Okay, so I have been out of the loop (somewhat, not entirely) for the past 4 years due to real life and other hobbies and before that I was mostly a 40k player. Still, I knew two parallel universes existed in GW, namely WHFB and LotR which later became the Hobbit.
I started playing a Medieval II: Total War mod called Call of Warhammer 2 years or so ago and that was my entry level drug into the WHFB universe. Then, TW released TW Warhammer and obviously it was the best video game adaptation that has ever happened to GW, imo even better than Dawn of War series or space marine simply due to the content but thats personal preference (and I love the DoW series, as well as the Space Marine game).
So...like many many others before me, I am still in shock that GW just killed off significant chunks of their WHFB range, making all of the minis go up in price on ebay, and replace it with AoS, which, again a total surprise for me, is commercially successful.
I just... I cant wrap my head around it. TW: Warhammer has been out for over 2 years now and even the most dim witted sales manager should have gotten the thought "hey guye, this game might attract a new generation of players so lets scrap our plans about phasing out the WHFB range, at least for now" but nope, nothing of the sort ever happened in Nottingham.
WHY? Okay, so apparently the WHFB range was suffering from poor sales and 40k has been GW's main source of income for decades. I get that.
But what I dont understand is, most of GW's lotr range is still on sale, example the riders of rohan whose plastic minis I bought THIRTEEN YEARS AGO when I was still a school boy. Meanwhile, GW has phased out the entire Bretonnia range. I cant wrap my head around this.
Like...bring on the Sigmarines and all the new stuff, but why phase out your existing range? Especially if ancient Lotr minis are still on sale in your webstore? Mind boggling. [insert *JUST* meme] Any explanation would help
Edit: I think the underlying cause is also fueled by Games Workshop's rabid paranoia of trademarking *their* stuff. Something I think started picking up pace since 2014*, when they renamed the Imperial Guard in 40k to Astra Militarum. Then Stormtroopers to Tempestus Scions. Eldar into Craftworlds, Dark Eldar into Drukhari, Tau into T'au just so they get a collective thumbs up from their lawyers...and a long list followed...Dark Elves gone, broken up into Daughters of Khaine, Darkling Covens etc... similar treatment for High Elves...this colossal crusade of renaming stuff...I think the GW community is one of the most resilient there is, taking so much bludgeoning from GW's corporate decisions and still the hobby is financially better than it has ever been before, hats off.
* maybe it has something to do with losing a legal battle they had going on in the years before that against privateer press, and perhaps also the surge of cheap 3D printing and counterfeit finecast stuff from china that started floodding stores like aliexpress before GW shut down those sellers around 2015.
I just... I cant wrap my head around it. TW: Warhammer has been out for over 2 years now and even the most dim witted sales manager should have gotten the thought "hey guye, this game might attract a new generation of players so lets scrap our plans about phasing out the WHFB range, at least for now" but nope, nothing of the sort ever happened in Nottingham.
A good friend of mine runs a large comic book store in my home city. A little while ago, in view of the deluge of super-hero movies coming out, I asked him if the release of those movies meant more comics from those lines selling. His answer? No. They'd see a very slight uptick in sales but it would be virtually unnoticeable. The simple fact was that people who went to the movies to see a super-hero movie weren't going to then head down to the shops and pick up a comic book on the same subject, unless they were already comic-book fans.
Games Workshop has always seen the video games as completely separate to the wargames they sell. The computer games as far as GW are concerned have no impact on their sales of minis. That might not actually be incorrect either; 40K's sales didn't budge much when any of the Dawn of War games came out, and the first and second at least were quite successful. Nor did Fantasy's sales get a boost from the Warhammer MMO Age of Reckoning. When you think about it, that does make sense. Just because someone is willing to throw down $50 for a video game doesn't mean they're going to rush out and blow $500 on an army. And that's without even taking into account that a video game has a much easier entry point than assembling, painting and playing, all of which take vastly more time and energy than just double-clicking a shortcut in Steam.
But what I dont understand is, most of GW's lotr range is still on sale,
Aside from it being a different system (and who knows, they might sell well) one of the leading things here is the moulds. If the moulds are still good, GW is likely to keep selling them. Perhaps the Brettonian moulds were getting too old. What frankly is more of a mystery is why the Tomb Kings range vanished, because a lot of their stuff had relatively new plastic moulds. But perhaps they broke, perhaps they're going to be re-released. Who knows.
I think the underlying cause is also fueled by Games Workshop's rabid paranoia of trademarking *their* stuff.
It's hardly rabid when GW got hit with a landmark court case that threatened their whole IP. Any company would do something similar in such circumstances. I know GW has a history of being pretty heavy handed with their legal department but they are protecting a large and valuable IP. I do find it funny that people are more than happy to bag GW for being heavy handed but give a free pass to Disney or Hasbro doing exactly the same thing.
Any explanation would help
They topped the FTSE last year and their stock has skyrocketed in value. Profits are way up across the board. Whatever they're doing, they're doing something right.
It's hardly rabid when GW got hit with a landmark court case that threatened their whole IP. Any company would do something similar in such circumstances. I know GW has a history of being pretty heavy handed with their legal department but they are protecting a large and valuable IP. I do find it funny that people are more than happy to bag GW for being heavy handed but give a free pass to Disney or Hasbro doing exactly the same thing.
Honestly, I think it's just because of how dumb a lot of the new names for things are.
If I remember well a lot of poeple also had the hypothesis right after Aos's release that it was some kind of test to see whether they could successfully simplify 40k heavily and make the lore evolve towards something more apocalyptical. If you look ay 8th edition it is essentially whay it is, and that might be thanks to the success of AoS, especially, according to some, the core rules and chapter approved systems.
Also since fantasy sold poorly they probably wished to ditch it in some fashion so as to make it look closer 40k (what I mostly assume because of the round basis suggesting they got rid of regiments).
Again, just a hypothesis, but who knows.
And by the way, yes I believe GW deserves the hate on new names not because they are renaming things, why not, but because they are crap. Death to all who dare say astra militarum and tempestus scion!!!! Imperial Guard lives on forever!
It was discontinued because it’s hard to protect an IPthat took so much from other sources and from real life fantasy. How can you protect something called tomb kings from counterfeit printers if your literally just doing mummies? Same goes for French knights and half the setting. Warhammer Fantasy also wrote it’s self into a corner. You can only get so close to midnight until things have to blow up.
AOS may not be as fleshed out or interesting as Warhammer Fabtasy, but it’s far more original and far more unique. This makes it easier to protect legally.
TL: DR blame copyright law and GW being anxious about their IP being smacked down by bad law suits. Which honestly is a reasonable concern.
A aforementioned desire to have more protectable names and products than High Elves, Dwarves and Wood Elves.
A desire to break away from WHFB's low fantasy/historical settings. New factions like the sky dwarves and fish elfs are signs of that. Could they have been shoehorned into the Olde Worlde, sure. But the high fantasy AoS makes it much easier to insert all kinds of strangeness.
Sales, we don't know what sales were like for WHFB but all anecdotes say 'not good'. I've heard at first that the AoS sales were terrible but I think as it's become more of its own animal (sky dwarfs and fish elfs) its grown.
SKUs - stores can only handle so many different products, eliminating a lot of legacy product freed up shelf space for new stuff. Why were Tomb Kings and Brets chosen to get the axe? I'd assume sales but sometimes just people's feelings in the studio can matter.
New Rules and Fluff - I've not played AoS but i imagine the chance to break free from 30+ years of rules and fluff was appealing to the writers. Do you really want to be writing the 23rd version of Snotling Pump Wagon rules?
It was a gutsy move and one I did not like for many of the reasons you list, plus I always like the Olde Worlde's low fantasy/renaissance feel. If I'd been asked I would have done it differently, but I can certainly see the rationale.
As for why LotR stuff is still around, we don't know what sales are like or what GW's contract says but I would guess those are both factors.
If you read up on the financial reports given to stockholders leading up to AOS it becomes pretty clear - people didn't buy WHFB stuff in large numbers. It has a static community that was heavily staffed by people that already had complete armies and didn't see anywhere near the growth of 40k. Something had to be done to revitalize the IP before they lost the market compeltly and AOS was their attempt to do so. While AOS seems to have a slightly smaller audience than WHFB did, the player community seems much more wiling to talk with thier wallets than the WHFB community ever did.
IP was obviously an issue, that was certainly about names but maybe more about very generic designs.
Also it seemingly sold poorly and the setting was small and constrained with less potential to expand with more radical designs like we have seen from AoS.
Looking at GWs stockprices it seems they made the right call.
beast_gts wrote: Something else that hasn't been mentioned yet was WHFB's high cost of entry - you couldn't really walk into a store, buy a box or 2 and start playing.
I remember recalling that most armies in WHFB had starter boxes called battalions in the same way 40k armies had battleforces. I also remember GW releasing a generic starter set featuring two armies to get people into the game, one iteration I remember called Battle of Black Fire Pass, similar to 40k's Dark Vengeance, Dark Imperium etc. I can only judge this from a 40k financial standpoint (I think a 1000 point army costed something like upto €200), so were WHFB armies really more expensive to collect?
Incredibly so. The model count outstripped a basic 40k army by a considerable amount and god help you if you ever wanted to run a horde army like death or goblins. Plus there was always that annoyance that most of the models never actually did anything in game other than act as wound tokens. For a lot of things, only the front rank mattered, which was always a personal irritation of mine.
In my opinion Warhammer 8th edition was incredibly expensive compared to 40k, if you wanted to actually do anything you needed units of 40 and 50, and some being £25 for 10 the fabled empire goldswords meant it was unfeasibly expensive for making armies, sure battalion boxes helped but some had rubbish filler units you didnt actually want or need so buying multiple was not cost effiecient (apart from the Ogre Kingdoms one, I bought 3 and that was a decent army) then when you have you massive (pricey £££) unit on the table a wizard just 6 diced a super spell and the unit of 50 guys you bought painted and assembled were virtually all gone.
Then all the IP things started and what seemed like a general disinterest of fantasy settings (I remember numbers dwindling when x-wing was released) the game seemed to have hit ground and quite frankly couldn't be saved without major changes
I just... I cant wrap my head around it. TW: Warhammer has been out for over 2 years now and even the most dim witted sales manager should have gotten the thought "hey guye, this game might attract a new generation of players so lets scrap our plans about phasing out the WHFB range, at least for now" but nope, nothing of the sort ever happened in Nottingham.
Please show me the increase in marvel comics sales due to the MCU.
You won't. A ton of store owners will tell you they have next to zero impact.
I'm tired of this non-sensical argument. If video games could revive a tabletop games, Warhammer Age of Reckoning would have supposed a substancial influx... which wasn't the case at all. Video games bring attention and low hanging fruit seekers. They will go read the wikipedias and memes, maybe even buy a couple books or try to build a unit or two, but the staggering majority of that crowd won't budge deeper than the game. Sure, SOME will take the plunge properly, but those don't really outweigh the crowd they get from other sources and their standard policies.
But what I dont understand is, most of GW's lotr range is still on sale, example the riders of rohan whose plastic minis I bought THIRTEEN YEARS AGO when I was still a school boy. Meanwhile, GW has phased out the entire Bretonnia range. I cant wrap my head around this.
They have a lincensing deal. They are forced to keep that range. And by and large it's a negligible part of their store space most of the time.
WHFB didn't sell. For perceived reasons. Some say it was more expensive than 40k (it wasn't. but the illusion came from the steadfast rule where everyone being extremists decided they needed max size blobs smacking bellies in the center of the table which was expensive, and also boring to collect and paint)
My 40k armies cost about as much as my whfb fantasy armies from that era.
WHFB didn't sell. Because the 3rd party market was over-saturated with 2nd hand models and with other companies also doing generic elves and knights and dragons for a fraction of the price.
For the duration of 8th (2010 - 2015) we pulled in about five or six new players every year to our campaign events. NOT A SINGLE ONE bought a retail whfb army, they ALL went 2nd hand to ebay or other companies to get it cheaper.
Anecdotal, but an anecdote shared by many people over the years.
Our GW store couldn't move any WHFB at all and the game was played regularly so it wasn't from lack of players.
So GW blew the world up and started over with a more heavily IP protected world, a crack-easy ruleset that caters to the super casual and gets rid of pretty much any wargaming trope in favor of aligning more closely to the current trend of popular board games and collectible card games, brought on quite a few early 20-something year old developers that would be designing games to target their primary demographic, and well... they've profited from this.
The long and short of why it died was because GW sucks are coming up with new ideas to move the story forward. The thing that caused it was lack of sales and this is all because of kirby being a greedy dick and screwing over the game.
auticus wrote: WHFB didn't sell. For perceived reasons. Some say it was more expensive than 40k (it wasn't. but the illusion came from the steadfast rule where everyone being extremists decided they needed max size blobs smacking bellies in the center of the table which was expensive, and also boring to collect and paint)
My 40k armies cost about as much as my whfb fantasy armies from that era.
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Depends on what you were playing
But the cost increase for Fantasy started with 7th Edition were they changed from 4 models wide units to 5 wide and nailed it in 8th with decrasing the Box content and raising the price. (no one was willing to pay 120€ for a single unit)
4th and 5th 40k were cheaper for some as new plastic kits and elite armies made it cheap in comparison
It was 7th 40k and 8th Fantasy that did maximize the costs for the player and they were equal in amount of models needed.
Fantasy and Lord of the Rings were the victims of the experiment on how expensive a premium product can be
auticus wrote: WHFB didn't sell. For perceived reasons. Some say it was more expensive than 40k (it wasn't. but the illusion came from the steadfast rule where everyone being extremists decided they needed max size blobs smacking bellies in the center of the table which was expensive, and also boring to collect and paint)
My 40k armies cost about as much as my whfb fantasy armies from that era.
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Depends on what you were playing
But the cost increase for Fantasy started with 7th Edition were they changed from 4 models wide units to 5 wide and nailed it in 8th with decrasing the Box content and raising the price. (no one was willing to pay 120€ for a single unit)
4th and 5th 40k were cheaper for some as new plastic kits and elite armies made it cheap in comparison
It was 7th 40k and 8th Fantasy that did maximize the costs for the player and they were equal in amount of models needed.
Fantasy and Lord of the Rings were the victims of the experiment on how expensive a premium product can be
I do know that back in the beginning of 6th edition they wanted to get back into armies looking like armies and not the super hero collection of 5th edition. (Source: various white dwarf articles, interviews, and games day panel interviews)
7th edition wide hooked into cavalry hammer since he who charged first swung first, and dead men didn't step up so there was no need for infantry except for armies that had no cav (dwarves, raising the dead, daemons)
8th edition came out and they said once again they wanted to see armies that looked like armies so to alleviate the cav-hammer they brought in steadfast and step up so that cav units couldn't just obliterate large blocks of infantry.
Gamers being the extremists that they are took that and ran with it, creating massive blobs of infantry. Which could have been alleviated if GW would simply have added unit caps that were reasonable for the scale of the game.
That was coupled with the massive price hike in models.
In 7th you had the low model count cav armies that people liked because they only needed like 20-25 models. In 8th you couldn't do that. The pendulum swung back to that in AOS where we have "armies" that resemble the 5th edition super hero days (intentionally).
If 5th, 7th, and AOS are that... then one has to wonder if 6th, 8th, AOS 2.0 will swing back to more looking like armies instead of super hero collections.
Little bit trademarking because GW is insane about that which is why we have aelves, aeldari and the amazing deadwalkers. Stupid names that are obviously still elves, eldar and zombies but easier to legally surround in legal junk.
A little GW is bad at fluff. They wanted to advance the story with End Times but they're incapable of advancing things without it having to be a world ending event these days so they killed Fantasy for AOS.
A lot is profit. Fantasy didn't do great so the logical course was deemed to be kill of Fantasy wholesale, butcher the model ranges and bring out AOS. Some people (me) still don't understand keeping Fantasy around in the same way as AOS seeing as that would have solved a lot of Fantasy's problems.
Or you can be salty and say GW just hate their fanbase and like to ruin fun.
As a person who got into fantasy at the end of 8th. It wasn't a very fun game to start in.
Practically no matter what new unit you bought or built, there was nothing that could match the blob of basic infantry in the centre with a big wizard overcasting. For a vetrean that already had these blacks of infantry fine but boy was that frustrating.
IMHO that dried up the well of new blood in fantasy. Made sales plummet.(Most people having armies barely bought any new models). And thus led to GW canning fantasy.
No company likes doing a hard reset like AoS. It's a gamble of epic proportions. so GW must have thought or known it had little top lose.
I don't think the Trademark/ chapterhouse issue had much to do with AoS itself. That could have been handled at a army book level (like it was for 40k: imperial guard to Astra militarum for instance).
For a vetrean that already had these blacks of infantry fine but boy was that frustrating.
IMHO that dried up the well of new blood in fantasy. Made sales plummet.(Most people having armies barely bought any new models). And thus led to GW canning fantasy.
I don't think the Trademark/ chapterhouse issue had much to do with AoS itself. That could have been handled at a army book level (like it was for 40k: imperial guard to Astra militarum for instance).
I agree that it wasn't necessary to remove the entire game for names. But do you also intend to mean that the game basically turned way to old?
Earth127 wrote: As a person who got into fantasy at the end of 8th. It wasn't a very fun game to start in.
Practically no matter what new unit you bought or built, there was nothing that could match the blob of basic infantry in the centre with a big wizard overcasting. For a vetrean that already had these blacks of infantry fine but boy was that frustrating.
Yeah, steadfast was a terribly executed rule. Still just needed 9th ed, not a complete scrapping.
The fact that GW had the strange idea that people wanted to pay lots of money for a few models to play a system that wanted lots of model was another factor. Its why AoS is more like 40k and isn't close formation.
WHFB wasn't selling and IP protection, it really isn't anymore complicated then that.
AoS solved all the problems they were having with WHFB while, at the same time, promoted sales of their minis. Say what you will of AoS but impulse buying is a thing you can do with the game. I can walk into my local game store, buy a box of anything and BOOM! Completely usable unit for AoS. While with WHFB I'd have to plan ahead and figure out how many of X I would need for a usable unit.
Added to that I would probably not buy new as Ebay has been my go to for minis since I started playing back in 2003. I built my whole Empire army off 6th edition starter sets I got cheap online.
AoS also did not sell without start collecting boxes and General Handbook
If there would have been Army Boxes with a legal playable army, point and rules adjustments instead of "we don't make mistakes" and a more reasonable size or army price Warhammer Fantasy would have been as healthy as AoS is now
Had WHFB 9th edition added unit caps to units so mega units couldn't exist, flanking negating steadfast been a rule to give maneuver something that mattered, and toning down those ridiculous army-killing spells that the main tactic was "six dicing for the win", WHFB would have had a minor resurgance.
They still would have struggled with the 3rd party market and the fact that ebay was glutted with armies and no one felt the need to buy retail when ebay would provide for them indefinitely.
People still would not have bought minis though, even if all that were done. The changes to army structure through Allegiances and Battleline allowed you to buy anything and have it be usable right out of the box.
Simply put, the way WHFB was designed and the way it played were not really condusive to selling minis. Especially minis at the price point GW sells them which is why so many alternatives popped up in the later years WHFB. If all these models are are expensive wound counters why buy GW and not cheaper options? Or why not just buy used? It's how I built my 8th Edition Ogre army, all half price ebay that just needed some paint stripping.
While adjusting the rules for a 9th edition would have fixed the game, it would not have fixed the "No one is buying anything" problem. AoS fixes that by opening up army structure and allowing people to buy stuff and have it all be useful.
But the argument is still the same
Why should I buy a 600€ Stormcast army if I can get it secound hand for 300
Or buy just any old collection for cheap to use it in AoS.
There is just no reason to buy anything new for AoS except for that stuff that is just new and not available somewhere else.
So a 9th Edition with Stormcast and Khorne, adding Sylvaneth, Overlords and Deepkin later would have sold the same as they are doing now
Blowing up the world was an easy to way to skip the old factions and avoid updating them to a modern model range (eg Dwarf Warriors) while adding shiny new stuff.
Perhaps you can eventually do that. AoS is 3 years old, WHFB was 30. 30 years of minis building up are quite a lot of excess stock people can trade/Sell driving the price of the minis down making that a viable option. Meanwhile AoS is 3 years old and doesn't have that level of saturation of old minis sitting in cardboard boxes in garages.
Give the game another 15 years and that might be a problem but for now even on Ebay, getting anything other then Starter Set minis cheap is kinda hard.
If GW is doing what I think they are doing with the game it won't matter even if you sell those armies cheap. I just think GW's plan is to just keep releasing new factions that, due to the way the game works, you can keep mixing and matching with other allegiances.
Than look at 40k the game still sells even with everyone has a stockpile of minis in their garage
and you still can use the stockpile of minis from warhammer in AoS Why should I buy the new Khorne stuff if I can use my old Chaos Warriors
But than, it had always been the case that the stockpile of minis did not help you building up an army in a new edition
My 4000 points empire army of 5th edition just got me a playable 1000 points in 6th
my 3000 points dwarfs of 7th did not make a playable 2250 points army for 8th, neither did my Chaos Warriors.
The game sell or did not sell for different reasons and not just because of secound hand or third party.
Same for 40k, there is just no reason to buy expensive Space Marines if I can get appropriate models for cheap but GW still sells.
It is the easy to pick up and "good" price for an army that sells models.
There are lots of reason why Fantasy failed. Mainly first off was Kirby and company had their head so far up their arse they thought they could do what ever they wanted and we would clamber to it.
After all Kirby said (or was it someone else?) the GW hobby was not collecting and modelling and playing, but buying GW product. They took their fan base for granted. That was for every game system they did just not Fantasy.
I was about to try and get into Fantasy, but the cost to get into and play with "regular" people ment you needed lots of points and play almost like Warmahordes 2.0. Meaning balls to the wall.
Not saying this is true, but that is how it seemed liked. People didn't play for fun but to win.
So high start cost and me seeing how GW doesn't support their product at the time, 40K garbage rules GW shot themselves in the head, not just the foot.
So instead of having Age of Sigmar as their introductory level and still keep Fantasy for advanced level or apocalypse level, they threw out the baby with the bath water.
Kirby still being in charge of the release of AoS, it just felt like they were throwing Space Marines into Fantasy and we would love it. We have finally rebelled.
Act of god or what ever, Kirby finally let his position go. Mr Roundtree then finally set the ship straight and we have what we do now because of Mr Roundtree actually being a logical person and knows what is best for business instead of his own personal bank account.
Here's what my viewpoint was as someone starting Fantasy.
The issue with Fantasy was that games took a lot of models and that made it difficult to get into it and even learning games needed a sizeable army so cost was a huge issue.
Even bigger was GW's intense neglect. I tried helping someone get into Skaven once. The book was a mess and GW never deigned to sort it out and that behaviour didn't go until Kirby got taken out.
Finally the issue for some people was that Fantasy was complicated so learning took some time.
But then End Times and AoS came. Which honestly was worse for a long time. End Times was a disgusting cash grab that didn't hide the fact GW was giving you the finger. The rules were unbalanced, the lore was terrible (my whole faction was just eliminated off screen by plot device Skaven) and it was just a mess in general. Then the world ended which was very strange then just bad.
The ranked unit game got replaced with AoS which was just given 5 minutes of an interns day for rule writing, armies just got removed for no reason save copyrighting and then they built AoS on the bones of a good game.
Now there are two reasons to play AoS for people like me. First it's VERY simple so it's a good casual game and second I can get almost all the rules for free. It's fun but I remain confused about why Fantasy wasn't kept with a 9th edition. AOS solved all its problems and keeping it would have avoided so much bad will from the fanbase.
kodos wrote: AoS also did not sell without start collecting boxes and General Handbook
"AoS" sold fine when we're talking about the starter set. The game itself had to face an uphill battle from neckbeards who demanded crap like the General's Handbook.
If there would have been Army Boxes with a legal playable army, point and rules adjustments instead of "we don't make mistakes" and a more reasonable size or army price Warhammer Fantasy would have been as healthy as AoS is now
Battalions were still on sale at that point, just so you can know how ridiculous you are. It wasn't until Start Collectings started happening that the Battalions finally got ran down.
Anyways, Fantasy died because neckbeards didn't buy models and were actively toxic communities in many cases.
You make it sound so selfish. Demanding GW put effort into their products. How cruel people are. Next we'll want to be able to enter their stores without paying entry fees!
People not buying models is a symptom of the problem not the cause.
Battalions were still on sale at that point, just so you can know how ridiculous you are.
with the difference that they were legal playable
the same with 40k, and aslos there GW changed the rules to allow to play the content out of the box without needing to buy something else
Battalions were still on sale at that point, just so you can know how ridiculous you are.
with the difference that they were legal playable
the same with 40k, and aslos there GW changed the rules to allow to play the content out of the box without needing to buy something else
What was stopping you from using a Battalion box? NOTHING. It was a collection of models. Points weren't a thing, there's no FOC, there was literally nothing stopping anyone from playing using the contents of Battalions from WHFB to AoS.
The only thing most of them were missing was a single Hero choice. Do you really think people weren't playing because they didn't get a single Hero choice?
Anyways, Fantasy died because neckbeards didn't buy models and were actively toxic communities in many cases.
I guess the same neckbeards killed Nokia because they stopped buying their mobiles
Yeah if something is killed because people just stop buying something that is not working is never the fault of the company
When the only time people in my local community bought stuff was because of nerfs, yeah--that isn't the fault of the company. People were buying whatever netlists they saw for tournaments. They were also very toxic in that those same individuals would play curbstomp lists against people who were looking to get into the game.
Do you know how you kill a game off? You kill off the influx of new players.
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pm713 wrote: You make it sound so selfish. Demanding GW put effort into their products. How cruel people are. Next we'll want to be able to enter their stores without paying entry fees!
People not buying models is a symptom of the problem not the cause.
It was selfish. Do you know how many people at the launch of AoS whined about the fact that their armies couldn't just roll over people because they didn't get a Steadfast anymore? Because their Wizards couldn't hide in bunkers of meatshields? That the "silly" rules which were completely optional sometimes could give an advantage?
I disliked the rules from 8th edtion and that my existing armies were not playable any more
I bought the Warriors of Chaos Box and switched to Kings of War
And yes, it makes a difference if you get a Box: This is XY points, all Boxes are equal in points and ready to play VS This is a Box with the stuff we want you to buy, all Boxes are different in points and you still need something else to play the minimum points of the game
pm713 wrote: AOS solved all its problems and keeping it would have avoided so much bad will from the fanbase.
I am shocked as well. Thing is, as you said, Kirby was still in at the time. Now if Mr Roundtree took position at the end of Fantasy, who knows what could have happend. I am just shocked that Mr Roundtree was able to polish a turd. You have to give that man credit to do what he did. He did the impossible. I don't think any of us really believed GW would be like they are now.
pm713 wrote:Next we'll want to be able to enter their stores without paying entry fees!
I don't get this. Paying entry fees? Why would I pay an entry fee to buy something in a store? What am I missing here? You haven't said anything about a tournament, so I am puzzled what you are alluding too.
realistically game wise there is nothing in AoS that could not have been done for a 9th edition of WHFB rules wise. The real issue I think I am seeing is the setting. AoS has a unique enough setting, but its not popular yet the way the old world is. WHFB could have been easily saved by simply using the AoS rules in the old world. BUT I think that the feel of the 2 settings is different enough. GW wanted its cake and eat it too, they disregarded a lot of their fans to chase down new customers.
GW wanted its cake and eat it too, they disregarded a lot of their fans to chase down new customers.
This is a key statement. Additionally reading the tea leaves, they hired a few very young rules developers and it can be gleaned that they are pushing for a new gen of players at the expense of the older.
Some have bitter feelings toward the older generation. Not for entirely invalid reasons. But being in the older generation because of when I happened to be born, it is hard to cheerlead the game when everything that brought you into wargaming as a hobby in the first place was flushed down the toilet and replaced with a game that is heavily influenced by the current crop of board and CCG games that are popular but have nothing to do with why you are there in the first place.
My anchor is the $15,000 or so investment I made into warhammer that sits in my model room on industrial shelves in multiple cases over the past 20 years.
GW wanted its cake and eat it too, they disregarded a lot of their fans to chase down new customers.
This is a key statement. Additionally reading the tea leaves, they hired a few very young rules developers and it can be gleaned that they are pushing for a new gen of players at the expense of the older.
Some have bitter feelings toward the older generation. Not for entirely invalid reasons. But being in the older generation because of when I happened to be born, it is hard to cheerlead the game when everything that brought you into wargaming as a hobby in the first place was flushed down the toilet and replaced with a game that is heavily influenced by the current crop of board and CCG games that are popular but have nothing to do with why you are there in the first place.
My anchor is the $15,000 or so investment I made into warhammer that sits in my model room on industrial shelves in multiple cases over the past 20 years.
with them being so different, a "supplemental" rulebook or specialist game designation could have kept both. AoS is fun, I enjoy it, but it stands no chance of being the #1 fantasy wargame. Too much competition with games that are (subjectively) better rules, models, terrain, etc.... In Europe it has no real competition, but in the US there are places where GW as a whole is widely disregarded. that being said, as long as it keeps making money it will do ok.
Yeah if they are serious about wanting it to be "THE" fantasy wargame, they need to look at the very large pool of people that won't touch AOS, and see why that is and correct that.
Rank and flank may be fun, but it also means buying lots of models which don’t really do anything.
The cost of an army also varied wildly. Whilst Ogres and Chaos could be made into an army fairly cheaply, the same couldn’t be said of Undead and Gobbos.
The world itself was also inherently limited. In short, it was too well defined, and too stuck in Renaissance type technology and lower to really justify armies such as Ind and Cathay being introduced to the range. After all, how would they get to where the action is to justify battles? Dwarfs, Undead, Elves and Empire armies couldn’t really have much new added to them in any meaningful way.
AoS largely solved that. Realmgates allow for anyone to fight anywhere - personal distaste for that bit of background doesn’t change that one iota.
We’ve seen greater creativity from the studio as a result. Kharadron Overlords and Idoneth Deepkin promise to be merely the tip of the iceberg in that regard.
It’s also served to settle my one real bugbear about the Old World, which was ‘how come the good gods don’t do anything?’
It’s ok not to like any given aspect of it. I for one found Bretonnians spectacularly dull in the Old World (would still like to see them return. It was the execution, not the concept). And now we’ve got a brand new, ever developing background and narrative. Warhammer Fantasy again just didn’t have room for that. The clock was always One Minute To Midnight in that regard. Even the slightest shift in the balance of power would knacker things beyond recognition.
And it’s undeniable that the game is doing what Warhammer Fantasy wasn’t - selling. Sure, there’s the proverbial sad neckbeards utterly convinced it ‘T9A’ that’s driving it. Shame they’ve not got nowt but wishful thinking to support in that regard. Since AoS was released, their sales have increased, as has their bottom line. Whilst they don’t publish results on a per game system basis, the two can not be mere coincidence. Not that degree.
This new setting allows for a lot more flexibility for designing new armies and (because of the realmgates), there's always a somewhat plausible explanation why factions end up fighting each other... The design studio can start exploring things like the air, the sea, the underworlds, etc... and they have with pretty cool results so far. This could have never happened in the old world. God-tier beings like Nagash, Morathi, Allarielle, Archaon,... actually feel slightly better in this setting as well. I'm actually REALLY looking forwards to reading the fluff in the big rule book that's coming out soon (something I can't say excited me too much for 40k, despite them progressing the story line, 95% of it remained the same).
AoS' main problem was the rocky start. And the thing about first impressions, is that you only get to make them once!
But so far, it seems that AoS has attracted newer players and maybe every now and then, an old veteran will stop their salt mining and find that this game can actually be an enjoyable way to kill an evening worth of time with your mates.
Elmir wrote: Mad Doc Grotsnik pretty much nailed it there.
This new setting allows for a lot more flexibility for designing new armies and (because of the realmgates), there's always a somewhat plausible explanation why factions end up fighting each other... The design studio can start exploring things like the air, the sea, the underworlds, etc... and they have with pretty cool results so far. This could have never happened in the old world. God-tier beings like Nagash, Morathi, Allarielle, Archaon,... actually feel slightly better in this setting as well. I'm actually REALLY looking forwards to reading the fluff in the big rule book that's coming out soon (something I can't say excited me too much for 40k, despite them progressing the story line, 95% of it remained the same).
AoS' main problem was the rocky start. And the thing about first impressions, is that you only get to make them once!
But so far, it seems that AoS has attracted newer players and maybe every now and then, an old veteran will stop their salt mining and find that this game can actually be an enjoyable way to kill an evening worth of time with your mates.
It drove away a lot more than it gained here, and I blame a lot of that on the roll out and initial confusion. We (and I am an old veteran btw) tried to really boost it with an event near the start and it was to be blunt a disaster. A lot of that was we just didnt know what we were doing. but with no way to even guess if any forces were remotely comparable the battles were all over the place, you could tell who was and was not having fun right away. Real storm. We tried again after GHB and while we had far fewer folks, we had a much better handle of things. The game can be fun, it really can. BUT you need to approach it as its own thing and not as the next step of warhammer. having the fluff all over the place helped the perception of it having either no fluff or it was . It needed to be consolidated, and now they are doing that it looks soo much better. I can see Hammerhal eventually being the new "Nuln" and while I dont personally like Shadespire, it can and I think will replace Mordheim in a lot of hearts and minds. AoS simply is not old enough yet to get the same following as a 30 year old setting. Give it time to grow into its own. I believe their was a degree of arrogance and condescension when AoS debuted that caused a lot of hate towards it and that in turn caused folks who would otherwise enjoy it to despise it. I have guy in my game group who was die hard AoS is pure unredeamable garbage who played it thinking it was a alternate set of warhammer skirmish rules and had a great time with it, and then went right back to bashing it when he found out it was actually AoS. First impressions can kill a game easy.
WHFB died because a long series of grotesque errors GW made while trying to fix the last error. Step up and the horde rule (brought in to make infantry blocks relevant again after 7e's wall-to-wall heavy knights) contrived to make morale and positioning nigh-irrelevant as well as shooting the model-count barrier to entry through the roof, pre-measuring (brought in to make the game generally more accessible) combined with cannons to make elite units and monsters nigh-unusable, fixed power dice and more random spells (brought in to fix the Wizards-in-Core Daemons lists that broke the 7e tournament scene) turned the Magic phase into a whole bunch of die rolling/addition during which most of the time nothing happened but occasionally someone's unit got casually removed. Then the End Times (brought in to revitalize a flagging game with shiny new giant models) came along to turn WHFB into a new-models-win 40k pastiche.
Among many things that GW didn't get (and still doesn't really get) is that there were people who liked WHFB because of things that distinguished it from 40k; it wasn't the game of giant models thumping into each other while the same four or five named characters trotted about blowing things up every game, it was the game where your line units got to be relevant and where you had to work at killing things instead of just throwing a bigger blast template at them and pulling them off the table.
I can't speak to the toxicity of anyone else's community, but to my mind the things that AoS-fans point to as reasons WHFB needed to die (overcomplicated rules, massive cost of units, poor balance, poor sales...) are GW's screwups during late 7e/8e/End Times rather than somehow inherent to the concept of a linear warfare game.
Locally the problem was that it was a game that had an exceptionally high entry cost(WHFB that is). It was really hard to get people into the game and telling them that they "just needed" 2000+ points of models. To top that off we had the veterans who only wanted to play high point games and had every single model in existence so they really didn't have a reason to buy more models except maybe 1-2 a year at best. I know my FLGS didn't really bother keeping WHFB stock at some point due to how little it sold.
A part of me wishes I could have experienced WHFB when it was at its best, but much like anyone else I just couldn't imagine throwing away so much money on a single army where I would have to paint what amounts to an Ork army, and then some.
Now, some people say that one could just play the Battalion straight out of the box or even play smaller games, but the problem is that then you need to find someone as dedicated as yourself to do the same as most of the veterans really didn't have that much interest in approaching the game like that. You want to play with the community at large and when the entry price is that high it becomes a real barrier for growth. For all its other problems, 40k did have a less stricter barrier of entry and allowed you to get going relatively quickly. Also felt like the 40k community was at least more open to playing lower point games than the WHFB crowd.
I do agree that it was weird that they completely killed off the line as I feel like there could have been some concessions made to keep both alive and well. In fact, when they ported the game to round bases for AoS I was kinda hoping they would just release movement trays so one could use the AoS models in WHFB, switching back and forth depending on one's needs. I personally hated the square bases, but love the idea of rank and file.
Eldarsif wrote: Locally the problem was that it was a game that had an exceptionally high entry cost(WHFB that is). It was really hard to get people into the game and telling them that they "just needed" 2000+ points of models. To top that off we had the veterans who only wanted to play high point games and had every single model in existence so they really didn't have a reason to buy more models except maybe 1-2 a year at best. I know my FLGS didn't really bother keeping WHFB stock at some point due to how little it sold.
A part of me wishes I could have experienced WHFB when it was at its best, but much like anyone else I just couldn't imagine throwing away so much money on a single army where I would have to paint what amounts to an Ork army, and then some.
Now, some people say that one could just play the Battalion straight out of the box or even play smaller games, but the problem is that then you need to find someone as dedicated as yourself to do the same as most of the veterans really didn't have that much interest in approaching the game like that. You want to play with the community at large and when the entry price is that high it becomes a real barrier for growth. For all its other problems, 40k did have a less stricter barrier of entry and allowed you to get going relatively quickly. Also felt like the 40k community was at least more open to playing lower point games than the WHFB crowd.
I do agree that it was weird that they completely killed off the line as I feel like there could have been some concessions made to keep both alive and well. In fact, when they ported the game to round bases for AoS I was kinda hoping they would just release movement trays so one could use the AoS models in WHFB, switching back and forth depending on one's needs. I personally hated the square bases, but love the idea of rank and file.
Despite this being a primarily wargame forum, I cannot stress enough that with the RPG coming out it would even be in GW's interest to keep those models available for that purpose. There is certainly a market for RPG minis and I would not be surprised that it rivals the market for tabletop (bones and deep cuts come to mind there) so even if they did not support the game, they could keep the models for the rpg and tabletop crowd, even if they went to round bases (hell maybe especially if they did).
thekingofkings wrote: ...Despite this being a primarily wargame forum, I cannot stress enough that with the RPG coming out it would even be in GW's interest to keep those models available for that purpose. There is certainly a market for RPG minis and I would not be surprised that it rivals the market for tabletop (bones and deep cuts come to mind there) so even if they did not support the game, they could keep the models for the rpg and tabletop crowd, even if they went to round bases (hell maybe especially if they did).
The problem GW always has with this is that RPG games don't usually need 10+ of roughly the same model, so the older WHFB models end up being a tough sell to RPG players who don't want to spend $40-50 to get a unit they might want to use three or four models out of.
Now if they did Mordheim teams formatted like the new Necromunda gangs with weapon options...
thekingofkings wrote: ...Despite this being a primarily wargame forum, I cannot stress enough that with the RPG coming out it would even be in GW's interest to keep those models available for that purpose. There is certainly a market for RPG minis and I would not be surprised that it rivals the market for tabletop (bones and deep cuts come to mind there) so even if they did not support the game, they could keep the models for the rpg and tabletop crowd, even if they went to round bases (hell maybe especially if they did).
The problem GW always has with this is that RPG games don't usually need 10+ of roughly the same model, so the older WHFB models end up being a tough sell to RPG players who don't want to spend $40-50 to get a unit they might want to use three or four models out of.
Now if they did Mordheim teams formatted like the new Necromunda gangs with weapon options...
not of all, but depending on char experience and the opponent you need a good amount of the "baddies" the "militia" box was great for crafting players (except females, which really irritates the ladies in our group (both of em for WHFRPG) who have to find alternates )
pm713 wrote: AOS solved all its problems and keeping it would have avoided so much bad will from the fanbase.
I am shocked as well. Thing is, as you said, Kirby was still in at the time. Now if Mr Roundtree took position at the end of Fantasy, who knows what could have happend. I am just shocked that Mr Roundtree was able to polish a turd. You have to give that man credit to do what he did. He did the impossible. I don't think any of us really believed GW would be like they are now.
pm713 wrote:Next we'll want to be able to enter their stores without paying entry fees!
I don't get this. Paying entry fees? Why would I pay an entry fee to buy something in a store? What am I missing here? You haven't said anything about a tournament, so I am puzzled what you are alluding too.
I will agree to that.
I was making fun of Kanluwens complaint about people demanding the Generals Handbook. My point was that asking for GW to put effort into the game is a reasonable expectation as is entering the stores for free. I was being sarcastic.
Automatically Appended Next Post: As people are talking about how AoS is good at bringing in new people and has a much more creative world I want to ask something.
Why not have both AoS and Fantasy? There are people who prefer both the setting and gameplay of Fantasy and both games are very clearly tied together lorewise. You can easily keep Fantasy and AoS around together in a similar to 30 and 40k.
Fun fact for the thread - in 1996 the GW catalogue has Warhammer 40K, Necromunda and Epic then the other HALF of the book is Warhammer Fantasy.
The other interesting thing is how big a difference there is in design style between Sigmar of today and Warhammer of yesteryear. Not just in how models are a lot bigger today than they were back then (esp the war-engines and beasties) but also in the whole visual style and approach.
Commodus Leitdorf wrote:WHFB wasn't selling and IP protection, it really isn't anymore complicated then that.
AoS solved all the problems they were having with WHFB while, at the same time, promoted sales of their minis. Say what you will of AoS but impulse buying is a thing you can do with the game. I can walk into my local game store, buy a box of anything and BOOM! Completely usable unit for AoS. While with WHFB I'd have to plan ahead and figure out how many of X I would need for a usable unit.
Added to that I would probably not buy new as Ebay has been my go to for minis since I started playing back in 2003. I built my whole Empire army off 6th edition starter sets I got cheap online.
kodos wrote:AoS also did not sell without start collecting boxes and General Handbook
If there would have been Army Boxes with a legal playable army, point and rules adjustments instead of "we don't make mistakes" and a more reasonable size or army price Warhammer Fantasy would have been as healthy as AoS is now
This was one of the boons of 6th Edition, your regiment boxed sets (plastic, at any rate) were valid units and completely usable in the meta at the time. Battalions at the time were equally good about being pretty much a starter force from the get go. Our club in Ft. Wayne had a dedicated newbie table where we played 1,000 pt. games with the kids who were just starting out. There were models to borrow in the store if you weren't up to 1,000 yet, and always a few vets to answer questions. I'd really like to think our club was NOT the only one like that.
7th, however, introduced 10 man infantry regiments for almost the same price as the 16-20 man regiments that they replaced. This hit about the same time as the Army Special Rules war, which is about the time that I started to realize WFB was going a direction that I REALLY didn't like. Doubling cost of entry certainly didn't help, nor did swinging the meta towards whatever type of unit was NOT selling as well.
Kanluwen wrote:
kodos wrote: AoS also did not sell without start collecting boxes and General Handbook
"AoS" sold fine when we're talking about the starter set. The game itself had to face an uphill battle from neckbeards who demanded crap like the General's Handbook.
If there would have been Army Boxes with a legal playable army, point and rules adjustments instead of "we don't make mistakes" and a more reasonable size or army price Warhammer Fantasy would have been as healthy as AoS is now
Battalions were still on sale at that point, just so you can know how ridiculous you are. It wasn't until Start Collectings started happening that the Battalions finally got ran down.
Anyways, Fantasy died because neckbeards didn't buy models and were actively toxic communities in many cases.
Is this post supposed to be ironic? If so, it fell flat to be honest. If it was meant to be serious, then you should be made aware of the irony of a vitriol laden toxic post trash talking people who didn't dive straight into AOS like you. This CAAC vs. WAAC war is not only dumb, but it's catching all the midline players in its crosshairs.
The sets were NOT selling fine, this is the reason they did the GH in the first place. And as far as Battalions being available at the same time? Those functioned fine as AOS forces, but they weren't effective in the 8th meta, which is why kudos mentions them. Had GW not aimed its sights on the $100 regiment, things would have most assuredly ran different. 7th Ed. introduced rules bloat and price gouging, 8th chose to "fix" those things by doubling down on both. Rather than removing the special rules that were destroying the efficiency of the game, and rather than make sets viable straight out the box, they introduced rules to counter the rules that were set to counter the problem special rules, which then forced people to buy more of the expensive small boxed sets to be competitive. THAT was the failing with 7th and 8th. AOS wasn't a fix for that. AOS was an attempt to "unify" the products of both games to both cater to what was already working (40K), test how far they could oversimplify their FLAGSHIP title without losing customers (40K), and create a safety net to roll the newer AOS stuff into 40K if the game system itself was failing but they wanted a ROI on their molding and design work (Think along the lines of WarmaHordes).
AOS is doing well because GW is reintroducing structure, composition, and customer opinion/feedback. Not because it was perfect out the box
Is this post supposed to be ironic? If so, it fell flat to be honest. If it was meant to be serious, then you should be made aware of the irony of a vitriol laden toxic post trash talking people who didn't dive straight into AOS like you. This CAAC vs. WAAC war is not only dumb, but it's catching all the midline players in its crosshairs.
It's not CAAC vs WAAC, it's neckbeards versus anyone who actually was open to trying anything new. There were (and still are) very vocal people who refused to do anything with AoS because "IT ISN'T MY GAME!".
The sets were NOT selling fine, this is the reason they did the GH in the first place.
Prove it. The AoS main starter set actually went out of stock a few times before the GHB came out.
And as far as Battalions being available at the same time? Those functioned fine as AOS forces, but they weren't effective in the 8th meta, which is why kudos mentions them. Had GW not aimed its sights on the $100 regiment, things would have most assuredly ran different. 7th Ed. introduced rules bloat and price gouging, 8th chose to "fix" those things by doubling down on both. Rather than removing the special rules that were destroying the efficiency of the game, and rather than make sets viable straight out the box, they introduced rules to counter the rules that were set to counter the problem special rules, which then forced people to buy more of the expensive small boxed sets to be competitive. THAT was the failing with 7th and 8th. AOS wasn't a fix for that. AOS was an attempt to "unify" the products of both games to both cater to what was already working (40K), test how far they could oversimplify their FLAGSHIP title without losing customers (40K), and create a safety net to roll the newer AOS stuff into 40K if the game system itself was failing but they wanted a ROI on their molding and design work (Think along the lines of WarmaHordes).
And this is just gobbledygook.
AOS is doing well because GW is reintroducing structure, composition, and customer opinion/feedback. Not because it was perfect out the box
AoS is doing well now because the neckbeards who were so vitriolically opposed to things have moved on or shut up for the most part. It really wasn't that hard to have "structure" or "composition" before the GHB. It's just those people who wanted to whine latched onto that as a reason to badmouth every little thing. You had people constantly talking about crap like having "an army of Nagashes" or multiple Archaons and other garbage.
(A) It was too expensive for new people. To get a decent army meant spending way too much even for a basic army and when you were having to spend almost £100 for one unit it was getting silly. As such only older players continued playing it and inevitably that means a slow decline over time.
(B) Compounded by (A) this allowed other companies to start creating copies of the generic types of units. As such GW wanting to keep their price margin rather than be competitive was to try and remove those themes that were too easy to copy. It's less easy to copy shark and turtle surfers for example
(C) GW changed its target audience to churn and burn gamers mostly teenagers and young adults. Older gamers were less prioritised. This group had been more accustomed to the WoW grandeur which didn't really sit well in the grittier dingiest setting that Warhammer came from
(D). Associated with (C) there are now vast numbers of ideas, themes, sport that any of us can easily do. This is espcially prevalent with the rise of consoles. It is easy to get a quick fix for anything these days. Hence learning vast amount of rules and learning their tactical nuances is less favoured by the target audience. When Warhammer originated such distractions did not exist. Hence very streamlined rules that can quickly be played fills the principle of a quick fix in today's market.
Don't forget that the community's biblical stubborness when it came to playing ANYTHING other than tournament standard 2500p made the barrier of entry even that much more expensive, because everyone felt that they had to have a full tournament army to play.
Earth127 wrote: As a person who got into fantasy at the end of 8th. It wasn't a very fun game to start in.
Practically no matter what new unit you bought or built, there was nothing that could match the blob of basic infantry in the centre with a big wizard overcasting. For a vetrean that already had these blacks of infantry fine but boy was that frustrating.
It might well be your local meta, but the tail end of 8th there was a massive swing towards MSU and avoidance-style lists. The mandatory lv4 wizard stayed, though, but you hardly saw big units anymore other than as a big magnet for super-6th spells. Unless you were talking about the Alarielle white lion death star, of course.
Eldarsif wrote: Locally the problem was that it was a game that had an exceptionally high entry cost(WHFB that is). It was really hard to get people into the game and telling them that they "just needed" 2000+ points of models. To top that off we had the veterans who only wanted to play high point games and had every single model in existence so they really didn't have a reason to buy more models except maybe 1-2 a year at best. I know my FLGS didn't really bother keeping WHFB stock at some point due to how little it sold.
And that's happening again post-GHB
Narrative-casual has all but disappeared and a disproportionate amount of visible games are played at the "official" 2K points level. Which fits in with a lot of the AoS community coming over from 40K (who had bits and bobs of fantasy armies) rather than being older fantasy players.
The End times was massively successful, books and minis sold out at just about every release. This means the market for rank-and-flank fantasy was there, just not the way they were doing it.
We didn't have any MSU here, and our locals favored the massive blobs as well with the mandatory level 4, where both sides entire tactical game was "gotta six dice Irresistable Force the death spell first so I can win"
the High elf mat ward banner giving the 2+ ward save against demons and magic and then the high elf players making the massive white lion death star was icing on the cake.
We didn't have any MSU here, and our locals favored the massive blobs as well with the mandatory level 4, where both sides entire tactical game was "gotta six dice Irresistable Force the death spell first so I can win"
the High elf mat ward banner giving the 2+ ward save against demons and magic and then the high elf players making the massive white lion death star was icing on the cake.
Yeah, that was my area as well. It wasn't great. I preferred 7th.
7th edition in my area and the tournament scene was all checkerboarded msu cavalry units. I hated that too. I miss 6th edition. 6th edition was probably the best edition of whfb in my opinion. Armies felt like armies and not checkerboard cav armies or giant fat blobs abusing steadfast.
Whew, this is frankly a complicated issue played out over years. There is not one simple answer, but from my limited POV here is what I saw:
1) GW really screwed up with the army books for 7th edition. The competitive scene kind of went to crap.
2) this timeframe happened to coincide with GW going all Kirby and going out of there way to cut off all interactions with their customers aside from their online shopping carts.
3) 8th came out, which introduced some big changes. Unfortunately it happened to inevitably alienate some old timers while simultaneously raising the barrier to entry for new players. The game did NOT scale well, at all, even for a GW game. Not good.
4) rather than fix the course here, the first years of releases doubled down on everything that did this. An expansion for even more magic which no one played. Tapering off of army releases. Bretonnians.
5) towards the end of 8th, the general feeling was that the game needed a big overhaul to make it play faster, smoother, and above all make it easier to get into. End times happened. There was much stirring in the community, cautious optimism.
6) AoS happened. Regardless of how you currently feel about AoS or GW in general, this was a poorly handled release. Going back to point number 2, everything just felt awkward and poorly communicated. It felt like a complete disconnect. GW did not do a good job giving their old playerbase an easy time transitioning to a new ruleset.
7) on a positive note, i feel certain the way WHFB/AoS went down finally forced some positive changes at GW. It’s just a shame it took WHFB and the old community dying off before someone in Nottingham woke up. It was a cool setting and interesting if quirky game while it lasted.
We didn't have any MSU here, and our locals favored the massive blobs as well with the mandatory level 4, where both sides entire tactical game was "gotta six dice Irresistable Force the death spell first so I can win"
Curious to why is that. Over here big blocks dominated the meta until the Empire book or thereabouts.
The mid to tail end of 8th was something like this:
A single 20 warrior unit, the rest are all min-sized fast units or monsters/chariots/warmachines
Empire had their all-knight lists (ok, there was a knight bus with characters, but the rest were all min-sized, hurricanums, small units of DGK and Stanks). DE with pegasus lords, warlocks, dark riders, max bolt throwers and shades. SE being SE. VC with their blender lord in a black knight unit, double terrorgheist, double hexwraiths and core full of bats and wolves, etc.
Those were the lists dominating the late 8th edition tournament meta.
The only army that didn't really conform to that and still came up competitive was skaven, but that was mostly because the book was an inter-edition mess of 7th edition casting values for an 8th edition magic phase and all the other skaven crazy things (teleporting doomrocket, teleporting brass orb, abombs, doomwheels, etc.). Brets, TK, O&G, Beastmen who couldn't play that game properly were the lowest possible tier.
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You had a nonexistent doublepost most likely. It's something that has happened for years, and the "correction" method is simply to let it be and the server fixes itself.
I honestly really enjoyed Warhammer Fantasy. I was a big proponent of it in 8th. A common misconception that people have was that it was killed by Steadfast and hordes, however in practice this wasn't actually true. Steadfast made a big impact early in 8th edition when it was introduced, however as new books came out and Games Workshop started pushing larger box sets, the actual power lists had all mostly shifted to one or two big blocks in core, and Monsters + Chariots ruling the day. In comparison to large blocks of infantry, single powerful models brought a lot of advantages. For one they were significantly more maneuverable under the Fantasy ranked movement system. Being able to freely rotate and pivot made them flexible, and gave them a huge degree of flexibility. These models typically had a large number of high strength attacks, and were able to use thunder stomps or impact hits and in some cases both to add a significant number of attacks to grind infantry blobs.
Generally Warhammer was a matchup between Monsters, Chariots and Monstrous Cavalry with a few exceptions. Even Skaven, the quintessential horde army, really only leveraged its hordes to hold the enemy in place while the Helpit Abominations, Doom Wheels, and Warp Lightning Cannons did all the actual work.
Fantasy's problem as others have said was GW has always relied on its unique and awesome IP to sell models that cost significantly more than their competitors. Fantasy was a tough sell for GW classic models because a generic Orc or Knight is difficult to sell. Furthermore, some other companies make fantastic fantasy miniatures for a lower price point, and GW would have had to significantly reduce prices to compete with generic miniature manufacturers. Look at the price point of Bolt Action. You can't slap a copyright on a US Marine or Soviet Infantry unit. So Warlord prices their minis to compete on the broader scale of WW2 models. For GW to really push plastic ranges like Bretonnia need to compete with Perry Miniature Historical or Fireforge (https://fireforge-games.com/military-order/9-teutonic-knights.html )
This is why the rules began shifting away from more generic rank and file, and began favoring more unique kits, like the Arachnorak Spider, Doom Bells, and other massive models, where there are fewer modeling competitors, especially competitors with similar war gear options! It was only a matter of time until GW needed to make its infantry especially unique as well, and thus the new AoS army groups were born. My Knights of Bretonnia are gone, surviving only in the legacy of The 9th Age. My Greenskin Orcs are holding on by a thread.
The short of it is Fantasy was doomed to die because of GW's miniature selling strategy. Create unique rules and units with protected IP and sell those at high prices. The models look nice, the models look unique, and because of how unique everything is it is more difficult for third party competitors to move in.
It happened here mainly because large mega blob units were easy mode and our local meta wasn't countering those properly. You were either running mega blob or you were trying to do a combined arms army that looked like an army and were getting roflstomped for it.
Chariots were a big thing, but monsters I never saw because cannonballs could one shot them. The only time we saw monsters was during a massive all day battle ending our tamurkhan campaign in 2013, where someone brought tamurkhan. Tamurkhan was blasted in turn 1 by 2 cannons and died. Ending why we never saw monsters n 8th edition lol.
Something went wrong. Can't figure out how to correct.
You had a nonexistent doublepost most likely. It's something that has happened for years, and the "correction" method is simply to let it be and the server fixes itself.
It's a reasonably accurate answer to the question posed by the thread title though.
I'm sorry Akaen but I do not believe you. Monsters could't do the dmg to a horde to kill it due to ranks.
And then there were (dwarven) cannons.
Skaven did use their hordes as you described. Elves did not. They simply placed Allarielle or another lvl 4 mage in the middle of blob, probably with the banner of the world dragon. (Note that thing would eat your skaven army. The game was not meant for 2+ ward saves)
Earth127 wrote: I'm sorry Akaen but I do not believe you. Monsters could't do the dmg to a horde to kill it due to ranks.
And then there were (dwarven) cannons.
Skaven did use their hordes as you described.
Elves did not. They simply placed Allarielle or another lvl 4 mage in the middle of blob, probably with the banner of the world dragon. (Note that thing would eat your skaven army. The game was not meant for 2+ ward saves)
Alarielle wasn't a particularly good caster, it was just the 5+ for mundane attacks that you wanted her for. And then you wanted to take high magic for the stacking ward save, but high magic lacked a 6th spell in the dwellers league, meaning if the other guy had it Alarielle would die half the time.
Other than a few gimmick lists (that Khalida list with a zillion archers) or maybe a single unit hordes were very much gone from top tier at the end of 8th edition.
No idea. WHFB was almost too much high-fantasy for me, AoS killed any trace of immersion. I play W40K now, but i still think WHFB 8ed was far superior to any of the large scale games they run now. (Albeit WHFB 8ed also suffered from GWs OCD on large models - and a few spells that were very broken against certain enemies.)
Maybe LotR would have been just my thing, but i dont know of anyone playing it.
Oh right I forgot a thing: highlander. Fantasy had a minimum on troops pointswise and this didn't make it any easier to get into the game (especially higher points)
It's a minor thing. But I really believe lack of sales killed WHFB. And that the main cause was lack of new blood (players).
We had regular new blood in our WHFB events. But none of them paid retail costs ever. THey all got their armies second hand or through vastly cheaper 3rd party alternates like Perry miniatures.
Earth127 wrote: Oh right I forgot a thing: highlander. Fantasy had a minimum on troops pointswise and this didn't make it any easier to get into the game (especially higher points)
Curiously most people complained about core units being a drag, and that they should be able to spend all their points on elites (which were generally more expensive per mini, especially stuff like witch elves, at 4,5 euro a single plastic mini).
Core units were also the easiest to find 2nd hand for cheap, and with a few exceptions with plenty of cheaper 3rd party support.
Thats true. Complaining about having to take normal core guys has always been a thing since 6th brought it back. AOS basically did away with that for the most part too.
Which is something I disagree with.
I like having rank and file troops in my armies. Seeing nothing but elite troops feels off to me.
That's something that happens a lot in Total War, and nothing is more annoying than seeing the AI field stacks of 20 Praetorian cohorts. I mean, legions weren't built like that.
I don't mind battleline/rank and file receiving certain bonuses, I do mind it not being a choice or borderline OP. And I do very much think the overreliance on basic core was a factor in making recruitment harder.
Especially pre-end times, you have to discount any chances it brought if you want to know what killed fantasy because at that point it was (for GW) already dead.
Is this post supposed to be ironic? If so, it fell flat to be honest. If it was meant to be serious, then you should be made aware of the irony of a vitriol laden toxic post trash talking people who didn't dive straight into AOS like you. This CAAC vs. WAAC war is not only dumb, but it's catching all the midline players in its crosshairs.
It's not CAAC vs WAAC, it's neckbeards versus anyone who actually was open to trying anything new. There were (and still are) very vocal people who refused to do anything with AoS because "IT ISN'T MY GAME!".
The sets were NOT selling fine, this is the reason they did the GH in the first place.
Prove it. The AoS main starter set actually went out of stock a few times before the GHB came out.
And as far as Battalions being available at the same time? Those functioned fine as AOS forces, but they weren't effective in the 8th meta, which is why kudos mentions them. Had GW not aimed its sights on the $100 regiment, things would have most assuredly ran different. 7th Ed. introduced rules bloat and price gouging, 8th chose to "fix" those things by doubling down on both. Rather than removing the special rules that were destroying the efficiency of the game, and rather than make sets viable straight out the box, they introduced rules to counter the rules that were set to counter the problem special rules, which then forced people to buy more of the expensive small boxed sets to be competitive. THAT was the failing with 7th and 8th. AOS wasn't a fix for that. AOS was an attempt to "unify" the products of both games to both cater to what was already working (40K), test how far they could oversimplify their FLAGSHIP title without losing customers (40K), and create a safety net to roll the newer AOS stuff into 40K if the game system itself was failing but they wanted a ROI on their molding and design work (Think along the lines of WarmaHordes).
And this is just gobbledygook.
AOS is doing well because GW is reintroducing structure, composition, and customer opinion/feedback. Not because it was perfect out the box
AoS is doing well now because the neckbeards who were so vitriolically opposed to things have moved on or shut up for the most part. It really wasn't that hard to have "structure" or "composition" before the GHB. It's just those people who wanted to whine latched onto that as a reason to badmouth every little thing. You had people constantly talking about crap like having "an army of Nagashes" or multiple Archaons and other garbage.
Someone has an axe to grind and a grudge to go with it I see. Did a neckbeard burn your models or something?
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Which is something I disagree with.
I like having rank and file troops in my armies. Seeing nothing but elite troops feels off to me.
That's something that happens a lot in Total War, and nothing is more annoying than seeing the AI field stacks of 20 Praetorian cohorts. I mean, legions weren't built like that.
I agree with you and feel the same way though in this day and age... "normal troops aren't fun" is probably in the vast majority of public gamers.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Which is something I disagree with.
I like having rank and file troops in my armies. Seeing nothing but elite troops feels off to me.
That's something that happens a lot in Total War, and nothing is more annoying than seeing the AI field stacks of 20 Praetorian cohorts. I mean, legions weren't built like that.
I agree with you and feel the same way though in this day and age... "normal troops aren't fun" is probably in the vast majority of public gamers.
Anecdotal data point to support this:
I've got really enthusiastic about starting up in this game after seeing Kurnoth Hunters models and getting excited about running an army of mostly those and treelords!
My anecdotal data is simply years of running events and listening to swathes of players gripe about core tax and how no one should have to use garbage normal troops except in historical games.
You don't get to decide what others people's armies are built like within reason for balance. I paint what I want to paint , and that is what drives the buissnes of GW and fantasy didn't .
If you want to play core heavy more's the power to you.
Everyone (that includes all of us) has to make some concession for balance.
auticus wrote: My anecdotal data is simply years of running events and listening to swathes of players gripe about core tax and how no one should have to use garbage normal troops except in historical games.
I like when core/battleline are not garbage but also generic within the context of the army; they can't do much effectively beyond being basic troopers that hold objectives/take it to the face/kill chaff. Take for example orc boyz. They fight, they are numerous, they can take some damage. They are great to fill out a core of the army specifically because they don't cost extra points to be particularly good at something.
A more specific example could be Arkanaut Company for Kharadron. Yeah they shoot, but not amazingly well, they get a bonus against heroes/monsters but lack the punch to do a lot on their own, and they are competent in melee but again serve better as support. Essentially they serve well on the battlefield but wouldn't be effective at winning battles on their own; equal points company vs mixed units and the company would lose. What's interesting here is that what makes for a generic unit for Overlords would be considered a particularly specialized unit in many other armies.
Overall I find AoS does a good job of this. While some units often can be battleline that wouldn't normally be considered 'core' (like, say, squig hoppers) we usually don't see them being used to fill out battleline entirely on their own because they work better when there is a battleline to support them and/or be supported. Now there are a handful of units that have no business being battleline *cough*stormfiends*cough* but I find those are only a small fraction overall. Additionally some units that don't work as specialists could see more use if they could fill battleline; going with Kharadron there are Skywardens. They aren't bad for the cost, but lose out to Endrinriggers because their role is sort of a hit-and-run melee unit with a few extra abilities while Endrinriggers cost more and lack as many support abilities but simply hit harder in melee (and respond better to the army's available buffs). This is a place where skyriggers could be a good battleline, since they would be terrible to take as all 3 battleline choices but would still fill 1 or 2 slots quite well. Since they are filling a required slot there is not as much pressure on them to get work done, and their support capacity can really shine.
Not sure how much sense that all makes, I'm having difficulty putting the concept into words.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also to answer the question of the OP: Kirby stabbed it in the back and let it bleed out before kicking the corpse into a gutter.
Earth127 wrote: I'm sorry Akaen but I do not believe you. Monsters could't do the dmg to a horde to kill it due to ranks.
And then there were (dwarven) cannons.
Skaven did use their hordes as you described.
Elves did not. They simply placed Allarielle or another lvl 4 mage in the middle of blob, probably with the banner of the world dragon. (Note that thing would eat your skaven army. The game was not meant for 2+ ward saves)
Cannons were devastating, but on a large scale they really primarily negated the presence of Characters on Monsters. Dragon Mounts and other awesome things were almost never seen because you paid for your expensive character, with his expensive magic items, and put him on your expensive mount. Then you got shot with a Cannon Ball, and lost your general and centerpiece model and everything went to hell because the leadership bubble from your General, and the reroll from the BSB where the most important lynchpins of your army.
Armies that had ready access to monsters, especially cheaper monsters, tended to be able to field them in enough numbers to overcome some of these shennanigans. Warriors of Chaos especially, with Chimeras with Wings, a Breath Weapon, and 4+ Regeneration were an absolute bear to deal with for all but Dwarf or Daemon flaming cannons. The fact that these were backed up by a core filled with Cheap chariots made them one of the more devastating armies out there. Vampire Counts were also absolutely obnoxious because the Terrorgheists were so fast, and could position themselves out of range of charge arcs while screaming into your squads with very little you could do about it. Cannons and other artillery helped, but the Terrorgheists were often fast enough that the cannons only realistically had one turn of shooting to stop them. Elves did run the giant block of Banner of the World Dragon White Lions. But that list was backed up with fast moving monsters like the Frost Pheonix, which was ridiculously fast, and incredibly tough.
Ranked infantry also tended to lose to monstrous infantry and monstrous cavalry quite spectacularly. Ogre Kingdoms could grind out an Orc Infantry horde in a matter of turns between high number of attacks per model, impact hits on the charge, and stomp attacks all from their basic models.
The top tournament lists were the ones spamming cheap fast monsters. They preformed exceptionally well against armies that lacked cannons. You didn't even have to worry about cannons vs Orcs, Vampires, Warriors of Chaos, Tomb Kings, Bretonnia, Elves of any stripe, etc. and even if you did face cannons, you could often either hide out of sight for them until your fast cavalry could disrupt them, or just brute force it with sheer numbers and regeneration and kill the cannon with flying monsters.
I would also put out that other companies came onto the scene and cheaper "better" games were made readily available and were better supported in FLGS.
pm713 wrote:I loved my troops in every army I played. There were more interesting things in other slots but troops were still cool and fun to have.
auticus wrote:My anecdotal data is simply years of running events and listening to swathes of players gripe about core tax and how no one should have to use garbage normal troops except in historical games.
It's funny, but ever since 6th Edition I've started every army list I wrote at 2,000 pts. with 4 Core regiments right off the bat, and did what I could to make sure that I didn't spend more on Specials and Rares than I did on Core. Didn't always happen that way, but it was a concerted effort. I may be the only person on the planet that was running Empire Spearmen consistently in 6th, and DEFINITELY in 7th.
People who look at Core as a "tax" either don't understand how military forces work, or are so... corrupted at the concept of overpowered stuff that they can't see value in ANYTHING other than the max output item. It'd be like if you introduced Nukes as a weapon in COD, you'd have someone who would spam nukes all day long just because it's a fast "I win" thing.
Yeah, like armies looking like armies too. As I said, a force consisting of just elite units or a big dumb monster supported by 10 guys looks really bad to me.
pm713 wrote:I loved my troops in every army I played. There were more interesting things in other slots but troops were still cool and fun to have.
auticus wrote:My anecdotal data is simply years of running events and listening to swathes of players gripe about core tax and how no one should have to use garbage normal troops except in historical games.
It's funny, but ever since 6th Edition I've started every army list I wrote at 2,000 pts. with 4 Core regiments right off the bat, and did what I could to make sure that I didn't spend more on Specials and Rares than I did on Core. Didn't always happen that way, but it was a concerted effort. I may be the only person on the planet that was running Empire Spearmen consistently in 6th, and DEFINITELY in 7th.
People who look at Core as a "tax" either don't understand how military forces work, or are so... corrupted at the concept of overpowered stuff that they can't see value in ANYTHING other than the max output item. It'd be like if you introduced Nukes as a weapon in COD, you'd have someone who would spam nukes all day long just because it's a fast "I win" thing.
I think that the game that gets army building right the most is KoW, with basic units unlocking elite slots. Simple and elegant yet allowing for many different options.
It seems a common thread is the prohibative model count required by 8. That really resonated with me. I had a massive, fully painted Orc and Goblin army. I tried to play a game of 8th a couple of times. Laboriously set up my gigantic units of goblins which took ages and look across at mostly unpainted units of enemies. Turn 1, super spell wipes my giant units and I laboriously remove them. It just wasn't that fun for me. When the model count was such that 16 dudes was a decent sized unit, it was a lot easier to set up and play. You could also pick up a unit in one regiment box. Then they increased the price of the boxes, decreased the number of models in the box by halff and increased the number of models you needed by about 2.5. End result is you need to spend 5 times more for a unit and it just increases set up and teardown time for no appreciable improvement in gameplay.
If they had released an AoS in a broadly similar setting to WFB and with points values, rather than the really OTT setting they went for and the change in art style and particularly model scale that accompanied it, I would have been delighted. As it was, I look at some of the minis from time to time and then don't buy them because they are ridiculously over priced.
I think that the game that gets army building right the most is KoW, with basic units unlocking elite slots. Simple and elegant yet allowing for many different options.
It does seem nice, but there are 2 problems I have with it
1) The models aren't great. 2) Blocks don't lose models. I don't like how you don't whittle formations, you just remove them entirely after attacking them enough.
Its why I'm more interested in Conquest, where you do remove models from blocks
Your problem with the Kings of War rules is that you don't like Mantic models?
I will never understand that argument, for the same reason you can say you don't like Bolt Action game because you don't like Waffenkammers Resin tanks or your problem with Black Powder is that Napoleonic Austrians by Warlord are not historic correct
2) Blocks don't lose models. I don't like how you don't whittle formations, you just remove them entirely after attacking them enough.
for me this is a big advantage as I don't see much a reason to build and buy 30 Infantry models if half of them is removed and but aside before the unit see action
not able to change formation is also something I miss from time to time but than moving single models around because you don't have matching unit base for every single formation you are going to use (or to change the unit base each time you change formation) can be annoying too
and I find single model mechanics outside of skirmish games kind of stupid, but this is a different thing
CthuluIsSpy wrote: It does seem nice, but there are 2 problems I have with it
I used to have a beef with fixed charge distance, but it fits the older historic wargame style so I'm letting that pass now.
Casualty removal and general lack of customisation are the biggest qualms I have with KoW. Characters and units just seem too much like one another.
9th age feels more like a better version of warhammer to me. KoW feels much more like warmaster or DbA in 28mm (or hail caesar for that matter), which isn't bad in itself. Just not warhammer. I also get many more chances at a 9th age game than a KoW so there's that too.
Maybe it's silly, but a huge issue for me with KoW is not swinging back in melee or making armor saves. Doing absolutely nothing during the opponent's turns feels wrong to me, and not being able to get 'locked in' to melee does as well. I have other issues with it but that's the one that really kills it for me.
Kings of War is my region's fantasy game where most of the fantasy players went to. I have a love/hate relationship with it. Its just very very tournament streamlined to me and everything feels very samey. Also the guys not dying bothers me as well, since that breaks my immersion.
The game overall is fairly solid, just niggling things like that stop me from loving it.
Your problem with the Kings of War rules is that you don't like Mantic models?
I will never understand that argument, for the same reason you can say you don't like Bolt Action game because you don't like Waffenkammers Resin tanks or your problem with Black Powder is that Napoleonic Austrians by Warlord are not historic correct
I like visual consistency. If I start a salamanders army to use my Lizardmen in, it will really bother me that the majority my army won't look like the models in the book. If they were closer, or if I had fewer models, then I could shrug it off, but they look nothing alike to me.
I like visual consistency. If I start a salamanders army to use my Lizardmen in, it will really bother me that the majority my army won't look like the models in the book. If they were closer, or if I had fewer models, then I could shrug it off, but they look nothing alike to me.
So also would have never made an edition change in Warhammer as you were not using your old models?
I just don't get it, the rules have nothing to do with the models from a company.
This was not even a thing in Warhammer, if you did not liked the models you used something else.
The only game I know, except for historical games, were rules and models are tied together is Warmachine/Hordes (even in X-Wing you can exchange models to your liking)
Doing absolutely nothing during the opponent's turns feels wrong to me.
This is one thing I like about it (and other games that use it) as having an opponent that was just taking his time in my turn and slowing things down was always annoying.
But I can understand that people like that interaction (I was just used to have none from other games before I started Warhammer)
Considering that an edition changed seldom completely altered how my army looks to such an extent as its unrecognizable...not really? Saurus looked the same in 6ed to 8th ed. Ditto with skinks. And I have a bunch of those.
Even necrons look largely the same from 3rd to 8th ed. The only complete redesign were wraiths, and even then there are enough similarities to get away with it. Tomb Spyders still look recognizable as tomb spyders and flayed ones are recognizable as flayed ones.
Saurus looked the same in 6ed to 8th ed. Ditto with skinks. And I have a bunch of those.
So yeah, the look the same no matter what rules do you use so I don't see your problem
(first I thought you talk about how the army lists looked like or the feeling of the army and there was a big change during editions, but just from the pure look of the models there is no difference if I use them for Warhammer, T9A, KoW, HotT, Frostgrave, SAGA, etc)
I actually have some of those, along with the bow skinks. I don't use them; I just have them for collecting purposes. I prefer the 6th ed saurus. Maybe its just nostalgia, idk. I will say though that its easier to rank up the 5th ed saurus, as they don't have protruding tails or arms.
Saurus looked the same in 6ed to 8th ed. Ditto with skinks. And I have a bunch of those.
So yeah, the look the same no matter what rules do you use so I don't see your problem (first I thought you talk about how the army lists looked like or the feeling of the army and there was a big change during editions, but just from the pure look of the models there is no difference if I use them for Warhammer, T9A, KoW, HotT, Frostgrave, SAGA, etc)
I guess its because I don't like counts as or proxies, unless they look like they could belong in the same system. Its like...using a troll doll to represent an unit of trolls. I mean, you could do it, rules wise it doesn't matter. Its just that I personally wouldn't do it as it would be really weird for me.
Da Boss wrote:I actually prefered the old 5th edition Saurus for the overall look. These waddly crocodile men we have nowadays don't suit me at all.
If someone would make a sprue of add on arms that made Command and Spears for the old plastic Saurus, as well as an upgrade kit to make Temple Guard from them, I'd be one happy guy.
I guess its because I don't like counts as or proxies, unless they look like they could belong in the same system.
Its like...using a troll doll to represent an unit of trolls. I mean, you could do it, rules wise it doesn't matter. Its just that I personally wouldn't do it as it would be really weird for me.
Proxies is something different than using a Mantic Troll for Warhammer, a GW Troll for Kings of War and Trollbloods as Ogres in T9A.
I mean a proxy is like using Napeolonic French in Bolt Action, but not using Perry models in a game made by Warlord.
But maybe it is because I played too many historical games or started Warhammer in a time were Citadel did not provide all models needed for Warhammer (and the game were just the rules) that I don't see a close connection between Rules and Models just because they are made by the same company
pm713 wrote:I loved my troops in every army I played. There were more interesting things in other slots but troops were still cool and fun to have.
auticus wrote:My anecdotal data is simply years of running events and listening to swathes of players gripe about core tax and how no one should have to use garbage normal troops except in historical games.
It's funny, but ever since 6th Edition I've started every army list I wrote at 2,000 pts. with 4 Core regiments right off the bat, and did what I could to make sure that I didn't spend more on Specials and Rares than I did on Core. Didn't always happen that way, but it was a concerted effort. I may be the only person on the planet that was running Empire Spearmen consistently in 6th, and DEFINITELY in 7th.
People who look at Core as a "tax" either don't understand how military forces work, or are so... corrupted at the concept of overpowered stuff that they can't see value in ANYTHING other than the max output item. It'd be like if you introduced Nukes as a weapon in COD, you'd have someone who would spam nukes all day long just because it's a fast "I win" thing.
I think that the game that gets army building right the most is KoW, with basic units unlocking elite slots. Simple and elegant yet allowing for many different options.
Skaven in 6th had something like this with Clanrats unlocking other regiments, but you would get one of each regiment type for each Clanrat regiment. Not one UNIT per Clanrat, but one of each type. so you'd still have four different units based off that "anchor". Mainstay unit? Yeah, I think that's what they were called. They used to put restrictions in like "you can never have more X than Y", but for some reason those restrictions were thrown out wholesale.
I started playing fantasy a little after 3rd edition and I have to agree that if I didn't have already giant units of stuff 8th edition trying to keep up would have killed me.
Just looking at the Dark Elf army, one of the best units was the Witch elves.. they were sold in units of 10 and was one of the most expensive unit box sets
outside of knight models. So to get two good sized units of them, you would need to spend a ton of money and that is not including any champions, support
or monsters.
The other thing mentioned was getting new people started. There was no introduction game.. Shadowspire seems to be doing a great job of this and the miniatures for
it look great but I love the low magic of WHFB and currently can not afford to buy into another game. The only big problem right now is a lot of old timers just don't
care for AoS. If they wanted a system like 40k for fantasy, then make one system for both and allow cross over..
Also already mentioned I blame Kirby for most for it dying, His ego almost put GW in the grave, What they are doing now is amazing compared to what it was like just
a few years ago..
auticus wrote: Largely because as we got into the middle of the 2000s, gamer culture had swung towards "restrictions aren't fun".
Which is an asinine viewpoint when it comes to strategic games, as a large part of that is that you have to create a functional and effective force from a limited pool of resources and options. Going "lol, Ima spam dinos" does not make for a strategic game.
Also already mentioned I blame Kirby for most for it dying, His ego almost put GW in the grave, What they are doing now is amazing compared to what it was like just
a few years ago..
It really cannot be mentioned enough that Fantasy was declared morbid and killed off at a time when GW was doing many things wrong from no social media to no previews to insane pricing.
The company's releases to share holders at the time were like a parody.
Would a better marketing and customer relations have changed things? Maybe. Probably.
Were there different ways to go, sure. But here we are.
The Olde Worlde is coming back with a new RPG and video games and there are plenty of rules and models out there for fans to look to so it maybe gone but it's far from forgotten.
auticus wrote: Largely because as we got into the middle of the 2000s, gamer culture had swung towards "restrictions aren't fun".
Which is an asinine viewpoint when it comes to strategic games, as a large part of that is that you have to create a functional and effective force from a limited pool of resources and options.
Going "lol, Ima spam dinos" does not make for a strategic game.
I like the layered restrictions of AoS; battleline-if is a very good an fun system, as is allegiance for that matter, whereby the restriction itself is optional but comes with appropriate awards for doing so. I would not be unhappy to see a bit more restriction as a baseline though. Something like 'limited battleline' where only the first count is battleline and the 2nd, 3rd, etc are not would be good to see IMO. Because there are a decent chunk of generic battleline units that work well as one of an army's battleline but don't make sense (and don't work as well balance wise) when used for all of them. Stuff like mixed order armies using all skinks or arkanaut companies to fill battleline doesn't seem in the spirit of the game to me. Such units could be "Limited Battleline" but become full Battleline with the relevant allegiance.
Luckily the spirit of the old world/WHF can kind of live on in blood bowl. And as far as the near future goes that's about the best anyone can hope for. I'm not sure I want to see Mordheim come back, mostly because I question whether or not GW can support all of these specialist games long term.
GW seem to lean toward self contained "boxed games" rather than "hobby games" that need ongoing support. Honestly, I think there is a lot of merit in that approach.
Da Boss wrote: GW seem to lean toward self contained "boxed games" rather than "hobby games" that need ongoing support. Honestly, I think there is a lot of merit in that approach.
Yep, if there is any support it seems to be coming mostly from Forgeworld.
In my mind WHFB died in 7th edition and that's funnily enough when I stopped playing (only to come back to tabletop gaming a few months ago with 40k 8th ed, so hello everyone!)
6th was sort of a golden age for the game, you had full sized plastic regiment sets for all armies that ranged from £12-18 over the course of the edition and you also had the battallion sets which were really good deals too. You could build fairly large, legal and effective armies from this stuff no problem. The game was also really popular in my area, the local GW always had an equal mix of WHFB and 40k going on, with LOTR basically being dead. Seeing how things are in the area now it's kind of interesting that AoS is the system that is dead now. I see more people playing x-wing, bolt action and shadespire.
Then 7th edition hit and suddenly you could only get the rank bonus by having a width of 5 models. Suddenly boxes like Chaos Warriors, Dwarfs and Elves became substantially worse and every army across the board suddenly required you to be buying a lot more models to even have effective units. However armies like Greenskins and the Empire were shafted even harder. I remember wanting to make an Empire army for the new edition, only to see that the old state troops regiment set was replaced by a box of 10 models that practically cost the same. And this in an edition that was encouraging you to go at least 25 models for your infantry units. So I was looking at potentially £45 for a unit of core troops.
In that sort of situation it's no wonder that people decided to start leaving. Plenty of my friends slowly stopped playing in 7th too, not just because of the price-gouging but also the atrocious rules and army books.
I just can't take people seriously who say WHFB was always doomed to failure and was inherently a flawed system. It was massively successful in the 90's and early to mid 00's. It was killed by Kirby deliberately sabotaging it so he could sell GW off to Hasbro.
Bosskelot wrote: It was killed by Kirby deliberately sabotaging it so he could sell GW off to Hasbro.
Wait, what? He didn't sell it off. He was a greedy, incompetent hack who shouldn't have been in charge of the company, but he didn't sell the company off. But yeah, there was nothing inherently wrong with the game. It was still being played in my area, even in 8th ed. Its just that due to GW's poor handling of it, it was harder to build armies and get new players to play.
Bosskelot wrote: It was killed by Kirby deliberately sabotaging it so he could sell GW off to Hasbro.
Wait, what? He didn't sell it off. He was a greedy, incompetent hack who shouldn't have been in charge of the company, but he didn't sell the company off.
But yeah, there was nothing inherently wrong with the game. It was still being played in my area, even in 8th ed. Its just that due to GW's poor handling of it, it was harder to build armies and get new players to play.
I didn't say it was sold off. The intention was he could sell it off to Hasbro but he was removed as CEO before it could happen.
Bosskelot wrote: It was killed by Kirby deliberately sabotaging it so he could sell GW off to Hasbro.
Wait, what? He didn't sell it off. He was a greedy, incompetent hack who shouldn't have been in charge of the company, but he didn't sell the company off.
But yeah, there was nothing inherently wrong with the game. It was still being played in my area, even in 8th ed. Its just that due to GW's poor handling of it, it was harder to build armies and get new players to play.
I didn't say it was sold off. The intention was he could sell it off to Hasbro but he was removed as CEO before it could happen.
Oh wow, really? Its a good thing they kicked him then
Then 7th edition hit and suddenly you could only get the rank bonus by having a width of 5 models. Suddenly boxes like Chaos Warriors, Dwarfs and Elves became substantially worse and every army across the board suddenly required you to be buying a lot more models to even have effective units. However armies like Greenskins and the Empire were shafted even harder. I remember wanting to make an Empire army for the new edition, only to see that the old state troops regiment set was replaced by a box of 10 models that practically cost the same. And this in an edition that was encouraging you to go at least 25 models for your infantry units. So I was looking at potentially £45 for a unit of core troops.
My mate and I were looking at starting WHFB just before the End Times kicked in. I really liked the look of Vampire Counts and even got as far as buying models for an army, but when I was doing the maths and discovered that a functional unit of 100 points of skeletons that would pretty much just exist to get in the way for a bit before dying (again ) was going to cost me £60 or so, I lost interest...
I'll chime in that I dropped out at the beginning of 6th edition. I think it hadn't really ever been my thing. I think if you're doing that kind of rank-and-file game there's plenty of historicals that do it better, and I grew to dislike that kind of artificial block-vs-block all kludged together.
Nurglitch wrote: I'll chime in that I dropped out at the beginning of 6th edition. I think it hadn't really ever been my thing. I think if you're doing that kind of rank-and-file game there's plenty of historicals that do it better, and I grew to dislike that kind of artificial block-vs-block all kludged together.
Well that's obviously a matter of taste but since a battle in the middle age would resemble that (correct me if I'm wrong) I feel like it totally suits the fantasy setting. Furthermore this would demolish and make useless 40k as well, because they are many noGW games that use this kind of format ( understand: no strict formations) with better rules. In both cases the interest one could actually have is, I believe, the setting. So I doubt it played any role in the game dying out.
The stratospherical entry cost thay keeps being pointed out on the other hand definitly has to. I had interest in the game ( because of accidentaly aquired 6th army books) but since none of my mates were willing to give it a try I gave up, although i still consider trying someday of i get the chance. Useless and boring self display put aside nevertheless, if you did have to brong along 60 bicks for a single unit no wonder it went downhill.
Nurglitch wrote: I'll chime in that I dropped out at the beginning of 6th edition. I think it hadn't really ever been my thing. I think if you're doing that kind of rank-and-file game there's plenty of historicals that do it better, and I grew to dislike that kind of artificial block-vs-block all kludged together.
Well that's obviously a matter of taste but since a battle in the middle age would resemble that (correct me if I'm wrong) I feel like it totally suits the fantasy setting. Furthermore this would demolish and make useless 40k as well, because they are many noGW games that use this kind of format ( understand: no strict formations) with better rules. In both cases the interest one could actually have is, I believe, the setting. So I doubt it played any role in the game dying out.
This was my first reaction to AoS. "If I wanted to play skirmish combo-stuff I'd have taken warmahordes".
I've grown to quite like it, but that's down to past investment in models and sort of familiarity with the setting. I wouldn't have touched AoS with a six-foot stick if it had been released by another company.
Yeah, similar here. They turned AoS into a loose formation somewhat skirmish game (I say somewhat because to me, if you have more than 10 models its not really a skirmish). Warhammer 40k is loose formation somewhat skirmish game. I already play Wh40k. AoS is not distinct enough for me to get me truly interested.
The fact that you can shoot in and out of combat with no penalty and that there's a chance you have to wait for your opponent to have his turn again doesn't help matters.
Which is a pity, because they do bring out nice models. Its just the game they belong to isn't for me. Now, if they moved to an alternate activation style (provided they keep double turns) with close order formations...maybe.
The loose formation thing annoyed me as well. I actually think 40k really needs to lose it's skirmish rules too and use unit leaders as the only meaningful marker for squad position/concealment/range/LoS/etc. Games that play at the size 40k does, and AoS seems to from what I have seen, should not be using skirmish mechanics.
jonolikespie wrote: The loose formation thing annoyed me as well. I actually think 40k really needs to lose it's skirmish rules too and use unit leaders as the only meaningful marker for squad position/concealment/range/LoS/etc. Games that play at the size 40k does, and AoS seems to from what I have seen, should not be using skirmish mechanics.
I hav'nt been introduced to any system that would play the way you describe (only squad leaders mattering or so) but that actually seems odd. Have you tried any? I'm curious.
In a way I believe that the large scale battle of Epic (if I remember well) would suit 40k good. The skirmish scale in my opinion is important also from a setting and immersion point of iew: you can't stick that good to the roll of general you play during a game, can't have that much fun with a single model showing outraging bravery and so on, which in my opinion is a prevailing in 40k, although I agree that purely rulewise, if any system works, maybe they should give it a go.
However they could try anything as long as the same team that failed at least 2 editions and has produced a seemingly controversial thrid one in a row, I don't have much faith. In fact I even don't rely on GW to produce satisfying rules any longer.
jonolikespie wrote: The loose formation thing annoyed me as well. I actually think 40k really needs to lose it's skirmish rules too and use unit leaders as the only meaningful marker for squad position/concealment/range/LoS/etc. Games that play at the size 40k does, and AoS seems to from what I have seen, should not be using skirmish mechanics.
I hav'nt been introduced to any system that would play the way you describe (only squad leaders mattering or so) but that actually seems odd. Have you tried any? I'm curious.
In a way I believe that the large scale battle of Epic (if I remember well) would suit 40k good. The skirmish scale in my opinion is important also from a setting and immersion point of iew: you can't stick that good to the roll of general you play during a game, can't have that much fun with a single model showing outraging bravery and so on, which in my opinion is a prevailing in 40k, although I agree that purely rulewise, if any system works, maybe they should give it a go.
However they could try anything as long as the same team that failed at least 2 editions and has produced a seemingly controversial thrid one in a row, I don't have much faith. In fact I even don't rely on GW to produce satisfying rules any longer.
I've not tried any, it's just my approach to fixing what I see to be the main problem with 40k. I dislike that it has skirmish mechanics in it where the positioning of individual troops matters while playing at such a large scale. Using squad leaders and the rest as just wound counters is just an idea at a quick fix. I'd also suggest that Kings of War got WHFB right with the units being a single 'model' with a single statline rather than a collection of individual models, and so bringing that into 40k would help it. Hell, it would have been amazing in WHFB and maybe it'd have saved it. The game could have been much quicker and smoother.
I've actually been looking at KoW again now that the new edition and Total War 2 got me looking at AoS but hearing double turns are staying has me very hesitant to buy in...
An Actual Englishman wrote: Why did fantasy die? The same reason any company ever drops one of its IPs - it was deemed to be not profitable enough.
And why was it not profitable enough?
Yup that's the actual question. But as far as this tread has gone it seems there is no major reason. It seems more like something at the crossraods, the addition of all factors combined, more then one decisive element. Prices, lack of players, second hand, bad rules, copyrights, tight fluff... All that made the unplayable and therefore unattractive. At the end GW deciced they were simply better off dishing it and starting from zero all over again.
An Actual Englishman wrote: Why did fantasy die? The same reason any company ever drops one of its IPs - it was deemed to be not profitable enough.
And why was it not profitable enough?
Keep in mind that you're quoting the same poster who has spent multiple threads proclaiming we would never have plastic sisters because they aren't profitable.
Warhammer Fantasy died the same reason tons of things die.
Because many of the people that often pretend it was the greatest thing ever didn't actually play it or have anything invested in it. Just like Squats, Sisters, etc. It was big, clunky, over-complex, and if you went to any FLGS anywhere you'd see someone playing it once in a blue moon.
For perspective- I saw more people playing Necromunda, years after it was no longer supported, far more often than I saw anyone playing Warhammer Fantasy.
I say this and people can call me a jerk, but my first GW game was Warhammer Fantasy and I had a Chaos army I never got to play.
Keep in mind that you're quoting the same poster who has spent multiple threads proclaiming we would never have plastic sisters because they aren't profitable.
Just like a good chunk of this forum thought the 'big space marines' that became Primaris Marines were some guy's third-party 'truescale' Space Marines.
Because many of the people that often pretend it was the greatest thing ever didn't actually play it or have anything invested in it. Just like Squats, Sisters, etc. It was big, clunky, over-complex, and if you went to any FLGS anywhere you'd see someone playing it once in a blue moon.
For perspective- I saw more people playing Necromunda, years after it was no longer supported, far more often than I saw anyone playing Warhammer Fantasy.
I say this and people can call me a jerk, but my first GW game was Warhammer Fantasy and I had a Chaos army I never got to play.
This definitely is dependent on area. Back in around... er... 2014 or so while End Times were going on and before Age of Sigmar dropped, Warhammer Fantasy was actually more popular than Warhammer 40K. I usually brought one of my Fantasy armies and one of my 40K armies in my car with me when I went out for a pick up game and more often then not I would be playing Fantasy. I also found Fantasy was pretty healthy out in Minneapolis when I used to live out there, as most of the people I played 40K with also had Fantasy armies as well. Furthermore, the 9th age is still pushing in Detroit area as well for legacy players.
Like anything, it depends on your area. Some areas have a lot of people into WFB. Some areas have a lot of people into Bolt Action. Its a circle. Games with nobody playing die, often because nobody is playing them.
akaean wrote: Like anything, it depends on your area. Some areas have a lot of people into WFB. Some areas have a lot of people into Bolt Action. Its a circle. Games with nobody playing die, often because nobody is playing them.
In major metropolitan cities, you could find people playing WFB easily. At the time, my job required me to travel quite a bit and at the very least, I would stick my head into various FLGS.
But far more so than anything, in the average everyday FLGS you would find in any place that carried GW products- the tables were covered in 40k models, and you'd see Fantasy minis marked down 15% to get them to move. Most of them were ancient and covered in dust.
Plus, it was a nightmare hauling around a Fantasy army compared to a small 40k army with a couple of tanks and a few squads.
Why did Fantasy die? Because 400 Skaven Slaves only cost 200 points, were unbreakable in combat, and had more wounds and attacks then most other armies, and that was only one unit- in a 2,500 point game.
Tamwulf wrote: Why did Fantasy die? Because 400 Skaven Slaves only cost 200 points, were unbreakable in combat, and had more wounds and attacks then most other armies, and that was only one unit- in a 2,500 point game.
Ah, yes. Skaven Slave armies. For people who don't really want to make friends at the FLGS.
I attempted to play WHFB during 7th, then again during 8th. Both times I quit early on because I couldn't find opponents who would play less than 2500 points. They weren't even really that interested in playing 2,000. This from a dwindling group of players who complained constantly that they wanted new blood (and that I never saw buying anything). The fantasy section of the store literally collected dust.
It is anecdotal, but that was my experience. I started playing AoS after the release of the GHB 2017 with 500 point games. I now regularly play games at 1,000 and 1,500 point levels, but have a pool of almost 3,000 points to draw from. AoS stock flies off the shelf and we have over a dozen regular players.
In all fairness, I loathe the new Sigmar lore but I love the models. But Holy Crap, they are -still- awful to transport. I don't even like carrying these things to the FLGS.
Tamwulf wrote: Why did Fantasy die? Because 400 Skaven Slaves only cost 200 points, were unbreakable in combat, and had more wounds and attacks then most other armies, and that was only one unit- in a 2,500 point game.
Yeah, that was the worst part of steadfast. Either you took a huge block of cheap infantry or you took a monster. There was no place for reasonably sized blocks of elite infantry.
In 7th it didn't matter if you have 400 slaves or 40, because you could reduce their leadership enough for them to autobreak. Can't do that in 8th. Took all of the tactics of the game and made it "hurr, I have more than you, I win!"
Tamwulf wrote: Why did Fantasy die? Because 400 Skaven Slaves only cost 200 points, were unbreakable in combat, and had more wounds and attacks then most other armies, and that was only one unit- in a 2,500 point game.
Yeah, that was the worst part of steadfast. Either you took a huge block of cheap infantry or you took a monster. There was no place for reasonably sized blocks of elite infantry.
In 7th it didn't matter if you have 400 slaves or 40, because you could reduce their leadership enough for them to autobreak. Can't do that in 8th. Took all of the tactics of the game and made it "hurr, I have more than you, I win!"
As far as your experienced, what was the best edition? Loks like 7th and 8th are utterly messed up...
Tamwulf wrote: Why did Fantasy die? Because 400 Skaven Slaves only cost 200 points, were unbreakable in combat, and had more wounds and attacks then most other armies, and that was only one unit- in a 2,500 point game.
Yeah, that was the worst part of steadfast. Either you took a huge block of cheap infantry or you took a monster. There was no place for reasonably sized blocks of elite infantry. In 7th it didn't matter if you have 400 slaves or 40, because you could reduce their leadership enough for them to autobreak. Can't do that in 8th. Took all of the tactics of the game and made it "hurr, I have more than you, I win!"
As far as your experienced, what was the best edition? Loks like 7th and 8th are utterly messed up...
I only started in 7th, so 7th is the best for me. It had problems, but at least you could use flanking maneuvers instead of just steam rolling your opponent with a huge ass block of cheap infantry and magic. Though by the sound of it, 6th edition was probably great. I actually have the 6th ed Lizardmen army book, because I started when 7th ed dropped but before the Lizards got updated, and it that had a lot more content than later books. You had tactics articles, alternate army lists and a lot of customization.
As far as your experienced, what was the best edition? Loks like 7th and 8th are utterly messed up...
More or less 6th edition with Ravening Hordes
7th would have been ok of the some of the core rule changes would not have been made or army books would have gotten an errata
eg there was the change from 4 to 5 models wide to gain a rank bonus, but GW refused to change the 6th edi Beastman skirmish rule wich was fixed 4 models wide to allow them to align 5 models wide for ranks
So with house rules I would call 7th the best, without it was 6th.
As far as your experienced, what was the best edition? Loks like 7th and 8th are utterly messed up...
More or less 6th edition with Ravening Hordes
7th would have been ok of the some of the core rule changes would not have been made or army books would have gotten an errata
eg there was the change from 4 to 5 models wide to gain a rank bonus, but GW refused to change the 6th edi Beastman skirmish rule wich was fixed 4 models wide to allow them to align 5 models wide for ranks
So with house rules I would call 7th the best, without it was 6th.
The only part of 7th worth keeping were the Power Dice rules that dictated a wizard could only use community dice and the ones they themselves generated, instead of the Skink power batteries of 6th, the Insane Courage rule which basically meant natural snake eyes ALWAYS passed a LD test, and potentially the 5 wide rule for ranks.
Past that, as stated, 6th with Ravening Hordes is the most balanced WFB you will ever play.
I’m sure there is some serious nostalgia going on here, but I had so much damn fun playing Empire, Orcs, and Vampire Counts in 6th edition I’d say that was the best. The armies had real character in both their minis and rules, and seemed to match up against each other well power wise. The game had a great tournament scene at the time as well.
Some of the rules, notably regarding characters in general, were very fiddly but I had a lot of fun with the game back then.
Yeah, this was the time when they really wanted to improve the game, had people who know what they were doing and the rules department was writing rules Independent from sales department.
This was before Kirby sunk money into the specialist games and turned everything around to get his investment back, leading to the "more profit" attitude that killed Lord of the Rings and than Warhammer Fantasy
An Actual Englishman wrote: Why did fantasy die? The same reason any company ever drops one of its IPs - it was deemed to be not profitable enough.
And why was it not profitable enough?
Yup that's the actual question. But as far as this tread has gone it seems there is no major reason. It seems more like something at the crossraods, the addition of all factors combined, more then one decisive element. Prices, lack of players, second hand, bad rules, copyrights, tight fluff... All that made the unplayable and therefore unattractive. At the end GW deciced they were simply better off dishing it and starting from zero all over again.
Half of those come from GW directly and the rest they heavily influence. Methinks there is a singular cause.
Yeah, this was the time when they really wanted to improve the game, had people who know what they were doing and the rules department was writing rules Independent from sales department.
This was before Kirby sunk money into the specialist games and turned everything around to get his investment back, leading to the "more profit" attitude that killed Lord of the Rings and than Warhammer Fantasy
Tamwulf wrote: Why did Fantasy die? Because 400 Skaven Slaves only cost 200 points, were unbreakable in combat, and had more wounds and attacks then most other armies, and that was only one unit- in a 2,500 point game.
Yeah, that was the worst part of steadfast. Either you took a huge block of cheap infantry or you took a monster. There was no place for reasonably sized blocks of elite infantry.
In 7th it didn't matter if you have 400 slaves or 40, because you could reduce their leadership enough for them to autobreak. Can't do that in 8th. Took all of the tactics of the game and made it "hurr, I have more than you, I win!"
As far as your experienced, what was the best edition? Loks like 7th and 8th are utterly messed up...
To boil it down, what killed WHFB was Kirby's mismanagement of the company. WHFB had issues that needed to be addressed, but they never were, so the issues kept compounding until it seemed easier just to scrap it.
auticus wrote: Kings of War is my region's fantasy game where most of the fantasy players went to. I have a love/hate relationship with it. Its just very very tournament streamlined to me and everything feels very samey. Also the guys not dying bothers me as well, since that breaks my immersion.
It's not that strange really. In pre-modern battles, formations didn't slam together and just slowly grinded the other side down till they where all dead, like in 8th WHFB. The vast amount of casualties in battle usually happened when one side routed and got run down by the side that hold, which is hat basically happens in KoW.
dyndraig wrote: To boil it down, what killed WHFB was Kirby's mismanagement of the company. WHFB had issues that needed to be addressed, but they never were, so the issues kept compounding until it seemed easier just to scrap it.
auticus wrote: Kings of War is my region's fantasy game where most of the fantasy players went to. I have a love/hate relationship with it. Its just very very tournament streamlined to me and everything feels very samey. Also the guys not dying bothers me as well, since that breaks my immersion.
It's not that strange really. In pre-modern battles, formations didn't slam together and just slowly grinded the other side down till they where all dead, like in 8th WHFB. The vast amount of casualties in battle usually happened when one side routed and got run down by the side that hold, which is hat basically happens in KoW.
Yeah, but there were still casualties taken during the fight, especially if they were attacked with ranged weapons beforehand. I get the abstraction, but I'd prefer it if blocks took losses.
dyndraig wrote: To boil it down, what killed WHFB was Kirby's mismanagement of the company. WHFB had issues that needed to be addressed, but they never were, so the issues kept compounding until it seemed easier just to scrap it.
auticus wrote: Kings of War is my region's fantasy game where most of the fantasy players went to. I have a love/hate relationship with it. Its just very very tournament streamlined to me and everything feels very samey. Also the guys not dying bothers me as well, since that breaks my immersion.
It's not that strange really. In pre-modern battles, formations didn't slam together and just slowly grinded the other side down till they where all dead, like in 8th WHFB. The vast amount of casualties in battle usually happened when one side routed and got run down by the side that hold, which is hat basically happens in KoW.
Yeah, but there were still casualties taken during the fight, especially if they were attacked with ranged weapons beforehand. I get the abstraction, but I'd prefer it if blocks took losses.
The problem is the scaling, 1 model = 1 wound = 100s of warriors (as written in previous rulebooks) does not work out (even a scaling of 1:10)
If the game is not about battles but skirmishes, with 1 model = 1-2 warriors than it is something different
and the block in KoW takes losses, it just doesn't remove models, as 1 lost wound =/= 1 lost model, so for a game about battles, this is much more "realistic"
Warhammer wanted to be game about battles but just mechanics appropriate for Skirmish games
auticus wrote: Kings of War is my region's fantasy game where most of the fantasy players went to. I have a love/hate relationship with it. Its just very very tournament streamlined to me and everything feels very samey. Also the guys not dying bothers me as well, since that breaks my immersion.
It's not that strange really. In pre-modern battles, formations didn't slam together and just slowly grinded the other side down till they where all dead, like in 8th WHFB. The vast amount of casualties in battle usually happened when one side routed and got run down by the side that hold, which is hat basically happens in KoW.
Popping in to say how much I enjoy KOW, after 20 years of WHFB. Playing a balanced game is mind-blowing after all the GW games, and I don't know that I've ever been so inspired as a hobbyist, with how friendly Mantic has been to the use of whatever models we want. I am always interested in hearing what people have to say against the game, although complaints often most confirm that I'm quite securely in the target market for KOW (veteran wargamer + hobbyist who attends tournaments for fun + camaraderie).
Coincidentally enough, a friend of mine is reviving Oldhammer in his neck of the woods (Eastern PA), and we had a discussion about what edition to use.* In the end I think he opted for 7E, which seems like an ok choice (less random them 8E but still decent levels of carnage), even if towards the end of that edition the army balance issues were pretty horrific. Dark Elves were obnoxiously great, High Elves pretty painful (read: ASFFTW), and Daemons so good that your dog could steer them to victory. And his Vamps are far from toothless, fear outnumbering + invoke + danse was a hard steamroller to stop if you weren't ITP. He's tasked me with helping to tweak the edition ... and frankly thinking about tournament play, all I can remember is all the caps put onto army creation, since GeeDub did such an appalling job of balancing the books. I've got some ideas (BSB provides army reroll, fear outnumber != autobreak) but not sure the problems all lie with the core.
Anyway, he eventually asked me what army I wanted to play, and I had to admit I don't want to play Oldhammer. Kings is too good for me to find even more time to play a mess like Warhammer
- Salvage
*For the curious, I suggested 6E using Ravening Hordes if the purpose was to play a fairly balanced rank-n-flank fantasy wargame, but I'm guessing there wasn't close to enough magic bang or hero "customization" (Admit it, everybody just took the same kit in 7E/8E anyway )
After skimming the original post but none of the responses, AoS was just a natural progression of the story after End Times. GW is just progressing the story in both WHFB and 40K.
dyndraig wrote: To boil it down, what killed WHFB was Kirby's mismanagement of the company. WHFB had issues that needed to be addressed, but they never were, so the issues kept compounding until it seemed easier just to scrap it.
auticus wrote: Kings of War is my region's fantasy game where most of the fantasy players went to. I have a love/hate relationship with it. Its just very very tournament streamlined to me and everything feels very samey. Also the guys not dying bothers me as well, since that breaks my immersion.
It's not that strange really. In pre-modern battles, formations didn't slam together and just slowly grinded the other side down till they where all dead, like in 8th WHFB. The vast amount of casualties in battle usually happened when one side routed and got run down by the side that hold, which is hat basically happens in KoW.
TBF, people aren't interested in an accurate representation of battles. When designing a game realism should be taken into account but it will always be secondary to making a fun game. Now how much that has actually been applied to Warhammer/KoW is a different story but the principle is there.
Some games put accurate representation of battles as their primary. WHFB used to be that. Their designers through years of interviews and articles said as much over and over.
auticus wrote: Some games put accurate representation of battles as their primary. WHFB used to be that. Their designers through years of interviews and articles said as much over and over.
AOS - definitely polarity reversal.
I don't think they ever did a good or even decent job if realism was the primary goal. Hell I'd say they did a piss poor job of it. But even if they said otherwise I think it's hard to deny that making a fun game was the primary goal.
UnstableDominus wrote: I attempted to play WHFB during 7th, then again during 8th. Both times I quit early on because I couldn't find opponents who would play less than 2500 points. They weren't even really that interested in playing 2,000. This from a dwindling group of players who complained constantly that they wanted new blood (and that I never saw buying anything). The fantasy section of the store literally collected dust.
It is anecdotal, but that was my experience. I started playing AoS after the release of the GHB 2017 with 500 point games. I now regularly play games at 1,000 and 1,500 point levels, but have a pool of almost 3,000 points to draw from. AoS stock flies off the shelf and we have over a dozen regular players.
That was largely the same issue I had experienced. It also didn't help that two of the armies I wanted to play (Bretonnians and Tomb Kings) only really started to be fieldable at the higher point levels, too, due to their basic requirements. I started collecting books to figure out what I wanted to field in 6th Edition, but it was still difficult to make a decision. When one considers just how much more numerous WHFB games usually were, and I was also looking at 40K as well, WHFB tends to loose out for working up a collection. 40K players tended to also allow for smaller games as well.
Oddly enough, this is a similar issue with WarmaHordes as well. Far too often most people are only playing SR games at full point list unless a JML is going on at the same time.
dyndraig wrote: To boil it down, what killed WHFB was Kirby's mismanagement of the company. WHFB had issues that needed to be addressed, but they never were, so the issues kept compounding until it seemed easier just to scrap it.
auticus wrote: Kings of War is my region's fantasy game where most of the fantasy players went to. I have a love/hate relationship with it. Its just very very tournament streamlined to me and everything feels very samey. Also the guys not dying bothers me as well, since that breaks my immersion.
It's not that strange really. In pre-modern battles, formations didn't slam together and just slowly grinded the other side down till they where all dead, like in 8th WHFB. The vast amount of casualties in battle usually happened when one side routed and got run down by the side that hold, which is hat basically happens in KoW.
Yeah, but there were still casualties taken during the fight, especially if they were attacked with ranged weapons beforehand. I get the abstraction, but I'd prefer it if blocks took losses.
Well yeah in the end it comes down to personal preference
ServiceGames wrote: After skimming the original post but none of the responses, AoS was just a natural progression of the story after End Times. GW is just progressing the story in both WHFB and 40K.
SG
I'm not sure I would call it the "natural progression" from WHFB, but I get the gist of it. When the End Times was going on I was playing with the idea of making my own fantasy setting, and GW ended up doing some pretty similar things in AoS that I had in mind for my own setting.
dyndraig wrote: To boil it down, what killed WHFB was Kirby's mismanagement of the company. WHFB had issues that needed to be addressed, but they never were, so the issues kept compounding until it seemed easier just to scrap it.
auticus wrote: Kings of War is my region's fantasy game where most of the fantasy players went to. I have a love/hate relationship with it. Its just very very tournament streamlined to me and everything feels very samey. Also the guys not dying bothers me as well, since that breaks my immersion.
It's not that strange really. In pre-modern battles, formations didn't slam together and just slowly grinded the other side down till they where all dead, like in 8th WHFB. The vast amount of casualties in battle usually happened when one side routed and got run down by the side that hold, which is hat basically happens in KoW.
TBF, people aren't interested in an accurate representation of battles. When designing a game realism should be taken into account but it will always be secondary to making a fun game. Now how much that has actually been applied to Warhammer/KoW is a different story but the principle is there.
Yes but we were talking about "Immersion" factor of unit-removal, and accurate battle representation plays into that. But otherwise of course I agree making a fun game is way more important then realism, and I think KoW succeeded at that
ServiceGames wrote: After skimming the original post but none of the responses, AoS was just a natural progression of the story after End Times. GW is just progressing the story in both WHFB and 40K.
SG
That's like me writing a novel about working in an office, calling the character Harry Potter and claiming it's a natural progression of that series.
AoS is not a natural progression and I'd hesitate to call it a progression at all. It's got some characters ported and that's pretty much it.
So we establish that for some "natural progression" means "shill for whatever GW gaks out". THIS is why GW was able to push both systems to the brink. THIS is the cult of personality that somehow keeps a company notorious for doing the exact OPPOSITE of what a company would do to maintain business and STILL manages to stay the #1 game company in the world.
Also have to realize that everyone has different opinions on what they like and not like. A person liking something doesn't make them part of a cult of personality any more than a person that does not like something doesn't make them a toxic neckbeard that can't handle change.
ServiceGames wrote: After skimming the original post but none of the responses, AoS was just a natural progression of the story after End Times. GW is just progressing the story in both WHFB and 40K.
SG
That's like me writing a novel about working in an office, calling the character Harry Potter and claiming it's a natural progression of that series.
AoS is not a natural progression and I'd hesitate to call it a progression at all. It's got some characters ported and that's pretty much it.
You gork damn genius just killed me
auticus wrote:Also have to realize that everyone has different opinions on what they like and not like. A person liking something doesn't make them part of a cult of personality any more than a person that does not like something doesn't make them a toxic neckbeard that can't handle change.
Well the problem with that change is that they didn't leve any gateway for those who did enjoy the setting and would have liked to keep it alive. I personnaly can't stand AoS's lore, The old lore was much more appealing because of the sens of imminent disaster it had. The fantasy elements wer'nt that original I confess but let's be honest, AoS apocalypse is not as well, remember oblivion and it's portal or any zombie apocalypse? At the core it feels as dull to me.
Sure if you enjoy it well why not, that's fine, but tell a random guy that he should gak off because the game he was interested in is no longer supported to be remplaced and that is that, is questionnable, not customer friendly at all: sincerely an donkey-cave's change. Hence why so many poeple get upset about it.
I get it. I really do. If you read these forums regularly then you know my opinion on AOS, and it got me banned from TGA for being critical of the game.
The game and lore that I invested thousands of dollars into went away and yeah it sucked. But at the same time there are people that really enjoy it and I don't think that makes them shills, that just means what they enjoy is different than what I enjoy.
Now I'm also a massive heavy metal fan so the art and the new lore direction don't bother me as much as the game direction went but same concept.
auticus wrote: But at the same time there are people that really enjoy it and I don't think that makes them shills, that just means what they enjoy is different than what I enjoy.
In the end I also just had to make peace with myself that AOS wasn't for me. I tried it throughout the rough first year when we didn't have much guidance and created our own balance, and it was overly simplistic but ok. I tried it through the second year, when GHB1 gave us structure but also added another layer of imbalance with faction powers, yet the game itself was still too underdeveloped for me, the options too imbalanced, the negative play experiences too galling. I don't hate that other people like it, it's just not for me. If anything, the game's success has meant some seriously awesome plastic kits have hit the market. Granted, they're often too expensive to make much army-scale use of, but Citadel has finally started pushing AOS in interesting and new places, and I'm all for it.
Honestly if it weren't for Kings of War, I'd probably still be scratching at AOS and trying to make it work. But thankfully I'm in a position where I have a wargame I can devote myself to and get back the experience I personally wanted from Warhammer Fantasy and occasionally got - dice-fueled army-scale combat based around the movement phase combined with free-wheeling army-scale hobbying. Does AOS offer some of this? Sure it does, it's why I'm still paying attention and still working on my daemon armies, which can slide between 40k or AOS if the fantasy flavored one sorts itself out. However I know I'm not the market for AOS, while I absolutely am the market for KOW. So I'll stick with what fits
I'm not really a wargamer any more - I think after so many years and only 5 games, I can say I'm sort of out of the hobby. But if I was playing, it'd be KOW. If I had to play Fantasy, it'd be 6th edition, maybe even just 6th edition Ravening Hordes.
I do hope AoS does well though, because about 1 in 8 kits they produce is really nice now. Those snake-elf ladies are going in my collection.
5 games in 3 years is not many in my view, especially since I had 1 in the three years before that and maybe 4 in the 2 years before that. Just compared to what I used to do.
Just Tony wrote: So we establish that for some "natural progression" means "shill for whatever GW gaks out". THIS is why GW was able to push both systems to the brink. THIS is the cult of personality that somehow keeps a company notorious for doing the exact OPPOSITE of what a company would do to maintain business and STILL manages to stay the #1 game company in the world.
I might be off the rocker with this - but maybe the reason they succeed isn't because of a cult of personality. Maybe it's because they aren't simply happy with 'maintaining' their business and seek to instead grow it. Maybe it's because there's this massive disconnect between what you think the right decisions are and what turns out to be truly popular. GW doesn't get to remain the #1 game company in the world by appealing only to their 'cult'. They need to grow - and grow they have.
Nothing GW has done with either 40k or AoS is all that groundbreaking. They refreshed their flagship products, which is what companies the world over do on a pretty consistent basis. By addressing the barriers to entry, they've done more than just maintain business - they've grown it.
Just Tony wrote: So we establish that for some "natural progression" means "shill for whatever GW gaks out". THIS is why GW was able to push both systems to the brink. THIS is the cult of personality that somehow keeps a company notorious for doing the exact OPPOSITE of what a company would do to maintain business and STILL manages to stay the #1 game company in the world.
I might be off the rocker with this - but maybe the reason they succeed isn't because of a cult of personality. Maybe it's because they aren't simply happy with 'maintaining' their business and seek to instead grow it.
And up until recently, their attempt to "grow" it was to eliminate most avenues of dealing with customers, and make blatantly obvious cash grab moves that even the hardest fan could see, which is why they lost so many players while not being able to replenish up until they made direct efforts to address this.
Lemondish wrote: Maybe it's because there's this massive disconnect between what you think the right decisions are and what turns out to be truly popular. GW doesn't get to remain the #1 game company in the world by appealing only to their 'cult'. They need to grow - and grow they have.
GW remains #1 because of familiarity. How many companies have released games that were referred to as superior by other gamers? How many are able to mass produce similar models at a fraction of the cost? It's the same reason people will still shell out more for a brand they know, regardless of product, than spend less on someone who produces similar or improved products without the Cult of Familiarity attached.
Lemondish wrote: Nothing GW has done with either 40k or AoS is all that groundbreaking. They refreshed their flagship products, which is what companies the world over do on a pretty consistent basis.
It wasn't groundbreaking, it was an attempt at trying to figure out what it was about other systems that were sucking customers away. They still refuse to stop and look at the mirror. The fast turnaround on a second edition of AOS speaks volumes that they've learned nothing.
Lemondish wrote: By addressing the barriers to entry, they've done more than just maintain business - they've grown it.
...
Did you type that with a straight face?
GW doubled or worse the cost of entry in less than a three year period, and there's been no attempt at bringing those prices down. Both editions require more models, so it's still a high barrier of entry without being able to convince the meta that the new players need to be weaned in at lower count games at first. In the meantime, armies that could be gotten for $2-300 US a mere decade ago now cost $600 and higher. THIS is addressing the barrier of entry?
I support the idea of cult of familiarity. For poeple who just get started -and many players take their first step into wargaming though GK-, or poeple who are so casual they are delighted with a single game, will likely turn out to not search other games and companies. Instead they will simply prefer to keep biying in the compagny they know and necessarely like since they know no others.
However one thing you fellows maybe don't think about that much who are from the US or the UK, is that outside those countries were most smaller manufacturers are, it is difficult to come across them, even mire difficult to get an audience for their games, and the prices from euros to pounds or with the costs for sending from america go through the roof at an alarming speed.
I know that Germany is way better provided with lesser games and companies but there are, if I'm not mistaken, almost no counterpart to a Stoessi's Heroes for instance in France. So you have to make do with what's at your disposal and what will allow you to actually play games
I remember hearing somewhere that the Tactical Squad kit outsold the entire Fantasy line during 8th. After all, if you built your blocks of state troops from the old models from a decade ago, what reason did you have to get the new ones, especially since a halberd was a halberd, and its not like anyone could tell once you you got past the first rank! The old models ranked up better, too!
Not to mention the price tag to get started (it was roughly $1000 Canadian for my 2500 point Empire army to get started, and that was with some second hand stuff!) its hardly a wonder it died.
Fantasy looked amazing to look at on the tabletop, but the price and rules bloat near the end was its own undoing.
A problem with the Fantasy line was that there was a huge inconsistenc in design
Fantasy Empre in 8th, heavy cavalry was smaller than light cavalry, militia better equipped than state troops etc
There were people here that liked Khemri but never got into it as they waited for GW to replace the outdated core models with new models that fit the new design.
For Space Marines, there was the time when Tactical Marines were used to build everything in 5 different armies.
If there would have been a human box in fantasy that could be used as base for 5 different armies it would have sold also well.
A aforementioned desire to have more protectable names and products than High Elves, Dwarves and Wood Elves.
storm. We tried again after 
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