box. Those are signs a game isn't going to maintain a player base or profitability.
JSG wrote: I'm never going to believe in any power struggle between something named "The Main Studio" and this pygmy thing in Jersey. Also, the Heresy is very big and successful and GW have a clear policy of hamstringing it via the use of resin. They want clear water between their main lines and the pseudohistorical side games.
Also nice to see a bunch of shelf stackers over on reddit think they know GW's business better than them.
At this point multiple verified ex-GW employees have spoken publicly about the internecine conflict that has and does occur between different teams/departments (via Goonhammer, youtube channels).
If you "don't believe it" it's just because you're stubborn, misinformed, or stubbornly choosing to remain misinformed.
Overread wrote: So far they've sold out on Brets and TK - so if nothing else sales are beating what GW can supply.
Without knowing the scale of the production volumes that doesn't mean a lot to be honest. There's plenty of comments of people in here disillusioned with old world or not having anyone else in their group to play with having bought a box. Those are signs a game isn't going to maintain a player base or profitability.
Thing is if the customers are buying 100% of what GW is producing at launch and are keeping demand high as a whole, then that means it has to be meeting projections. It can't actually go any higher because GW isn't able to deliver any more than what's being asked for. Granted we don't know the totals to know if GW were under-producing in the extreme to start with; but in general if your product sells out then its at the very least hitting target goals that were setup.
Now in the fullness of time are those goals enough to keep the game around or keep investment high - that's a big question we likely won't know the answer to for a few years and GW likely doesn't know either. Esp with AoS also sitting in a similar spot in the market and fighting for identically themed armies on some fronts.
Is the demand keeping though? Most of the product line is back in stock and sitting. Only the standard bearer for TK is missing for them and the big boxes are missing. Assumedly because of the books.
Seems like after the initial fomo panic buying, it's levelled itself back out.
depends on the region I guess
see lot of people on reddit from the US complaining that they want to buy buy but cannot
the same time the local store has still stuff around and others complain that their orders from release have still not arrived
overall it looks much more like a distribution problem than a production problem for me
(also wenn books are back in stock for GW online shortly after they were sold out, looks like this as it is unlikely that a 2nd printrun would have been that fast)
Inquisitor Gideon wrote: Is the demand keeping though? Most of the product line is back in stock and sitting. Only the standard bearer for TK is missing for them and the big boxes are missing. Assumedly because of the books.
Seems like after the initial fomo panic buying, it's levelled itself back out.
I can only say that all LFGS in my country are sold out and keeps selling out any restock in just a few days.
Inquisitor Gideon wrote: Is the demand keeping though? Most of the product line is back in stock and sitting. Only the standard bearer for TK is missing for them and the big boxes are missing. Assumedly because of the books.
Seems like after the initial fomo panic buying, it's levelled itself back out.
No, I don't think so. When I log in on the GW online shop (Europe), everything new except the plastic BSB it still out of stock.For the old stuff grail knights and Grail relique are still out of stock.
I am still waiting to buy the new resin Bretonnians.
With all the negativity i see around this thread, i just want to say that i think that the core of the rules for the Old World is the most fun I've had with warhammer since 7th (been playing since 4th). How they've brought it back or what's going on within GW internally isn't going to change that. Loved the Brets and can't wait for O&G (even if I've got everything that is being released for them besides the new models and a few old stone trolls).
It is weird how they are actively trying to keep AOS models and Old World models seperate. That really doesn't stop me from using the new plastic stone trolls...in fact I've been using them for years already....
JSG wrote: I'm never going to believe in any power struggle between something named "The Main Studio" and this pygmy thing in Jersey. Also, the Heresy is very big and successful and GW have a clear policy of hamstringing it via the use of resin. They want clear water between their main lines and the pseudohistorical side games.
Also nice to see a bunch of shelf stackers over on reddit think they know GW's business better than them.
At this point multiple verified ex-GW employees have spoken publicly about the internecine conflict that has and does occur between different teams/departments (via Goonhammer, youtube channels).
If you "don't believe it" it's just because you're stubborn, misinformed, or stubbornly choosing to remain misinformed.
Theres a difference between actual corporate politics and what someone who has never encountered corporate politics imagines them to be - the rumors sound like the latter much more than the former. The head of the "main studio" doesn't have the ability to just go and take over someone elses project because they suddenly realized that the game was going to be "very big and very successful". The "higher ups" who actually would have the ability to do that are, per other insiders, generally people who don't play the game at all, came up through the ranks of the business units, and generally won't give a flying feth about whether the game contains ratmen or not so long as it maximizes revenue at minimal cost. Those same higher ups are also the people who funded development in the game in the first place, likely after some pretty exhaustive planning and analysis of what this would all look like and how it would work. They knew exactly how "big" the game would be and how successful it would be before they ever gave anyone a single red cent to work on it - they would not have invested anything into it if they did not think it would make them money in the first place.
Now, this supposed head of the "main studio" who felt threatened by the game? Sure I buy that. But that persons options are limited, they don't get to walk in and reorganize the project or change its direction to suit their desires. Corporate politics is not generally that exciting or direct. Instead they scheduled internal meetings with various department heads, some of those aforementioned "higher ups" and had meetings discussing things like overlapping product lines, scheduling conflicts, brand confusion, resource allocations, production queues, and plenty of other relatively mundane concerns of corporate business operations. If that head of the main studio got their way, its because they made stronger arguments about business case than the guys running TOW did and convinced senior leadership to their POV, they didn't go in and say "ratmen mine, hands off".
But thats all irrelevant anyway, because all signs point to the idea that all of this was settled before GW ever even announced the games existence to us. Naming the game "The Old World" was not a coincidence. Showing us a map that showed *only* the continent of the same name and its immediate surroundings a couple months after telling us the name was also not a coincidence. That the map was set in a different period of the settings history was also *not a coincidence*. These were all pretty purposeful decisions that telegraphed that factions would be cut from the finished product very early on. And hell - the designers told us directly that they knew from the start that they would not be including VC or Skaven. They very directly stated in the designers round table interview that they knew that they would not be including those two factions (at a minimum) even before they knew that they were going to set the game in the Age of Three Emperors, and that when they did decide to set the game during that era it worked well for them because it narratively justified the removal of those two factions from the game, rather than the other way around. All that was decided basically 4+ years ago, so - we have pretty compelling and convincing proof that any claim that all these cut factions were originally intended to be in the game is absolute horsegak. Writing army rules would have been one of the last steps in the development process, after the core rules were relatively close to finalized. Most if not all of those army lists were probably written within the last year, they certainly have not been sitting on these army lists for four years now waiting to release them while seemingly doing basically nothing else at all. It seems pretty clear that at least some of the legacy army lists were written from the start with the expectation that they would not be part of the ongoing support for the game.
Plain and simple, these rumors are wishful thinking, cope, and sour grapes. Off the bat they sound a lot more like "I read all these convincing sounding theories on social media and synthesized them together to create a rumor for clicks" than it does "I have it on good authority that this is how it happened". Someone has too much of their identity wrapped up in WHFB, likely in opposition to AoS, and expected to see TOW come in and toss AoS to the curb. When that didn't happen and it became clear that TOW would not be the big ticket mainline game that they wanted it to be, they created fanciful delusions to justify and explain how their fave was kneecapped by unspecific bad guys within the company (who are obviously implied to have some relation to Age of Sigmar, otherwise theres no need to fear the potential success of TOW) out to prevent it from getting too big. And thats kind of all there is to it. The basic facts, as I indicated above, don't line up with some of the things we actually do know about the timeline of how things may have transpired. Some of the silliness of the release can be nailed down to basic incompetence more easily than malice, and while I dont doubt that there were some petty internal squabbles, I think most of those were probably settled long ago and early on.
I feel its far too soon for any discussion about whether TOW is a success or failure.
I know numerous people who may buy into it. But they aren't interested in TK or Brets. So unless they go scour ebay, they can't play. There's other people who would out armies - but again, the models aren't available.
I think the sentiment has been reasonably positive. But unless you are sitting on a substantial army that's ready to go (who cares about base sizes?) what are you going to do? I mean I have a mainly Goblin army that I can just push into place (not a fan on the night goblin limitations but eh...). But I bought most of that 15~ years ago? I know Grognards are strangely immortal - but for most people that's a lifetime ago.
I appreciate how upset some people are over the lack of Kislev and Cathay minis. As someone who waited 20 years for new Bretonnians, I feel the pain.
I feel there's an obvious route TOW could have taken, especially with Bretonnia as one of the first available factions. Even 20 years ago I thought GW was missing an obvious idea for Bretonnians, and with the army's popularity in the Total War games it seems even more obvious:
Bretonnians could so easily have been the Fantasy version of Space Marines.
Split the different Dukedoms into separate armies, each with their own characters, special rules, fluff, heraldry, different shoulder pads, shields, helmets, weapons, etc. etc.
I heard a couple weeks back that GW was telling retailers that they would not be getting restocked on the first wave of releases for some time, as GW is trying to backfill demand via their website first before they begin providing additional stock to retailers.
I dont fething know anymore. This entire release is a mess to me.
The release has been a big mess, I agree. I do think that they underestimated the demand. Perhaps that is also why they still haven't released the other stuff for Tomb Kings and Bretonnia, even though they've already spoiled O&G. Maybe they'll want to get their stock up on the rest of the TK and Bret models before they release them to avoid the debacle of the first wave?
I don't think they really estimated demand at all. I think they set an arbitrary production target based on anticipated release date vs available production throughput (you can only produce so many sets per hour/day, etc.) and said let's go. The delays to the LI release may have impacted their ability to initiate production on TOW and correspondingly cut the size of the first wave launch as a result.
As for the other stuff, with the exception of Bretonnian foot knights, the main reason that they aren't releasing the second wave kits is probably because all of those kits are needed for the TK and Bretonnia big boxes - they probably will not release standalone boxes of men at arms or skeletons until they fulfill all the wave 1 demand, etc because they are using all their production yields off of those molds to make army boxes.
could be worse, could be the "limited edition" of the hobbit game, which they never did shift all of, and to think it was meant to be a limited edition, then a normal edition less one character and then a box for the next two films
catbarf wrote: Have to say, cutting out two major new factions- reducing TOW to, apparently, just resurrecting WHFB with half the factions excised, and a handful of new kits for the remainder- does suggest a substantially reduced commitment to the product.
That they are re-releasing 20+ year old dumpy kits, even some in metal(!) suggests it's very much a bare minimum effort sort of deal. That people are tripping over themselves to buy those dumpy, metal decades-old models suggests that GW is quite happy with the situation and "bare minimum" is the best TOW is going to get. Sabotaged by nostalgia.
Maybe it is nostalgia, but for the most part I prefer the 20+ year old minis over the modern ones. Many of the new minis look exactly like what they are: computer generated. They're technically perfect, but they have no life. And most of them are covered with far too much unnecessary foofery.
For all their wonkiness, many old minis did have real life to them. You could see the sculptor's work--and their mistakes were part of the fun.
I also think people are underestimating how much time, effort and money it takes to remaster old minis and moulds. Some of the remasters probably took just as long and cost nearly as much as a new CG sculpt.
catbarf wrote: Have to say, cutting out two major new factions- reducing TOW to, apparently, just resurrecting WHFB with half the factions excised, and a handful of new kits for the remainder- does suggest a substantially reduced commitment to the product.
That they are re-releasing 20+ year old dumpy kits, even some in metal(!) suggests it's very much a bare minimum effort sort of deal. That people are tripping over themselves to buy those dumpy, metal decades-old models suggests that GW is quite happy with the situation and "bare minimum" is the best TOW is going to get. Sabotaged by nostalgia.
I mean, GWs metal miniatures are far superior to their resin miniatures so there's that. It could be worse if they released good old metals as failcast instead
Return_to_Bretonnia wrote: Maybe it is nostalgia, but for the most part I prefer the 20+ year old minis over the modern ones. Many of the new minis look exactly like what they are: computer generated. They're technically perfect, but they have no life. And most of them are covered with far too much unnecessary foofery.
For all their wonkiness, many old minis did have real life to them. You could see the sculptor's work--and their mistakes were part of the fun.
I also think people are underestimating how much time, effort and money it takes to remaster old minis and moulds. Some of the remasters probably took just as long and cost nearly as much as a new CG sculpt.
Agree. Much easier to paint. Footsore Miniatures has a lot of hand sculpted stuff that is really good, doesn't always fit w/ GW but it scratches the itch.
chaos0xomega wrote:I heard a couple weeks back that GW was telling retailers that they would not be getting restocked on the first wave of releases for some time, as GW is trying to backfill demand via their website first before they begin providing additional stock to retailers.
I dont fething know anymore. This entire release is a mess to me.
Depending on whom you are talking to, some say that this is for general and not just TOW with GW allocating less stock to retailers or made clear that they won't receive stock for release but maybe later
chaos0xomega wrote:
As for the other stuff, with the exception of Bretonnian foot knights, the main reason that they aren't releasing the second wave kits is probably because all of those kits are needed for the TK and Bretonnia big boxes - they probably will not release standalone boxes of men at arms or skeletons until they fulfill all the wave 1 demand, etc because they are using all their production yields off of those molds to make army boxes.
by now I am not sure if GW ever planned on releasing those outside the box
Specially as the O&G also have models only announced in a combined box
chaos0xomega wrote: I don't think they really estimated demand at all. I think they set an arbitrary production target based on anticipated release date vs available production throughput (you can only produce so many sets per hour/day, etc.) and said let's go. The delays to the LI release may have impacted their ability to initiate production on TOW and correspondingly cut the size of the first wave launch as a result.
As for the other stuff, with the exception of Bretonnian foot knights, the main reason that they aren't releasing the second wave kits is probably because all of those kits are needed for the TK and Bretonnia big boxes - they probably will not release standalone boxes of men at arms or skeletons until they fulfill all the wave 1 demand, etc because they are using all their production yields off of those molds to make army boxes.
I don't care about the foot knights. However, Elise Duchaard is the model I've been most anxious about getting from this whole release.
I really hope it releases soon and that I'll be able to get it like a normal person instead of a keyboard monkey bashing refresh while showering the gods with praise in the hope of getting one into my basket.
Honestly feel like by the time GW gets their release schedule sorted, people will have either:
-Moved on to another game
-Bought their army secondhand
-Bought their army third party
-3d printed it themselves
Issues is, even buying secondhand official GW minis is incredibly cost prohibitive right now. The eBay prices from scalpers and hoarders have influenced the Facebook groups and even here.
Glad I mostly bought my stuff before the real madness kicked in, as it was relatively cheap to buy a lot of the old Dark Elf metals and 6th edition kits I wanted... but finishing up my army with a few odds and ends has cost more than the entire rest of the army was.
They really needed a third faction from one of the more widely played armies available almost immediately after launch. The communities for Bretonnian and Tomb King players are die hards, but growing up I can count the amount of players for both of those armies I played Fantasy with on a single hand.
Most of the excitement for the game locally has died out immediately after launch since you couldn't get anything for it, couldn't get any bases to rebase any older armies you may have had for it, and the two armies available aren't what people locally wanted.
It seems clear that the products they released were successful in that GW sold through what they produced. Whether the game line overall thrives probably won’t be apparent for a year or two.
Most of the excitement for the game locally has died out immediately after launch since you couldn't get anything for it, couldn't get any bases to rebase any older armies you may have had for it, and the two armies available aren't what people locally wanted.
Just on the contrary here.
I bought Beastmen at the LFGS, and also bases. Right now I'm finishing basing and staring painting. We are going to start a league locally.
Most of the excitement for the game locally has died out immediately after launch since you couldn't get anything for it, couldn't get any bases to rebase any older armies you may have had for it, and the two armies available aren't what people locally wanted.
Just on the contrary here.
I bought Beastmen at the LFGS, and also bases. Right now I'm finishing basing and staring painting. We are going to start a league locally.
Was that stuff they already had in stock though, Beastmen have their full range of Fantasy stuff as an AoS army.
My store must have been late on trying to get bases then, the only thing they have been able to get for square bases was a single pack of 30x60mm cavalry bases I immediately picked up.
Most of the excitement for the game locally has died out immediately after launch since you couldn't get anything for it, couldn't get any bases to rebase any older armies you may have had for it, and the two armies available aren't what people locally wanted.
Just on the contrary here.
I bought Beastmen at the LFGS, and also bases. Right now I'm finishing basing and staring painting. We are going to start a league locally.
Was that stuff they already had in stock though, Beastmen have their full range of Fantasy stuff as an AoS army.
My store must have been late on trying to get bases then, the only thing they have been able to get for square bases was a single pack of 30x60mm cavalry bases I immediately picked up.
The vanguard box, they had to order to GW.
Also, another guy is building warriors of chaos. IMO that's the army with the best chances right now: lots and lots of kits and nice miniatures + Warcry to customize
I do regret picking Brettonia slightly because it is impossible to get a hold of anything and I've now seen a fair few good-looking WoC and VC (even though they're Legacy) armies using the newer kits with the increased base sizes.
I find it funny that the new models from the army boxes (and the other old regiments from those boxes as a matter of fact) are on pre-orders for next week while the army boxes themselves are still out of stock.
Sotahullu wrote: Preview video did show Bone Giant and Casket though.
The preview video shows several things that aren't mentioned at all by the article, but it also shows an entirely different set of art prints to the ones shown. Seems both might have got some few things wrong/missing?
Return_to_Bretonnia wrote: I still have my old Bret army from back in the day (thankfully didn't sell it) so I have the majority of 5th and 6th edition minis already.
But I hope I can get the foot knights and the metal lord before scalpers snap them up.
I know most people seem to hate the lord on foot, but I think he's wonderfully goofy in a classic old Warhammer way.
The Bretonnia/ Lizardmen box nearly persuaded me to go into Fantasy rather than just 40K. Nearly.
I am tempted by the metal squires though. I resisted first time round but as I scale back massively on 40K purchases, they may make an interesting side project of love.
alphaecho wrote: The Bretonnia/ Lizardmen box nearly persuaded me to go into Fantasy rather than just 40K. Nearly.
I am tempted by the metal squires though. I resisted first time round but as I scale back massively on 40K purchases, they may make an interesting side project of love.
The 5th edition squires by the Perry twins are some of my absolute favourites. Their 5th edition metal bowmen, men-at-arms and squires are better miniatures than the mounted knights and most of the characters, in my opinion.
I'd love to see a re-release of all 5th edition metal peasants, but with the 6th edition plastic bowmen and men-at-arms being re-released, I don't see it happening.
The squires lucked out: there are no 6th edition plastic equivalents.
In one of the latter articles GW noted that they had gone back to several finecast models and reworked them to now work with metals. Or regular forgeworld resin.
Basically GW do NOT want any Finecast anywhere - even more expensive metal is better than dealing with the mess of finecast.
Just out of curiosity, has anyone who ordered the new resin Questing Knight Paladin actually received it?
It was already sold out before I could order one, and it's the only new mini that doesn't seem to have come back into stock at all. There don't seem to be many of them in existence.
I'm still waiting for the UJshabti with bow and the Liche priest to be back in stock. Chances are this new wave will sold out quickly and then gonna need to wait forever for new stock.
I already have Apophas painted up, and he worked fine as finecast so no real need to get a metal one. The Necrotect might be good though, as I never wanted to deal with that whip in Finecast before!
A scorpion might interest me too, just want to see how they improved it and I just like the model (I already have too many). Carrion are also a win here, getting an extra sculpt that match the old is do cool!
And a Green Knight too, that's a classic right there. Definitely worth picking one up!
Yeah unfortunately it's going to be a "get in quick, buy all you can before it sells out" sort of thing unless you want to buy one or two models at a time over the next few months and potentially deal with the extra shipping fees for the 'Made in the UK' metals and resins
The 5th edition squires by the Perry twins are some of my absolute favourites. Their 5th edition metal bowmen, men-at-arms and squires are better miniatures than the mounted knights and most of the characters, in my opinion.
Agreed! My Bretonnians are mostly 5th, and they're just lovely. Only downside is, I didn't get a lot back in the day, so I've had to resort to 3rd party historicals to fill in the gaps.
I'd completely forgotten about the Squires and just came across them recently on a website cataloguing the Bretonnian range. Such a pleasant surprise to see them back in print after so many years.
How exactly do I order the Knights on Foot? Or any of the Brettonian stuff? I haven't ordered from GW in years and can't seem to figure out how to buy anything?
You can't yet, we live in the age of announcement announcements, where companies announce that they're going to announce something so you can prepare for the announcement. GW haven't put the foot knights up for preorder, they've announced that they're going on put them on pre-order. Next week, you'll be able to pre-order them.
Oh well, at least we finally have a release date for the foot knights and basic cavalry box. I feel like those 2 together will make some nice Questing Knight and Grail knight conversions
Would you rather have new stuff come to preorder unannounced without idea that something that interest you comes to preorder
I know I would hate that. Especially thanks to GW's production issues so that stuff gets sold out fast.
And besides seeing it would get spoilered anyway by retailers(retailers would need to know in advance anyway...) GW might just as well put in announcement themselves rather than pretend until preorders go live that no we don't tell what's preorders next week.
Especially with how terrible the new webstore is - I'd hate to have to figure out what's new that week just by browsing it the hour preorders go live. Add on to that how frequently some of the stuff goes out of stock in a few minutes... yeah no I'd much rather GW announce in advance what is going up for preorder that week.
Site does have preorders separately but yeah still would hate to have to be there on every single week exactly at noon(preorders start at noon) to check if THIS week comes something of interest for me. For most weeks there isn't. Last weekend for example was first one for me that had something I wanted to buy.
Much easier to just check at sunday article whenever I happen to have time. Doesn't matter do I read it when it comes up, 2 hours later, next day or 2 days later I still have all the time I need to secure my purchases.
As for prices about as expected. High but could been worse like foot knights 10 for 45e like many AOS/40k kits are. How much did skellies and horses cost roughly last time they were on?
I know these aren't 'ancient egyptian' style, but wtf are GW on with pricing ToW?
36 GW skeleton warriors for €62,50
vs
90 skeleton warriors and a necromancer for £59
I know I'll be told, "b... bu... but... GW... better". Maybe, sometimes, but those 36 skeletons are, what, 20 years old and were condemned on release as poor as well?
Gallahad wrote: How exactly do I order the Knights on Foot? Or any of the Brettonian stuff? I haven't ordered from GW in years and can't seem to figure out how to buy anything?
Step 1 is waiting for the day of the preorder. Step 2, open the site before ten am local time to get a spot in the queue. Step 3, once you can finally access the site again, how to Shop > New & Exclusive and scroll down past the irrelevant items to the actual preorders.
You can practice that last bit now but the Bretonnia stuff won’t be there until Saturday.
Gimgamgoo wrote: I know these aren't 'ancient egyptian' style, but wtf are GW on with pricing ToW?
36 GW skeleton warriors for €62,50
vs
90 skeleton warriors and a necromancer for £59
I know I'll be told, "b... bu... but... GW... better". Maybe, sometimes, but those 36 skeletons are, what, 20 years old and were condemned on release as poor as well?
Not GW better, but GW the absolute dominant market force. They'll charge what they can and they'll sell out in hours.
Gallahad wrote: How exactly do I order the Knights on Foot? Or any of the Brettonian stuff? I haven't ordered from GW in years and can't seem to figure out how to buy anything?
Step 1 is waiting for the day of the preorder. Step 2, open the site before ten am local time to get a spot in the queue. Step 3, once you can finally access the site again, how to Shop > New & Exclusive and scroll down past the irrelevant items to the actual preorders.
You can practice that last bit now but the Bretonnia stuff won’t be there until Saturday.
Mind you that 10AM is launch time in the UK, and whatever time zones happen to have it as well. In the US pre-orders go up at 12 or 1PM Eastern Time. Not quite sure since I haven't paid attention in a while. Best to have an American verify the exact time.
There just isn't rhyme or reason to these old world releases.
-The release on release day seemed quite small and very random (For example, why separate pegasus knights when they are in the starterbox in favor of some other models?)
- They said most other models would ' be available at launch, or shortly after'.
- We hear nothing for two months. (Not REALLY 'at release or shortly after' any more in my opinion, especially when you consider it's the start of a whole new game)
- The starter boxes haven't yet been restocked, but some apparently random chosen units from those boxes will be on pre-order next saturday, including the exclusive new models.
- Some of the pre-orders are in the video, but not in the article (Bretonnian duke on royal pegasus springs to mind). Others still, like the trebuchet, apparently are on flgs list but have not been seen in the article or in the video.
In my 28 years of playing GW games I have never been more confused by any other release by them ?
Some clear statements from GW would be greatly appreciated at this point. I'm very willing to buy stuff, but find this random weirdness coupled with the scarce stock extremely off-puting. It feels amateurish.
- We hear nothing for two months. (Not REALLY 'at release or shortly after' any more in my opinion, especially when you consider it's the start of a whole new game)
- The starter boxes haven't yet been restocked, but some apparently random chosen units from those boxes will be on pre-order next saturday, including the exclusive new models.
TOW came out 20.1. It's barely month. So hardly two months.
Also guess they should have postponed releasing these already produced while waiting for restock for starter boxes then? Yeah that's great idea.
Hopefully you aren't assuming GW can just snap fingers and million boxes appear out of thin air
And did you really expect GW to stop releasing stuff for OTHER GAMES to release more TOW models?
Really? Nothing for 40k/aos for now while focusing on TOW?
TOW is not their main cash maker. It gets slots between AOS/40k releases. It doesn't delay main games. So expecting TOW releases every week or even every other week would be "optimistic".
Wait, where did GW say this is another 2 week preorder window, or is that just an assumption based on the initial release? Preorders are typically 1 week only unless stated otherwise.
Matt.Kingsley wrote: Wait, where did GW say this is another 2 week preorder window, or is that just an assumption based on the initial release? Preorders are typically 1 week only unless stated otherwise.
GW preorders have all been on 2 week windows since like September or October.
And the releases I don't think are all that random. Tomb Kings didn't sell as well as Bretonnia did. It's not hard to find the Tomb Kings big boxes in stock, alongside other units. In terms of production lines, they probably don't need to produce as much and are not as backlogged, allowing them to get the TK kits out as individual releases sooner.
Bretonnia on the other hand - I would guess that they are still diverting significant amounts of production on the peasant archers and men at arms into restocking those big boxes, they are particularly time intensive as each box takes 15 sprues of men at arms/archers to fulfill, and the individual boxes for these won't be far behind (iirc 9 sprues for the men at arms, 8 for archers). Knights in the other hand only require 3 sprues per set of 12, so they probably already hit their production target for the big box restocks and were able to jump ahead to solo box releases.
- We hear nothing for two months. (Not REALLY 'at release or shortly after' any more in my opinion, especially when you consider it's the start of a whole new game)
- The starter boxes haven't yet been restocked, but some apparently random chosen units from those boxes will be on pre-order next saturday, including the exclusive new models.
TOW came out 20.1. It's barely month. So hardly two months.
Also guess they should have postponed releasing these already produced while waiting for restock for starter boxes then? Yeah that's great idea.
Hopefully you aren't assuming GW can just snap fingers and million boxes appear out of thin air
And did you really expect GW to stop releasing stuff for OTHER GAMES to release more TOW models?
Really? Nothing for 40k/aos for now while focusing on TOW?
TOW is not their main cash maker. It gets slots between AOS/40k releases. It doesn't delay main games. So expecting TOW releases every week or even every other week would be "optimistic".
Relax man.....that was just my personal opinion. You make it feel like i was deeply grieving you on a personal level, which was never my intent.
When this second wave releases it will be about two months since the release of the game.
Sure, it's fine for them to release the units in the starters separately, but to people who are still waiting for their starterboxes to arrive that must not feel good, especially with the total lack of communitcations on that point from GW.
Sure, they can't make product appear out of thin air, but up until a few years ago, GW almost always met their demand with enough supply, which has for the most part not been the case these last 2 or 3 years. Once again, they're also not very reassuring or transparant to the costumers who missed out during the frantic few minutes of preodering about an estimation when the models will return to stock.
Of course I don't expect them to stop releasing other games! I really enjoyed the models for FEC en DA....but one very small release for two out of nine armies for a brand new game, from which most models were sold out in a matter of minutes, strikes me as not a great way to launch a game.
Once again, and i can't stress this enough: these are my personal thoughts on the matter, i don't hate GW and a don't expect anything from them, but i do find this a very weird and convoluted way to release a new game.
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chaos0xomega wrote: GW preorders have all been on 2 week windows since like September or October.
And the releases I don't think are all that random. Tomb Kings didn't sell as well as Bretonnia did. It's not hard to find the Tomb Kings big boxes in stock, alongside other units. In terms of production lines, they probably don't need to produce as much and are not as backlogged, allowing them to get the TK kits out as individual releases sooner.
Bretonnia on the other hand - I would guess that they are still diverting significant amounts of production on the peasant archers and men at arms into restocking those big boxes, they are particularly time intensive as each box takes 15 sprues of men at arms/archers to fulfill, and the individual boxes for these won't be far behind (iirc 9 sprues for the men at arms, 8 for archers). Knights in the other hand only require 3 sprues per set of 12, so they probably already hit their production target for the big box restocks and were able to jump ahead to solo box releases.
That sounds very plausible, thanks for that explanation! I never stopped to think that old infantry units used to require such a large number of sprues. I banned all thoughts of having those things pile up on my desk from my mind. Would be nice for them to just tell us things like that.
I agree about Bretonnia selling much faster than TK. In my FLGS there are two TK starters collecting dust; the two Bretonnia ones they got were sold the saturday they released.
Gimgamgoo wrote: I know these aren't 'ancient egyptian' style, but wtf are GW on with pricing ToW?
36 GW skeleton warriors for €62,50
vs
90 skeleton warriors and a necromancer for £59
I know I'll be told, "b... bu... but... GW... better". Maybe, sometimes, but those 36 skeletons are, what, 20 years old and were condemned on release as poor as well?
These are some of my favourite fantasy models of all time. Such a good kit.
Sure they got some negative reviews online from people that have no patience, all they require is for building them in batches and let the legs/torso parts dry before you can add arms and heads to avoid them bending apart before the plastic cement has set. But its not a big a deal as some people made out.
The fact they are not 'Egyptian' style isn't that much of an issue when GW don't even give you enough TK heads to build whats in the starter set without using the standard skeleton heads. Just buy a single box of TK and mix and match the parts where you can. I'll be making a couple of BIG units for TKs with this kit and I'll just use the TK banner top and a champion sword for the units.
I'll be buying a few more of the warlord games sets this year, 200 skeletons is not enough!
