Motivation for this thread came from a blog, tabletop gaming diary, the user connected to it on this forum goes by the pseudonym of MongooseMatt if I am not mistaken. In one of the posts on the blog the common arguments against AoS are discussed.

I have eneterred WFB in the late 2014 and quite frankly I never exerienced the competitve 'meta' alot of the people talk about when discussing AoS and WFB, but I enjoyed just with a simple starter set and two battalion boxes, we didn't have heroes for two faction so they unofficially joined the elves or the skaven. Many people say that AoS is less competitive than WFB and I would definately agree, but it does have it's own problems, in the meta as multi-wound/multi-damage models are definately much more powerful than a lot of other things and often whole armies of said models can have an unfair advantage especially in the initial meta. The reduction of competitive play is welcomed by many in the community from what I saw as it is often frustrating going up against the same armies over and over and if you wish to atain any chance of winning you must resort to also bringign the same army again and again. Speaking for myself, after the hardcore meta of the W40k 7th edition, 8th edition was a breath of fresh air and a reset for the over competitve meta (alike to AoS) allowing for more casual play.

A lot of people said that AoS has a lot more synergy than WFB and to a degree I would agree, but WFB had it's own way of synergy in terms of spells and hero insiring presence and abilities.

An argument I do have with AoS is that strength and toughness are down-played almost hilriously. A goblin would be wounding a mighty dragon on a 4+ and wounding his bretheren greenskin on the same 4+, piercing dirty cloth with a rusty blade is as difficult as piercing dragon scale. It makes very little logic to me, but on the other hand it is balanced out somewhat by the armour saves which are done in a slightly better manner than in WFB atleast in my opinion.

I can say that Although WFB provided much more detailed Lore, AoS strays away from it, which isn't particulary bad or good as AoS allows more freedom leaving more of the world open for the player's imagination, but at the same time it lacks many compelling characters like: Azhag the sorceror orc, Teclis and Tyrion two brothers of godlike powers, Balthasar Gelt the man in the golden mask. Each of those characters had a story and a personality which was often unique and intresting, in contrast in AoS we have very bland characters: Godrak the Fist of Gork is your avergae albeit sronger warboss, Celestant-Pime is a faceless angel with nothing else to go for him, Alarielle is a generic godess of life; Although the characters carried over retain their charm, the treacherous Manfred who is even willing to ally with the stormcasts, Neferata is the same as she was way back being the first vampire and the dynamic skeleton duo of Nagash and Arkhan are back to their powerhungry selves as determined as ever to reclaim the souls he lost to sigmar during the forging of the strormcasts. The Chaos Gods and the skaven addition are fine and characterfull as ever, although it's hard to make a chittering trecherous ratman high on warp dust boring and dull.

Please I would really like to know how are people liking the new warhammer (I suppose it was wise to wait a couple of years with this post as Warhammer is not a computer game that dies in a year and lives for a dozen at best, it is a hobby which existed for over thirty years now).

Well I find that the gameplay is much worse. It went from rank and file with varying toughness and 'speed' at hitting to weird skirmish but on a big scale where it's equally easy to not only hit but hurt a small goblin as it is a greater demon. Instead of hitting based on their weapon and general speed the soldiers now take turns in fighting each other which is ridiculous.
Shooting was decent in WHFB - You had penalties for things like distance and cover but shooting felt like it did damage. Now some shooting feels good but most of it feels bad and it's equally easy to hit a dragon as a person fighting my troops in combat who are magically safe.

The lore in WHFB felt good. It was a world I liked with various nations and factions who all had their own histories and cultures. Now it's a weird mix of peoples living on different planets/planes/realms/who the hell knows, most characters feel pretty eh to me as their background is bland.
It's a bit better for making your own places and such up but that's not worth the cost of a good and pretty interesting world.

I agree largely with the gameplay, but that gameplay spawned a very agressive/powergaming meta, which is extremely unpleasant to get in to and at first the same knd of meta pushed me away from w40k.


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Like the triple riptide spam mentioned in under your messages pm713

The powergaming meta in whfb is identical to the powergaming meta in aos in terms of its severity and how it can rub people the wrong way if they aren't wanting to power game.

AOS also spawns very aggressive powergaming meta. Its cornerstones are spamming as many mortal wounds as you can get (we have a stormcast player who averages roughly 35 a turn but on a good roll can get 54), going for 2+ rerollable saves wherever you can, and spamming high quality ranged attacks.

With the new rules, the next cornerstone will be one that existed in the release of AoS... that being optimizing how many free points you can also add to your roster.

In WHFB 8th edition it started out as crafting the mega blob unit to abuse steadfast, but that turned into taking as many wizards as you can and your winning tactic throwing six dice at a purple sun hoping for two sixes.

Neither games played at the extreme level are much fun or are very great. Quite frankly either game played at the extreme level like this is rubbish to me because both games can remove the game aspect completely and turn it into rolling a ton of dice and fapping over a power coefficient in your excel spreadsheet.

sushi2001 wrote:
I agree largely with the gameplay, but that gameplay spawned a very agressive/powergaming meta, which is extremely unpleasant to get in to and at first the same knd of meta pushed me away from w40k.


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Like the triple riptide spam mentioned in under your messages pm713

While I agree that it has it's not a problem that's new. WHFB had lists that were clearly strongest and objectively best ways to play armies as well as AOS and 40k. I imagine most wargames do to some extent.

GW has never been good at balancing games for competitive play, but the design philosophy behind AoS (before the Generals Handbook) seemed to be to not even try.

I also really disliked the move from Rank and File to Skirmish style and the total lack of fluff we got on release. I'm really gonna sink my teeth into the RPG book when it comes out and hopefully it will be able to lay things out in a way that can actually get me interested in the setting but GW really dropped the ball on release and because of that I've not followed as they began developing it.

Really, in hindsight, I think GW should have run End Times less as a 'death of WHFB' story and more as a way to split the timeline. Maybe present two endings, one where Archaon is defeated and the world would be on the precipice of a (relatively) peaceful age that isn't an ending, but leave us feeling like the good guys won. Then there is the parallel one where the world was blown up. Let AoS be introduced while WHFB still existed and just slowly ramp down support for WHFB while developing AoS. Killing WHFB and then introducing AoS as it's replacement was really bad for AoS, which I don't think it's too controversial to say couldn't compare at release.

As to the simple question of if I like the new Warhammer AoS, I'm entirely apathetic towards it. I see cool models but the fluff doesn't interest me enough to buy in, or I look at my old WHFB models but the rules for them now don't make them enjoyable to field, stuff like that.

 jonolikespie wrote:
GW has never been good at balancing games for competitive play, but the design philosophy behind AoS (before the Generals Handbook) seemed to be to not even try.

The no points thing was a really interesting attempt to drag Warhammer away from a power gamer mentality and into a realm where you and your opponent just bring the models necessary to tell a cool story or create an interesting challenge.
I think it was a bit of a shame that GW chickened out and added points back into the game, it would have been interesting to see how that more 'free form' approach developed.

I love the lore of WHF (I still play Warhammer Fantasy Role Play every month!), but they are doing a good job with the AoS lore as well.
The trouble with WHF was that I felt very constrained with the stories I could tell because everything was so defined, whilst AoS gives you so much more freedom.

The power gamer mentality today is pretty much THE market though. For a company that has public share holders, moviing away from power gaming is the worst thing that they could have done, and that was shown.

It was a neat social experiment but it ultimately bombed really hard. Power gaming and minmaxing is here to stay and is where you get your money.

 Kroem wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
GW has never been good at balancing games for competitive play, but the design philosophy behind AoS (before the Generals Handbook) seemed to be to not even try.

The no points thing was a really interesting attempt to drag Warhammer away from a power gamer mentality and into a realm where you and your opponent just bring the models necessary to tell a cool story or create an interesting challenge.
I think it was a bit of a shame that GW chickened out and added points back into the game, it would have been interesting to see how that more 'free form' approach developed.

I love the lore of WHF (I still play Warhammer Fantasy Role Play every month!), but they are doing a good job with the AoS lore as well.
The trouble with WHF was that I felt very constrained with the stories I could tell because everything was so defined, whilst AoS gives you so much more freedom.

Points are pretty much a necessary way for 2 gamers without much prior knowledge being able to play against each other.

 Kroem wrote:
The no points thing was a really interesting attempt to drag Warhammer away from a power gamer mentality and into a realm where you and your opponent just bring the models necessary to tell a cool story or create an interesting challenge.
I think it was a bit of a shame that GW chickened out and added points back into the game, it would have been interesting to see how that more 'free form' approach developed

See, I don't think of it as dragging the game away from a powergamer mentality. If you wanted to stop powergaming put a lot of effort into balancing the damn thing so powergamers can't break it. Removing points leaves people in a position where the powergamers can go nuts, but also hurts casual gamers who just wanna go down to their FLGS with a list ready for a pickup game. It makes it harder for kids getting into the game when one of them mops the floor with their friend every game but they don't understand it well enough to balance it themselves yet. Even entirely well intentioned people are going to encounter scenarioes where they either think something is balanced until they play an utterly lopsided game, or cause arguments as one player thinks his force is balanced but the other player's experience with that army has him worried it's an OP army to go up against.

What I think it was is an attempt at just making a fun, simple, casual game for well established clubs to play together with people they've known for decades, because that's the culture in the UK gaming community and within GW itself. Except when you go from tight knit clubs in the UK to pick up games in the US the system just breaks down entirely.

Ah some interesting points!

Where I was coming from is that, in my experience, power gamers love interacting with points systems, calculating efficient options, optimising their lists etc.
Having no points effectively makes that impossible! So power gamers gravitate towards other systems that they find more fun in.

What I found interesting about having no points is that it made people more willing to change their army, whereas when the armies are equal on points people will insist its fair even in they just gave their opponent a right drubbing!
I would love it if people instigated a golf style handicap system for pick up games of Warhammer, that would solve a lot of complaints and allow players of all stripes to easily play together imo.

The way to stop people power gaming is balance. Because a game is unbalanced armies of equal points can still be greatly different in power.

Removing points just changes how you take OP things. Like how you could take Fateweaver/Screaming Bell and make early AOS games decided by who had first turn.

power gaming isn’t even bad. What is bad is bringing your cheese list to the noob friendly store campaign and going seal clubbing, or insisting that you play your tournament list at a friendly event/match.

You guys talk like min maxing is bad. There is nothing wrong with knowing how to play optimally. What is wrong is not knowing when it’s okay to play optimally.

The system is so ludicrous that the idea of "optimal" play is totally nonsensical.

AoS is reasonably fun. Yes, I really miss strength, toughness and initiative, I still wish they'd bring those back. But you also get more freedom, it would be somewhat rare to see a zombie dragon in WHFB, but in AoS if I really wanted to I could have 3. It also makes objectives more usable, it's no longer "kill everything" but more of objectives, timed challenges, it's fun.

AoS when played with some of the newer books has tons of options and playing legions of nagash, I personally prefer that to 40k (I played both WHFB and 40k simultaneously, enjoying both systems, but currently I'm almost inclined to say AoS is more fun)

 Jaxler wrote:
power gaming isn’t even bad. What is bad is bringing your cheese list to the noob friendly store campaign and going seal clubbing, or insisting that you play your tournament list at a friendly event/match.

You guys talk like min maxing is bad. There is nothing wrong with knowing how to play optimally. What is wrong is not knowing when it’s okay to play optimally.

This, this is a very good way of putting it.

Yeah there's nothing wrong with powergaming. Its just a way of playing. The problem is always when powergaming is thrust into an environment where its asked not to be. Thats pretty much the root of the problem every time someone complains about it.

 Jaxler wrote:
power gaming isn’t even bad. What is bad is bringing your cheese list to the noob friendly store campaign and going seal clubbing, or insisting that you play your tournament list at a friendly event/match.

You guys talk like min maxing is bad. There is nothing wrong with knowing how to play optimally. What is wrong is not knowing when it’s okay to play optimally.

I very much so agree with this. Honestly more people need to understand this.

auticus wrote:
Yeah there's nothing wrong with powergaming. Its just a way of playing. The problem is always when powergaming is thrust into an environment where its asked not to be. Thats pretty much the root of the problem every time someone complains about it.

Well, powergaming only became a named thing when people started doing exactly that. There are more than a few people who can't or won't see away from the tournament setting, any more than some people cannot live past high school. They clutch their net-lists to themselves like the faded quarterback who never went to college clutches his football to his chest.

Now, some don't know any better, because they were brought in with this concept, but it is also a community thing as well. I can't tell you how often I'd show up at the LGS and it was "tournament-prep only" for the people who did show up.

Lets call it what it is; it's not people refusing to see beyond the tournament setting. It's people who just can't tolerate losing. Approaching everything as if it's tournament level is just another way of approaching everything with a fear of losing a freaking board game.

In my neck of the woods its more or less a controlled group of guys that don't believe you should be playing wargames in any other way other than competitive tournament (if you want to play narrative, go play Dungeons and Dragons or another RPG), so they crash public campaigns to make sure that new players are learning "properly" how to play.

Sounds like thinly veiled dick-waving.

auticus wrote:In my neck of the woods its more or less a controlled group of guys that don't believe you should be playing wargames in any other way other than competitive tournament (if you want to play narrative, go play Dungeons and Dragons or another RPG), so they crash public campaigns to make sure that new players are learning "properly" how to play.

NinthMusketeer wrote:Sounds like thinly veiled dick-waving.

Agreed. This is a big reason why I dropped out of the Warmachine community (well, there were plenty of other reasons, too).

Our AOS "group" is so far mostly just myself and 4-6 friends (some more frequent than others), so we're not hitting this problem. Of that group, only 2 or 3 previously played WHFB (and I wasn't one of those).

sushi2001 wrote:
Motivation for this thread came from a blog, tabletop gaming diary, the user connected to it on this forum goes by the pseudonym of MongooseMatt if I am not mistaken. In one of the posts on the blog the common arguments against AoS are discussed.

I can say that Although WFB provided much more detailed Lore, AoS strays away from it, which isn't particulary bad or good as AoS allows more freedom leaving more of the world open for the player's imagination, but at the same time it lacks many compelling characters like: Azhag the sorceror orc, Teclis and Tyrion two brothers of godlike powers, Balthasar Gelt the man in the golden mask. Each of those characters had a story and a personality which was often unique and intresting, in contrast in AoS we have very bland characters: Godrak the Fist of Gork is your avergae albeit sronger warboss, Celestant-Pime is a faceless angel with nothing else to go for him, Alarielle is a generic godess of life; Although the characters carried over retain their charm, the treacherous Manfred who is even willing to ally with the stormcasts, Neferata is the same as she was way back being the first vampire and the dynamic skeleton duo of Nagash and Arkhan are back to their powerhungry selves as determined as ever to reclaim the souls he lost to sigmar during the forging of the strormcasts. The Chaos Gods and the skaven addition are fine and characterfull as ever, although it's hard to make a chittering trecherous ratman high on warp dust boring and dull.

Please I would really like to know how are people liking the new warhammer (I suppose it was wise to wait a couple of years with this post as Warhammer is not a computer game that dies in a year and lives for a dozen at best, it is a hobby which existed for over thirty years now).

Focusing on the lore element - I would tend to agree - its great to still have many characters we have loved (or hated) or both and its taken quite some time for AOS to bring new characters to any kind of life, not totally helped by the initial unrelenting focuss of Followers of Khorne and the Stormcast. However, especially in the novels they are starting to come - some really great ones in the Josh reynolds books in particular where he is also blending the new and the Old. His questing knights of the Order of the Fly who appear in many of his books are really interesting and often strangely sympathetic for followers of Nurgle.

And of course Skaven, there is always Skaven but I also really enjoyed his Slann and Lizardmen in Pestilans - getting their POV was good. If you want to get to grips with the new lore - highly recomend his novels.

Yeah Skaven Pestilens novel is really sweet.

 jonolikespie wrote:
GW has never been good at balancing games for competitive play, but the design philosophy behind AoS (before the Generals Handbook) seemed to be to not even try.

I also really disliked the move from Rank and File to Skirmish style and the total lack of fluff we got on release. I'm really gonna sink my teeth into the RPG book when it comes out and hopefully it will be able to lay things out in a way that can actually get me interested in the setting but GW really dropped the ball on release and because of that I've not followed as they began developing it.

Really, in hindsight, I think GW should have run End Times less as a 'death of WHFB' story and more as a way to split the timeline. Maybe present two endings, one where Archaon is defeated and the world would be on the precipice of a (relatively) peaceful age that isn't an ending, but leave us feeling like the good guys won. Then there is the parallel one where the world was blown up. Let AoS be introduced while WHFB still existed and just slowly ramp down support for WHFB while developing AoS. Killing WHFB and then introducing AoS as it's replacement was really bad for AoS, which I don't think it's too controversial to say couldn't compare at release.

While End Times were going on, I was hoping for an Orc victory. Grimgor uniting the Orc Tribes, and the Waaargh defeating Archaon and the might of the Chaos Gods in a climactic show down- Grimgor v Archaon, Gork and Mork v the Chaos Pantheon, Spider and Squig v Rat and Daemon. An Orc victory would have been perfect because it allows for an easy "reset" of the WHFB world without destroying it. The Orc Waaaargh washes over the world and once the Orc's have run out of opponents to fight, their mighty empire will collapse due to infighting and the various factions can emerge from hiding and reestablish their civilizations, exploring and interacting in a brave new world. It lets the Orcs act as sort of a planetary immune system to chaos, and it would be a nice homage to Grimgor's original curb stomping of Archaon in the global campaign.

The one thing I really miss about WHFB was the ranks of infantry. It gave the game a unique look on the table, and ranked up formations of fantasy troops looks really good when it all comes together and is fully painted. It gives the game a feel comparable to a lot of historicals, except in a fantasy setting. It was a unique experience that offered unique tactical thought when dealing with charge arcs and unit formations. It had some problems and balance issues, but what Games Workshop experience doesn't? But I'm just old and salty and sitting on a large collection of Bretonnian Knights

Toward the mid 2000s, ranked games started falling out of favor and in their place people were clamoring for non ranks, not having to paint the same model a bunch of times, and much lower model count.

 Kroem wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
GW has never been good at balancing games for competitive play, but the design philosophy behind AoS (before the Generals Handbook) seemed to be to not even try.

The no points thing was a really interesting attempt to drag Warhammer away from a power gamer mentality and into a realm where you and your opponent just bring the models necessary to tell a cool story or create an interesting challenge.
I think it was a bit of a shame that GW chickened out and added points back into the game, it would have been interesting to see how that more 'free form' approach developed.

It was the lack of points costs that was a selling point to me with the original AoS. I played Tomb Kings at the time, and if I wanted to field an army of cavalry and/or chariots I could do so without having to worry about detachments or battle lines. I could field an army of monsters if I wanted to. It made for a much more interesting game. The lack of points meant that neither player would bring too big an army because it gave their opponent an potential auto win. Once everyone clamored for points and got their way the game became much less fun.

auticus wrote:
Toward the mid 2000s, ranked games started falling out of favor and in their place people were clamoring for non ranks, not having to paint the same model a bunch of times, and much lower model count.

I think I'd actually be playing AoS right now if it did have a lower model count. As a skirmish game with 20-30 models per side I'd quite happily put up with the rules I don't like and make up my own fluff and just play with some well painted models. But every time I see a table being played (or god forbid a GW battle report or pictures in WD where the tables are covered in models) all I can think is holy hell why did you move from rank and file to skirmish but keep the same number of models?

AoS core rules favor strong shooting and mortal wounds. This core imbalance is made even stronger by the existence of double turn.

I was recently made aware of artillery that can do D6 damage witih -3 rend from like 36" away. How does that not ruin a game that is built on melee? Hang back at max range and wait for the double turn.

I'm glad no one i play with brings gak like this.

 Marmatag wrote:
AoS core rules favor strong shooting and mortal wounds. This core imbalance is made even stronger by the existence of double turn.

I was recently made aware of artillery that can do D6 damage witih -3 rend from like 36" away. How does that not ruin a game that is built on melee? Hang back at max range and wait for the double turn.

I'm glad no one i play with brings gak like this.

I actually run something like this. Your complaint is actually pretty minor. Yeah it's got a 36" range, but it's a single shot, hitting on a 3+ and wounding on a 3+. Plus D6 damage so you could roll a 1. It sounds scary, but most of the time it's middling compared to other stuff.

Link for the warscroll I run: https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG-Plagueclaw.pdf

A 100 point unit with a 36" potential 6 damage shot. Or it shoots 4 times hitting on a 5+ doing potentially 24 wounds (unlikely).

Its a gamble, but if someone has hot dice it will decimate a unit pretty quickly. A couple of our stormcast players are going to be buying a second one because they see the gamble as worth it.

Edit: ninja'd below but yeah... also used as a high powered sniper rifle. Especially when 2-3 are brought to bear on a character.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
AoS core rules favor strong shooting and mortal wounds. This core imbalance is made even stronger by the existence of double turn.

I was recently made aware of artillery that can do D6 damage witih -3 rend from like 36" away. How does that not ruin a game that is built on melee? Hang back at max range and wait for the double turn.

I'm glad no one i play with brings gak like this.

I actually run something like this. Your complaint is actually pretty minor. Yeah it's got a 36" range, but it's a single shot, hitting on a 3+ and wounding on a 3+. Plus D6 damage so you could roll a 1. It sounds scary, but most of the time it's middling compared to other stuff.

Link for the warscroll I run: https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG-Plagueclaw.pdf

This is obviously overpowered. It is effectively a Lascannon with POTMS that can target characters. Bring 3. Get a double turn and shoot 6 shots. You'll kill quite a bit.

 Marmatag wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
AoS core rules favor strong shooting and mortal wounds. This core imbalance is made even stronger by the existence of double turn.

I was recently made aware of artillery that can do D6 damage witih -3 rend from like 36" away. How does that not ruin a game that is built on melee? Hang back at max range and wait for the double turn.

I'm glad no one i play with brings gak like this.

I actually run something like this. Your complaint is actually pretty minor. Yeah it's got a 36" range, but it's a single shot, hitting on a 3+ and wounding on a 3+. Plus D6 damage so you could roll a 1. It sounds scary, but most of the time it's middling compared to other stuff.

Link for the warscroll I run: https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG-Plagueclaw.pdf

This is obviously overpowered. It is effectively a Lascannon with POTMS that can target characters. Bring 3. Get a double turn and shoot 6 shots. You'll kill quite a bit.

Are you serious? It's 180 points. Get in combat or shoot it to death or even better hit it with spells. It's only got 6 Wounds.

Also, here's a list of tournaments. It showed up in 6 of about 50 lists and looks like it's in about 1 of 30 Top 10 Lists. How is that Overpowered?

https://aosshorts.com/useful-resources/age-of-sigmar-tournament-list-archive/


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auticus wrote:
A 100 point unit with a 36" potential 6 damage shot. Or it shoots 4 times hitting on a 5+ doing potentially 24 wounds (unlikely).

Its a gamble, but if someone has hot dice it will decimate a unit pretty quickly. A couple of our stormcast players are going to be buying a second one because they see the gamble as worth it.

Edit: ninja'd below but yeah... also used as a high powered sniper rifle. Especially when 2-3 are brought to bear on a character.

Are talking a different unit here? The Plagueclaw is a 180 point unit.

Sorry. I was referring to the new stormcast bolt thrower. whoops!

auticus wrote:
Sorry. I was referring to the new stormcast bolt thrower. whoops!

Yeah, that guy at 100 points is bananas.

Its the new sniper rifle of AOS. Plus lord ordinator to make it work even better. Seriously... 2-3 of them in the SC armies here coming soon. Between that and the Ordinator unit...

From a background perspective I think WFB was better. In particular the older lore. Towards the end I can see the point of what people say in terms of their was little to spread out into. But I think that is partially because of the way GW headed towards epic epicness everywhere. Everything had to bigger, better, nastier etc than the previous thing. In WFB became very limited to being around a few high profile characters and in a 'small world' that was limiting. It's not how Warhammer was originally envisaged though which was more along the lines of small battles here and there. It was the Morgan Bernhardt stories, or those like the old campaign packs where there was more time spent in small niches of the world exploring those facets of the world. In those areas WFB had much greater expansion than people realise. These are essentially the key ideas around the old Warhammer Quest, WFRP and so on.

AOS background to me is more like Transformers/Marvel movie which in the next series is now about finding the next hammer or weapon and so on. I get the reason why, but I do find it tedious (and to point out I found a lot of new background in WFB at the end the same). AOS does allow for a wider remit of situations but it seems more contrived, you can just make up a realm if you need to and hence it becomes a mish mash of ideas that don't really gel together. So you get fish elves vs airships vs red haired babies and so forth. The older WFB could have much better links in that way (again the later new background I have a similar view to AOS).

As for the game, I prefer ranked battle games. 40k and LOTR meets my skirmish itch. AOS is just a simplified 40k now so there is no real incentive to get into it. Some of the models are decent and pick up occasionally where they fit into a WFB army but otherwise I don't need them and have little interest in them. WFB is more about movement than "being within a certain radius of X and Y". I understand the power gaming aspect. I wish GW would really sort out balance in all games. That's not to say AOS doesn't have some good ideas. The way monsters work I think could have been a good counterpoint to cannons and so forth in WFB 8th.

auticus wrote:
Sorry. I was referring to the new stormcast bolt thrower. whoops!

This is also what i was talking about, too.

The other thing is very strong, though, at 180 points. People are bringing them to highly competitive events and landing in the top 50. That means they aren't garbage, right?

In general shooting should be incredibly expensive in a game like this. How fun will AoS be when you just screen and sit back waiting for your double turn?

 Whirlwind wrote:
AOS does allow for a wider remit of situations but it seems more contrived, you can just make up a realm if you need to and hence it becomes a mish mash of ideas that don't really gel together. So you get fish elves vs airships vs red haired babies and so forth.

I'm sorry, you had me up until this. Pray tell how WHFB had a better handle on it than AoS, when they had literal realms of hell (Khorne) Disease (Nurgle) Aether (Tzeentch) and Decadence (Slaanesh). Sure, these were all contained in the "Realm of Chaos" but it's no more goofy than anything AoS proposed. Besides, I like the idea of the new realms. It allows for much more interesting armies beyond Dwarf, Elf, Human, Orc. WHFB had really cool lore, but 90% of it was Fantasy Tropes based off Tolkien / Dungeons and Dragons. The Chaos Gods and factions were the only real original ideas there.


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 Marmatag wrote:

auticus wrote:
Sorry. I was referring to the new stormcast bolt thrower. whoops!

This is also what i was talking about, too.

The other thing is very strong, though, at 180 points. People are bringing them to highly competitive events and landing in the top 50. That means they aren't garbage, right?

In general shooting should be incredibly expensive in a game like this. How fun will AoS be when you just screen and sit back waiting for your double turn?

Ah, my misunderstanding, sorry. Still, I don't know that I agree. It's strong, but due to it's unpredictably, I'd say it's a bit of a gamble unless you have stuff to give it reliable buffs to hit and to wound. There is a formation of 3 that gives it +1 to hit and +1 to wound, but it clocks in at a hefty 600-800 points.

Edit: Sorry, again meant the Plagueclaw.

I'm sorry but fish elves vs steampunk dwarfs vs slaugther ladies IS the reason I'm playing AoS!

Just like I play Fantasy to play medieval french knights agaisnt mongol ogres!

I'm not sure about unpredictable.

Spend 300 points, get three of them. Additionally get the lord ordinator that buffs them.

With 36" range and true line of sight guranteeing that you're able to pretty much hit what you want, any buff heroes are going to be sniped in short order.

Even with just one bolt, thats a 3+ to hit that is really D6 hits. Odds are he's getting hit with 2 of the 3 shots for whats likely 7-8 hits.

Short of the big monster heroes, thats going to plink off support heroes nicely and even the big monster heroes are going to have large chunks tore out of them.

The weakness will be against armies that can teleport but smart players will keep a screen nearby since you can still shoot with impunity into combats.

auticus wrote:
I'm not sure about unpredictable.

Spend 300 points, get three of them. Additionally get the lord ordinator that buffs them.

With 36" range and true line of sight guranteeing that you're able to pretty much hit what you want, any buff heroes are going to be sniped in short order.

Even with just one bolt, thats a 3+ to hit that is really D6 hits. Odds are he's getting hit with 2 of the 3 shots for whats likely 7-8 hits.

Short of the big monster heroes, thats going to plink off support heroes nicely and even the big monster heroes are going to have large chunks tore out of them.

The weakness will be against armies that can teleport but smart players will keep a screen nearby since you can still shoot with impunity into combats.

Sorry, again meant the Plagueclaw. No, this thing at 100 points is just crazy. At half range you're hitting on 5's, but that's still got the D6 hits correct? The few possibel downsides I see with the Bolt Thrower are I believe it needs LoS and like you said teleporting/ambush armies, but really for 100 points this thing will easily earn it's money killing even one hero. Now I just wish Look Out Sir was a better rule.

Yeah it always does D6 hits. It does need line of sight, but in AOS thats never really a challenge. Its also only 18" when firing multiple shots but thats why you take 3 of them and then pick off heroes from a distance with one shot each.

The lord ordinator basically will cancel out look out sir and then if there are hit buffs you can give them, will make them highly efficient super snipers.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Whirlwind wrote:
AOS does allow for a wider remit of situations but it seems more contrived, you can just make up a realm if you need to and hence it becomes a mish mash of ideas that don't really gel together. So you get fish elves vs airships vs red haired babies and so forth.

I'm sorry, you had me up until this. Pray tell how WHFB had a better handle on it than AoS, when they had literal realms of hell (Khorne) Disease (Nurgle) Aether (Tzeentch) and Decadence (Slaanesh). Sure, these were all contained in the "Realm of Chaos" but it's no more goofy than anything AoS proposed. Besides, I like the idea of the new realms. It allows for much more interesting armies beyond Dwarf, Elf, Human, Orc. WHFB had really cool lore, but 90% of it was Fantasy Tropes based off Tolkien / Dungeons and Dragons. The Chaos Gods and factions were the only real original ideas there.

To reiterate the latter stages of the WFB lore I wasn't massively keen on and a lot of the situations were forced and contrived too - for example one item that comes to mind is when the Mannfred captured the elven princess, it was a sequence of events that can be thought of along the lines of "and then suddenly, and then suddenly and then suddenly and so forth". In terms of being 'contrived' it's the ability in AoS to have any realm it wants and link them in any way you want hence there is little rationality to the situation. Compared to the WFB world, especially the more intimate older lore, there was sense to the way things were linked. Petty necromancers tried to wake powers in hidden graveyards. The empire was bastions of civilisation pushing back agains the endless encoraching forests and the creatures that lived within. The border princes were the refuge for the mostly shamed human elements of society on the borders between wastelands and the more powerful empire and so forth. It's similar to Game of Thrones in that although fantastical the locations are connected more 'sensibly'. AoS is more like a situation where the White Walkers can turn up in the middle of Dothraki lands "just because" and in those situations the scenario becomes more disjointed, less free flowing etc.

Even D&D and Tolkien effectively ripped off myths in the world. Trolls turning to stone is a myth in Iceland (and hence probably scandanavia) etc. The way AoS is similar to how I see the Transformers movies. Fine (I use that word loosely) as individual films but when you consider them all together it suddently becomes horrendously contrived in that out of the whole universe everything either happened on the home planet or Earth and just forced together. WFB in my view is better because it fits more like the Hobbit/LoTR etc in that things are linked in a more sublte way (but I am in no way suggesting it is equal to Tolkiens works!)

Does that help?

 Whirlwind wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Whirlwind wrote:
AOS does allow for a wider remit of situations but it seems more contrived, you can just make up a realm if you need to and hence it becomes a mish mash of ideas that don't really gel together. So you get fish elves vs airships vs red haired babies and so forth.

I'm sorry, you had me up until this. Pray tell how WHFB had a better handle on it than AoS, when they had literal realms of hell (Khorne) Disease (Nurgle) Aether (Tzeentch) and Decadence (Slaanesh). Sure, these were all contained in the "Realm of Chaos" but it's no more goofy than anything AoS proposed. Besides, I like the idea of the new realms. It allows for much more interesting armies beyond Dwarf, Elf, Human, Orc. WHFB had really cool lore, but 90% of it was Fantasy Tropes based off Tolkien / Dungeons and Dragons. The Chaos Gods and factions were the only real original ideas there.

To reiterate the latter stages of the WFB lore I wasn't massively keen on and a lot of the situations were forced and contrived too - for example one item that comes to mind is when the Mannfred captured the elven princess, it was a sequence of events that can be thought of along the lines of "and then suddenly, and then suddenly and then suddenly and so forth". In terms of being 'contrived' it's the ability in AoS to have any realm it wants and link them in any way you want hence there is little rationality to the situation. Compared to the WFB world, especially the more intimate older lore, there was sense to the way things were linked. Petty necromancers tried to wake powers in hidden graveyards. The empire was bastions of civilisation pushing back agains the endless encoraching forests and the creatures that lived within. The border princes were the refuge for the mostly shamed human elements of society on the borders between wastelands and the more powerful empire and so forth. It's similar to Game of Thrones in that although fantastical the locations are connected more 'sensibly'. AoS is more like a situation where the White Walkers can turn up in the middle of Dothraki lands "just because" and in those situations the scenario becomes more disjointed, less free flowing etc.

Even D&D and Tolkien effectively ripped off myths in the world. Trolls turning to stone is a myth in Iceland (and hence probably scandanavia) etc. The way AoS is similar to how I see the Transformers movies. Fine (I use that word loosely) as individual films but when you consider them all together it suddently becomes horrendously contrived in that out of the whole universe everything either happened on the home planet or Earth and just forced together. WFB in my view is better because it fits more like the Hobbit/LoTR etc in that things are linked in a more sublte way (but I am in no way suggesting it is equal to Tolkiens works!)

Does that help?

That's fair. Again, I don't know that I completely agree, because WHFB was still on the fantastical side, but I suppose they really pushed that to the edge with the End Times / rise of Nagash. Don't get me wrong, I think WHFB had a ton of great lore and was much more intricately connected, but I'd argue that's because A) they were playing in a safe setting and B) WHFB has had 40+ years to craft lore. In essence, I think AoS lore will get to a good point provided A) it's given more to revise / retcon stuff and B) they move further away from the original WHFB setting. I think half of their issues is trying to combine new AoS lore with WHFB stuff. To use your analogy, trying to make a Transformers movie with King Arthur.

Age of Sigmar needs to grit its teeth and finally bring down the hammer on the legacy armies that don't fit the new aethetic. It is clear that the new Age of Sigmar doesn't have a place for classic Orc vs High Elves or Knights in Shining Armor vs Ogres. With every new release, those old model lines look more and more out of place, and many of them have not seen any rules updates to help them keep up with newer factions. Greenskinz have been rotting for years while other Orruck factions get an extra wound and powerful new abilities. Empire is in constant decline, to the point where what is left of their once iconic faction still has pictures on the webstore of their square bases in fantasy formations- a sad call to their former glory. Bretonnia is gone and only lives on in the collections of legacy players.

Age of Sigmar only included the classic armies on release as an olive branch to players to ease the transition, however it is increasingly clear that these armies don't fit the art and theme direction GW has chosen to go. As much as it pains me.

Empire must die to make room for Stormcast.
Greenskinz must die to make room for Iron Jaws
Wood Elves must die to make room for Sylvanath

The Games Workshop era of classic fantasy ranked infantry is over. Its time for GW to cut the cord, let Fantasy finally rest in peace, and let Age of Sigmar grow without carrying around a bunch of dead lines that don't match its art direction.

While I agree that ongoing support of all these fractured lines is not good for the game and will end I'd rather the most iconic of the races receive the Sylvaneth, Daughter of Khaine treatment and be brought into the new setting.

I was never a fan of the old Warhammer world. Seemed too much like a hodge podge of random ideas just plonked down and there's your world setting. When AoS was announced I did like the whole Mortal Realms setting. I got an odd 1970's prog rock album cover vibe coupled with the idea of the various realms from the Thor: the Dark World. The more I played though the more I came to dislike it. I prefer my fantasy more generic and Tolkien-esqe. Saying that though, I am coming back to AoS with the new edition and playing an undead army based on a legions of the barrow downs theme, led by Heinrich Kemmler - the infamous Lichemaster. I'll ignore the setting for the most part and just focus on the game.

 jreilly89 wrote:

That's fair. Again, I don't know that I completely agree, because WHFB was still on the fantastical side, but I suppose they really pushed that to the edge with the End Times / rise of Nagash. Don't get me wrong, I think WHFB had a ton of great lore and was much more intricately connected, but I'd argue that's because A) they were playing in a safe setting and B) WHFB has had 40+ years to craft lore.

No problems, if we all agreed on the same thing then it would be very boring. A lot of the issues people's anger with AoS is not really targeted at those that like to play it but more GW and how they dealt with WFB, which was loved by a lot of people. If they continued to support it and introduce AoS as a skirmish variety game and then saw how things might have turned out different. I agree about the lore and a 'safe setting' but largely that was set in the first 20 years or so. Not much actually changed (until the end anyway) and that from my perspective was probably due to the game/story going from people creating it because they 'loved' the world they were creating to 'factory' manufacture of the setting. I think this is perhaps one of the greatest risks for the AoS setting, that it is being manufactured rather created by people that actually 'love' it. On the other hand WFB was always a better fit for myself as I was brought up on a diet of Fighting Fantasy books, which for the fantasy side of things was all in one world of Allansia (really just a continent).

In essence, I think AoS lore will get to a good point provided A) it's given more to revise / retcon stuff and B) they move further away from the original WHFB setting. I think half of their issues is trying to combine new AoS lore with WHFB stuff. To use your analogy, trying to make a Transformers movie with King Arthur. gressed

There are some good points here (although note my concern over manufactured settings). If there had been no link to WFB it may have been better. However it is going to need some serious retcons to remove those links. It is, after all, called the Age of Sigmar which in itself is a throw back to the old Empire.

As long as you don't mean the new Arthur film directed by Guy Ritchie - that film was dreadful!

There's something I've always found very off about AoS armies and how they look on the tabletop. Ignoring the weirdness of people playing 2k point games in what is essentially a skirmish system, the 2k armies I always see always seem to be very low on unit count. There only will be perhaps 5-6 units (including characters) in total on the board and it just looks really off.

Love the lore, and with the extra depth that malign sorcery is adding especially with the cinematic spells I’m starting to be interested in the game. I would play it with some house rules though, no double turns, add in an initiative roll in combat, that sort of thing. Add in a weapon skill and strength and toughness and I’d be on board almost immediately.

Still love playing fantasy (wood elves for life)

 Galas wrote:
I'm sorry but fish elves vs steampunk dwarfs vs slaugther ladies IS the reason I'm playing AoS!

To me, this is the reason I'm not playing it.
I just think seeing flying airships fighting creatures at the bottom of the sea (with fish and sunken galleons) takes away the sense that these two armies are somehow clashing on a battlefield. It makes all those figures GW worked so hard on, become more like tokens than ever before.

I'm not saying those armies look bad. They don't. They look fantastic. It just looks like they could never face each other on a battlefield.

Besides, it seems too similar to 40k now. I assume somewhere in the future, the systems will get closer until you can play AoS armies against 40k armies.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I'm sorry but fish elves vs steampunk dwarfs vs slaugther ladies IS the reason I'm playing AoS!

To me, this is the reason I'm not playing it.
I just think seeing flying airships fighting creatures at the bottom of the sea (with fish and sunken galleons) takes away the sense that these two armies are somehow clashing on a battlefield. It makes all those figures GW worked so hard on, become more like tokens than ever before.

I'm not saying those armies look bad. They don't. They look fantastic. It just looks like they could never face each other on a battlefield.

Besides, it seems too similar to 40k now. I assume somewhere in the future, the systems will get closer until you can play AoS armies against 40k armies.

But fighting magical Daemons with a naked Dwarf makes sense? And if I remember correctly (haven't read the lore) I believe the Idoneth Deepkin bring the sea with them, similar to what the Beastclaw Raiders do with their Blizzard (not hugely up to date on those two armies lores), so it's totally in the realm of possibility that they're attacking a docking station for the Kharadron Overlords, or vice versa. Heck, the Stormcast are magical lightning teleporting warriors.

And you already can play AoS against 40k, you could for years. Daemons of Chaos existed in both 40k and WHFB systems for years and no one complained.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I'm sorry but fish elves vs steampunk dwarfs vs slaugther ladies IS the reason I'm playing AoS!

To me, this is the reason I'm not playing it.
I just think seeing flying airships fighting creatures at the bottom of the sea (with fish and sunken galleons) takes away the sense that these two armies are somehow clashing on a battlefield. It makes all those figures GW worked so hard on, become more like tokens than ever before.

I'm not saying those armies look bad. They don't. They look fantastic. It just looks like they could never face each other on a battlefield.

Besides, it seems too similar to 40k now. I assume somewhere in the future, the systems will get closer until you can play AoS armies against 40k armies.

We'd be back to the beginning then. Back in "the day" that was exactly what we had. I remember chaos warriors with plasma pistols being a thing.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I'm sorry but fish elves vs steampunk dwarfs vs slaugther ladies IS the reason I'm playing AoS!

To me, this is the reason I'm not playing it.
I just think seeing flying airships fighting creatures at the bottom of the sea (with fish and sunken galleons) takes away the sense that these two armies are somehow clashing on a battlefield. It makes all those figures GW worked so hard on, become more like tokens than ever before.

I'm not saying those armies look bad. They don't. They look fantastic. It just looks like they could never face each other on a battlefield.

Besides, it seems too similar to 40k now. I assume somewhere in the future, the systems will get closer until you can play AoS armies against 40k armies.

Well, as others have pointed out, the sharks, etc... of the sea elves magically float, like the Tzeentch daemons that are like... devilfish.
But at the same time I have seen one narrative battle in a tournament of Kharadron Overlords vs Idoneth Deepkind in a battlefield that was like an archipelago, Idoneth fishes and Kharadron Boats could only go into the water, and the infantry could only go into the little islands connected by bridges. If you were on a bridge, you could attack and be attacked in meele. Flying untis like the baloon-boys of the dwarfs could go wherever they wanted. It was fantastic.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I'm sorry but fish elves vs steampunk dwarfs vs slaugther ladies IS the reason I'm playing AoS!

To me, this is the reason I'm not playing it.
I just think seeing flying airships fighting creatures at the bottom of the sea (with fish and sunken galleons) takes away the sense that these two armies are somehow clashing on a battlefield. It makes all those figures GW worked so hard on, become more like tokens than ever before.

I'm not saying those armies look bad. They don't. They look fantastic. It just looks like they could never face each other on a battlefield.

Besides, it seems too similar to 40k now. I assume somewhere in the future, the systems will get closer until you can play AoS armies against 40k armies.

But fighting magical Daemons with a naked Dwarf makes sense? And if I remember correctly (haven't read the lore) I believe the Idoneth Deepkin bring the sea with them, similar to what the Beastclaw Raiders do with their Blizzard (not hugely up to date on those two armies lores), so it's totally in the realm of possibility that they're attacking a docking station for the Kharadron Overlords, or vice versa. Heck, the Stormcast are magical lightning teleporting warriors.

Yes, those things made sense in WH because the lore had been built up naturally over time and seemed to operate on some form of internal logic (most of the time, anyway). The background felt a lot more organic in the Old World whereas the AoS lore feels very manufactured and disjointed to many people. The Deepkin are a good example of the problem I have with AoS lore in fact. Yes, they explain how they can fight on land, but it's not a particularly satisfactory explanation. It seems to have come out of nowhere and been done purely to allow these models to appear on the tabletop. GW aren't exploring the lore of the world they've created, they're making it up as they go along to sell models. I think that's my main problem with the setting and why I say it doesn't feel organic or natural. It's all so...contrived.

Then you should read the new rulebook, the one that comes with the Souls Wars set. Its SO good. Its the first time I can look at AoS and say "Ok, THIS is a complete fantasy universe"

The best part is the fact that 90% is new lore. The first time in 15 years that I have experienced that in a GW game.

Slipspace wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I'm sorry but fish elves vs steampunk dwarfs vs slaugther ladies IS the reason I'm playing AoS!

To me, this is the reason I'm not playing it.
I just think seeing flying airships fighting creatures at the bottom of the sea (with fish and sunken galleons) takes away the sense that these two armies are somehow clashing on a battlefield. It makes all those figures GW worked so hard on, become more like tokens than ever before.

I'm not saying those armies look bad. They don't. They look fantastic. It just looks like they could never face each other on a battlefield.

Besides, it seems too similar to 40k now. I assume somewhere in the future, the systems will get closer until you can play AoS armies against 40k armies.

But fighting magical Daemons with a naked Dwarf makes sense? And if I remember correctly (haven't read the lore) I believe the Idoneth Deepkin bring the sea with them, similar to what the Beastclaw Raiders do with their Blizzard (not hugely up to date on those two armies lores), so it's totally in the realm of possibility that they're attacking a docking station for the Kharadron Overlords, or vice versa. Heck, the Stormcast are magical lightning teleporting warriors.

Yes, those things made sense in WH because the lore had been built up naturally over time and seemed to operate on some form of internal logic (most of the time, anyway). The background felt a lot more organic in the Old World whereas the AoS lore feels very manufactured and disjointed to many people. The Deepkin are a good example of the problem I have with AoS lore in fact. Yes, they explain how they can fight on land, but it's not a particularly satisfactory explanation. It seems to have come out of nowhere and been done purely to allow these models to appear on the tabletop. GW aren't exploring the lore of the world they've created, they're making it up as they go along to sell models. I think that's my main problem with the setting and why I say it doesn't feel organic or natural. It's all so...contrived.

WFB had this problem too.

 Kroem wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
GW has never been good at balancing games for competitive play, but the design philosophy behind AoS (before the Generals Handbook) seemed to be to not even try.

The no points thing was a really interesting attempt to drag Warhammer away from a power gamer mentality and into a realm where you and your opponent just bring the models necessary to tell a cool story or create an interesting challenge.
I think it was a bit of a shame that GW chickened out and added points back into the game, it would have been interesting to see how that more 'free form' approach developed.

I love the lore of WHF (I still play Warhammer Fantasy Role Play every month!), but they are doing a good job with the AoS lore as well.
The trouble with WHF was that I felt very constrained with the stories I could tell because everything was so defined, whilst AoS gives you so much more freedom.

Actually, it wasn't an attempt to do anything of the sort. Age of Sigmar was originally made with the idea that GW needed a feeder game for their more profitable product of 40k. This backfired as people demanded rules.

Could be wrong here but AoS 2.0 seems to be the age of magic.

I specifically took 3 Venators and Judicators because I wanted to remove hero’s. Isn’t that the point - knowing what to get rid of to make it easier for you play the game and win?

I see 2.0 as making the magic using hero’s even more survivable to throw even more big spells because you won’t be able to take them out.

I am hoping Khorne Daemons are the anti-magic horde they should be as well as dispossessed and fyreslayers.

We shall see how it shakes out but I would venture the ballistas sell like gold until GH 2019 comes out and nerfs them.

 akaean wrote:


Age of Sigmar only included the classic armies on release as an olive branch to players to ease the transition, however it is increasingly clear that these armies don't fit the art and theme direction GW has chosen to go. As much as it pains me.

Empire must die to make room for Stormcast.
Greenskinz must die to make room for Iron Jaws
Wood Elves must die to make room for Sylvanath

The Games Workshop era of classic fantasy ranked infantry is over. Its time for GW to cut the cord, let Fantasy finally rest in peace, and let Age of Sigmar grow without carrying around a bunch of dead lines that don't match its art direction.

But this doesn't apply to all lines. Seraphon fit perfectly into AoS, as do Skaven. All the old Chaos stuff goes great alongside the new things. Even the old Tomb Kings line would work alongside Legion of Nagash models. Witch Elves work fantastically with Daughters of Khaine.

There is room for more grounded stuff in AoS. Free Guild fighting alongside Stormcast works both thematically and aesthetically. Yes, they have a different aesthetic to the Stormcast, but that in itself is a good thing, since it helps to contrast the Stormcast, making them feel larger and more powerful than the mere mortals around them. One of the themes of AoS is the world dragging itself back from the conquest of Chaos, so it makes sense for there to be older looking things with new stuff fighting around it.

Slipspace wrote:

Yes, those things made sense in WH because the lore had been built up naturally over time and seemed to operate on some form of internal logic (most of the time, anyway). The background felt a lot more organic in the Old World whereas the AoS lore feels very manufactured and disjointed to many people. The Deepkin are a good example of the problem I have with AoS lore in fact. Yes, they explain how they can fight on land, but it's not a particularly satisfactory explanation. It seems to have come out of nowhere and been done purely to allow these models to appear on the tabletop. GW aren't exploring the lore of the world they've created, they're making it up as they go along to sell models. I think that's my main problem with the setting and why I say it doesn't feel organic or natural. It's all so...contrived.

So again, because WHFB had more time than AoS the lore made sense? Shocker. Trust me, let's go back to 1985 and read some of the WHFB lore, I bet it's not as great as you're remembering.

I dunno about WHFB, but I am glad 40k moved on from Inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau.
That said, I think it is fair to compare WHFB as it was when it ended to AoS as we have it now because AoS is the replacement and there's no point replacing something good with something crap saying 'don't worry, it'll be better than the old one once we establish it'.
Fact is we're comparing what we had to what we have.

 jreilly89 wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

Yes, those things made sense in WH because the lore had been built up naturally over time and seemed to operate on some form of internal logic (most of the time, anyway). The background felt a lot more organic in the Old World whereas the AoS lore feels very manufactured and disjointed to many people. The Deepkin are a good example of the problem I have with AoS lore in fact. Yes, they explain how they can fight on land, but it's not a particularly satisfactory explanation. It seems to have come out of nowhere and been done purely to allow these models to appear on the tabletop. GW aren't exploring the lore of the world they've created, they're making it up as they go along to sell models. I think that's my main problem with the setting and why I say it doesn't feel organic or natural. It's all so...contrived.

So again, because WHFB had more time than AoS the lore made sense? Shocker. Trust me, let's go back to 1985 and read some of the WHFB lore, I bet it's not as great as you're remembering.

Of course all the lore in WHFB wasn't brilliant all the time and there are some pretty silly parts to it, mostly from the early days when the lore wasn't fully established and there were a lot of in-jokes scattered throughout the background. The difference, I think, is that WH's fluff was built up more naturally and was more grounded despite its fantastical setting. It could be broadly understood by anyone with a vague understanding of fantasy tropes, while having enough of its own spin on things to make it distinctive. My problem with AoS is there are a few too many things that, to me, are just really, really contrived (Dwarves in airships and magic balloon jump packs and an entire race of sea-dwelling elves who fight on land because they bring the sea with them are two prime examples). They look weird (in a bad way) and fall way outside that series of fantasy tropes that provides just enough familiarity to get people hooked.

The problem is, we're dealing with the AoS fluff as it exists now. Yes, that's an unfair comparison with a game that had 30 years to build its background, but that's the situation GW created for themselves so you can hardly blame the gamers for complaining about it. Also, lore can make sense without years of backstory to draw upon. In fact, the less of it there is the more consistent it should be and the more sense it should make. Additionally, the general direction he fluff is going seems to be more fantastical and overblown. That's fine if you like that sort of thing but I think it's a turn-off for a lot of people.

 jonolikespie wrote:
I dunno about WHFB, but I am glad 40k moved on from Inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau.
That said, I think it is fair to compare WHFB as it was when it ended to AoS as we have it now because AoS is the replacement and there's no point replacing something good with something crap saying 'don't worry, it'll be better than the old one once we establish it'.
Fact is we're comparing what we had to what we have.

What we had was the same issue I had with 40k's lore. It was 10+ years of "Nothing happened". There were minor skirmishes, but not real story progress, no real victories or losses. My favorite thing about the End Times was "hey, some actual story development". And I think it is fair to say "Wait a bit for AoS lore to get good" because they spent a year trying to retrofit 40 years of WHFB lore with the new world.

I agree. I like that things are moving forward now.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
I dunno about WHFB, but I am glad 40k moved on from Inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau.
That said, I think it is fair to compare WHFB as it was when it ended to AoS as we have it now because AoS is the replacement and there's no point replacing something good with something crap saying 'don't worry, it'll be better than the old one once we establish it'.
Fact is we're comparing what we had to what we have.

What we had was the same issue I had with 40k's lore. It was 10+ years of "Nothing happened". There were minor skirmishes, but not real story progress, no real victories or losses. My favorite thing about the End Times was "hey, some actual story development". And I think it is fair to say "Wait a bit for AoS lore to get good" because they spent a year trying to retrofit 40 years of WHFB lore with the new world.

I wouldn't call it development. That implies thought went into it.

It shouldn't take a year to do that. They should have had an idea of how to do that from day 1 especially seeing as most of it was just destroyed.

Slipspace wrote:

Of course all the lore in WHFB wasn't brilliant all the time and there are some pretty silly parts to it, mostly from the early days when the lore wasn't fully established and there were a lot of in-jokes scattered throughout the background. The difference, I think, is that WH's fluff was built up more naturally and was more grounded despite its fantastical setting. It could be broadly understood by anyone with a vague understanding of fantasy tropes, while having enough of its own spin on things to make it distinctive. My problem with AoS is there are a few too many things that, to me, are just really, really contrived (Dwarves in airships and magic balloon jump packs and an entire race of sea-dwelling elves who fight on land because they bring the sea with them are two prime examples). They look weird (in a bad way) and fall way outside that series of fantasy tropes that provides just enough familiarity to get people hooked.

Again, I whole heartedly disagree. It's refreshing to move on to a new setting after years of fantasy tropes. I like Orcs, Grots, and Dwarves as much as the next guy, but if that's all they were turning out I probably never would have gotten into AoS. And we'll just have to disagree on the contrived parts, unless you want to admit the really silly parts of WHFB (Book of Grudges, anyone?)

The problem is, we're dealing with the AoS fluff as it exists now. Yes, that's an unfair comparison with a game that had 30 years to build its background, but that's the situation GW created for themselves so you can hardly blame the gamers for complaining about it. Also, lore can make sense without years of backstory to draw upon. In fact, the less of it there is the more consistent it should be and the more sense it should make. Additionally, the general direction he fluff is going seems to be more fantastical and overblown. That's fine if you like that sort of thing but I think it's a turn-off for a lot of people.

Again, literal gods walking the earth to destroy the world (End Times), but AoS is too overblown? I'll concede, if the setting's not for you, cool. But I for one am glad we're moving into uncharted waters rather than "New Dwarves with subtle differences and different colored Orcs"


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pm713 wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
I dunno about WHFB, but I am glad 40k moved on from Inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau.
That said, I think it is fair to compare WHFB as it was when it ended to AoS as we have it now because AoS is the replacement and there's no point replacing something good with something crap saying 'don't worry, it'll be better than the old one once we establish it'.
Fact is we're comparing what we had to what we have.

What we had was the same issue I had with 40k's lore. It was 10+ years of "Nothing happened". There were minor skirmishes, but not real story progress, no real victories or losses. My favorite thing about the End Times was "hey, some actual story development". And I think it is fair to say "Wait a bit for AoS lore to get good" because they spent a year trying to retrofit 40 years of WHFB lore with the new world.

I wouldn't call it development. That implies thought went into it.

Oh wow, how long it take you to come up with that sick reply?

It shouldn't take a year to do that. They should have had an idea of how to do that from day 1 especially seeing as most of it was just destroyed.

Retconning 40+ years of story into a whole new setting? Yeah, sure buddy.

 jreilly89 wrote:
Again, literal gods walking the earth to destroy the world (End Times), but AoS is too overblown? I'll concede, if the setting's not for you, cool. But I for one am glad we're moving into uncharted waters rather than "New Dwarves with subtle differences and different colored Orcs"

Well actually I thought End Times fluff was pretty too with the whole power rangers team up magical incarnations crap

End TImes was an atrocity of writing.

40 years of writing is easy to deal with when it's "Some people used to live in a different world. Chaos blew it up and space made Sigmar magical." If AoS was a continuation rather than a 'setting' built on the bones of a better world then I'd agree it's complicated to move on but here we are.

People, as much as I love the warhammer fantasy universe, you are trying to say that it was "better" because it was more "mundane" and "grounded" in reality, when AoS it is not.

But thats not a matter of being better or worse, is a matter of being absolutely different universes in intentionality. AoS is more similar to Nordic Mithology or the universe of Magic: The Gathering. Trying to say that people understood WHFB better than AoS because it as more Tolkien-like fantasy is saying that all fantasy should be equal and follow the same tropes, when it shouldn't.

People has no problems understanding how Magic: The Gathering works. Its just a different kind of fantasy universe.

Now, we can ask "Should have GW killed a tolkien-esque fantasy universe to replace it with a totally different, much more magical and element based, fantasy universe?" but thats a totally different thing.

Again I'll jump on my humble little soapbox and say I call WHFB better not because I subjectively like gritty realistic fantasy better than grand mythological stuff, but because the stuff that came with AoS at launch was silly, vague, and there was so little of it.


That said I'm sure it's gotten better as it's developed and they're certainly starting to fill in the blanks but because the game hasn't actually hooked me and got me into it I've only seen snippets of the new stuff. Stuff like Nagash feeling ripped off about the souls that're supposed to be going to him is cool, whatever the hell Malerion is though just seems stupid though and still hasn't been explained very well going by the wiki.

Oh yeah I don't disagree at the moment of launch AoS has fluff in the more lax of the meaning of the word.

Thats why I said that, if you really want to read about the universe, pick up this new rulebook, and read it. This is, at last, the universe of AoS. All new stuff, coherent, condensed. This fells like a complete package, what should have been released first.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Again I'll jump on my humble little soapbox and say I call WHFB better not because I subjectively like gritty realistic fantasy better than grand mythological stuff, but because the stuff that came with AoS at launch was silly, vague, and there was so little of it.


That said I'm sure it's gotten better as it's developed and they're certainly starting to fill in the blanks but because the game hasn't actually hooked me and got me into it I've only seen snippets of the new stuff.

And this is a big part, I think, of why they did the short stories for Malign Portents like they did. Too many people just ignore the fluff or those trying to explain it to them. Concepts get distorted and corrupted.

Look at the Eidolons of Mathlaan for an example. Early on, we had people summing it up as an "avatar of Mathlaan, like Khaine gets". We had people summing it up as "there's 2 types and they can swap like Morathi".

In both instances, that's not true. The Eidolons are closer to the concept of a Tulpa than they are an avatar. The Idoneth unleash souls from their soulbanks, and the souls coalesce into the form that the Idoneth imagine Mathlaan to have taken. The Aspect it takes varies based upon the Idoneth themselves.

Stuff like Nagash feeling ripped off about the souls that're supposed to be going to him is cool, whatever the hell Malerion is though just seems stupid though and still hasn't been explained very well going by the wiki.

Malerion himself hasn't really been explained in any real, significant detail. All we know is that he controls Ulgu and is treated as an equal by Sigmar and Tyrion and Teclis, and that the angrier he gets the more tangible he becomes. I get the impression that him manifesting properly will not be a good day for someone.

Some things are just poorly explained though. Idoneth need other souls to live. Souls are defined as the life force of a being. So why do Idoneth have a big bank full of souls that they could just be using? Surely they don't need an endless supply of Eidolons at all times so why not leave enough souls in the bank to summon one and basically recycle the other souls?

Why are some gods so much bigger than others? I understand why Nagash got so much stronger after End Times but not how Sigmar went from a guy to god to the biggest best god of the setting.

So many unanswered questions....

Not everything needs an answer. Most mythologies don't go into exacting detail strangely enough and when you do get answers, they tend to be weirder than the questions.

You don't ask for example why Thor's goats regen each day after he eats them or how Loki got himself pregnant and gave birth to a six legged horse. And a lot of AoS is treated as myth, hell a part of it's age is called The Age of Myth.

 jreilly89 wrote:

So again, because WHFB had more time than AoS the lore made sense? Shocker. Trust me, let's go back to 1985 and read some of the WHFB lore, I bet it's not as great as you're remembering.

You'd probably be surprised! AoS is now 3 years old. WFB first edition came out in 1983. The second edition came out in 1984 which provided the basis of a lot of early including the Slaan, incursions of Chaos, the Empire and so forth. Three years in (1986) you also had the introduction of one of the iconic characters of WFB, H. Kemmler in Terror of the Lichemaster expansion. On top of this you also had WFRP first edition and the start of the very well received The Enemy Within Campaign (which is well worth a read even without being into RPGs). WFB background was expanded quite quickly early on and some of it was really quite attractive.

Yes I'm quite old!

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 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Not everything needs an answer. Most mythologies don't go into exacting detail strangely enough and when you do get answers, they tend to be weirder than the questions.

You don't ask for example why Thor's goats regen each day after he eats them or how Loki got himself pregnant and gave birth to a six legged horse.

Well, with respect to Loki; changed into a Mare and seduced a giant's stallion as a way of stalling him from completing his work to complete Asgard as a way of them avoid having to pay the giant the Sun, Moon and the goddess Freya (apparently). The stallion impregnated Loki though in the process.

I am well aware. My fiance is Norwegian and very much into her mythology. But the point still stands, not everything needs an answer and exacting detail. That in fact tends to ruin more settings than it helps.

Yeah, I actually agree that one of the coolest things of a setting is to let a ton of things unanswered.

Not things like "Whats the ritual of passage into adulthood of ogres?" because, you know, thats actually usefull to know and interesting, but things like "How did this God come to being?". It is a God, a lack of information about him its part of the point.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Not everything needs an answer. Most mythologies don't go into exacting detail strangely enough and when you do get answers, they tend to be weirder than the questions.

You don't ask for example why Thor's goats regen each day after he eats them or how Loki got himself pregnant and gave birth to a six legged horse. And a lot of AoS is treated as myth, hell a part of it's age is called The Age of Myth.

You don't need answers for everything but you do need answers for plot holes. Idoneth need souls desperately enough to raid everyone around for them but also so little that they can store up an excess of them. Things like that need covering, that's good writing. Things like a detailed history of Gork and Mork and the exact value of each soul are examples of things you don't need to cover.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
I am well aware. My fiance is Norwegian and very much into her mythology. But the point still stands, not everything needs an answer and exacting detail. That in fact tends to ruin more settings than it helps.

You can probably understand the confusion though when an example is given to reinforce a point, but which is really the opposite to the point you were trying to make (i.e. the background for Loki is explained even though it was argued as an example for why you don't need to explain the background).

pm713 wrote:
Some things are just poorly explained though. Idoneth need other souls to live. Souls are defined as the life force of a being. So why do Idoneth have a big bank full of souls that they could just be using? Surely they don't need an endless supply of Eidolons at all times so why not leave enough souls in the bank to summon one and basically recycle the other souls?

The 'soul banks' are used to issue souls to Namarti. They're also used to create Eidolons. They're basically the Soulstones of Ulthuan or the system that Athel Loren had--or even simpler description, Infinity Circuits. The more powerful a soul was, the more soulstuff can be extracted from it to infuse Namarti.

Any other questions or are you going to actually read some fluff rather than complain about it and talk about your fanfic?

 Kanluwen wrote:
Any other questions or are you going to actually read some fluff rather than complain about it and talk about your fanfic?

Yeah is Sigmar's city in the realm of heavens in space or not I swear I have seen both artwork of it being like on a mountaintop reaching for the stars and then of it as like an orbital space station built around a sun or something

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Any other questions or are you going to actually read some fluff rather than complain about it and talk about your fanfic?

Yeah is Sigmar's city in the realm of heavens in space or not I swear I have seen both artwork of it being like on a mountaintop reaching for the stars and then of it as like an orbital space station built around a sun or something

Different things - http://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/Realm_of_Azyr

See Azyrheim and Sigmaron

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Any other questions or are you going to actually read some fluff rather than complain about it and talk about your fanfic?

Yeah is Sigmar's city in the realm of heavens in space or not I swear I have seen both artwork of it being like on a mountaintop reaching for the stars and then of it as like an orbital space station built around a sun or something

So, like Mr. Morden says, it's two different locations.

Azyrheim is the city--that's the mountains and whatnot.
The other, if I remember correctly, is basically where Sigmar has his own special supersecret fort and it's built around the core of the World That Was.

The latter part may be changing with the new fluff or being expounded upon.

 Kanluwen wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Some things are just poorly explained though. Idoneth need other souls to live. Souls are defined as the life force of a being. So why do Idoneth have a big bank full of souls that they could just be using? Surely they don't need an endless supply of Eidolons at all times so why not leave enough souls in the bank to summon one and basically recycle the other souls?

The 'soul banks' are used to issue souls to Namarti. They're also used to create Eidolons. They're basically the Soulstones of Ulthuan or the system that Athel Loren had--or even simpler description, Infinity Circuits. The more powerful a soul was, the more soulstuff can be extracted from it to infuse Namarti.

Any other questions or are you going to actually read some fluff rather than complain about it and talk about your fanfic?

Why so rude?

 Kanluwen wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Any other questions or are you going to actually read some fluff rather than complain about it and talk about your fanfic?

Yeah is Sigmar's city in the realm of heavens in space or not I swear I have seen both artwork of it being like on a mountaintop reaching for the stars and then of it as like an orbital space station built around a sun or something

So, like Mr. Morden says, it's two different locations.

Azyrheim is the city--that's the mountains and whatnot.
The other, if I remember correctly, is basically where Sigmar has his own special supersecret fort and it's built around the core of the World That Was.

The latter part may be changing with the new fluff or being expounded upon.

Thanks, actually, that was something that alwys confused me too

pm713 wrote:
Idoneth need souls desperately enough to raid everyone around for them but also so little that they can store up an excess of them.

I mean... that's a lot like saying "People need money desperately enough to spend most of their lives working, but also so little that they can accumulate savings." In general, if you need something, it's always a good idea to stockpile more of that thing than you immediately need if possible. Souls are wealth in Idoneth terms (they even store them in banks!), so the ones who raid the most just want to be as wealthy as they can. I'm not sure it really needs more explanation than that?

Edit: A deeper mystery for me is why "might makes right" allegiances like the Idoneth and the Daughters of Khaine are part of Order, rather than Destruction. If anyone has a good in-world explanation for that, I'd be curious to hear it.

I think Order might be best defined as opposition to Chaos. So the Indoneth and the Daughters of Khaine could be order purely out of their opposition to Slaanesh.

Though I also think they really do have orderly societies. They may end up being stratified and not just, but certainly orderly.

Yeah, DoK is a big mix of that in their hatred of chaos and that they have a heavily political and structured mindset. They have interests in their kingdoms back in the realm of shadows and the free cities with equal parts operating in them and manipulating them with activities that make them look benign while hiding any misdoings.

The Deepkin are more isolationist but pretty varied between soul greedy who are rather malevolent in striking simple villages to the deepkin kingdoms that either only go after the strong and dangerous like in Ghur to the kingdom mentioned in the Portents story which only went after souls already claimed by the raging seas and thus hurt no one.

 frozenwastes wrote:
I think Order might be best defined as opposition to Chaos. So the Indoneth and the Daughters of Khaine could be order purely out of their opposition to Slaanesh.

Though I also think they really do have orderly societies. They may end up being stratified and not just, but certainly orderly.

Being anti-Chaos is pretty much how GW defines it temselves.

"The forces of Order are the Mortal Realms’ shield against Chaos. Order is a loose alliance of the free peoples of the realms – humans, aelves and duardin, alongside staunch defenders of law like Sigmar’s Stormcast Eternals, more exotic forces including Alarielle’s Sylvaneth and the mysterious Seraphon, as well as more sinister forces with their own goals and agendas, such as the Daughters of Khaine and Idoneth Deepkin."

I said it before and I'll say it again, I wish they just played into the hints that Khaine was Khorne and the Dark Elves were chaos elves, and put them there where they could have fun daemon allies, or else throw them into Destruction as raiders out for themselves slipping between realms on their ships Spelljammer style.

 Mangod wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:
I think Order might be best defined as opposition to Chaos. So the Indoneth and the Daughters of Khaine could be order purely out of their opposition to Slaanesh.

Though I also think they really do have orderly societies. They may end up being stratified and not just, but certainly orderly.

Being anti-Chaos is pretty much how GW defines it temselves.

"The forces of Order are the Mortal Realms’ shield against Chaos. Order is a loose alliance of the free peoples of the realms – humans, aelves and duardin, alongside staunch defenders of law like Sigmar’s Stormcast Eternals, more exotic forces including Alarielle’s Sylvaneth and the mysterious Seraphon, as well as more sinister forces with their own goals and agendas, such as the Daughters of Khaine and Idoneth Deepkin."

Meanwhile, the DoK "live for the thrill of open war and spilt blood" and "revel in slaughter", which sounds a lot more like "plunging headlong into battle at the slightest provocation" and "sating their primal need for violence" to me. But yeah, I guess if all that's needed to be in the Order club is to say "Oh yeah, we totally hate Chaos too," then they qualify. It just makes the Order allegiance feel like the bucket of leftovers to me - it's the faction for everyone who isn't dead, devoted to Chaos, or a savage monster race.

It's not really at the slightest provocation. They have shrines and covens located in most the big cities as well as emissaries to most other races. They don't lose it at the drop of a hat. Think of them as a berserker race, they can act perfectly well in polite society, but can switch on the murder/death/kill mode when a battle starts.

Dark Elves going over to Order was one of the dumbest things from End Times, and there were a lot of dumb things.

jonolikespie wrote:
I think I'd actually be playing AoS right now if it did have a lower model count. As a skirmish game with 20-30 models per side I'd quite happily put up with the rules I don't like and make up my own fluff and just play with some well painted models. But every time I see a table being played (or god forbid a GW battle report or pictures in WD where the tables are covered in models) all I can think is holy hell why did you move from rank and file to skirmish but keep the same number of models?

I've been playing a ton with the Skirmish supplement and it works well. As does doing a skirmish-normal game hybrid as you get closer to the 700 point mark. We play a lot of our games with 30-40 models per side. It works at 20-30 too. The campaign system in the skirmish supplment takes you from about 150 or so up to over 500. Which is around where you might transition into the Path to Glory thing, but that's never really worked for us. We find that grows too rapidly and prefer to keep adding small amounts that you choose rather than rolling randomly and adding full units of stuff at once.

The norm of 2000 points seems pretty crazy to me. I basically still see the huge kits like Nagash, Archaon, the Star Drake and so forth as things for large special occasion type games. The game works really well if you stick to 1000 points or less and things under 10 wounds where possible.





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My retrospective on the transition to AoS was that it was hilarious. When the end times rolled around and local people were buying everything, I was like "you know they really mean it right?" And no one believed me. I showed them how in two separate financial reports Kirby talked about how WHFB was failing as a product. They couldn't possibly cancel the game after putting so much stuff out, right? They couldn't believe the End Times was a final attempt to extract as much cash as possible from the 8th edition player base before cancelling things.

Then the AoS launch seemed just as ridiculous. The prices were really really high. The stormcast got adjusted down but some things like the Fyre Slayers are some of the most expensive models ever.

There was simply not enough guidance for most people to get their games on the table. I also saw it as a continued maximum cash extraction rather than a real game. A marketing tool to keep those who dumped a bunch of money into end times stuff on the treadmill. Where the goobering masses could keep buying the "jewel like objects of wonder" that are citadel miniatures

To be fair I thought anyone who played 8th ed fantasy was pretty much a chump as well. The rules seemed like they were all about maximizing model count at the expense of game play. 40k was the same during this time. Spreading the rules for a given army across so many books so they can maximize the front end cost of getting into any army. New army comes out and it's released spread across multiple supplements and codexes. Not a single painting guide for free. Everything costs money. White Dwarf scrapped for this "Visions" thing. It was quite enjoyable watching GW aggressively vacuum money out of people's wallets and still have their revenue fall and fall.

It wasn't until GW's change of leadership and the General's Handbook coming out that I took a serious look at the game again. And even then I didn't get into it until early last year. The skirmish supplement pretty much did it for me. Real support of small games rather than always artificially ratcheting up the model count.

I've liked what they've done with it since. I hope the armies that were released during the dark Kirby days get revisited. Ironjaws, Fyreslayers, Beast Claw Raiders and to a lesser extent Sylvaneth need a few more kits each. And the Fyreslayers need to be adjusted down in price a bit. Or some sort of bundle or change to the start collecting should happen to bring them in line with other armies.

On the fiction side of things the Malign Portents story that has Seraphon existing on some sort of vessel in the stars and actually talking to one another is way, way better than them being dreams made real or whatever. Even if they are dreams made real, I like the idea of them being actual living things once they are made. The simple ideas in that story were way better than the dreamt in and out of existence thing in the battle tome and to a less degree, their appearance in the Clan Pestilens novel.

The novel City of Secrets is probably the first real sign of a change of direction in the fiction. Early last year it comes out and actually has the time line moved forward. It has people living in a city rather than a post apocalyptic chaos battle. The characters aren't sigmarines nor daemon infused immortal chaos lords. Normal people living in a world.

And they've just built on that over the last year and a half. I've thoroughly enjoyed it.

People talk about how popular the lore of WHFB was and yet people did not buy the books or the models. Most people read the lore on wiki's. Josh reynolds broke down how the books were doing and they were not doing well at all. Hell Gav liked the tweet stating he was speaking the truth.

At the end of the day people can talk on the internet about how good whfb was or the lore but the numbers don't lie. People prefer AOS from the game and to the books. Hell I always believed that the forums are always a minority of the player base.

I know here, WHFB books and models didn't move at all. A large swathe of people didn't care about the books or the narrative, and that is still true with AOS today or 40k or whatever game.

The amount of people that care about the fiction is very very small.

The models weren't being bought retail here simply because you could always find a 2nd hand army locally for pennies on the dollar, and if you couldn't find it locally ebay would hook you up.

And if you wanted new models instead of used, historicals would do in a pinch for pennies on the dollar.

When I say they weren't being bought I mean exactly that... the GW store and the other FLGS could not move WHFB at all even though it was being played regularly.

The novel City of Secrets is probably the first real sign of a change of direction in the fiction. Early last year it comes out and actually has the time line moved forward. It has people living in a city rather than a post apocalyptic chaos battle. The characters aren't sigmarines nor daemon infused immortal chaos lords. Normal people living in a world.

Excellent post all round that I agree with but just a small nitpick, we did get a earlier version of that change of direction before then too with "Daemon of the Deep"(came out at the end of 2025 i believe) which had people living in a Sigmarite city. In hindsight it's funny that it had a lesson that zealots could be more dangerous than monsters as a priest sentences a child to death and here now 3 years later we have those stories again of the clergy costing lives through their superstition practices.

Baron Klatz wrote:
Excellent post all round that I agree with but just a small nitpick, we did get a earlier version of that change of direction before then too with "Daemon of the Deep"(came out at the end of 2025 i believe) which had people living in a Sigmarite city. In hindsight it's funny that it had a lesson that zealots could be more dangerous than monsters as a priest sentences a child to death and here now 3 years later we have those stories again of the clergy costing lives through their superstition practices.

I never got around to reading those call of chaos quick reads or the advent calender stories. I'll definitely check that one out.

Either way I really like how these actual places where people live are becoming more central to the story line. I guess you can't really have the dead rising and destroying places unless you build them first.

And you have to follow the edicts or the geists will get you.

 shinros wrote:
People talk about how popular the lore of WHFB was and yet people did not buy the books or the models. Most people read the lore on wiki's. Josh reynolds broke down how the books were doing and they were not doing well at all. Hell Gav liked the tweet stating he was speaking the truth.

At the end of the day people can talk on the internet about how good whfb was or the lore but the numbers don't lie. People prefer AOS from the game and to the books. Hell I always believed that the forums are always a minority of the player base.

You are looking at it too narrowly. There is no doubt WFB struggled in the last few years. Price was a huge factor, but on the other hand if all your resources are going into a new game then it is not unexpected that you generate a cycle where it gets worse (your best writers are writing stuff for the new game). You can actually turn it into a self prophesying circumstance. I think you will find that when people refer to WFB lore they are likely to put the last few years of lore into the same 'camp' as AoS (for a personal preference perspective). As in epic epicness, transformers or marvel style writing. Those likely to prefer what a lot of 'older' WFB players refer to us as lore is the material that was generated for the 'love' of it rather than the 'manufacturing' way it was created in the last couple of years of WFB and continued on into AoS (in my view). Hence you really have to look back to what was happening in late 6th edition and earlier (I would argue that Storm of Chaos was the 'watershed moment'). Hence those people that you are referring to preferring the lore are referring to the old lore. The comparison to the last few years of lore is less valid, and yes almost certainly wasn't selling well - but then that wasn't what those people wanted, so hence the outcome.

I definitely like the 4th and 5th edition army books for the lore. And a couple of the 6th edition. But the last decade of stuff? Definitely prefer AoS to that. Similarly, I love my 1st and 2nd edition WH Fantasy Roleplay books. Don't have any time at all for the 3rd edition version.

When you have a decade or more of decline in the game and the lore, that's a long time to have to set aside to make a case for the quality of WHFB.

And even the quality stuff in the past in terms of the older novels weren't selling well. Everyone who was around when they were first published likely already bought it and if someone didn't enjoy the new stuff they'd likely not bother checking out any of the older stuff.

And then there's the very distinct possibility that I'm overestimating the quality of the older stuff and the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia are making me rate them higher than they really do merit.

I've actually played the RPG, a bit of 1st but the bulk of it was with 2nd ed.

That edition came out at the same time as the Storm of Chaos, so I got into the lore, Mordheim and the like.

Of course since the Storm, there is nothing that happened in the lore since then...similar to how there was the Eye of Terror Campaign, and then nothing.