Having recently got back into GW gaming (entirely focused on 40k atm), I was interested to look at AoS but mortified at quite how much things had changed.

Now, don't get me wrong, there's some pretty cool stuff in AoS. The Wood Elves (sorry, Sylvaneth) are rocking it! Alliance 'Death' is also pretty awesome (especially the Nighthaunt stuff), although I miss the Tomb Kings (who were one of my favourite armies - those Ushabti were something special).

The Idoneth Deepkin look spectacular, but my heart aches at the disappearance of Ulthuan and the High Elves that were. I see some units/models have survived, but the glory of the Phoenix King and his awesome realm is gone.

Also, I greatly miss Bretonnia.

What do you miss? And how have you adjusted to AoS?

- Rank and file combat

- Flanking

- actual movement rules

- Unit and item names that don't make me wince

- Actual geography in the setting instead of this wishy-washy dimensional nonsense. Just give me a single, physical place where all of these fancy realms converge that all the factions fight over, like a world sized Sigil or something.

- The Empire, Bretonnia, Lustria...you know what, just add all of the old factions in there

- Dawi in all of their grumpy glory. I don't know why GW went with Duardin instead of Dawi. I'm not even sure if the Dammaz Kron still exists.

- Actual army structure instead of this "take what you want" mentality

Yeah...AoS was a hard pass. It had nothing I wanted, and was basically just a garish, high fantasy 40k where the writers and artists took acid before working on it. Just stick to Total War: Warhammer. Its not perfect, but its still more Warhammer than AoS.

+ maneuver that mattered. Granted 8th edition WHFB kind of started removing that with steadfast and how it turned the game into mega blobs that tried to out steadfast the other.

+ terrain that mattered. Again though 8th edition started down the path of a kinder gentler battlefield and had forests you could shoot through.

+ armies clashing. Thats what brought me to the game in the first place. Now we have the 8 steam tank "army". I'd prefer to keep the low model count to skirmish games like warcry.

+ army structure. Having to make due with "core" troops instead of just getting to go all out and get all elites all the time whatever you want foreva!!!

+ the era. back in the early 2000s GW produced great books like the General's Compendium, and the how to make terrain book. Both of those books would fall on their face today. Scratch built terrain in general is often looked at with disdain or modeling for advantage and the general attitude where I am is if its not a GW kit, it doesn't belong on the table.

Campaigns were also a lot deeper and easier to get people involved with because the tournament meta was not as hot as it is today. (And I was a big tournament player back then, traveling to 2 GTs a year)

+ no rules no model not being a thing. Seeing custom models for units that had no official model was pretty awesome.

+ Ravening Hordes. The best balanced the game ever was. For a scant few years from 2000 - 2003 the notorious GW imbalances were not present. You could get great games in with a lot of different army builds. Sadly those game designers left for other things and Mat Ward came in and... we know how that played out.

* note that this was also true at the GT level. It wasn't until the end of 2003 that the imbalance started showing up at the GT level and the "meta" started becoming a thing. There were still armies that were stronger than others but good players with weaker armies were still making strong showings. The vampire bus of doom started the tanking down the road of "meta" and would eventually lead to the 7th edition demon, dark elf, and vampire count trifecta of "meta".

AoS is a totally different game meant for a totally different type of person that likes a totally different set of parameters in their games.

I had relatively little trouble adjusting, I left the steaming pile that 7th ed was in mid-00s, so I had a decade to get over it.
I did like the lore, but the game itself was always mired in 80's game design philosophy.
I still remember the game that made me drop out of WFB, where two blocks of 30+ infantry spent the whole game bumping into each other, generating maybe 1 dead model per turn. People always go on about how movement mattered...except it only mattered for the units fast enough to have movement.
If you played infantry blocks, it was a game of line up and move forward thanks to pathetic Mv rates and rules designed to make turning as slow and difficult as possible.

So yeah, I do have nostalgia for the period of 5th-6th editions, and I miss the thrill of seeing brand new plastics released for my Lizardmen.
At the same time, I don't really miss anything in the game itself, it was bog-standard Medieval-period historical game with weaksauce (6th ed) magic thrown on top of it, and monsters that always felt too weak for what they were supposed to represent.

I miss 6th Edition mostly. Yeah it had it's problems but those problems were no where near as bad as the one 7th had.

That rulebook was amazing, Campaign, Siege and Skirmish rules all in one.

- 1/2 point Skaven Slaves and my blocks of 200 of them.
- Formations and formation bonuses.
- The Iconic Armies- Dwarfs, Elves, Orcs, Goblins, Empire... all the "traditional" armies that GW has abandoned in favor of their more high fantasy, copyrightable names/units.

With all that being said though, I really, really like AoS.

The army blocks and feeling of strategy.
Pretty much all the armies. Idoneth are pretty much the only army I can look at without thinking either they're outright bad (like Cities) or adding a but (like Sylvaneth would be so much better with asrai back).
The world felt important rather than a bunch of random locations that I'm told is important without any sense of scale.
It might just be me here but armies had more variety. Mine certainly did as I used to play Strollaz Dwarfs but now I have F all to play.

AoS isn't that bad (anymore) but to me it feels like it's eternally hamstrung by being a sequel to a much better universe. I'm glad some people like it though, it's nice that some good came of the tremendous feth up that was End Times.

Going to have to disagree with Sylvaneth being improved by the return of Asrai.
Frankly? It was the best thing to happen to Wood Elves in a long time. There was a bit of hope that we would see design space focused on the Elves rather than the Forest Spirits that were supposed to be 'the other' part of the faction.

An arrow got put into the knee of that pretty quick though.

What do I miss most from Warhammer Fantasy? The mounts for characters. Cities of Sigmar has a Nomad Prince on Great Stag, and damn does it make me salty.

Wait, Sylvaneth are not wood elves? Well that sucks. I guess they are hanging out with Bretonnians then. Which is kind of funny, if you think about it.

 Darian Aarush wrote:
The Idoneth Deepkin look spectacular, but my heart aches at the disappearance of Ulthuan and the High Elves that were. I see some units/models have survived, but the glory of the Phoenix King and his awesome realm is gone.

We are still in for another 3 kinds of elves, perhaps one of them will inherit the same vibe as the High Elves. I hope so, I've spend almost all the playing time in Total War on them.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Going to have to disagree with Sylvaneth being improved by the return of Asrai.
Frankly? It was the best thing to happen to Wood Elves in a long time. There was a bit of hope that we would see design space focused on the Elves rather than the Forest Spirits that were supposed to be 'the other' part of the faction.

An arrow got put into the knee of that pretty quick though.

What do I miss most from Warhammer Fantasy? The mounts for characters. Cities of Sigmar has a Nomad Prince on Great Stag, and damn does it make me salty.

Yes the lack of humans on horses (I know there are some) is irksome...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Knight wrote:

 Darian Aarush wrote:
The Idoneth Deepkin look spectacular, but my heart aches at the disappearance of Ulthuan and the High Elves that were. I see some units/models have survived, but the glory of the Phoenix King and his awesome realm is gone.

We are still in for another 3 kinds of elves, perhaps one of them will inherit the same vibe as the High Elves. I hope so, I've spend almost all the playing time in Total War on them.

Well this is a glimmer of hope!

The setting and novels. The feeling of gravity to what was happening...less "comic" I guess.

I miss the ogre kingdoms lore, the mountains of mourn. Ancient sky castles with giants, there was so much lore just to one faction. Now in AoS ogres are just.....ogres. No depth, religion, backstory, culture. AoS feels very comic like, it's a bit too far on the fantastical side for me. I pretty much liked all the lore from WHF, it felt like a believable fantasy world where you could imagine what life might be like in certain regions.

Nowadays with AoS games, warcry for example. you're lucky to get more than a few pages or barely paragraphs of lore. It's all half baked...I don't think they know what they are doing, or what direction to take things in. They're just winging it. Alot of the new stuff GW is doing feels like they're growing turds at the wall to see what sticks.

Big magic tomb king turns. Or just tomb kings.

The Lore / background.
The origin story of the Skaven is still one of the great pieces ever written by GW.

Tomb Kings
A geography
Not having a specific "saviour" faction who are the one to hold back the darkness (Stormcast). Just a bunch of factions doing their thing and having a life outside of combat.
The characters, Settra, Vlad, Kurt Hellborg
The history. I loved reading about the vamprie wars, skaven wars, how some races were declining and others ascending.
The names, Dwarfs > Duarding, Ogres > Ogors, Orcs > Orruks.
Black orks being the apex of their race instead of fantasy stormboyz.

I miss Dogs of War. Yes I know they disappeared in 2004, but I still have my army.

Nothing from the ruleset itself, but I do miss a lot of the old discontinued models.

I miss how you could squint and sort of see a low fantasy world. Hell, they once ran a White Dwarf article about low fantasy gaming, with limited magic/monsters. You could build a really neat Empire army out of blocks of human soldiers with some artillery and knights, maybe a wizard or priest, and it would really sell the world. Now, an empire army would be <checks notes> five steam tanks and some stormcast "not angels."

The old world was like a Mexican street taco: based on meat and the corn tortilla, fresh herbs, and maybe a little head. AOS is like a Taco Bell Quesarito - it's turned up to 11 with extra cheese! And I like both... but I miss my simple taco.

I miss the heroes of the Empire. Karl, Kurt, Marius (I was salty when they killed him in 7th)...and that’s about it. My Chaos heroes have 95% returned, the elven heroes and undead heroes have returned...heck, even the Dwarves got Gotrek back. Empire...jack squat.

That’s basically everything I miss. Because missing fantasy means missing Storm of Chaos 6th edition for me. And I played two editions after that still. Ravening Hordes was great except for one damn thing...they did NOT permit Elector Counts of the Empire to carry their iconic Runefang. Which was a kick in the face.

well to be fair, Ravening Hordes stripped the power out of the game for everyone and put everyone on an even footing (the only time in the history of the game that you didn't have a meta and didn't auto lose for showing up with the wrong models that you liked). The empire book came out right after and they had their runefangs returned (well ... A runefang that any elector could carry).

Customization of equipment and item options. But tbf we now have customization of allegiance options.

A retreat & pursuit mechanic for morale.

Charges where you still moved somewhat on a failed charge.

Rose colored nostalgia.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Customization of equipment and item options. But tbf we now have customization of allegiance options

That and realm relics. Though I would like to see more restrictions like Cities of Sigmar.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Rose colored nostalgia.

Indeed. We were overdue for one of these style of threads though.

As in everything though there will be a time when the aos chapter will be viewed through what people called rose colored nostalgia when the next version of fantasy emerges from games workshop, whatever and whenever that may be.

And the people that loved the design decisions of aos will vent frustration. And the people that love the new direction will call that nostalgia.

The cycle of life?

 auticus wrote:
As in everything though there will be a time when the aos chapter will be viewed through what people called rose colored nostalgia when the next version of fantasy emerges from games workshop, whatever and whenever that may be.

And the people that loved the design decisions of aos will vent frustration. And the people that love the new direction will call that nostalgia.

The cycle of life?

More like oversimplifying attitudes and positions which have a good deal of nuance.

 nels1031 wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Rose colored nostalgia.

Indeed. We were overdue for one of these style of threads though.

I just mean to keep things in context and poke fun at those of us who have nostalgia for WHFB. I certainly do.

For example, I almost put something along the lines of 'more significant terrain rules' but then remembered how a rank & file unit that moved into a forest was basically gone from the battle; at half speed and no marching it would be unable to actually move through the forest in time to do anything. So then it becomes me wanting more significant terrain rules, but not like it was in WHFB, so not really something I miss but just something I want.

The trick is making it something that has some impact on the game, not massive impact, and not no impact at all (which are the two settings we seem to receive).

I thought AoS's system of rolling to determine the specific effects of every terrain feature accomplished that quite well (conspicuously deadly signposts notwithstanding), but people seemed to disregard that aspect of the game by silent consensus.

The 'rank and file' "look and feel" of the game and battlefield.

It was a glorious sight to behold!

 Alpharius wrote:
The 'rank and file' "look and feel" of the game and battlefield.

It was a glorious sight to behold!

Yeah, close order formations are nice to look at.
Well, if there's more than 1 anyway. The 8th ed way of doing it, where you had just one huge block of soldiers, didn't look nice.

 Captain Joystick wrote:
I thought AoS's system of rolling to determine the specific effects of every terrain feature accomplished that quite well (conspicuously deadly signposts notwithstanding), but people seemed to disregard that aspect of the game by silent consensus.

Nothing really slows anything down in AOS. The effects of the random chart are almost negligible to not even really mean much. People disregard those rules because of how low impact they are coupled with it being annoying trying to remember status effects on terrain that changes game to game.

Today the hill can kill a model.

Tomorrow the hill gives you a +1 to cast.

The fluff is missed most by myself compared to the tepid fluff currently, also the rules are a big loss in comparison to the shallow puddle that is AoS.

I mean in regards to the fluff there were cities that had more and better fluff than the entire world of AoS.

 auticus wrote:
As in everything though there will be a time when the aos chapter will be viewed through what people called rose colored nostalgia when the next version of fantasy emerges from games workshop, whatever and whenever that may be.

And the people that loved the design decisions of aos will vent frustration. And the people that love the new direction will call that nostalgia.

The cycle of life?

Fair point. Definitely truth in this.

SeanDrake wrote:
The fluff is missed most by myself compared to the tepid fluff currently, also the rules are a big loss in comparison to the shallow puddle that is AoS.

I mean in regards to the fluff there were cities that had more and better fluff than the entire world of AoS.

Extremely subjective.

While I do enjoy AoS a decent amount, I do miss a fair bit of things from Fantasy.

I miss the feeling of an army being an army. With a lot of the ways to make elite things into battleline and such it makes the game feel less like an army vs army style of battle and more of a hodgepodge of models sometimes. While I get that it can be fun to run an army made up of just models you like such as the new CoS with nothing but steam tanks, it really takes away that feeling of army on army battle for me.

The old world was so nice to me because it was easy to envision it as a setting and a world. You could understand and get a sense for how things were in certain locations and the AoS Realms just don't do it for me.

Since we don't have all the many years of background history and such to go off, it makes a lot of armies feel kind of bland to me. There are so few named heroes for most armies that I miss being able to get caught up in various heroes stories and personalities. I also feel a bit sad when I use and fight against those old heroes now reduced to generic versions because I remember their stories and how cool some of them were.

I also miss how wizards and magic used to be. With almost all wizards now being able to cast 1-2 spells and everyone having the same 2 basic spells it makes most of the wizards just feel less interesting to me. I liked having the lores of magic and many of the spells we used to have felt a bit more interesting than a lot of the ones we have now. It feels like spells this day are just +1/-1 to a stat like hit, wound, armour or something like do 1-6 mortal wounds. Endless spells also don't really do it for me since a lot of times my opponent can control it and use it against me so I feel like they aren't really worth it most the time.

I miss comparative hit rolls. I do not like fixed hit rolls and wound rolls.

I miss understanding how the common people survive (outside of the cities). Do they have farms or livestock in the realm of metal for example. Is it like a typical medieval world with some peculiarities?

I miss knights on horses (My poor Knights Panther).

The Old World was some of my favorite fluff, I loved modeling my own characters from plastic bits. I miss the old characters like Grimgor and Archaon.

Really I don't understand the necessity of round bases, if they'd kept squares we could use movement trays as optional. Use the trays and your units gain formation and morale bonuses, don't use the tray and your unit gains skirmisher rules. It would've been cool to see the same unit gain flexibility or staying power depending on how you deploy them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Narissra wrote:

I also miss how wizards and magic used to be. With almost all wizards now being able to cast 1-2 spells and everyone having the same 2 basic spells it makes most of the wizards just feel less interesting to me. I liked having the lores of magic and many of the spells we used to have felt a bit more interesting than a lot of the ones we have now. It feels like spells this day are just +1/-1 to a stat like hit, wound, armour or something like do 1-6 mortal wounds. Endless spells also don't really do it for me since a lot of times my opponent can control it and use it against me so I feel like they aren't really worth it most the time.

Dude, I miss how lores totally affected your army. Building my lizards (remember them) around Lore of Life was a really different list than, say, Beasts.

Lore of light was nice on lizards as well.
"Oh, think my lizards are initiative 1? Well, they are now initiative 10"

I miss the whole Old World. It was a magnificent land to place all the battles in. It had one of the most unique vibes I have ever gotten from a fantasy setting. The army I miss most is the Britonians. Everyone could bring the same army and they all would look different. It was a real riot of colors.

CthuluIsSpy and auticus cover what i miss in general, But i also miss my elves being a thing.
I loved my ranks of glade guard :( and was waiting for new ones for so long and GW just Disipoint me.

Also a undead faction that had some real bite to the themes and story behind them. I just cannot get into the new Negash, He just makes me think of the Big Dumb bad guy now.

Pointer5 wrote:
I miss the whole Old World. It was a magnificent land to place all the battles in. It had one of the most unique vibes I have ever gotten from a fantasy setting. The army I miss most is the Britonians. Everyone could bring the same army and they all would look different. It was a real riot of colors.

The old world was soo good. We still get a lot of interest for our mordheim campaigns from the Total war game crowd.
Vermintide as well has had a few people show interest, but i think a lot of people are surprised learning that the game world in total war has been dropped.

I had gone over to KoW before AoS hit, so I cant really say I miss much rulewise. Lorewise though I miss the Old World, it had its flaws, but it really is one of the more enjoyable fantasy settings out there

Lorewise? EVERYTHING before End Times. That was a hot mess.

Ruleswise? I went back to 6th Ed. with an admittedly small group, so I'm good there. The nice part is the group is slowly growing.

How do I handle AOS? When I want to play Magic: The Gathering, I don't do so with my Warhammer stuff. So I handle AOS by ignoring it. My life is much happier because of that.

 Narissra wrote:
The old world was so nice to me because it was easy to envision it as a setting and a world. You could understand and get a sense for how things were in certain locations and the AoS Realms just don't do it for me.

Definitely. Things are still messy in the mortal realms, there's no real sense of the history or structure. Everything started with the Sigmar reconquista of the mortal realms, although there are ancient ruins and people, it's hard to care for them and it'd require a talented writer to convince me otherwise. I enjoy the maps that the old WHFB books have, it simply gives me a point of origin, making it easier to immerse myself with the story and characters.

6th ed best ed IMO.

 Knight wrote:

 Narissra wrote:
The old world was so nice to me because it was easy to envision it as a setting and a world. You could understand and get a sense for how things were in certain locations and the AoS Realms just don't do it for me.

Definitely. Things are still messy in the mortal realms, there's no real sense of the history or structure. Everything started with the Sigmar reconquista of the mortal realms, although there are ancient ruins and people, it's hard to care for them and it'd require a talented writer to convince me otherwise. I enjoy the maps that the old WHFB books have, it simply gives me a point of origin, making it easier to immerse myself with the story and characters.

I do notice this with my Idoneth (the only foray into AOS I've done so far) this is definitely my biggest confusion. So...where are my guys? Where do they live in relation to the other races? I get that they're in the ocean, but like...what ocean, where?

Love the models. But, if I'm being honest, they've played more games as counts-as exodites in my 40k armies than as AOS idoneth.

 Narissra wrote:

The old world was so nice to me because it was easy to envision it as a setting and a world.

Not hard when all the creative changes from Earth were replacing certain groups of people with elves or lizards

Kholek.
Throgg and armored Chaos ogres

How's that a bad thing though? That's like, fantasy world building 101. Not everything has to be a super special creative snowflake.

It's not bad, but it's funny when you consider that people call Old World "unique" in this thread, by virtue of being least unique fantasy world to be ever devised short of alt-history genre. Strip away the mental shortcut of Empire being HRE with magic, and you're left with a setting as ill-defined as AoS. Move the focus away from Empire, and you have no clue how HE society works, short of "they have a king". What's HE farming system? What do they farm? Do they farm, or is their society so small in numbers they can get by on hunting and gathering? Either never described or maybe given one line somewhere in some obscure BL publication. The lore isn't deeper than AoS one, it just relies on you filling in the blanks with actual historical references.

Is there are a place where one could get to know more about warhammer role, before age of sigmar?

Cronch wrote:
It's not bad, but it's funny when you consider that people call Old World "unique" in this thread, by virtue of being least unique fantasy world to be ever devised short of alt-history genre. Strip away the mental shortcut of Empire being HRE with magic, and you're left with a setting as ill-defined as AoS. Move the focus away from Empire, and you have no clue how HE society works, short of "they have a king". What's HE farming system? What do they farm? Do they farm, or is their society so small in numbers they can get by on hunting and gathering? Either never described or maybe given one line somewhere in some obscure BL publication. The lore isn't deeper than AoS one, it just relies on you filling in the blanks with actual historical references.

I always viewed the old WHFB as just generic European history, but now with FANTASY.

Otherwise I really think we'll see rank and file when they release AoS Warmaster or something similar.

I don't think there is anything to lead us to believe that GW will ever do a warmaster type game unless its a one shot box game. Warmaster and what it entails would go over the head of a vast majority of the AOS playerbase and is probably the polar opposite of anything that they'd be interested in.

I mean, if they did release AoS Warmaster, there'd be a large AoS 28mm army on sale on ebay very soon, because I still hold that Warmaster was the best game GW ever written. Sadly it went over the heads of majority of WFB players, so it died too soon Which is the story of most of the really good Specialist games, honestly.

Warmaster is in my opinion the greatest GW tragedy. Even greater than the end times sacking thousands of dollars of my collection overnight.

I will say between WHFB 6th and Warmaster, those are to me the tippy top of the GW fantasy gamesets.

Warmaster's failing was not in its rules, but in its delivery. Some of it puzzles me because you can literally transport an entire warmaster army in a shoe box.

However, the 6-8mm scale of warmaster put off a lot of people who liked the 28mm scale of warhammer. Additionally even back then hero hammer was the thing fapped to most and warmaster characters were only support pieces. They could not by themselves wipe out chunks of army and that turned off a lot of players. The concept of having to use an entire army as a whole to win games instead of being able to use a ballpean hammer to sledge your way to victory, which is how many games are today and were moving towards back then, was offputting because using the entire army is a lot more difficult than maneuvering and executing a single death star.

Last - mixing of the scales was looked down on because that meant you needed to also have in your possession or access to not only normal warhammer scale terrain, but now warmaster scale terrain.

At its zenith we had like 6-7 warmaster players (back in 1999) compared to our 35 player warhammer club and all of those players were also 100% historical players.

This is one reason I got excited about Conquest. Alessio has blended warhammer with warmaster only at standard scale.

There is also Hail Caesar which draws heavily on the warmaster foundations, but is exclusively historical (there is a fantasy variant that is unofficial)

If GW did produce an actual warmaster type game with AOS lore (meaning movement matters, battlefield management matters, listbuilding is not your crutch, and you aren't creating all steam tank armies) then I too would be all in.

 auticus wrote:


Additionally even back then hero hammer was the thing fapped to most and warmaster characters were only support pieces. They could not by themselves wipe out chunks of army and that turned off a lot of players. The concept of having to use an entire army as a whole to win games instead of being able to use a ballpean hammer to sledge your way to victory, which is how many games are today and were moving towards back then, was offputting because using the entire army is a lot more difficult than maneuvering and executing a single death star.


This is one reason I got excited about Conquest. Alessio has blended warhammer with warmaster only at standard scale.

Yeah, Warmaster sounded great. I do understand the hesitation about the scale though; 8mm sounds pretty small and difficult to paint.
Conquest does look really appealing and I hope it does well, but I don't like the morale rules all that much and there's still not a whiff of it in France. If it does catch on though I will pick up an army. Dunno whether to go with Dweghom, or to wait for them to release other armies.

If they brought back close order formations in AoS, I might be tempted to return, provided the names aren't too cringeworthy.
I still don't like the lore and aesthetic, but 1 out of 3 isn't bad, and I still play Necrons even after Ward had his way with them, because they are still mechanically necrons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Cronch wrote:
It's not bad, but it's funny when you consider that people call Old World "unique" in this thread, by virtue of being least unique fantasy world to be ever devised short of alt-history genre. Strip away the mental shortcut of Empire being HRE with magic, and you're left with a setting as ill-defined as AoS. What's HE farming system? What do they farm? Do they farm, or is their society so small in numbers they can get by on hunting and gathering?

Considering how Saphery is known for its wine, I dare say that the High Elves do know something about agriculture.
Yeah, the Empire is based on the Holy Roman Empire, but there's still enough stuff for it to be its own thing, and I'm pretty sure the Army Books describe the Imperial Realms and how the politics work.
HRE with magic is just short hand, really. 40k is also pretty derivative, but that doesn't stop it from being its own thing.

With AoS it feels like they want to make something 100% new unique, but without a framework to work with it feels really undeveloped, like really amateurish fan fiction. Its something they should have been working on for more than a decade. That's how Conquest was written, and it uses historical derivations to boot.

I was hoping this thread would make it further before going off the rails.

Edit: And the thread went back on the rails after this post... Coincidence?

I miss how WHFB was low fantasy compared to AoS, and grounded in the real world.

It was interesting to me how whereas 40K focused on superhuman space marines, the protagonist/focus of WHFB was the Empire, largely composed of Renaissance-era foot troops and a scattering of fantasy technology.

Even when playing the non-Empire factions, they were fairly grounded- fantasy staple races with comparable technology level. That made the really fantastic stuff like dragons or giants or vampires really stand out.

AoS lacks that 'baseline'. The poster boys are demigods, every faction has over-the-top monsters, and you can take an 'army' that's just a cadre of specialists if you want.

I love the imagery of Landsknecht with swords and shields fighting rat-men in the tunnels under a generic Germanic city. It's grim and gothic, and blends real-world history with its fantasy, to create concepts that are recognizable but still have their own twists.

Golden-armored reincarnated warriors fighting bone golems in the mystical plane of whatever has no 'hook' to me.

To be fair, there was quite a bit of fluff on how the different societies in the Old World worked. Not an exhaustive study on their cultural, economic and political structure (that would have been very cool!) but many articles like Olde Weirde's Incunabulum in White Dwarf gave proper descriptions about many regions and their inhabitants (norse culture, sylvania, troll country, hellpit, or even that Cathay explorer that hung out with the lizardmen) or those short stories describing a specific event (the night of sacrifice-thingy for Dark Elves or that Empire Engineer that uses warpstone to create modern heaters).

The fact it was some sort of alt-history regarding geography or political organization also gave it a proper ground. For example, if we know how a federal monarchy (or other similar systems) more or less works in the real world, we can also more or less deduct how the High Elves political system worked without need of every single detail. A King elected by other sovereigns with all the ensuing struggles it implies. So it's easy to get.
Basically, my point is that the Old World setting allowed it to have some sort of connection with something we know, which a lot of people perceived as having a foundation and simpler to relate to which they added tons of books, articles and material that cemented the fantasy-stuff to giving it the "Warhammer feel".

I think this is heavily opposed to what AoS is, as it wants to be completely out-there. Which is fine, unless you don't properly explain what are you actually trying to build. If from the very beginning AoS had a book that gave detailed insight to a new reality (the mortal realms), it would have been very favorable. Think a book like Rogue Trader, which presents something new in quite a bit of detail as to have people understand the designer's original idea. Or you can also go the Conquest road, have very clear fluff in droves that you release little by little with a structure and proper narrative thought out in advance. AoS did neither, and it shows.


To stay more on topic, I don't really miss anything of the old days, as I still play and read the old stuff just as if it were day 1
And I never envisioned AoS as a replacement of whfb, more like something totally new so there is just nothing that makes me think "I wish they kept this or that" because everything seems so incompatible. I was happy playing both games when AoS rolled out, but since v.2. dropped they have been taking the game into a direction I happen to dislike so I could probably say I miss the old days of AoS hahaha (in terms of gaming and miniatures... the official fluff never was and still isn't remotely interesting).

 catbarf wrote:
I miss how WHFB was low fantasy compared to AoS, and grounded in the real world.

This line always amuses me when someone talks about dead fantasy.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
I miss how WHFB was low fantasy compared to AoS, and grounded in the real world.

This line always amuses me when someone talks about dead fantasy.

I'm afraid I have no idea what you're trying to say.

 catbarf wrote:
I miss how WHFB was low fantasy compared to AoS, and grounded in the real world.

It was interesting to me how whereas 40K focused on superhuman space marines, the protagonist/focus of WHFB was the Empire, largely composed of Renaissance-era foot troops and a scattering of fantasy technology.

Even when playing the non-Empire factions, they were fairly grounded- fantasy staple races with comparable technology level. That made the really fantastic stuff like dragons or giants or vampires really stand out.

AoS lacks that 'baseline'. The poster boys are demigods, every faction has over-the-top monsters, and you can take an 'army' that's just a cadre of specialists if you want.

I love the imagery of Landsknecht with swords and shields fighting rat-men in the tunnels under a generic Germanic city. It's grim and gothic, and blends real-world history with its fantasy, to create concepts that are recognizable but still have their own twists.

Golden-armored reincarnated warriors fighting bone golems in the mystical plane of whatever has no 'hook' to me.

I miss the WHFB style of fantasy as well. But I also like AoS's style of fantasy for what it is. What I do not miss was the strange pseudo-zone that WHFB got into starting around Storm of Magic where it felt like one level that GW wanted to be another level and the fluff was stuck in an identity crisis in-between.

 catbarf wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
I miss how WHFB was low fantasy compared to AoS, and grounded in the real world.

This line always amuses me when someone talks about dead fantasy.

I'm afraid I have no idea what you're trying to say.

WHFB isn't low fantasy.

He said "compared to AoS" which it very much is, so not sure that's what Gideon meant.

Yeah, WHFB isn't really low fantasy, but its not really High Fantasy either.
I guess medium fantasy? It was closer to high fantasy by 8th ed though, especially if you play High Elves.
Even Empire approached high fantasy near the end, with the introduction of that magic laser chariot and demigryph knights.

Still not to the extent of AoS though, as there was still a heavy emphasis on ordinary, rank and file soldiers, and it was made clear that the more fantastical units were quite rare.
Well, in the lore, anyway. Handguns and cannons weren't even that common, being a relatively recent invention, and Nuln was the only city where they were being produced en masse, iirc.

auticus wrote:I don't think there is anything to lead us to believe that GW will ever do a warmaster type game unless its a one shot box game. Warmaster and what it entails would go over the head of a vast majority of the AOS playerbase and is probably the polar opposite of anything that they'd be interested in.

Warmaster tried to ape Epic's success. Epic was as successful as it was in part because it actually brought a level of the lore to the table that you didn't really see. Now we have Titans and Superheavies and all that, but before, Epic was the only way to be able to play with those pieces.

Now look at Warmaster. All the same units, nothing new really brought in, and the army sizes were puzzlingly equivocal. So you basically played what you were already playing at a way smaller scale with a different ruleset. It just didn't pull you in like Epic did.

 Darian Aarush wrote:

What do you miss? And how have you adjusted to AoS?

ALL of it. Especially the rules.

The only thing AoS has brought to the table are some really cool looking models. But we could've had those anyways.

Nothing, everything I loved about 8th edition has translated well into Ninth Age, a far better game than 8th ever was while keeping the spirit and play style.

If I missed anything it was the feeling that places and every day people mattered. Drycha was just an angry tree lady, not particularly gifted or powerful, but playing Drycha changed drastically how Wood elves played. The Huntsmaster, Alith Anar, The Twilight Sisters, small stories. I liked these a whole lot better than what comes out now where every character is some tactical genius gifted by the gods.

We must remember very different fluff then, I recall special characters being super special awesome back then.

I miss witch hunters and warrior priests :(

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
We must remember very different fluff then, I recall special characters being super special awesome back then.

It depends on what army you were playing, I think.
Lizardmen special characters tended to be fairly unremarkable, but I think Bretonnia and Elves got some crazy characters?
I don't have every book, mind you, so I don't know the details.

Totally without rancor, the thing I miss the most is there being a place on Dakka for people to post about WHFB if that's what they want to do. It makes me sad to see people stumble onto AoS discussion boards with no other recourse, only to be continually frustrated and upset by GW's decisions.

There is a warhammer section of Dakka below this one.

 auticus wrote:
There is a warhammer section of Dakka below this one.

I didn't even notice! Had to look twice. Wow, now I'm just baffled by that behavior.

I miss all the books being written by people who had roughly the same understanding of how the game was supposed to work. Every Sigmar army book I read feels like it was written with no understanding of what any other army book is capable of.

Nothing honestly

Nothing really. I played 40k back in the day when Fantasy was a thing, and Fantasy just didn't appeal to me. I liked the fluff and setting, but the game just seemed boring to me. I love AoS, both the lore and the game. Many in this thread says that it isn't grounded, or too hard to imagine.. It really isn't, just takes that you actually read the lore through and through. Old fantasy lore was really handed to you, and easy to understand. AoS to me, is more complex. I do wish however, that they didn't discontinue armies like TK and Brettonia, just a shame.

I miss armies feeling like armies rather than random collections of miniatures most of all I think. I miss the feeling that gave the game.

And I miss Bretonia, they were a cool faction!

I see a lot of people saying I have to read the background material entirely before passing judgement. The problem is I tried to read some of the material and found it to be god awful, so I stopped.

 Ratius wrote:
The Lore / background.
The origin story of the Skaven is still one of the great pieces ever written by GW.

True, but you did remind me of the "Skaven are an urban myth!*" thing that got bought in later, which was far dafter than anything AoS has ever introduced.


* Never mind those hundreds of rat-man corpses lying around after that last battle, or the accounts from hundreds of our soldiers about fighting rat-men, or the fact that our scholars unquestioningly accept the presence of goat-men, bull-men and intelligent lizard people who live on the other side of the world.....

 Elemental wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
The Lore / background.
The origin story of the Skaven is still one of the great pieces ever written by GW.

True, but you did remind me of the "Skaven are an urban myth!*" thing that got bought in later, which was far dafter than anything AoS has ever introduced.


* Never mind those hundreds of rat-man corpses lying around after that last battle, or the accounts from hundreds of our soldiers about fighting rat-men, or the fact that our scholars unquestioningly accept the presence of goat-men, bull-men and intelligent lizard people who live on the other side of the world.....

Wasn't that because its a political thing? I mean, can you imagine the wide spread panic that would engulf the Empire if word got out that there could be colonies of rat-people living underneath you? The Scholars probably know that there are Skaven, they just aren't allowed to reveal that information to the public.
As odd as it may sound, it wouldn't be that hard to cover up Skaven battles. Just say they are a type of beastman. Your average Imperial soldier isn't going to know the difference, and if he gets too inquisitive...well, that's what Witch Hunters are for.
Are Lizardmen even that common knowledge? And if they are, would it really matter? I mean, Lizardmen live on another continent, and beast men are only really a problem if you live out in the woods, iirc.
That's probably the angle GW was going for. For what its worth, Bretonnians did not deny the existence of Skaven and actively crusade against them.

I believe that the idea behind that was that the official line from the Empire was that Skaven were nothing more than rat-type beastmen, with no organised society or technology beyond what a brayherd would have. The suppression was of the fact that Skaven were as intelligent and organised (in their way) as human society, with a high level of technology.

 Da Boss wrote:
I believe that the idea behind that was that the official line from the Empire was that Skaven were nothing more than rat-type beastmen, with no organised society or technology beyond what a brayherd would have. The suppression was of the fact that Skaven were as intelligent and organised (in their way) as human society, with a high level of technology.

Yeah, that sounds about right. As I said, if the Empire's common folk knew that there was a intelligent species of rat-people living underneath them, there would be chaos.

Every year the grey seers would cast a vast ritual that helped to shroud their presence and feed into the mentality that 'Skaven don't exist' while they had assassins take care of problem elements.

Also vast swathes of people in the real world disbelieve things that literally happen right in front of them. How many climate change deniers are there? And that's without a cabal of sorcerers casting a spell to help conceal their presence.

Off the top of my head:

- The structure of armies.

- Square bases & movement trays.

- No possibility of a player taking 2 turns in a row.

- Factions that felt like proper factions, not just a bunch of models linked by the most tenuous of connections.

- Models were allowed to be powerful without also needing to be the size of a small building.

- Meaningful options for character customisation.

- Spell lores that weren't completely interchangeable.

Despite not playing Warhammer Fantasy (I know my hobby discipline and I would NEVER be able to paint 40 guys to sit in a brick), I was a huge fan of the setting, having read numerous novels, played the old RPG, and enjoying WHQ and Mordheim, etc.

For me, it was simply the setting/lore/low fantasy. Once that went away, any interest I had disappeared. Whether AoS is a good game or not is a moot point to me; it's unattractive and the models are no longer interesting to me.

Now luckily I can still play the original WHQ and I still play Mordheim on occasion...but going forward? There's nothing that will be bring me into the GW fantasy fold. I even like the new Warcry miniatures but the gameplay almost put me to sleep watching a few game reports. I have picked up a couple of the Shadespire boxes for using the miniatures in my dungeon crawl, so that's maybe the extent of it (skeletons and barbarians).

Actually, the largest part of what I loved about WHFB was the stories that were much more intimate than those in AoS. The Gotrek and Felix novels, or the Luthos Huss novel, or the pretty sweet series about the Bounty Hunter, or Vampire Genevieve. Those were stories that the Old World fostered, that don't really exist in the new Planescape/Ragnorok/Clash of the Titans mashup that the Mortal Realms are.

And along with those stories, player's armies had the capability of being more characterful than just hordes being smashed into each other (not saying that personalization can't be had in AoS, it's just harder)

Having hero and lord versions of a given hero option. Like there was a runesmith and a runelord, or a chaos sorcerer and a sorcerer lord.

Honestly I think the thing I miss most about WHFB over AoS has nothing to do with the games themselves but the community.

WH40k and WHFB used to sit side by side on shelves at my FLGS. There were just as many tournaments for FB as there were for 40k in the local area. Pick up games were just as easy to find for 40k as they were for FB. And TTG/Wargaming communities have only grown, not diminished in the last 10 years or so here.

I didn't care much for the lore or the models of FB and have found myself actually in love with AoS but there is not a lot of support for the game in my area. GW Fantasy doesn't stock the shelves anymore. Tournaments are near impossible to find. Pick up games are rare. Warcry is new and exciting and Blood Bowl is still around but it seems like most people (justifiably) jumped ship after AoS 1.0 and I honestly think 2.0 has shaped up into quite an interesting and unique beast.

The splintering of the Fantasy community to the eight winds is rather disheartening imo. I understand the place of heartache and frustration with such a big change and destruction of so much history.

The problem is, I enjoy the new setting, the new models, the new-er rules and I don't see a way those can be reconciled with old FB. The only solution I could think of would be for GW to continue to support both games, continuing from the launch of AoS. And even then, it would still be a divided community. Just with more casual vs hardcore rather than new vs old.

Just rambling here I guess.

You know, I don't think that it would be as divided as you think. I think simply having a dedicated Legends/Legacy edition might foster some good will between GW and the grognards that left when AOS came out. It might be enough to get some to consider AOS, but I think that would also take completely eliminating legacy armies from AOS.

You absolutely cannot reconcile whfb with aos. They are two very different things catering to two very different personalities and interests.

If youre an aos fan the last thing you want is gw trying for both.

 Just Tony wrote:
I think simply having a dedicated Legends/Legacy edition might foster some good will between GW and the grognards that left when AOS came out. It might be enough to get some to consider AOS, but I think that would also take completely eliminating legacy armies from AOS.

The company said a while ago that next year, there will be a full Legacy treatment for all non-supported stuff (similar to that Dark Elves PDF published sometime back). This will include points! Quite interesting. I hope they keep their word and don't just forget about it.
I do notice quite some animosity on behalf of certain AoS fans whenever the words Old World or Warhammer Fantasy are uttered (hello TGA), but I really don't get this need to create irreconcilable camps. You can like and play aos, whfb or both without it being a contradiction or incompatible with the other.
Plus, GW has gotten so big that it never supported more models/rules/hobby supplies/games/licensing.... so even if it did decide in a future to bring back the old stuff in someway or the other, it wouldn't be in detriment of anything (guessing but I suppose GW knows how to run and market their different brands).

auticus wrote:You absolutely cannot reconcile whfb with aos. They are two very different things catering to two very different personalities and interests.

If youre an aos fan the last thing you want is gw trying for both.

I agree, for the most part. However, it's no different than players who were playing WFB and 40K at the same time. Given the rounds and all the mass shooting casualty shenanigans, I'd say it's an even MORE apropos comparison. Some people double dipped. Not all, but some. In my mind a Legacy WFB system would facilitate that and possibly bring back some people who ragequit GW completely. I'm also pathetically optimistic at most times, so what do I know?

As long as it's basically a "fixed" version of 6th and not 8th, for me personally.

VBS wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
I think simply having a dedicated Legends/Legacy edition might foster some good will between GW and the grognards that left when AOS came out. It might be enough to get some to consider AOS, but I think that would also take completely eliminating legacy armies from AOS.

The company said a while ago that next year, there will be a full Legacy treatment for all non-supported stuff (similar to that Dark Elves PDF published sometime back). This will include points! Quite interesting. I hope they keep their word and don't just forget about it.
I do notice quite some animosity on behalf of certain AoS fans whenever the words Old World or Warhammer Fantasy are uttered (hello TGA), but I really don't get this need to create irreconcilable camps. You can like and play aos, whfb or both without it being a contradiction or incompatible with the other.
Plus, GW has gotten so big that it never supported more models/rules/hobby supplies/games/licensing.... so even if it did decide in a future to bring back the old stuff in someway or the other, it wouldn't be in detriment of anything (guessing but I suppose GW knows how to run and market their different brands).

Now are these Legacy lists just AOS points lists or is it a regimental combat game? There's a drastic difference, as quite a few people who quit did so because of the drastically different game mechanic.

Legacy is whfb models but for aos. Aos is the only thing that currently exists.

 auticus wrote:
Legacy is whfb models but for aos. Aos is the only thing that currently exists.

Kind of assumed, wouldn't do to have a superior system compete with one of your twin flagship games, now would it?

 auticus wrote:
You absolutely cannot reconcile whfb with aos. They are two very different things catering to two very different personalities and interests.

Oh. I didn't get that memo. I must be doing it wrong. :(
Because, even though I only have 1 personality, I do enjoy WHFB 3rd-8th editions (yes, some editions more than others, but still....) AND AoS v2.
In addition, being able to enjoy AoS will hopefully lead to increased enjoyment of WFB in the next year. See myself & another vet have a plan.... We'll get people enjoying AoS & then invite some of them to join us for a game of actual WFB.

 auticus wrote:
If youre an aos fan the last thing you want is gw trying for both.

Hmm. Didn't get that one either. Though it doesn't really matter as I already know GWs only going to support one style at any given moment. And right now that moment is AoS.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Elemental wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
The Lore / background.
The origin story of the Skaven is still one of the great pieces ever written by GW.

True, but you did remind me of the "Skaven are an urban myth!*" thing that got bought in later, which was far dafter than anything AoS has ever introduced.


* Never mind those hundreds of rat-man corpses lying around after that last battle, or the accounts from hundreds of our soldiers about fighting rat-men, or the fact that our scholars unquestioningly accept the presence of goat-men, bull-men and intelligent lizard people who live on the other side of the world.....

Wasn't that because its a political thing? I mean, can you imagine the wide spread panic that would engulf the Empire if word got out that there could be colonies of rat-people living underneath you? The Scholars probably know that there are Skaven, they just aren't allowed to reveal that information to the public.
As odd as it may sound, it wouldn't be that hard to cover up Skaven battles. Just say they are a type of beastman. Your average Imperial soldier isn't going to know the difference, and if he gets too inquisitive...well, that's what Witch Hunters are for.
Are Lizardmen even that common knowledge? And if they are, would it really matter? I mean, Lizardmen live on another continent, and beast men are only really a problem if you live out in the woods, iirc.
That's probably the angle GW was going for. For what its worth, Bretonnians did not deny the existence of Skaven and actively crusade against them.

I'm pretty sure this was addressed in Skavenslayer (although it's been many, many years since I've read it) and yes, the Empire was covering up the existence of the Skaven because they live UNDERNEATH their houses and there's no way to exterminate them. The only thing that kept the Skaven from rising up and invading the Empire was their absolute inability to organize any campaign more complex than backstabbing each other.

 Just Tony wrote:

auticus wrote:You absolutely cannot reconcile whfb with aos. They are two very different things catering to two very different personalities and interests.

If youre an aos fan the last thing you want is gw trying for both.

I agree, for the most part. However, it's no different than players who were playing WFB and 40K at the same time. Given the rounds and all the mass shooting casualty shenanigans, I'd say it's an even MORE apropos comparison. Some people double dipped. Not all, but some. In my mind a Legacy WFB system would facilitate that and possibly bring back some people who ragequit GW completely. I'm also pathetically optimistic at most times, so what do I know?

As long as it's basically a "fixed" version of 6th and not 8th, for me personally.

I have really considered this lately. If a "resurrection" of WHFB is possible and if it could exist alongside AoS. Since people are enjoying Aos I am not hoping that Aos will disappear in favor of WHFB but I believe that since they are so different they would appeal to different crowds and that they could both work as separate game system. 40k and WHFB did for a long time and Battle for middle earth is still selling. Do you think it would both be possible and financially beneficial for GW to reintroduce WHFB as a seperate game system alongside 40k and Aos?

The number of people that really enjoy both core foundations of whfb and aos is very small. Typically anytime a discussion is had on whfb elements, it gets followed by a string of nasty comments from people that hate it (edit; in an aos forum)

The same is true in a whfb style forum when someone talks about aos.

While there will always be outliers and the random dude popping in to say he loves both, i have not found that to be even uncommon. Its rare.

Aos fans would and should rage if gw decided to support both styles because it would take the #1 reason why so many play gw games despite rules quality being dubious: the community. Your investment is safe because you know the community is the largest.

Gw introducing whfb back into the mix would fracture that community and endanger your investment.

The two cannot financially live side by side IMO. Gw’s other fantasy offering is middle earth...which barely even registers as being alive in most places despite local champions’ best efforts. And it has what many argue to be the most solid of gw’s rulesets. But it still mostly tanks because few but the most rabid fan boy of tolkien wants to risk investing $500-800 and then only have one or two people to play.

The non aos fantasy gaming community right now already knows all about the fractured tiny pocket groups as it is. Its what keeps a lot of folks from investing in other systems even if the rules would be more to their liking.

Additionally gw cant copyright generic fantasy tropes and the playerbase was heavily buying cheap third party or taking advantage of a deep glut of second hand product on the cheap. All if which is strongly acknowledged as the force behind slaughtering whfb and replacing it with its masters of the universe replacement.

I think the idea of Fantasy being reintroduced is much better than LoTR. If they just put square bases into AoS then you've got most of your models there.

I don't see how Fantasy fractures the community either. My experience has been that AoS and Fantasy have pretty different communities because they're different worlds and game systems. By sharing models they have most of their investment in a shared thing too.

Because most people that like rank and flank are repelled by the ultra gamey aspects of aos and the people that like uktra gamey aspects in their games are repelled by maneuver and position and the like because thats boring.

I would love if gw brought back a proper maneuver based game not based on ccg mechanics and had restrictions on lists. But i also know my fragile fantasy community would rupture into much smaller pocket groups which few people want to happen.

I don't really see why two games for two different groups causes a rupture in anything.

Because people generally dont want to put focus on multiple games. It causes a divide. People have to pick and choose. Thats the nature ive observed anyway.

But if both sets of people generally like only 1 of 2 games then they aren't putting focus on two games. They're putting the same focus into one game but the difference is another group gets to play their own game that's only slightly linked. Everyone wins.

The people are going to gravitate to the larger playgroup. Whatever that is.

Some areas that will be whfb. Some it will be aos. Either way there will be a lot of frustration.

But thats all moot because itll never happen.

 auticus wrote:

Additionally gw cant copyright generic fantasy tropes and the playerbase was heavily buying cheap third party or taking advantage of a deep glut of second hand product on the cheap. All if which is strongly acknowledged as the force behind slaughtering whfb and replacing it with its masters of the universe replacement.

There is nothing stopping 3rd party companies mimicking the AoS aesthetic. 3rd party artists can make bigger skeletons, bigger orc boars, bigger armored knights, elves with fish, dwarves with airships, and naked dwarves with mohawks.

They could sure. But it would have to be a concentrated effort to ape gw’s masters of the universe aesthetic and also obvious.

Whereas generic skeletons, dwRves, and knights are pretty much public domain.

 auticus wrote:
The people are going to gravitate to the larger playgroup. Whatever that is.

Some areas that will be whfb. Some it will be aos. Either way there will be a lot of frustration.

But thats all moot because itll never happen.

But you said yourself people like one or the other most of the time. AoS being more popular in an area isn't magically making it fun for someone. There's less frustration in that scenario than we have now because if you want to keep playing Fantasy you have a chance rather than the giant finger GW gives at present.

That is true. But gamers being the peculiar lot that they are also seem to crave solidarity.

In the kings of war and classichammer and even the local group here, a reoccurring lament is how the community overall is so fractured into tiny groups whereas in the past it was basically warhammer, 40k, and the side group of warmachine.

Our aos group locally has guys that claim to want rank and flank back but wont move to play kings of war, conquest, classic whfb, or 9th age because the aos group is bigger and thats a lot of peoples’ #1 priority.

Even though if half would play kings of war theyd have ten to twelve players. The conquest community im trying to build - same issues.

We have 9 conquest players now with about 8 on the fence, and the new aos box removed three of them from conquest simply because they feel money spent on aos is a safer investment due to community size even if they dont like the rules as much.

Why not both? Logical question. Investing in more than one game takes more money, time, and getting another system down well to play. Thats more than most want to invest.

I don't know, if you share models that's a lot of money and time saved and I've never been convinced GW spend much time getting systems ready to play.

People wanting to feel safe in their investment and drifting towards the bigger community makes sense. If the reintroduction of WHFB would lead to another split in the community the safest option might be to introduce a rank system to both games. Not replacing AoS rules but make an expansion like lotr had war of the ring back in the day.Then everything could be on round bases and be used in both systems.

The problem there is that for GW, introducing such a rank and file rule system for AoS would probably make it less interested in reinvesting in WHFB. WHFBs main draw would be the lore and possibly some factions if now sharing rules with a Aos War of the ring expansion. And in Aos GW can just create a new faction that is more trade marketable then anything in the old world.

So a WHFB resurrection does seem unlikely with it either not being needed (War of the ring expansion system for Aos to appease fans wanting a rank and file system). Or it will bring to much risk in dividing the fans between Aos and WHFB if earlier idea is true (people drifting towards the bigger fantasy community making one of the systems less profitable and making people less willing to invest in it).

But I will hope. Aos is interesting and has some awesome sculpts but I miss to much stuff from the old world that has changed or been discontinued to fully start an army. If WHFB would return I would probably invest a lot more in GW products then I do now.

I'm just not really a fan of Warhammer: planescape.

Everything somewhat meaningless and samey.

Having many armies be effectively daemons (Lizardman are, sigmarines are, etc) but unchanged is just weird.

Some of the new factions are cool - I do like the karadron.

But It's clear GW wanted to create a 40k scale fantasy game and they decided colliding magical planes was the way to do it

Even planescape had a centralized hub in the form of Sigil that connects everything and serves as the ground zero for various important events and stories, though.

Everything in AoS just looks likes its floating around aimlessly, and it doesn't work for me.

AoS really needs a Sigil like world that's supposed to be the main battleground for all of these conflicts.
The story could be that its a world that not only connects all worlds, but as all of the winds of magic converge and cancel each other out, its also a suitable and stable realm for colonization, and that makes it an ideal target for conquest, be it for strategic purposes, as one could use that world to survey other realms and as a staging ground for invasions, or just as a place to live.

Sigmarines and Nagash would want it for the former, Free Cities would want it as as the latter. You can even have a sub-plot about remnants of the Empire or Tomb Kings wanting to rebuild their civilization on this world, and aggressively attacking anyone else who tries to set up camp on it.

 auticus wrote:
That is true. But gamers being the peculiar lot that they are also seem to crave solidarity.

In the kings of war and classichammer and even the local group here, a reoccurring lament is how the community overall is so fractured into tiny groups whereas in the past it was basically warhammer, 40k, and the side group of warmachine.

Our aos group locally has guys that claim to want rank and flank back but wont move to play kings of war, conquest, classic whfb, or 9th age because the aos group is bigger and thats a lot of peoples’ #1 priority.

Even though if half would play kings of war theyd have ten to twelve players. The conquest community im trying to build - same issues.

We have 9 conquest players now with about 8 on the fence, and the new aos box removed three of them from conquest simply because they feel money spent on aos is a safer investment due to community size even if they dont like the rules as much.

Why not both? Logical question. Investing in more than one game takes more money, time, and getting another system down well to play. Thats more than most want to invest.

TBF if for solidarity sake i'd have to learn a new system i wouldn't be opposed. Money otoh is a whole other issue though and i think it's the main issue. GW games are basically a guaranteed return for investment.

GW did introduce important locations way back in the Seeds of Hope world campaign, and before that with Eightpoints and its associated gates.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
AoS really needs a Sigil like world that's supposed to be the main battleground for all of these conflicts.
Sigmarines and Nagash would want it for the former, Free Cities would want it as as the latter. You can even have a sub-plot about remnants of the Empire or Tomb Kings wanting to rebuild their civilization on this world, and aggressively attacking anyone else who tries to set up camp on it.

That's what the All Points/Varanspire is. It was previously controlled by Sigmar. Now Archaon holds it.

So then why isn't it the primary focus? If its that important, shouldn't the primary plot behind the game be controlling this area?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
So then why isn't it the primary focus? If its that important, shouldn't the primary plot behind the game be controlling this area?

It is, and has been since the very beginning, hence “The Realmgate Wars”.

What parts of the plot have you read?

 nels1031 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
So then why isn't it the primary focus? If its that important, shouldn't the primary plot behind the game be controlling this area?

It is, and has been since the very beginning, hence “The Realmgate Wars”.

Aren't those over though? It seems to me that they aren't fighting over the realmgates anymore and just sort of slugging it out on various worlds, and the war was primarily fought by Stormcast and Chaos anyway.
I was hoping for more of like a free for all brawl, where you have all of these factions on this hub world just slugging it out.

 nels1031 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
So then why isn't it the primary focus? If its that important, shouldn't the primary plot behind the game be controlling this area?

It is, and has been since the very beginning, hence “The Realmgate Wars”.

Why is the goal to take all gates rather than go realm by realm? Why can't they seal or destroy realmgates and fix important ones later? What do they actually live on?

I'd like answers to all of those. Especially the last one.

Test
Edit: Wasn’t able to view replies for a while there.

pm713 wrote:

 nels1031 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
So then why isn't it the primary focus? If its that important, shouldn't the primary plot behind the game be controlling this area?

It is, and has been since the very beginning, hence “The Realmgate Wars”.

Why is the goal to take all gates rather than go realm by realm? Why can't they seal or destroy realmgates and fix important ones later? What do they actually live on?

I'd like answers to all of those. Especially the last one.

Because it's the hub. You control those, you have instant access to all the realms at all times. Going realm by realm would be nearly impossible due to their size and trying to locate the gates. Especially considering they're not necessarily just portals but can actually be living things. What do you mean what do they live on?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Aren't those over though?

The Realmgate Wars are over, yes, and was something of a victory for the forces of order, but the endgame is still Allpoints/Eightpoints. Its just that other distractions have come, like Nagash’s shenanigans and the various Destruction factions throwing a wrench in the machine. In addition to new free cities that need to be founded and defended.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
It seems to me that they aren't fighting over the realmgates anymore and just sort of slugging it out on various worlds,

Yeah, the war effort has kind of stalled and spread out because of the aforementioned distractions. They are slugging it out in various realms because the Realmgate Wars weren’t as successful as Sigmar had hoped.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
and the war was primarily fought by Stormcast and Chaos anyway.

Because they were the only factions capable of fighting a long campaign after the Age of Chaos. The Stormcast because they were gathering their strength for centuries and Chaos was reigning across the realms for the most part. Now the forces arrayed against each other are much more diverse as new factions rose while they fought.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I was hoping for more of like a free for all brawl, where you have all of these factions on this hub world just slugging it out.

If the narrative goes the route that the forces of Order/Destruction/Death all make a push for the Eightpoints, that may happen. I think Chaos is geared up for a big push back though. It’ll be fun to see how the story develops.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

pm713 wrote:
Why is the goal to take all gates rather than go realm by realm? Why can't they seal or destroy realmgates and fix important ones later? What do they actually live on?

I'd like answers to all of those. Especially the last one.

Picture the Allpoints as a hub with a bunch of main highways converging on it. Sure you can get somewhere avoiding it in a roundabout way, taking the scenic route and back roads, but you can move more and move faster with access to the Allpoints.

Once/if the Allpoints falls, Chaos will struggle to put troops where needed, hence why it was such a fatal blow to lose it when Chaos took it. Conversely, sealing of some of the realmgates is why a bunch of Free Cities were able to be raised.

They can seal Realmgates, its how Sigmar was able to marshall his strength during the Age of Chaos and strike back. As far as destroying them, it is possible, but I don’t think you’d want to do it for the main realmgates that lead to the Allpoints. If the goal is to take Allpoints, you still need it functional

Not sure what you mean by live on.

Nothing... I play kings of war.

And honestly, I don't mean that to troll y'all. KoW is just that good.

 Darian Aarush wrote:

What do you miss? And how have you adjusted to AoS?

Not that much, I really didn't care for the 8th edition gameplay at all...


And it's been 4 years, yes, I've been able to get over it.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 nels1031 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
So then why isn't it the primary focus? If its that important, shouldn't the primary plot behind the game be controlling this area?

It is, and has been since the very beginning, hence “The Realmgate Wars”.

Why is the goal to take all gates rather than go realm by realm? Why can't they seal or destroy realmgates and fix important ones later? What do they actually live on?

I'd like answers to all of those. Especially the last one.

Because it's the hub. You control those, you have instant access to all the realms at all times. Going realm by realm would be nearly impossible due to their size and trying to locate the gates. Especially considering they're not necessarily just portals but can actually be living things. What do you mean what do they live on?

Okay but that's still the main strongpoint of Chaos. It makes more sense to cut them off first seeing as they do need food etc and half of Chaos does very badly locked up.

But why? They had all that time before Chaos came to have maps and Stormcast literally come from the sky wherever they want. They could be arriving and destroying things before someone can say "Hey who are those big blokes over there?". If it's a living thing you can still blow it up.

Ah I see why that's hard to get. What do people live on as in what are the Realms? Are they floating discs, actual planets, weird warp places that only semi exist, infinite stretches of land or do we not know?

 pancakeonions wrote:
Nothing... I play kings of war.

And honestly, I don't mean that to troll y'all. KoW is just that good.

been on the fence on that one...gotta see if we have a KoW forum or thread.

Yes though the facebook group is much more active than the mantic section here.

Kings of war is indeed solid.

pm713 wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 nels1031 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
So then why isn't it the primary focus? If its that important, shouldn't the primary plot behind the game be controlling this area?

It is, and has been since the very beginning, hence “The Realmgate Wars”.

Why is the goal to take all gates rather than go realm by realm? Why can't they seal or destroy realmgates and fix important ones later? What do they actually live on?

I'd like answers to all of those. Especially the last one.

Because it's the hub. You control those, you have instant access to all the realms at all times. Going realm by realm would be nearly impossible due to their size and trying to locate the gates. Especially considering they're not necessarily just portals but can actually be living things. What do you mean what do they live on?

Okay but that's still the main strongpoint of Chaos. It makes more sense to cut them off first seeing as they do need food etc and half of Chaos does very badly locked up.

But why? They had all that time before Chaos came to have maps and Stormcast literally come from the sky wherever they want. They could be arriving and destroying things before someone can say "Hey who are those big blokes over there?". If it's a living thing you can still blow it up.

Ah I see why that's hard to get. What do people live on as in what are the Realms? Are they floating discs, actual planets, weird warp places that only semi exist, infinite stretches of land or do we not know?

As i said, you can't simply due to the sheer size of the realms. And if you try to take the Allpoints directly, you're going to die. It's where Archaon's tower is, where the Varanspire is. Incidentally where Warcry is set as well.
Because they assumed they didn't have too. They had a lot of time of peace and prosperity when chaos was nowhere in sight. And with peace comes laxity. When chaos came, it hit like a tidal wave and wiped out basically everything. If there were maps, they were either lost or it wasn't considered worth the risk at the time.

And Stormcast do do that. There's numerous stories about where they fight for control of gates not only against chaos but numerous other races to either control or seal them.

Well, they live on the ground like anyone else? It's hard to answer that without sounding condescending. They live in towns, mountains, forests? Only the Kharadron specifically live in the air on their flying cities and the Idoneth in the oceans that we know of currently.

I think he's talking about actual geography. Like, are the realms spherical planets, or are they a discworld sort of thing where you have a flat plane on the back of a turtle, something like that.

I enjoyed my old Southlands Skinks army and literally running circles around my opponents’ blocks of infantry while peppering them with blow darts and javelins and arrows.

Once I finish my CoS I'll likely jump on KoW, unless GW decides to release the rumored light elves at the time. The design and feel of AoS game sits less and less with me.

pm713 wrote:
What do people live on as in what are the Realms? Are they floating discs, actual planets, weird warp places that only semi exist, infinite stretches of land or do we not know?

That's still kind of difficult to explain, but according to a video released just before 2.0 came out, the realms are sort of discworlds. Each is attuned to a wind of magic. They aren't infinite, but they "may as well be". Basically, the closer you are to the middle of the realm, the more earth-like and stable it is. As you move outward, the winds of magic grow stronger until the realm basically just turns into magic, so on Chamon, for example, if you go too far from the middle, you'd just turn into liquid metal and float away. Because of this, the mortal races are settled around the middle of the realms.

See now just that little detail makes the setting SO MUCH cooler to me. Gah. Why haven't they made that stuff more obvious to draw people in?

Eh, its ok. Its still not clear how or why these worlds interact. Do they always fight over realm gates or something? How does that even work? Do two factions stumble across the same realm gate and fight over it?
Can you even have a middle in an nigh-infinite space? How big is a middle?

 EnTyme wrote:

pm713 wrote:
What do people live on as in what are the Realms? Are they floating discs, actual planets, weird warp places that only semi exist, infinite stretches of land or do we not know?

That's still kind of difficult to explain, but according to a video released just before 2.0 came out, the realms are sort of discworlds. Each is attuned to a wind of magic. They aren't infinite, but they "may as well be". Basically, the closer you are to the middle of the realm, the more earth-like and stable it is. As you move outward, the winds of magic grow stronger until the realm basically just turns into magic, so on Chamon, for example, if you go too far from the middle, you'd just turn into liquid metal and float away. Because of this, the mortal races are settled around the middle of the realms.

So if things are near infinite, why do I care? In Fantasy if the city of Nuln was destroyed there were visible consequences in terms of weapon production, land control, money and so on. But with Realms it doesn't matter because you can just move somewhere else. Fighting Chaos is pointless when you have a choice because they're endless and you can just leave and go elsewhere.

The whole Realmgate War seems dumb because if the only way between each Realm is the Gates then it would have been much smarter to take a look at a map, strike at every Gate in a target Realm and destroy/seal the ones you don't want open and use the ones leading to friendly territory to bring in reinforcements and clean up. Then repeat in the next Realm. That way you can negate the numbers of Chaos and actually make progress.

So much of the basic lore of AoS is flawed because it's plain stupid and unthought out. Things like people not putting Nagash in charge because he can actually match Chaos more than other people is a reasonable thing because while it makes sense in terms of killing Chaos, Nagash would stab you in the back for a cold coffee. But things like waging war in a way you cannot win despite a better way being obvious just doesn't. Let's not even mention the giant weight dragging things down that is the remnants of Fantasy lore.

I dont know that its stupid. It seems like a deliberate attempt to ape magic the gathering, which the rules of the game also moved more toward (only using models).

I dont think thats stupid because magic the gathering is probably the most popular game in existence. It is the GOAT. That gw would want to tap that audience is smart (and indeed the number of our local ccg people that jumped into aos because it moved away from wargame and more toward what they were familiar with, setting and experience, cannot be underlined enough.

I think for those that want a wargame and a concrete landscape to play on need to move on to a game that caters to that, because we have not been the target audience for some years now.

Ehh, it's not really an attempt to mimic Magic the Gathering. If anything its an attempt to ape 40k.

The Realms are huge and massive, the same as a galaxy. Just as there are random planets and Forge World out there where you can create your own Guard Regiment/Space Marine Chapter etc. The Realms are big enough where you can create your own City of Sigmar, or Stormhost.

I don't really see how it can be stupid in AoS yet, when 40k does the exact same thing, it's not?

Its big and limitless which allows players to come up with their own story/army tailored as they want.

Of late there have been few things that are gnawing me on this topic. There seems to be an obvious intent to expand the potential of the themes that you can produce, take for instance MtG, you can have anything you'd want (except naturally the plane that was classified as a fiasco from the salesman perspective), from ancient myths of Egypt, Babylon, China, Greece, aether punk India and so on, however, you need to have some cohesive plot that binds everything together.

Looking at AoS, they aren't quite sure what they want from their realms or the story, apart from treating it as a black box from where they can pull a different product. The end result is that the setting comes off as incredibly thin and unconvincing. Should the planes had larger weight on the armies in how they need to look and behave it'd be more interesting from my point of view. That apart from Gotrek we don't really have any major freelance players that have a realistic chance to go against the gods is also not contributing to the excitement or interest.

There sure are a lot of similarities between aos and mtg both in narrative world building as well as game mechanics and player experience to say theres no mtg influence or leaning at all in the game.

Da Boss wrote:See now just that little detail makes the setting SO MUCH cooler to me. Gah. Why haven't they made that stuff more obvious to draw people in?

It was part of the main promotional effort for 2.0. How would you prefer they make it available other than posting the video to Facebook, YouTube, and their community site?

CthuluIsSpy wrote:Can you even have a middle in an nigh-infinite space? How big is a middle?

pm713 wrote:So if things are near infinite, why do I care?

I'll address both of these together. The realms aren't "nigh-infinite". They "may as well be" infinite, meaning you can't reach the edge, not that the realm is infinitely large. The example I (and the video I was referencing) gave is that on Chamon, you will turn to liquid metal long before you reach the edge, so no one knows just how large the realm is. What they do know is that the realms have a finite amount of liveable area, and that area is precious. That is what everyone is fighting over.

Oh, ok well that does make sense. It would have helped if they actually explained that off the bat, but that does give a plausible casus belli. I still don't like the overall presentation of AoS and the whole realm of magic concept, but I get behind land grabs.

Are lizardmen still imaginary spirit monsters though, or are they still born from spawning vats and hang out in temple cities? I really hated reading about how they are just summoned by Slann now instead of being physical creatures of flesh and blood.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Oh, ok well that does make sense. It would have helped if they actually explained that off the bat, but that does give a plausible casus belli. I still don't like the overall presentation of AoS and the whole realm of magic concept, but I get behind land grabs.

Are lizardmen still imaginary spirit monsters though, or are they still born from spawning vats and hang out in temple cities? I really hated reading about how they are just summoned by Slann now instead of being physical creatures of flesh and blood.

I don't think the discworld thing was part of the plan at launch. Remember that the old CEO basically just wanted the lore to be a vague setting to give players a "reason' to fight as they banged their toy soldiers together and made "PEW! PEW!" noises. They didn't really start writing concrete lore until after the first GHB. The lore was incredibly vague even in early battletomes. As far as the Seraphon, if a Slann needs more soldiers, he dreams them back into existence on the battlefield, but they aren't just specters or anything. They are physical beings. Some who survive the battle go back to the starships with their Slann masters. Others remain on the realms living amongst the other races or carving out their own communities.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
Ehh, it's not really an attempt to mimic Magic the Gathering. If anything its an attempt to ape 40k.

The Realms are huge and massive, the same as a galaxy. Just as there are random planets and Forge World out there where you can create your own Guard Regiment/Space Marine Chapter etc. The Realms are big enough where you can create your own City of Sigmar, or Stormhost.

I don't really see how it can be stupid in AoS yet, when 40k does the exact same thing, it's not?

Its big and limitless which allows players to come up with their own story/army tailored as they want.

40k uses planets and has various things that make the loss of something actually problematic. For example if Eldar lose a Webway gate or the Imperium loses a Forge World that's a permanent loss of transit through an area or production of some weapon types. AoS just tells you a city falls with no reason to care.

pm713 wrote:

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
Ehh, it's not really an attempt to mimic Magic the Gathering. If anything its an attempt to ape 40k.

The Realms are huge and massive, the same as a galaxy. Just as there are random planets and Forge World out there where you can create your own Guard Regiment/Space Marine Chapter etc. The Realms are big enough where you can create your own City of Sigmar, or Stormhost.

I don't really see how it can be stupid in AoS yet, when 40k does the exact same thing, it's not?

Its big and limitless which allows players to come up with their own story/army tailored as they want.

40k uses planets and has various things that make the loss of something actually problematic. For example if Eldar lose a Webway gate or the Imperium loses a Forge World that's a permanent loss of transit through an area or production of some weapon types. AoS just tells you a city falls with no reason to care.

Do they though? Or does the narrative just come up with planets or gates that have never been mentioned before to fill in for the ones that were lost? I think that happens far more often.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
Ehh, it's not really an attempt to mimic Magic the Gathering. If anything its an attempt to ape 40k.

The Realms are huge and massive, the same as a galaxy. Just as there are random planets and Forge World out there where you can create your own Guard Regiment/Space Marine Chapter etc. The Realms are big enough where you can create your own City of Sigmar, or Stormhost.

I don't really see how it can be stupid in AoS yet, when 40k does the exact same thing, it's not?

Its big and limitless which allows players to come up with their own story/army tailored as they want.

40k uses planets and has various things that make the loss of something actually problematic. For example if Eldar lose a Webway gate or the Imperium loses a Forge World that's a permanent loss of transit through an area or production of some weapon types. AoS just tells you a city falls with no reason to care.

Do they though? Or does the narrative just come up with planets or gates that have never been mentioned before to fill in for the ones that were lost? I think that happens far more often.

Yeah basically this. "Oh the Tyranids destroy Forge World Tarminion in the Asmun system." What are they? Never heard of THAT world. Yeah is a permenant lose but...the Galaxy is huge...HUUUUGE. Humanity is so prolific , and the galaxy so vast, that you could lose a ton and not have to change all that much. Other then Space Marine Chapter "The Furious Georges" who no one has heard of has to get their tanks from a different Forge World a couple of Parsecs over.

Again, there is no difference between the two when it comes to world building. They are both big and vast with a lot of space for players to fill in the blanks with their own narrative ideas and campaigns. It's just that 40k has been around for 30 years and AoS only 4, so the amount of background info and history that has already been established is significantly less so, mostly due to time.

Though I play AoS and enjoy it, it doesn't hit the spot that WHFB and KoW does.

I choose to ignore the AoS fluff and just picture all the battles taking place in the Old World anyway. I can rationalize a bunch of gates opening to other realms allowing in demons and Sigmarines but my Lizardmen are still defending the geomantic web, damn it.

 Fajita Fan wrote:
I choose to ignore the AoS fluff and just picture all the battles taking place in the Old World anyway. I can rationalize a bunch of gates opening to other realms allowing in demons and Sigmarines but my Lizardmen are still defending the geomantic web, damn it.

Yeah, I'm going to miss Lustria. GW blowing it up and basically killing off Lizards was a dick move. They basically half-squatted them.
Like, they are still in the game, but they aren't the same army, you know? I really don't like this psuedo-craftword Eldar / summoning thing they turned the Lizards into.

 EnTyme wrote:

Da Boss wrote:See now just that little detail makes the setting SO MUCH cooler to me. Gah. Why haven't they made that stuff more obvious to draw people in?

It was part of the main promotional effort for 2.0. How would you prefer they make it available other than posting the video to Facebook, YouTube, and their community site?

Well, for one, it should have been central to AoS 1.0 rather than all the claptrap about sigmar floating around in space with a dragon and so on. It should not take til the second edition to get something so basic and important to a setting to be known.

I had already given up on the lore by then, so I was not checking videos or reading stuff. I did that at the start and found it terrible and insipid, and I was interested to know more about the Realms but there was pretty much nothing available. I also picked up a battletome (Seraphon) and it told me diddly squat about anything.

I don't watch their promotional videos anyway, because they are a bit crappy, so I guess it would need to be in an article somewhere.

They really ballsed up the release of this game. The postapocalyptic Planescape vibe could be really cool and interesting, but instead I feel we got a stupid soap opera with the named characters, most of whom are leftovers from the Old World flanderised into caricatures of themselves.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Fajita Fan wrote:
I choose to ignore the AoS fluff and just picture all the battles taking place in the Old World anyway. I can rationalize a bunch of gates opening to other realms allowing in demons and Sigmarines but my Lizardmen are still defending the geomantic web, damn it.

Yeah, I'm going to miss Lustria. GW blowing it up and basically killing off Lizards was a dick move. They basically half-squatted them.
Like, they are still in the game, but they aren't the same army, you know? I really don't like this psuedo-craftword Eldar / summoning thing they turned the Lizards into.

Amen to that. I think it is actually a pretty brave move and quite interesting from a structural point of view, but I really do not like it as much as the Lizardmen just being...Lizardmen, rather than weird magical memories of frogs in spaceships.
I will be ignoring that entirely when I play and my Lizardmen will just be Lizardmen.

I'll put it another way: I started to read the AoS fluff a few years ago when I bought two of the Sigmarine vs Khorne box sets (half off, local store closing). I never finished reading the fluff when I got a headache.

I started reading the Lizardmen book...and stopped when I got a headache reading that my Saurus warriors are now memories.

I started reading the Black Orc book...and stopped when I couldn't find Grimgor.

I play the game to have fun with my friends and I choose to ignore this whole End Times/Age of Sigmar magic portal system. It's the Old World, there are new enemies and battles must be fought. Let's get to fighting.

You both should really look into the post-GHB lore. They didn't really start writing until a year after the game released.

If the old fluff wasn't good I'd certainly take a look.

Sorry for not posting this on the appropriate board but figured its semi relevant and would get more views here. Me and my buddy have started massively missing ranked warfare fantasy and would like to het back into it. We've narrowed it down to three options (though others would be happily taken on board). Fantasy 6th ravening horses lists, current lotr or kings of war. Does lotr have many current gw style rules or is it more old school? Am more aware of the other two but haven't played any kings of war despite reading through the rules.


As for this thread and why I am switching from current 3
40k and aos. Lore, gameplay, factions, models, high elves. Much rose tinted glasses but I do feel modern gw games are overly gaming and lacking in depth.

Lotr is not rank and flank its skirmish. The rules are a lot tighter and the balance better but the community is about 20% that of aos.

I miss Tilea, and all the other non Empire human nations.

Guess Ranges

Bretonnia all around (although I never had a chance to play them)

Character vs Character combats

Fluff

I jumped over to KoW back when it was in open beta. I've been playing WFB since the time of Battle Masters, so quite some time. 8th edition was the worst, the changes made to the game were just ploys to sell more. I'm not adverse to buying miniatures to gather a larger force, but when the game switched to 'Horde' mode, it was obvious what they wanted.

I miss the lore and background, the models, and the setting. But jumping over to KoW has allowed me to keep my love for rank and file combat. KoW was what 8th edition should have been.

Now with the abundance of fantastic fantasy plastic miniatures I don't need to look at GW for my main source of fantasy.

Oathmark,
Northstar,
Fireforge,
Perry miniatures,
Mantic

We are living in a great time, and I highly recommend people take advantage of it.

I miss all the great street-level fiction that took place between battles. All the adventuring that took place by normal mundane people being heroes, rather than demigods travelling over sweeping fantastical scenes.

Things like the Luthor Huss book. Or the Bounty Hunter series.

Really there is nothing wrong with getting the mass battles feel by just using KoW rules to have battles in the Old World. It removes all the problematic issues of having GW-developed rules, but keeps the great setting. I have never understood why people said the Old World was small and enclosed. Versus the infinite Realms, yes. But just the Border Princes were the size of whole countries in Europe. The Great Forest is larger than Germany.

You could have an entire dozen-player campaign set in a 50 by 100 mile slice of the middle of nowhere, with no impact on the Empire at large.

My first exposure to Warhammer was when fantasy roleplay was released way back when. I miss the Old World. The setting was one I truly enjoyed. I also miss the more in-depth rules of previous editions...not so much that I want to shelf my new, impressive models and go back to an older ruleset though. I do think that AoS has potential, just needs to have the background properly fleshed out and some of the fluff toned down a bit. I know it's supposed to be a setting where everything is infused with magic but some things just get silly.

 Gridge wrote:
My first exposure to Warhammer was when fantasy roleplay was released way back when. I miss the Old World. The setting was one I truly enjoyed. I also miss the more in-depth rules of previous editions...not so much that I want to shelf my new, impressive models and go back to an older ruleset though. I do think that AoS has potential, just needs to have the background properly fleshed out and some of the fluff toned down a bit. I know it's supposed to be a setting where everything is infused with magic but some things just get silly.

Very much sympathise with this.

Am quietly excited about this 'Warhammer: The Old World' concept...

Although I'm also looking at perhaps actually dipping my toe into AoS.

 Darian Aarush wrote:

 Gridge wrote:
My first exposure to Warhammer was when fantasy roleplay was released way back when. I miss the Old World. The setting was one I truly enjoyed. I also miss the more in-depth rules of previous editions...not so much that I want to shelf my new, impressive models and go back to an older ruleset though. I do think that AoS has potential, just needs to have the background properly fleshed out and some of the fluff toned down a bit. I know it's supposed to be a setting where everything is infused with magic but some things just get silly.

Very much sympathise with this.

Am quietly excited about this 'Warhammer: The Old World' concept...

Although I'm also looking at perhaps actually dipping my toe into AoS.

Yeah, no reason not to dip into AoS. The Old World stuff is 2-3 years in the future. But our gaming is done in the here & now....

I miss the resource management that the magic system had. I hope they bring it back to AoS because this game is currently solid but too simple.