Probably around 10 years back former GW CEO Tom Kirby put out a letter to investors that was one of the oddest corporate communications I've ever seen.

Stuff about GW doesn't do market research and doesn't need to, laws designed for stealing chickens don't work to protect modern IP, people wailing and rending their garments...

If you've read it you'll remember it.

Anyone know if there's a copy of it around, I would love to read it again.

This one? Link

It has a some rather... um... creative statements. A couple of notable 'highlights'

We do no demographic research, we have no focus groups, we do not ask the market what it wants. These things are otiose in a niche

In the technological world we occupy there is constant debate over who 'innovates' and who merely copies. We have, this last year,
spent an indecent amount of your money trying to stop someone stealing our ideas and images. It is a very difficult thing to do when it is
done through a legal system designed to prevent people stealing hogs from one another. Our experience has probably been typical of
most – far too much money spent on far too little gain. The argument is that we have to do this or we will, bit by bit, lose everything that
we hold dear, everything that keeps the business going. Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous deaths and the sun will be
swept from the sky. But is it true?

Because no one seems able to grasp the essential simplicity of what we do there has always been the search for the Achilles heel, the
one thing that Kirby and his cronies have overlooked. These are legion. I run through the list from time to time when someone says that
computer games will be the death of us – they are so much more realistic now! – again. This year it is 3-D printing. Pretty soon
everyone will be printing their own miniatures and where will we be then, eh?

OMG thank you!

It is even more beautiful than I remembered!

"otiose"

Now there's a new vocabulary word I have use this week.

The new management looked at the situation (still paying Kirby cash as he wasn't entirely gone) and came to the conclusion they should try making the models everyone said they wanted and that in some cases 3rd parties had started to make...

I forgot how great some of the jewel-like gems of quotes were.

The Kirby years had a lot of issues, but there were some silver linings. Like those unhinged preambles. Comedy gold.

I'd plum forgotten about this. He gak up the hobby like nothing else, but damn if this isn't a small nugget of gold in amongst the pile of turds that was his reign.

He called Pokemon a fad at one stage, I'm sure.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
He called Pokemon a fad at one stage, I'm sure.

Yeah, asked a rhetorical "Where is pokemon now?" from what I remember.

Still the top selling franchise of all time, Tom! Still raking in that TCG money hand over fist!

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
He called Pokemon a fad at one stage, I'm sure.

Yeah, asked a rhetorical "Where is pokemon now?" from what I remember.

Still the top selling franchise of all time, Tom! Still raking in that TCG money hand over fist!

That is kinda revisionist hindsight, you know. In 2014 Pokemon franchise was pretty much on life support (one original game released in last 5 years not counting cash milking remakes), Wii U was in the middle of being a huge flop, so much there wasn't even a Pokemon or Zelda game made on it and the console was heading for abandonment, sure, both Pokemon and Nintendo are in much better spot but let's not pretend the same was the case back then.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
He called Pokemon a fad at one stage, I'm sure.

Yeah, asked a rhetorical "Where is pokemon now?" from what I remember.

Still the top selling franchise of all time, Tom! Still raking in that TCG money hand over fist!

IIRC the highest grossing entertainment franchise in the world, bigger than Star Trek, Star Wars or Marvel

EDIT-Yep, based on all time revenue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media_franchises

 Irbis wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
He called Pokemon a fad at one stage, I'm sure.

Yeah, asked a rhetorical "Where is pokemon now?" from what I remember.

Still the top selling franchise of all time, Tom! Still raking in that TCG money hand over fist!

That is kinda revisionist hindsight, you know. In 2014 Pokemon franchise was pretty much on life support (one original game released in last 5 years not counting cash milking remakes), Wii U was in the middle of being a huge flop, so much there wasn't even a Pokemon or Zelda game made on it and the console was heading for abandonment, sure, both Pokemon and Nintendo are in much better spot but let's not pretend the same was the case back then.

Pokemon makes the large majority of its revenue from merchandise, not the video games. And it's merchandise sales were pretty much solid throughout.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pok%C3%A9mon_Company#Licensed_merchandise

The pokemon video games account for ~$27billion of Pokemons total revenue over its lifetime. Merchandise is ~$83billion.

Also, 2014 was not a bad year for pokemon as a business: https://web.archive.org/web/20150112202857/www.licensing.biz/news/read/pok-mon-ends-2014-on-a-high/041291

Whos That Pokemon!!!

Otoise Kirby.

wonder what his stats would be like.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Whos That Pokemon!!!

Otoise Kirby.

wonder what his stats would be like.

"Pikachu uses Market Research!"
"Otoise Kirby is confused!"

I like how his entire 3D print angle was "it will never be a threat" and ends with "and if it is then we'll just cut out all the staff in production and shipping and sell direct to the customer and save money!".

Considering this was in the year where he'd just let go a lot of shop staff shifting to the 1 man staff approach to most stores that must have been a grim time for staff in GW to read that.

I mean he's trying to big up that the firm made 50% less profits that year to the investors, so there was always going to be an element of management spiel. But yeah that letter and admitting he wasn't doing any market research or anything was a very telling sign of the weaknesses of the management of that era

He was an unhinged fellow

I think he was just an accountant who wound up running a firm and wasn't really trained nor skilled in that role. So his early days where he most certainly cut costs and improved GW's overall financial health worked well. Because that was all numbers.

However when it came to managing the firm and carrying it forward; to community engagement; recruiting; product focus; market research and all. I feel that he just didn't have the right skill set. Aided by having staff under him who were more yes-men who also had weak points in sklil (their legal guy wasn't trained in copyright/IP law or anything) and you've a setup for an echo-chamber team that didn't take the company to its full potential.

I dunno, unless Im misinterpreting him, his statements regarding IP enforcement are fairly progressive and forward. In fact, I'm surprised that a group that overwhelmingly seems to take issue with GWs overzealous protectionism of its IP is taking to task a statement which essentially says "whats the point in doing so?"

Likewise, I'm in 100% in agreement with his take on 3D printing. Video games didn't do GW in, neither will 3D printing. Proof is kinda in the pudding - 3d printing has become orders of magnitude more accessible since he made those statements, meanwhile GWs profit and revenue have increased dramatically

chaos0xomega wrote:
I dunno, unless Im misinterpreting him, his statements regarding IP enforcement are fairly progressive and forward. In fact, I'm surprised that a group that overwhelmingly seems to take issue with GWs overzealous protectionism of its IP is taking to task a statement which essentially says "whats the point in doing so?"

Had they actually had a solid basis for the suit - and a Head of IP who understood the concept - then maybe the suit wouldn't've seen like such a waste of time/money.

I mean, when you're trying to claim you invented Roman numerals, halberds, chevrons and grenade launchers - and that your staff have never seen an external IP influence, nosireeBob - I'm not surprised you're unimpressed with the legal system.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Whos That Pokemon!!!

Otoise Kirby.

wonder what his stats would be like.

Several million. Like his bank balance? Unless he’s a big spender.

 Irbis wrote:
That is kinda revisionist hindsight, you know.

Not really. I remember when GW made that statement it was right around the launch of a Pokemon game that had, in (IIRC) its first week, made more money than GW's entire annual revenue. The exact details may be wrong but I very clearly remember it being a complete WTF at the time even to people outside the 40k community.

Oh man the chairman's preamble was a bright spot to look forward to in an era of GW becoming more corrosive year over year. Legitimately hilarious stuff. It wasn't just the detachment from reality, but the sheer artfulness of it. Not at all like the blind belligerence we see these days, this was a man who took his mental gymnastics and wrote it like poetry.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Oh man the chairman's preamble was a bright spot to look forward to in an era of GW becoming more corrosive year over year. Legitimately hilarious stuff. It wasn't just the detachment from reality, but the sheer artfulness of it. Not at all like the blind belligerence we see these days, this was a man who took his mental gymnastics and wrote it like poetry.

Poetry is otoise in a shareholder report!

It pains me I'll most likely never write a dissertation or another academic article. If I was doing so, it would be my life's mission to manage to sneak "These things are otiose in a niche" in there.

With the 'war' that GW seemed to be waging against its fans around that time (the late 00s and v. early 10s) I was never surprised at all that the guy came across as a complete misfit and just spouted an absolute load of crap.

It was entertaining then and now but I can't ever forget how utterly hostile the environment was back then, and all roads led back to how GW was interacting with its fans (which was basically a mailed fist to the face). It's very hard to imagine now as GW has fully embraced social media, has brought back loads of nostalgic favourites, is arguably giving fans (both old and new) what they want, but there was a period of some years when the opposite was true. And it was so fething ugly; worst of all the way it made the fans and fan communities themselves turn on each other (because you will always get people defending the company's policies, no matter how egregious, and arguments in public forums as a result)

I think back to some of the websites crushed, forums muted, garage hobbyists closed down, actually probably lives ruined (and I speak of this entirely outside of what happened with Chapterhouse) - it is very, very hard to think of the period with any sort of fondness.

Wasn't he also at the time a visiting professor at Birmingham Uni for business or economics? At least the standard of British management won't change into the future...

 Overread wrote:
I think he was just an accountant who wound up running a firm and wasn't really trained nor skilled in that role. So his early days where he most certainly cut costs and improved GW's overall financial health worked well. Because that was all numbers.

I often felt Kirby just didn't care about the actual product. Was he even a wargamer? Did it matter to him if Warhammer was still around in 10-20 years, as long as he cashed in enough salary and dividend checks? I'd like to think the people in charge of, say, Apple and Amazon care about the long-term success of their companies since they use the products in their daily lives and want them to stay around. But I never got that feeling from Kirby.

I dunno, he always spoke about how he didn't need to do market research which kind of suggests he had a handle on what the market wanted, even if it wasn't perhaps as accurate as he thought.

We only really know him from these reports and such, not as a person nor a gamer at the club. Plus he wouldn't be the first person who gamed in private or away from the general clubs.

Plus many of his choices felt bad gamer wise but might have looked sound finance wise; and managers who don't look at the finances first tend to end up running firms that go out of business at some stage.






But I can agree with you, many of his choices felt very "by the numbers" and not "by the customer.". Short run things like Dreadfleet; the entire fiasco around Old World to Age of Sigmar.
I think its true to say he didn't have a handle on the customers viewpoint and impression of gaming. Perhaps that's because he's just a numbers guy; perhaps he's not a gamer or perhaps he is and his lack of outer awareness of the market meant that his choices focused purely on what he thought we'd like or what he'd like to see etc....

This statement didn’t age well

“We know quite a lot about 3-D printers, having been at the forefront of the technology for many years. We know of what we speak. One day 3-D printers will be affordable (agreed), they are now, they will be able to produce fantastic detail (the affordable ones won't) and they will do it faster than one miniature per day (no, they won't, look it up). So we may get to the time when someone can make a poorly detailed miniature at home and have enough for an army in less than a year. That pre-supposes that 3-D scanning technology will be affordable and good enough (don't bet the mortgage on that one) and that everyone will be happy to have nothing but copies of old miniatures.”

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I think he was just an accountant who wound up running a firm and wasn't really trained nor skilled in that role. So his early days where he most certainly cut costs and improved GW's overall financial health worked well. Because that was all numbers.

I often felt Kirby just didn't care about the actual product. Was he even a wargamer? Did it matter to him if Warhammer was still around in 10-20 years, as long as he cashed in enough salary and dividend checks? I'd like to think the people in charge of, say, Apple and Amazon care about the long-term success of their companies since they use the products in their daily lives and want them to stay around. But I never got that feeling from Kirby.

He was never a wargamer. He lucked out by being picked as the accountant back in the 80's/90's when the company took off, and managing their budgetary bottom line. Over the years he accrued more and more stock and control over the company whilst the actual hobbyists and gamers at the top dwindled. By the time he got into control, he had a thorough scorn for anyone who bought the product - they were just a bunch of basement dwellers who'd buy what they were told in his eyes. And because he could keep cutting and trimming and cutting and trimming, the company seemed to get healthier and more profitable even though their turnover started dropping.

Then they passed the sweet spot and both profit and turnover kept dropping over a sustained period - which led to questions being asked about what the hell he was doing. Eventually, he got forced to step down under pressure.

In other words, he was ultimately a very good accountant, and a very poor CEO.

 Overread wrote:
I dunno, he always spoke about how he didn't need to do market research which kind of suggests he had a handle on what the market wanted, even if it wasn't perhaps as accurate as he thought.

IMO it was the exact opposite. He didn't know what the market wanted and he didn't care what the market wanted because those loser addicts will buy whatever we tell them to buy. And if they don't they clearly aren't in the niche of the Games™ Workshop™ Hobby™. Remember, this is the same era as the infamous statement about everyone's favorite part of Games Day being the opportunity to Buy™ Games™ Workshop™ Products™ and all the events being a minor side thing. I think he genuinely believed that caring about what the customer wants was a waste of money.

Plus many of his choices felt bad gamer wise but might have looked sound finance wise; and managers who don't look at the finances first tend to end up running firms that go out of business at some stage.

I don't think many of his choices even looked good finance-wise, at least long term. Over and over again GW made short-sighted choices to bring up the numbers for the next quarterly report at the expense of future growth potential. For example, the one-man store thing was an obviously stupid idea. It doesn't take a hardcore gamer to recognize that having a retail store that is closed two days a week, closes at 7pm so the after-work customers never show up, and has to shut down (and kick everyone out of the store) every time the one employee needs to take a bathroom break is bad for business and that having potential customers show up and see a "closed" sign undermines the entire point of investing in a physical retail chain. But that's a problem for someone else to deal with in the future, if you cut half your staff salaries your current report looks much better!

I agree, Kirby's financial approach was short term. Things like Dreadfleet being a single box one and done; dropping specialist games (or rather just dropping everything that wasn't 40K or LotR).

I think his approach was most likely sane short term financial targets and always going for the BIG numbers. Returns on investment that generated the best possible rate. Which I agree led to him focusing on things like Marines.
We got the whole thing with Primaris which is basically just re-releasing the entire Marine line slightly different in the same army; or Stormcast which are Marines in fantasy.


Also now we talk about it I recall that some managers at the store level (I think esp in the USA which got way more general recruitment instead of UK which was always a touch more hobbiest turned store worker) were told to just focus on new customers and to almost turn away or discourage long term ones.

Ergo lose the "neck beards" and focus on the fresh new customers.


Which is a daft strategy because it means you're constantly aiming to grow by getting new customers; but then not retaining them by losing the old ones.



By taking his eye off the "lesser" profiting lines he opened the market up more and more. Each time GW lost a specialist game we saw new firms popping up to fill that niche. Proving that there was interest and money in those regions. Perhaps not Space Marine money, but enough to spawn multiple new firms that were growing.
Same as how treating so many things as short term ideas; again focusing on that "highest profits are in the early months of sale" angle; the firm lost sight of the fact that wargamers like long term. They want armies that last for years beacause they will spend years building those armies for those games.

“…He didn't know what the market wanted and he didn't care what the market wanted because those loser addicts will buy whatever we tell them to buy. And if they don't they clearly aren't in the niche of the Games™ Workshop™ Hobby™...”

Was he wrong, though? A response often heard from complaining fans is that while they may not buy the bigger priced sets they will still keep buying at the current levels or with slight reduction.

 Overread wrote:
Same as how treating so many things as short term ideas; again focusing on that "highest profits are in the early months of sale" angle; the firm lost sight of the fact that wargamers like long term.

And also failed to understand the basic concept that without long-term players new customers have nobody to play with. An empty store full of demo tables gathering dust is not a compelling sales pitch, you need those established players around to demonstrate the existence of a community even if those customers aren't buying as much as a newbie. But I guess understanding that would require some of that otiose market research...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 privateer4hire wrote:
Was he wrong, though? A response often heard from complaining fans is that while they may not buy the bigger priced sets they will still keep buying at the current levels or with slight reduction.

He was absolutely wrong. Price increases are not the same as product choices. People will grumble about prices but usually keep buying, even if it's at a slower pace, because in the end 40k is still a fairly cheap hobby and budgets can be adjusted. But if you're a Tau player you aren't going to buy space marines as a substitute just because marines get a bunch of new releases. And if you loved Aeronautica Imperialis you aren't going to decide to start a space marine army when GW discontinues your game entirely, you're going to go play X-Wing as the closest substitute. Or, to look at it the other way, you can declare all you like that SoB are an unattractive faction and refuse to do market research on their potential sales. And then you can be completely unprepared to cope with demand when you finally decide to do an update and the new releases sell out within seconds. That's money GW could have had years ago if they'd bothered to find out what people actually want to buy.

And remember the issue of selection bias. When you're in a community based around a topic you're going to have a biased data set made up of people who made the choice to continue participating. The people who become ex-customers tend to leave the community and you never hear from them.

And if you're not even listening to the customers you do have then you're missing a huge trick in predicting what they do want, what they don't want as well as why they might be adjusting their purchasing patterns. Both in terms of why they are buying more and why they are buying less.

In many ways Wargaming is a very old-school style of product. It's a high quality, low volume, long term product. Gamers don't buy vast amounts (compared to say collectable cards); customers will spot low quality and they expect things to last. At the very least a wargame needs to have a 5-10 year product lifespan before its replaced and even then customers expect replacement not removal.


In the modern world this is almost alien where many other industries run on on products that are serviceable/good enough; which are sold in vast amounts and which are expected to be replaced fairly quickly (heck Apple even tries to sabotage their own older products to encourage new sales, and they are the firm that gets caught doing it).


Wargamers are old-school so I think many "modern" style theories of product consumption and supply and demand and such just don't work in the market.

 Overread wrote:
Wargamers are old-school so I think many "modern" style theories of product consumption and supply and demand and such just don't work in the market.

You might even go so far as to say such theories are otiose in this particular niche...

 Overread wrote:
In many ways Wargaming is a very old-school style of product. It's a high quality, low volume, long term product. Gamers don't buy vast amounts (compared to say collectable cards); customers will spot low quality and they expect things to last. At the very least a wargame needs to have a 5-10 year product lifespan before its replaced and even then customers expect replacement not removal.

and this is were the GW management succesfully changed the products to get away from the wargame part

customers are ok with products not lasting long and being removed afterwards, quality itself does not matter and it even flows over to other wargames, as people consider games to be dead if the rules do not change each month

20 years ago a wargame that was expected to be fine for 5-10 years and seen as failed if it needed a big update after 2-3 years
Now, a game that does not get a big update every 3 months is seen as failed and not worth playing and something that is designed to last 10 years as boring and "not-tactical"

PS: as seen on the discussion for a different game on another forum were the designers ask people what to expect for the future of the game and some of the answers were that players want more like 9th 40k, changes and adjustments on a monthly bases simply for the sake of change because the best part for them is that they are forced to make a new list and expect that from any other game they play as well

were the classic wargamers want the rules to be done, and an army the buy and paint now not only to be playable but still be viable in 5 years

Was Kirby behind Primaris?

IIRC they came out around 2015 or so, and he left 2014 or so, so probably they started under him.

Does anyone know who was designing vehicles then? Most of the vehicles from the Strom Raven, Storm Talon and Taurox were just hideous, along with the early Primarus vehicles.

 kodos wrote:
PS: as seen on the discussion for a different game on another forum were the designers ask people what to expect for the future of the game and some of the answers were that players want more like 9th 40k, changes and adjustments on a monthly bases simply for the sake of change because the best part for them is that they are forced to make a new list and expect that from any other game they play as well

Sorry, but that's just incomprehensibly bizarre to me. I have never seen a community where "I want the stuff I buy to be invalidated ASAP so I have to buy more stuff" is even a non-trivial minority. Frequent updates with the goal of converging on a balanced and well-functioning game, yes. But not change purely for the sake of change.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Was Kirby behind Primaris?

Rumours say ( and the fact that models are 3-4 years in development, so everything up until 2018 was "his"), say the plan for 40k was similar to what happend for AoS
new upgraded poster-boy model line replacing the old ones, more large centerpiece models, reduced rules to a minimum, people being able to put their collections on the table and only narritive updates to advance the plot

but because AoS failed hard, this was changed and not done as originally planned (but still done, just not as "strict")

CadianSgtBob wrote:
Sorry, but that's just incomprehensibly bizarre to me. I have never seen a community where "I want the stuff I buy to be invalidated ASAP so I have to buy more stuff" is even a non-trivial minority. Frequent updates with the goal of converging on a balanced and well-functioning game, yes. But not change purely for the sake of change.

you have to consider that most of the hardcore tournament player don't buy the rules
they have everything, but don't buy it, hence removing the online archives would be the biggest threat to tournament 40k, as no one could keep up if he had to pay all this

but still, there is the small but vocal part of the community that thinks change for the sake of change is the only thing that keeps a game alive and advertise it to other games as well

a good example is Ninth Age, a community driven project that does not need model sales or anything, yet a yearly points changes simply based on popularity of units in tournaments (more popular units get a point increase, less popular ones are reduced) is seen as essential by the players
as constant changes are what shakes up the meta and keep tournament play exciting
(otherwise everyone would bring the same list to the big tournaments each year)

this is also always a request for Kings of War, yearly changes for the sake to change the tournament meta around, which Mantic does by bringing in new Scenarios or optional Formations to keep those happy that demand it

a problem is, that tournament players (not simply competitive players) are often the main thing that keeps a local community alive and are the driving force for local clubs/stores to keep up specific games (not only for wargaming but TCCG as well), so keeping them happy and involved with the game is important

and as they grew up with GW and are used to the way GW changes stuff to drive sales, this is what they are used to and think of how games should be
aka: balance is boring, games without constant changes are dead, list building must have a big impact otherwise it is meaningless etc.

 kodos wrote:
a good example is Ninth Age, a community driven project that does not need model sales or anything, yet a yearly points changes simply based on popularity of units in tournaments (more popular units get a point increase, less popular ones are reduced) is seen as essential by the players

That's not change for the sake of change, it's change for the sake of balance. Under the assumption that people are playing competitively (and not taking units just because they like the model or whatever) the 20% most popular units are overpowered and the 20% least popular units are underpowered. And point changes are the easiest way to improve balance across a wide range of stuff. Nerf the overpowered stuff that is taken disproportionately often, buff the underpowered stuff that is disproportionately rare. The end goal is that eventually you reach a point of balance where smaller and smaller point adjustments are required and maybe even cease to be needed.

Change for the sake of change would be something like banning all transports this month, but next month banning all infantry without a transport. No attempt at converging on a balanced game, just different rules for the sake of having different lists be required each month.

a problem is, that tournament players (not simply competitive players) are often the main thing that keeps a local community alive and are the driving force for local clubs/stores to keep up specific games (not only for wargaming but TCCG as well), so keeping them happy and involved with the game is important

Data shows the opposite. Goonhammer, a major tournament-focused site, did a reader survey and even in that context only a very small minority had any significant involvement in playing in tournaments. Tournament players may yell a lot online but in reality they make up a nearly-irrelevant percentage of the total community and total sales.

At the same time they make up a significant portion of the public gaming.

Furthermore what counts as tournament player can vary since there's no formal structure or system to define them. Some might consider themselves a tournament player only if they attend major national/international events; others might consider it valid even if they only play at the local club in competitive games.

Furthermore, in theory, a game that is built for the tournament players should provide a clear, structured and balanced rules set that is easily accessible to players of all backgrounds. Plus tournament players, esp at the higher levels; will at least generally play the game correctly to the rules. As a result they are a good body to study for feedback on how the game is working, because they are using the game a its best. With events that are often videoed and monitored.

As a result they provide reliable, accessible, provable data. Home players are nearly impossible to pool data on easily because they could be playing wrong; could just be bad players blaming the system (even if they've gamed for years).

Oh, I agree that tournament play is relevant. I just reject this weird idea that tournament players want change for the sake of change and GW is making a rational business decision by pandering to this small minority at the expense of everyone else.

Interesting reading, with only ~15% of participants on a competitive-focused site listing competitive play as their top or second priority: https://www.goonhammer.com/the-goonhammer-2022-reader-survey-and-what-it-tells-us-about-the-community/

I think when it comes to balance in games that aren't mirror match army designs; there will always be an element of "change for the sake of change" because finding perfect balanced numbers is nearly impossible.


I think the big difference is that GW right now very much does these BIG shifts when they do adjustments. They almost over-compensate every time when they identify a problem to resolve. The result is that because they swing so far when correcting or changing it feels like massive change for the sake of change rather than change to address a specific problem


A good example is AoS 3.0 where in a bid to try and make big infantry blocks less dominant they removed the points discount for full units; then they also introduced a reinforcement system that meant you, in a practical sense, couldn't take more than 2 full units in a 2K point game and that every single unit after that would have to be minimum. Suddenly instead of evening how out big infantry blocks worked compared to smaller units; they changed the entire structure of the game

CadianSgtBob wrote:
That's not change for the sake of change, it's change for the sake of balance. Under the assumption that people are playing competitively (and not taking units just because they like the model or whatever)

that is why there is a difference on changes based in performance and changes based on choice
and in this case the changes are based on choice alone, independet from the reason why people take it and the performance of the armies

Sake for the Sake of Change (maybe with the excuse being "balance" is doing the same changes for all factions/lists no matter the performance instead of adjusting only those that are a problem, simply to change the meta
and the more often you change the meta, the less people complain about any problems of the core game

also, changes for balance would mean that you reach the point were you are done,
which you are not if the changes are just there to force different choices, because you would not increase points of the popular units in an army that has <50% Winrate, you would only to this for the armies >50% WR

same changes every year for every army can never achieve balance in the first place

CadianSgtBob wrote:

a problem is, that tournament players (not simply competitive players) are often the main thing that keeps a local community alive and are the driving force for local clubs/stores to keep up specific games (not only for wargaming but TCCG as well), so keeping them happy and involved with the game is important

Data shows the opposite. Goonhammer, a major tournament-focused site, did a reader survey and even in that context only a very small minority had any significant involvement in playing in tournaments. Tournament players may yell a lot online but in reality they make up a nearly-irrelevant percentage of the total community and total sales.

and were does this shows the opposite?
that there is a minority that is dedicated to the hobby and therefore what keeps clubs/stores going is not the opposite of "there tournament players are a minority"

and this is the same for every club out there, you might have 200 members, what it is always the same 5-10 that keeps things going, they are the minority who takes it serious but because they do the others can just enjoy it
and for 40k those are often also the tournament players

saying that this is an irrelevant minority in numbers does not change it

 Overread wrote:
I think when it comes to balance in games that aren't mirror match army designs; there will always be an element of "change for the sake of change" because finding perfect balanced numbers is nearly impossible.

But that's still not change for the sake of change. Clumsy changes for the sake of balance is still change with a goal even if the execution is lacking. An example of change for the sake of change would be the hyperspace format in X-Wing 2.0, where FFG deliberately pulled out a set of ships and upgrades to be a standard tournament format with an explicit plan to rotate the format every X months. This month you get TIE interceptors, next month we remove them and give you TIE defenders instead so you have to make new lists and learn a new format. Regardless of the health of the current format the next update cycle is going to change a bunch of stuff purely to make it different. And FFG was very direct about saying that the sole purpose of the rotation is to change the meta, this is not just something we're guessing based on the updates they made.

 kodos wrote:
and in this case the changes are based on choice alone, independet from the reason why people take it and the performance of the armies

That's why I said under the assumption of competitive play. The reality of balancing a game is that unit-by-unit performance is pretty much impossible to extract from the data because there isn't enough detail available. All you get is a list and a win/loss record, you don't know which of the units was responsible for the outcome. So you have to use unit selection as a proxy for unit performance, making the assumption that the people playing those lists are correctly identifying the most powerful choices and taking them. And yes, the method applies incorrect adjustments if you have a unit that is taken all the time because people love painting it but it's the best you're going to do if you want to balance based on tournament results.

because you would not increase points of the popular units in an army that has <50% Winrate, you would only to this for the armies >50% WR

False. Internal balance within a faction is important too, not just balance between factions. If a faction is dominated by a single build and 90% of the faction is being ignored it needs internal balance changes.

and were does this shows the opposite?

It shows that even in the context of the audience of a site primarily dedicated to competitive play only ~15% of the community considers competitive play a priority. Presumably this percentage is even lower when looking at the 40k community as a whole, not just the readers of a competitive play site.

And of course not all competitive players want change for the sake of change. Many competitive players want the changes to converge on a balanced game that is effectively finished, with only minor updates required to fine-tune balance. So it's ridiculous to claim that GW is making a good business decision by alienating the 90-95% of the community that doesn't want to engage in meta chasing and have their armies invalidated every few months in favor of the 5-10% (to be very optimistic) that wants a constantly-changing metagame and enjoys having to buy new armies to keep up.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

False. Internal balance within a faction is important too, not just balance between factions. If a faction is dominated by a single build and 90% of the faction is being ignored it needs internal balance changes.

hence it is change for the sake of change and not change for the sake of balance
(and T9A claims that having 1 viable build for each Army, that changes from time to time as a feature and not as a disadvantage or bad internal balance)

CadianSgtBob wrote:
So it's ridiculous to claim that GW is making a good business decision by alienating the 90-95% of the community that doesn't want to engage in meta chasing and have their armies invalidated every few months in favor of the 5-10% (to be very optimistic) that wants a constantly-changing metagame and enjoys having to buy new armies to keep up.

It might look like this, but the whole business model is built around the 5%
It is the simple "Free to Play/Pay to Win" or App-Scam model here, a little bit different but in general

Same with the App games, you don't make it that 95% of the players spend a little over a long time, but that the 5% spend as much as possible as fast as possible and a distracted by the next new shiny thing before they realise how bad it is
that the other 90% are not happy does not matter as long as the new players coming in compensate the amount of those that leave

so this ridiculous system works for GW simply because 40k is the game everyone plays, so there is constant stream of new people who buy in
The success of a GW store and how good the store manage is, is measured by 2 player starter boxes sold per month. It does not matter how much money the shop makes with everything else, as the only goal is to get as many new people into GW as possible

simple as that, have enough casual players so that it is easy to find a game and it is "the game played" in town, get enough new players to compensate those that leave (and most of them leave after an Edition/Codex changes because they are upset by how things are handled), and make sure that those that stay make enough money to compensate
and sunken cost fallacy is a thing, as buying into the full game is 800-1000€, you (better said the 5%) are unlikely to rage quit because a new book is obsolete after 3 months, you give it a chance "wait and see" (as it would mean to accept you fall for a scam, and not many people like this, same for Pay to Win App/Online Games, those that invested are going to defend their investment, hence a new Codex or new Edition is the time people leave as this makes a good point to justify it for themselves rather than the big impact the change has to the game)

PS: this also plays into GW offering the best of everything, or that it is impossible to do any better at this scale, as this need to be worth the high price
also why some people get really angry about other products offering similar or better for cheaper, they need to defend the investment for themselves

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I think he was just an accountant who wound up running a firm and wasn't really trained nor skilled in that role. So his early days where he most certainly cut costs and improved GW's overall financial health worked well. Because that was all numbers.

I often felt Kirby just didn't care about the actual product. Was he even a wargamer? Did it matter to him if Warhammer was still around in 10-20 years, as long as he cashed in enough salary and dividend checks? I'd like to think the people in charge of, say, Apple and Amazon care about the long-term success of their companies since they use the products in their daily lives and want them to stay around. But I never got that feeling from Kirby.

Not a wargamer, but he was involved in RPGs, specifically with TSR UK. His name appears in the credits of a few publications like Beyond the Crystal Cave and a few other TSR UK products.

 kodos wrote:
hence it is change for the sake of change and not change for the sake of balance

Um, what. I just described a change as a direct response to balance issues, that is the exact opposite of change for the sake of change.

(and T9A claims that having 1 viable build for each Army, that changes from time to time as a feature and not as a disadvantage or bad internal balance)

That, however, is finally an example of change for the sake of change! But does anyone even play third-party pseudo-WHFB anymore?

It is the simple "Free to Play/Pay to Win" or App-Scam model here, a little bit different but in general

Except in this context it's a fundamentally stupid business model. F2P whale hunting relies on one key fact: the game is expendable. The design choices that feed the whales' gambling addictions are horrible for normal players. Eventually you burn through your potential player base, the game becomes a dysfunctional mess, and player numbers crash. That's fine when it's F2P mobile trash that took a week to make and has already been replaced by your next F2P game. It's horrifying stupidity when you're a physical manufacturing company with millions of dollars tied up in production facilities, real estate contracts for your retail stores, etc.

simple as that, have enough casual players so that it is easy to find a game and it is "the game played" in town, get enough new players to compensate those that leave (and most of them leave after an Edition/Codex changes because they are upset by how things are handled), and make sure that those that stay make enough money to compensate

Yes, and my point is that's the business model that is the last resort of game designers who are too incompetent to do any better. Having high turnover because your product sucks and your customer retention numbers are dismal is a state that should horrify any sensible business. There's no way in hell the handful of meta chasers are making enough purchases to offset the fact that most of your customers are buying a $100 starter box instead of a full $500-1000 army. This isn't a F2P loot box game where gambling addicts are spending thousands of times what any normal person would. At most the meta chaser is spending 5-10x what a normal player with a single 2000 point army spends, and in the process they're dumping tons of models on the secondary market for your other customers to buy instead of buying new stuff. The numbers just do not work.

And remember, the 15% are the people who care about competitive play at all. The meta chasers who will spend vast amounts of money on the game are a small minority of that minority.

 kodos wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Was Kirby behind Primaris?

Rumours say ( and the fact that models are 3-4 years in development, so everything up until 2018 was "his"), say the plan for 40k was similar to what happend for AoS
new upgraded poster-boy model line replacing the old ones, more large centerpiece models, reduced rules to a minimum, people being able to put their collections on the table and only narritive updates to advance the plot

but because AoS failed hard, this was changed and not done as originally planned (but still done, just not as "strict")

Not quite. We know, courtesy of James M Hewitt, that there was a full scale rulebook and points system made for Age of Sigmar from the getgo, but this got pulled and shelved at the last possible minute in preference for the four page simplehammer rules which were only ever intended to be an introductory getting started type pamphlet. So given that what happened to AoS was never really the "plan" to begin with its hard to say that 40k 8th was going to follow suit.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Except in this context it's a fundamentally stupid business model. F2P whale hunting relies on one key fact: the game is expendable. The design choices that feed the whales' gambling addictions are horrible for normal players.

but it works and this is the only point GW cares, they don't care if this is bad for gamers as long as they increase the sales (even their pricing is made by the same strategy, set a ridiculous high price as "standard" and create a value were there is none, than release bundles with discount, which are still ridiculous priced but offer huge saving and create the illusion that you get more value for your money)
they don't even expect you to stay and play, just keep buying and bring new people in

it is often said GW makes the best plastic models out there, but the rules are bad
but look at the gaming community, everyone plays 40k, but most people try to find alternatives for the miniatures (be it 3D printing or 3rd party plastics), which would mean their rules are better than their minis

so those 2 don't fit as the "normal" players would not waste their time with bad rules, but because they are looking for casual games, they just go to the club/store and play the game that is offered there
and the main reason why 40k is the game that is offered to play is because you have a small part of the community that is very dedicated to keep the game running at all cost, which creates a certain momentum that prevents something else to come up (try to offer a different game in a club if there is a "whale" around, they make it as hard as possible for you)
so people look into cheaper ways to play the game because if they want to casually play, they often see 40k as the only possible option (and can rely on whales that the game will always be there)

and of course there is breaking point were it is too much, GW already reachend it twice, once with Warhammer Fantasy and once with 40k.
but they found a way to overcome it /stretch it further, not by changing their sales system or improve the game but by adding community interaction and support (the feeling that the company actually cares about the normal player)
and this is the main difference between Rountree and Kirby

chaos0xomega wrote:
So given that what happened to AoS was never really the "plan" to begin with its hard to say that 40k 8th was going to follow suit.

nothing solid around anyway, but as the "full" game for AoS was cut, there is the thing going around that this was also planned for 40k (because someone thought they could get away with it as people just buy the models and not the game)
but because AoS crashed, it was reversed for 40k again and the stuff cut added back in

at least this is what I heard why the Index books used the old profiles with the old point system instead of being adjusted to the new core rules


Automatically Appended Next Post:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Yes, and my point is that's the business model that is the last resort of game designers who are too incompetent to do any better. Having high turnover because your product sucks and your customer retention numbers are dismal is a state that should horrify any sensible business. There's no way in hell the handful of meta chasers are making enough purchases to offset the fact that most of your customers are buying a $100 starter box instead of a full $500-1000 army.

but there is no 100$ start
there are some low price boxes, but they don't contain a playable game as something is missing, be it a unit composition that is not legal and you need something else, not equal points etc.

take the new AoS 2 player set, 100$ a good way to look into the game
just spend another 100 on books to get the full rules and another 100 on models because one faction in the box is just halve the size in points as the other, and you can start you small intro game
so you are already in with 300, now you should expand to your army to get the full experience to decide if you like the game or not (because someone tells you <1000 point games are not worth it anyway)

than we are looking at what people are buying and never use because they were attracted by the hype

CadianSgtBob wrote:

This isn't a F2P loot box game where gambling addicts are spending thousands of times what any normal person would. At most the meta chaser is spending 5-10x what a normal player with a single 2000 point army spends, and in the process they're dumping tons of models on the secondary market for your other customers to buy instead of buying new stuff. The numbers just do not work.

well, a 2000 point army is around 600-1000$ depending on the faction (fun fact, the cheapest possible 40k army was Custodes Jetbikes and it was nerved hard) if a meta chaser spends 5-10 times, it is 3000-10.000$

and 10.000 on a hobby were historical rank & file wargaming is considered as too expensive to be mainstream because a full army cost 400$ is in the range of Loot box gaming addicts

and as the numbers don't work, GW was much smaller during 3rd/4th 40k and 6th Warhammer Fantasy, were their marketing was focused around the game for normal players
no meta chasing, not fomo, army boxes containing armies etc.

 kodos wrote:
and of course there is breaking point were it is too much, GW already reachend it twice, once with Warhammer Fantasy and once with 40k.

And this is exactly my point. The short-term strategies you're talking about can be pushed too far, and inevitably will be pushed too far if you don't back off from them. This is fine with an expendable F2P mobile game, it's reckless stupidity when you're a manufacturing company with millions of dollars in capital investments.

but there is no 100$ start

Ok, yes, combat patrol boxes (a 500 point starter army) are technically $150 if you buy them at full MSRP. The basic point still stands though.

well, a 2000 point army is around 600-1000$ depending on the faction (fun fact, the cheapest possible 40k army was Custodes Jetbikes and it was nerved hard) if a meta chaser spends 5-10 times, it is 3000-10.000$

Think about what those numbers mean. A meta-chasing whale is spending $10,000, a normal person is spending $1,000. That's only a 10:1 ratio. And once you consider the fact that each time the whale buys a new army the old one goes on ebay and replaces a $1000 army purchase by another customer it's more like a 1:1 ratio. Those numbers do not support trashing 95% or more of your customer base in a desperate attempt to appeal to the whales. F2P mobile games succeed because the whales are buying at a 1,000:1 or even 10,000:1 ratio compared to normal people and all of their purchases are locked to the whale and can't be re-sold.

So my point stands: the F2P business strategy does not apply to GW's situation as a rational decision by competent designers. It's the last resort fallback option of incompetent designers who have no faith in their product.

@ Bob, what does a CEO, which is company head on time by the grace of the shareholders, have a need for a longterm strategy?

that is the problem.

And by extention it isn't all of GW that is running on that buisness model, 40k is the most eregious. otoh you have both killteam and now 30k which seem to be actual passion projects.
But those are very much side games and not expected to be the big cashcow.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Ok, yes, combat patrol boxes (a 500 point starter army) are technically $150 if you buy them at full MSRP. The basic point still stands though.

you only use MSRP to compare (of course it is different for someone who get the stuff for free because they just pirate everything)
well, a combat patrol for 120€ + Rulebook 56€ + Codex 42,5€ = 218,5€ (have not found the US price for the Rulebook, so just €) and here it begins, as of course you just need a 120€ box to start
which is actually 220€ because you still need the rules, but the entry is advertised with 120€

than you have a ~30 Power list (lets say the Marine Box for 33), but you learn that people play with points and you cannot play the army you bought against them, they might still do an intro game with 33PL but you are told to adjust to either 25PL or 500 points to play Combat Patrol or increase to 1000 points

so you cut to 500/25PL but than you start to increase to 1000 points because it feels wasted to have bought and painted a model you are never going to use
this is were it continuous as you just wanted to spend the 100$ to start, which already doubled because Box+Rules and now you invest into single boxes because buying another starter box you would have even more spare models, so it feels you save money by buying just the models you need and you end up with with another 150€ spend

makes it a total of 368,5€, just to "start" and now after you spend 270€ more than you actually wanted (100€) and invested in time painting it you try to get the game going
you might have troubles winning games, or just don't have lot of fun, but you read on the net or talk to people in the club/store, you are told that the game is balanced for 2k and/or you need different units because the ones you have are not very good

so you try to make your investment worth by spending a litte bit more and give the game a chance with 2k.
and you are in with 600-800€ and either drop out or you are taken by the hype because new models/rules are coming soon and the game can only improve with those

those things are not done by accident or because the people in GW are too stupid to calculate points for the boxes or are limited by what they can put in or not
all those are designed to get you invested into "the Hobby" and they will also tell you that the "Hobby" is only Games Workshop, if you leave GW you also leave "the Hobby"

CadianSgtBob wrote:

So my point stands: the F2P business strategy does not apply to GW's situation as a rational decision by competent designers. It's the last resort fallback option of incompetent designers who have no faith in their product.

And this is were you have the wrong background in mind, it is the best strategy to make as much money in 3-5 years as possible
if the game is dead after the 5 years, not a problem GW has other games to sell and are going to re-start it anyway after 6 years/2 Editions (marketing will tell the players that this time it will be different)
and the CEO and shareholders have earned their money, designers have nothing to do with this is a pure business decision for short term profit

the problem of the CEO is a simply one, the shareholdes only care about growth, every year must be better than the last one
and for GW those years with a new Edition of 40k are the best, so to keep the growth and the shareholders happy, 40k need to make that money

I only got to meet Mr. Kirby once, but he was nice and I liked him. He wanted us to provide great customer service to people and sell miniatures to them nicely.

General Hobbs wrote:


I only got to meet Mr. Kirby once, but he was nice and I liked him. He wanted us to provide great customer service to people and sell miniatures to them nicely.

And credit where due, GW’s customer service has always been good. They were squeezing all the profit they could out of the bottom line, but never skimped on that.

Don't forget this is the guy that said most people wanted to paint and didn't buy models to i dunno play games.

He also killed WHFB for AoS and the GW i was at kept claiming it sold less and less of GW's profits. Now i'm not saying AoS is that bad now but when it first came out it was like selling your Prize winning Pig for a children's piggy bank with a mere 5 dollars in change inside. It was so out of left field for me because GW never killed a major game like that as far as i know and the game lasted decades.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
He also killed WHFB for AoS and the GW i was at kept claiming it sold less and less of GW's profits. Now i'm not saying AoS is that bad now but when it first came out it was like selling your Prize winning Pig for a children's piggy bank with a mere 5 dollars in change inside. It was so out of left field for me because GW never killed a major game like that as far as i know and the game lasted decades.

To be fair, WHFB needed to be killed off. Sales were poor and there was a massive barrier to entry in the need to have tons of models that had no purpose besides being wound counters while the front rank fought. The mistake wasn't killing off WHFB, it was replacing it with a game that had questionable fluff, no army construction system, obvious non-functional rules, and a bunch of cringe-worthy joke rules that felt like GW was mocking their own customers.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
He also killed WHFB for AoS and the GW i was at kept claiming it sold less and less of GW's profits. Now i'm not saying AoS is that bad now but when it first came out it was like selling your Prize winning Pig for a children's piggy bank with a mere 5 dollars in change inside. It was so out of left field for me because GW never killed a major game like that as far as i know and the game lasted decades.

To be fair, WHFB needed to be killed off. Sales were poor and there was a massive barrier to entry in the need to have tons of models that had no purpose besides being wound counters while the front rank fought. The mistake wasn't killing off WHFB, it was replacing it with a game that had questionable fluff, no army construction system, obvious non-functional rules, and a bunch of cringe-worthy joke rules that felt like GW was mocking their own customers.

Mostly this.
I can just ignore questionable fluff & bad jokes. Non-existant/completely non-functional rules on the other hand....

Warhammer Fantasy needed to be re-worked not killed off. By what you say 7th ed 40k means 40k needed to be killed off rather than fixed massively. Shame is it died before new management could've fixed it up and i could say Fantasy's death and AoS's early mismanagement by Kirby's team likely lead to his departure. Believe me i saw more than a few people leave my local GW completely when Fantasy was killed off and replaced by whatever early AoS was. Fantasy needed a re-work just like AoS needed to be fleshed out and fixed. Hopefully we get that if Old World ever comes out.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
By what you say 7th ed 40k means 40k needed to be killed off rather than fixed massively.

That's not really the same. 7th edition had major problems but they were mostly straightforward things to fix that didn't require changing the core identity of the game. Delete formations, fix the psychic phase (again), and that's pretty much it. And, more importantly, 7th edition 40k was still GW's best selling product line so there was a lot of incentive to try to fix it rather than trash it and start over. WHFB's issues were inherent to the concept of WHFB and the sales numbers were pretty much dead by that point. That's not something you can fix with a few adjustments here and there.

 Overread wrote:
Also now we talk about it I recall that some managers at the store level (I think esp in the USA which got way more general recruitment instead of UK which was always a touch more hobbiest turned store worker) were told to just focus on new customers and to almost turn away or discourage long term ones.

Ergo lose the "neck beards" and focus on the fresh new customers.

Which is a daft strategy because it means you're constantly aiming to grow by getting new customers; but then not retaining them by losing the old ones.

I know people who worked for GW during those days, and the staff strategy was simple:

1. Initial purchase.
2. One Birthday.
3. One Christmas.

If you bought anything else beyond that, it was gravy, but those three purchases were all they cared about. Once they had you for those, they no longer cared about you.

That’s nuts man. That’s trading all your hardcore fans with their brand loyalty for fresh faces which while helpful to the hobby likely will drop all your goods for the next game franchise if the other guy has something cool and shiny instead.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
That’s nuts man. That’s trading all your hardcore fans with their brand loyalty for fresh faces which while helpful to the hobby likely will drop all your goods for the next game franchise if the other guy has something cool and shiny instead.

Well yes, it was universally agreed by everyone outside GW management to be a stupid idea and they appear to have backed off from it since Kirby left.

So what we were taught is that a first year customer spent a couple grand his first 2 years, and after that maybe a couple hundred. Ditto with veteran customers, most of them just bought fills ins, very few bought new armies etc.

Plus, recruiting kids and new people and spending more time with them grew the hobby...they not only would spend more, but possibly bring more people in.

I go to several local FLGS's in my area and only see the same people. I also have noticed the stores only hold events for newer games....So they are doing what GW does, but in reverse, getting veteran customers to buy into new games.

I have no desire to buy little pirate ships.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
7th edition 40k was still GW's best selling product line so there was a lot of incentive to try to fix it rather than trash it and start over. WHFB's issues were inherent to the concept of WHFB and the sales numbers were pretty much dead by that point. That's not something you can fix with a few adjustments here and there.

7th 40k was pretty much dead in the end, it had all the same reasons to kill it and replace it with something else as 7th Fantasy had
if 8th 40k would have not been the re-fresh but the same "lets get as much money as possible from those that still play" as 8th Fantasy was, killing it would have been the only option as well
Warhammer Fantasy was killed by GW mid 7th Edition, and this was also the time most people left it for 40k

For the very same reason AoS should have been killed after the first year.
there is no argument against WHFB that is not also true for AoS and 40k, and the only reason why it happened is because someone at GW thought it that they don't need a game to sell models

If Warhammer Fantasy would have seen the 180° turn AoS and 40k had seen because they realised that without a game, they won't sell, WHFB would outsell AoS
But somehow GW needed to learn the hard way that people won't accept everything and collectors are not the ones buying armies

getting back to his admission they never did market research, that just floored me, I mean.... if I was a shareholder in a company and he said "market research is unnesscary" I'd be inclined to fire him then and there

 kodos wrote:
7th 40k was pretty much dead in the end

7th edition 40k still dominated the market and provided most of GW's revenue. WHFB's final edition hardly sold anything, to the point that IIRC the space marine tactical squad kit sold more than all of WHFB combined. They were not at all in the same situation.

there is no argument against WHFB that is not also true for AoS and 40k

Two words: model count. WFHB had a massive barrier to entry in the sheer number of models required to build an army, especially when most of those models were just barely-visible wound counters in the giant blocks of infantry and rarely got to do anything but get removed as casualties. AoS and 40k both require fewer models and both games are skirmish-style games instead of rank and file games so your time and money invested into the models feels more justified.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Two words: model count. WFHB had a massive barrier to entry in the sheer number of models required to build an army

and this is bs, AoS and 40k need more models than Warhammer did

even 9th 40k armies are larger than Warhammer was, with most of the being wound counters as well
and yes also in Warhammer you could have a 20 model army if you wanted to
not even talking about that the model count in 40k was doubled with formations in 7th for some armies

the game was dead long before model count became a problem
it declined because of bad rules and no official support, like imagine AoS still having the 1st edition rules and the only FAQ you get is "points don't exist" and "we don't make mistakes" with each now book released in combination with a community that was not willing to pay absurd prices for models if you could get a 3rd party army for a third of the price

the same way Lord of the Rings declined with GW doubling the prices. The community in Europe was dead over night, and not like in 40k with people complain about prices, not buying as much but still keep playing the game, people were pissed and stopped playing LotR at all and never came back

8th Fantasy was made to make money from those that were left, GW decided to kill the game (better said, the old IP) long before sales numbers of 8th were relevant

CadianSgtBob wrote:

7th edition 40k still dominated the market and provided most of GW's revenue. WHFB's final edition hardly sold anything, to the point that IIRC the space marine tactical squad kit sold more than all of WHFB combined. They were not at all in the same situation.

and your source is?
that 40k dominated ís based in 3rd party store sales in the US and Warhammer was never big in the US in the first place were it dominated in Europe
(based in those numbers also Warmachine/Horders was popular, but only in the US were it never came close to Warhammer in Europe)

GW itself has never released any numbers for the dedicated games, no one knows which game sold more during which edition except GW and the only sales numbers of boxes we have was during the chapterhouse case, were it was shown that outside of a Codex release the numbers droped near 0, except for tactical marines which sold with each marine codex (even the CSM one) and not just the generic one

And again, if you go by sales numbers, AoS should have been killed as well, there was no reason to even try do invest into a 2nd Edition based on sales/popularity

40k works because there are enough people who are willing to pay the prices for a mass skirmish game with high model count

which comes back to not doing market research but just assuming to know what the people wanted

Two points. One is you're wrong concerning the model numbers. I still have my fantasy armies (high elves and vamps) and in comparison to my sigmar armies, the wfb have around a 1/3 more models than my sigmar armies. So yes you do need a chunk more.

And second point concerning lotr, yes a lot of people did come back when the game got going again. Our local tournament scene tripling events is testament to that.

and my Chaos Warriors for 8th had less models than my Space Wolves for 7th

and if you play Custodes in 40k, you have less models than on Orc player in AoS

there are always some armies with more or less models, and all games have their elite and mass armies

but the overall numbers of models is not that different to make that argument, people don't play R&F because they need 90 models which is too much but play a Skirmish game were they need 80 models

and LotR has seen some new live recently, but it is nowhere near popular as it once was, and the people I see coming back never stopped playing GW games

It really is. My high elf forces runs into 150+ pieces. My daughter's of Khaine barely breaks the sixty mark. And don't get me started on the vampire counts.

And the people I see playing lotr are both new and old blood coming in. So your anecdotes are about as valid as mine.

In terms of wfb ending though, something about the game and setting lost its lustre after sixth. Despite this nonsense it was not supported, ( after all, in eighth every book got updated with the exception of skaven, beastmen and brettonia), it was always just more of the same. It really should have gone out on its high of sixth.

General Hobbs wrote:


So what we were taught is that a first year customer spent a couple grand his first 2 years, and after that maybe a couple hundred. Ditto with veteran customers, most of them just bought fills ins, very few bought new armies etc.

Plus, recruiting kids and new people and spending more time with them grew the hobby...they not only would spend more, but possibly bring more people in.

I go to several local FLGS's in my area and only see the same people. I also have noticed the stores only hold events for newer games....So they are doing what GW does, but in reverse, getting veteran customers to buy into new games.

I have no desire to buy little pirate ships.

They were also (in Europe - the US is different with its odd shop based play) reliant on local clubs to keep people engaged and doubled down on that with the 1 man stores, though never entirely figured out how to promote them (with the risk they might play other stuff...), to build communities beyond the (small) carrying capacity of a store. They missed a trick with churn and burn to build those communities which most companies would consider virtuous circles to more sales and engagement.

He seems to be forgetting that GW increased the requirements for ranks in WHFB, which increased the required minimum model counts. The barrier to entry was huge. This is one of the reasons WHFB died.

[EDIT]: Blasted muscle memory.

Pretty sure it was only the Empire with a tank problem in WHFB, HBMC.

BrianDavion wrote:getting back to his admission they never did market research, that just floored me, I mean.... if I was a shareholder in a company and he said "market research is unnesscary" I'd be inclined to fire him then and there

But... but... these things are otiose in a niche!

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
In terms of wfb ending though, something about the game and setting lost its lustre after sixth. Despite this nonsense it was not supported, ( after all, in eighth every book got updated with the exception of skaven, beastmen and brettonia), it was always just more of the same. It really should have gone out on its high of sixth.

I wonder if keeping with End Times for 9th edition might have changed things?

It's the end of the world, new bigger monsters appearing, forbidden weapons taken from the vaults, new factions spilling out of dimensional rifts...

A compromise between blowing up a 30 year old setting, and presenting the new and improved High Elf on Griffon for the fifth time.

I think there was definitively a split between the 'old style' WF fans that liked 3rd, WFRP (original), advanced heroquest was the pinacle of dungeon crawling in the old world, the tone fromt he original Felix and Gotrec books, some got into Warmaster etc., but really that old horror filled setting that tended to be lighter on magic. (And magic users were suspicious and often crook.) And the newer far more high fantasy, magic everywhere, warhammer quest dripping in magic items style setting. Which AoS has turned up to 11.

The world of Warhammer was never really light on magic unless you approach it with the "humans are the main character" mindset.

Magic was a core of all the elf societies, it was a core of all of the undead societies, it was a core of the lizardmen, it was a core of chaos etc.

Magic was also a core of the Gotrek and Felix stories. Gotrek is literally running around with one of the most powerful magic weapons in the setting, an axe which belonged to one of the dwarfs ancestor gods.

Warhammer had a lot of high magic stuff, but at the same time it also had a lot of low magic elements.


Eg at the top end you've got demonic armies fully driven by magic with living siege weapons, huge demons, earth shattering powers. All being fought against by mighty mages calling down meteors and summoning up ice bears and more .



At the same time you've got your humble spearman in the backwaters. Who has never seen a demon and never will. Who battles the odd hedge witch who might or might not being using magic or just fancy science and illusions.

Gotrek and Felix show this really well. Even though Gotrek is a near godly character with an insanely powerful rune axe; a lot of their adventures are very grounded.



The tabletop side was the same, the bulk of your warriors were armed with sword and spear. Even in magic heavy armies like High Elves the majority of the models would be spears and swords and bow and arrow.





So whilst its very much a high magic setting, it was very special in that it never made itself into a super high magic setting where everyone is a wizard. The bulk of most races were pretty low magic on the whole. Even those races animated by magical forces were fairly mundane.

It also had a lot of its lore relying on real world historical times (romanticised of course). You could imagine how most races lived and operated because they had real world analogies to draw the lines too.

It was a high magic setting but not quite in the style of Epic High Magic fantasy like World of Warcraft presents itself. Old World managed to present itself on many fronts as low magic even though its a high magic setting. Heck there's one of their RPG systems where you were super low magic.





Age of Sigmar on the other hand is the opposite; magic is oozing from every corner and it actually has a serious problem with presenting the life of the regular mundane average character who isn't a major spell caster or ancient spirit or anything. Even just the land itself is hard when you've whole realms of metal with storms of rust clouds and quicksilver rivers and volcanoes and all.

General Hobbs wrote:


So what we were taught is that a first year customer spent a couple grand his first 2 years, and after that maybe a couple hundred. Ditto with veteran customers, most of them just bought fills ins, very few bought new armies etc.

Plus, recruiting kids and new people and spending more time with them grew the hobby...they not only would spend more, but possibly bring more people in.

I go to several local FLGS's in my area and only see the same people. I also have noticed the stores only hold events for newer games....So they are doing what GW does, but in reverse, getting veteran customers to buy into new games.

I have no desire to buy little pirate ships.

That's a dumb strategy, for many reasons. Firstly, it's not really a zero sum game. GW stores are rarely so busy they have to pick and choose who they sell to, so you can do both.

The main issue, though, is that in my experience it's the veterans that grow the game. GW stores are great for visibility, but long term customers are the lifeblood of any business because keeping customers is so much easier than getting new ones. That's especially true as GW products increase in price and sticker shock starts becoming a major problem. Purposefully trying to turn away existing customers is the opposite of what any good business (retail or otherwise) should be doing.

It's a strategy you'd get if your entire market research is purely looking at direct purchasing impact.


Ergo if you purely look at how much a person spends and their spending habits over time and nothing else; then yes someone new is more likely to spend more. Plus they are more likely to be spending on the entire range - both models, paints, brushes - the lot. So its more likely to be all direct sales, whilst a more experienced person might be getting brushes and paints from other sources and might only be topping up their army not starting a new one.


However, as you say, as soon as you look outside of the direct purchasing you realise that there's a lot more going on. That old guy who doesn't buy much IS running the local club and generating interest. Those older players are teaching, guiding, playing and interacting with the new younger ones.


Furthermore I would say that for any hobby a huge issue in communities is generational gaps. If your community ends up all one age group its going to have a harder time attracting people of different ages. However if you retain customers long term you'll have more of a spread. That reduces the generational impact significantly.


I agree that long term customers, esp in a hobby that relies on real world interaction, are a must. Plus, as GW has found, if you get those long term customers interested again they can at least be relied upon for a big cash injection when a new rules edition or such comes out.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
The world of Warhammer was never really light on magic unless you approach it with the "humans are the main character" mindset.

Magic was a core of all the elf societies, it was a core of all of the undead societies, it was a core of the lizardmen, it was a core of chaos etc.

Magic was also a core of the Gotrek and Felix stories. Gotrek is literally running around with one of the most powerful magic weapons in the setting, an axe which belonged to one of the dwarfs ancestor gods.

Overread above puts it far better than I. Note for a long time it was a magic axe - it was unusual but it was also remarkable as there was so little other magic about. The whole 'how special is the axe' took how long to develop? Magic was often bound up in focal points but was something most creatures wouldn't encounter like they do now in AoS (I imagine going to the shops is full of magical encounters).

“… That old guy who doesn't buy much IS running the local club and generating interest. Those older players are teaching, guiding, playing and interacting with the new younger ones….”

And telling the new guys that there’s a cheaper alternative for this or that unit. Worse, that there are non-GW games that are actually being played and introducing them to players who have moved on to said games and miniatures and paints and other hobby supplies.

Which is an argument they undoubtedly made.. except they have a churn and burn strategy. So it shouldn't matter if their leaving customers go elsewhere?

I suppose it's a question of do you want to grow your ecosystem (ironically the situation when GW started in the UK, the wargames (and railways/modelling) scene was relatively widespread and it gave them the environment to grow in) and try and capture that growth, or rule a smaller group of (middle class) customers (I mention middle class because as a kid wargames/models were very much an upper working class activity and lower middle class due to the relative affordability and cost vs time commitment).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Also now we talk about it I recall that some managers at the store level (I think esp in the USA which got way more general recruitment instead of UK which was always a touch more hobbiest turned store worker) were told to just focus on new customers and to almost turn away or discourage long term ones.

Ergo lose the "neck beards" and focus on the fresh new customers.

Which is a daft strategy because it means you're constantly aiming to grow by getting new customers; but then not retaining them by losing the old ones.

I know people who worked for GW during those days, and the staff strategy was simple:

1. Initial purchase.
2. One Birthday.
3. One Christmas.

If you bought anything else beyond that, it was gravy, but those three purchases were all they cared about. Once they had you for those, they no longer cared about you.

But if they got you, 1,2,3... Wouldn't that mean you were more likely to keep buying? Like landing 1-2-3 was landing a long-term customer who would then be more likely to buy more, on the regular? Do we actually have leaked memos that say "screw the neck-beards!", because this strategy seems to me to be creating long term fans if they could land these three milestones?

Though maybe they didn't adopt plans to openly support neckbeards and superfans, it seems a big leap to assume they were actively working to alienate fans in lieu of newbies. But then, Kirby didn't do market research... So maybe he just had no idea that policies they were adopting were pissing fans off...?

What a weird time that was.

 kodos wrote:
and this is bs, AoS and 40k need more models than Warhammer did

It's not BS, it's a reason people were citing for not playing WHFB. And you're ignoring the rank and file vs. skirmish factor I mentioned. Even if the model counts are technically the same it feels like more models when you're painting a block of 30+ copies of the same model, most of which will be stuck in the middle of the block where you can barely see them and never get to do anything but be removed to mark wounds taken.

and your source is?

I told you, I'm quoting that from memory of discussions happening at the time WHFB ended. The exact comparison of WHFB vs. the tactical squad box may not be exactly correct but it was something in that general range. WHFB was a dead game with very poor sales.

And again, if you go by sales numbers, AoS should have been killed as well, there was no reason to even try do invest into a 2nd Edition based on sales/popularity

You don't only go by sales numbers at a given moment, you have to look at trends. WHFB was a dead game that had already crashed from its peak and established a lack of customer interest in further purchases. And there was no reason to believe that WHFB sales would ever recover without a major reboot of the game. AoS was a new game trying to recover GW's fantasy brand from the failure of WHFB. It was expected that sales would be low initially but there was at least the possibility of a path forward to better sales, so it was worth investing some time and development resources to give it a chance before declaring it dead and trying to replace it with another new game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 pancakeonions wrote:
But if they got you, 1,2,3... Wouldn't that mean you were more likely to keep buying?

No. As you might guess from the reference to birthday and christmas gifts the intent was targeting younger kids with no money of their own. And kids rarely stick with a hobby for long. The hope was that you get the first sale with the initial excitement, one gift while the kid is still at least kind of interested, and that last gift that was probably put on the chirstmas list they gave their grandparents months ago but now gets a "meh" when they open the box. And there is no fourth gift because by that point the parents have realized that the kid is no longer interested in the hobby and half the boxes are gathering dust in the closet.

Now, would some of them break the pattern and stick with it long term? Of course. But GW wasn't counting on it.

On the subject of "needing more models" I think its important to note that Old World needed more models to get started. Because of the rank and file design the game didn't really "work" all that well until you hit at least 1K points and even then 1.5K was really the sweet starting spot. That's a lot to build and work with (even more if your chosen army is something like skaven).

In contrast 40K would down-size more readily to 500points and still play well and look good. A rank and file game at 500 is strange because you're essentially pushing one or two ranks around with a leader so its really just a case of run to the middle and fight. 40K has the whole skirmish feel with units able to sneak around buildings and such.



Sure 40K games have increased in model count and GW, since Kirby left, have clearly realised this. That's why Underworlds, Warcry and Killteam have been made. Heck KT has been around for years, but now its got its own book, its own shelf products and its own marketing and focus. It's not just the short rules on a backpage of the main rules; its a whole format unto itself.












With the 1-2-3 approach the key is realising that if staff are only after those 3 purchases and are only working toward them; then there's a good chance they won't pitch things quite the right way. It's one thing to realise a purchasing pattern, its another to have staff trained to see it and work with it. One is an observation on a pattern; the other is reinforcing the pattern.

Reinforcing it is a problem because its a pattern that is losing customers. Instead of building a system that aims to break it and encourage purchases outside of those 3 moments. Even if those 3 moments are the BIG moments of major sales. It means the staffer is perhaps not bothering to encourage the newbie into painting sessions where they might sell a paint pot or brush between the first purchase and the birthday. It means they aren't even considering any marketing outreach or such after that 3rd purchase.

Again its good to understand purchasing patterns and habits and how to work with them; but also how to encourage change in the positive (for the company).

I think the whole "warhammer fantasy just doesn't sell" opinion is shown to be utter crap when you look at Total War: Warhammer 1 and 2 and Vermintide 1 and 2. The problem wasn't the setting at all so much as how it was handled. 40k also hooked lots of new people with the Dawn of War rts game series. Fantasy would've potentially had a lot of positive growth after the success of Total War: Warhammer 1. Something Kirby in all his infinite wisdom probably would've attributed to Sun Spots.

Also while Warhammer Fantasy required more models a large bunch of these kits were fairly cheap. Even if you compare dark eldar warriors (10) vs a unit of clanrats (20) the prices are about the same. I mean crap look at the cost of guardsmen these days and even if you look at them pre add-ons it was easily like 35 USD for about 10 guys which are maybe 4-5 points per guy. Interesting how that's about the same price as clanrats in point values (at least in warhammer fantasy) and yet you get double the models. To top it off plenty of boxes of models go for like 40, 60 or 70 usd for newer model units. Fantasy is FAR cheaper in many ways than 40k.

@CadianSgtBob: So you mean having to move 30 or more models individually vs just putting them in a block or ranked up formation and pushing them across the table. To me that sounds like a positive for rank and file and a huge time saver.

Don't get me wrong WHFB had its problems. Quite a few of them were rules bloat which 40k is suffering from right now. Funny how 8th reversed it only for 9th to become as overly complicated as 7th 40k all over again.

As we've all seen with how popular models are at a time it also takes GW pushing interest through new models of older models, brand new units or heroes, an army that is potent and constantly re-vamped model lines. Dark eldar hasn't had a big change to its model line since about 5th edition 40k. Sisters were shafted until they had their re-vamp. In fact whenever dark eldar is competitive it sells lots of models. Space Marines selling so much had a lot to do with the constant attention they got and i wouldn't doubt games like dawn of war and marines consistently being pushed into the spotlight and partly being ridiculously strong before Kirby left and 40k was re-done in 8th. In fact perhaps bretonnia or other factions were never unpopular so much as they had weak codexes which were old and had old models and outdated rules. Compare this to wood elves which didn't sell much until they become ridiculously broken at the end of 8th ed Fantasy.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
It's not BS, it's a reason people were citing for not playing WHFB. And you're ignoring the rank and file vs. skirmish factor I mentioned. Even if the model counts are technically the same it feels like more models when you're painting a block of 30+ copies of the same model, most of which will be stuck in the middle of the block where you can barely see them and never get to do anything but be removed to mark wounds taken.

By late 7th or early 8th, "30 identical models" is a lie when it comes to WHFB troops - or, at worst, it was no different to painting 30 Conscripts, Hormagants, Ork Boyz, etc. I can't think of many regiments, by then, that didn't have some variety to them, and most Core troops were in multipart plastic, at that. Some Special or Rare units may have been in a more restrictive metal or "Fine"cast, but even those would have three to five different sculpts, even before the command section.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
You don't only go by sales numbers at a given moment, you have to look at trends. WHFB was a dead game that had already crashed from its peak and established a lack of customer interest in further purchases. And there was no reason to believe that WHFB sales would ever recover without a major reboot of the game. AoS was a new game trying to recover GW's fantasy brand from the failure of WHFB. It was expected that sales would be low initially but there was at least the possibility of a path forward to better sales, so it was worth investing some time and development resources to give it a chance before declaring it dead and trying to replace it with another new game.

GW set WHFB to fail, definitely in 8th, and arguably even in 7th, just from the core rules. 8th wasn't helped by a comparative paucity of releases compared to 40k, either, up until the End Times - which proved popular because people thought WHFB was getting a decent portion of attention again, not because it was about to suffer the same fate as Ol' Yeller.

The structural problems with the game that caused it to get into a sales/popularity tailspin were entirely from GW's changes - increasing the models needed for a rank bonus, the changes that favoured massive blocks of troops, when in earlier editions 20-30 was the most you'd need in a block for most armies, etc, etc. These changes, coupled with the ever-escalating price increases (or value decreases) certainly made it less likely new people would get into the game - anyone else remember the release of the "Goldswords", or the reaction to the pricing of the plastic Witch Elves?

WHFB - and particularly the Old World setting - didn't die of natural causes. It was poisoned by GW, well before they blew it up.

Agreed.

AoS is basically the same models as Old World. Heck Skaven are still selling and running around with first generation plastics and metal models.

Furthermore most of the new models for AoS would have easily fit into the Old World setting. Heck the Idoneth would have fit perfectly for adding a new faction to a world that was already pretty chock full of factions and didn't have huge gaps to fill.

Clearly if AoS is selling then there's nothing wrong with the models nor the sculpting, it was all marketing, release rate, rules and other structural elements as identified. There also was't just one thing that killed it, it was a steady growth of several different things that just bled it of customers. They lose the old guard; they lost the new comers and once you've lost both of those it becomes much much harder to recruit.

Esp if the game "runs at 2K" so any newbies trying to get hit a huge wall of models to build and paint just to play the game. With no big marketing push to get a huge injection of newbies and with no rules set that really worked great with smaller point values and armies; it just had so many barriers.

GW has clearly realised this now and AoS has had many of those barriers pulled down.

A wider fantasy point is it went from being the main seller, to be eclipsed by 40k. Did that mean the company tried to make it more like 40k? Tried to recapture the earlier popularity? I do wonder what the strategy was.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
A wider fantasy point is it went from being the main seller, to be eclipsed by 40k. Did that mean the company tried to make it more like 40k? Tried to recapture the earlier popularity? I do wonder what the strategy was.

Clearly the original plan for AoS was to make it more like 40K. From changing the way the game worked mechanically through to introducing a new Spacem...Stormcast army which share similar design elements to Marines. It's a solid strategy, you take one game that's failing and copy working elements from the one that is working.

What then happened was managers. AoS it seems started out as a solid normal project and then got cut to bits. Shifting steadily from a game to a boutique model line that had some joke rules, but ultimately was designed more to sell models and nothing more. Armies were removed, some that remained got shattered into multiple sub-groups and several new smaller armies were introduced. The Grand Alliance System was clearly an aim to have 4 casual armies (factions) in the game and then each of them being made up of smaller armies. With GW then able to add and remove factions as they want. Creating an epic setting with almost no lore grounding (it took ages to get any maps and we still don't have an effective dating system) and almost total freedom meant that GW could create whatever the heck they wanted and put it in for a bit.


Basically they took a wargame and tried ot turn it into a boutique model line. Which undermind all the attempts to take the working parts of 40K into fantasy.
It happened because we had managers and a management team who weren't doing community surveys; because they were detached from their customers and likely because all they were looking at was raw sales data. Raw data which suggested "more people buy models than play" and "the best time to sell models is when they are new". So with that kind of information it makes sense that they'd aim to create a system that basically just cycles new models all the time.



And we all know how well that plan worked

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
By what you say 7th ed 40k means 40k needed to be killed off rather than fixed massively.

WHFB's issues were inherent to the concept of WHFB and the sales numbers were pretty much dead by that point. That's not something you can fix with a few adjustments here and there.

I don't believe this really. WHFB had issues, sure, but I get the impression a big part of the reason for its failure was due to the complete lack of attention they were giving it, there was nothing inherent about the setting itself that meant it had to be completely destroyed even if the game wasn't doing well. The polularity of the WHFB video games and the fact that they're bringing back some version of the setting and game with The Old World project shows it didn't "Need" to happen in a way that got rid of it all. If they had given it the same attention as they do to their games these days then I expect it would have been even more popular than AoS.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
I don't believe this really. WHFB had issues, sure, but I get the impression a big part of the reason for its failure was due to the complete lack of attention they were giving it, there was nothing inherent about the setting itself that meant it had to be completely destroyed even if the game wasn't doing well. The polularity of the WHFB video games and the fact that they're bringing back some version of the setting and game with The Old World project shows it didn't "Need" to happen in a way that got rid of it all. If they had given it the same attention as they do to their games these days then I expect it would have been even more popular than AoS.

The setting was fine. The concept of a rank and file infantry block game sold at GW prices was not. I mentioned in my first post on the WHFB topic that GW made a significant error by blowing up the entire setting instead of making a new game in the existing WHFB setting.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
By what you say 7th ed 40k means 40k needed to be killed off rather than fixed massively.

WHFB's issues were inherent to the concept of WHFB and the sales numbers were pretty much dead by that point. That's not something you can fix with a few adjustments here and there.

I don't believe this really. WHFB had issues, sure, but I get the impression a big part of the reason for its failure was due to the complete lack of attention they were giving it, there was nothing inherent about the setting itself that meant it had to be completely destroyed even if the game wasn't doing well. The polularity of the WHFB video games and the fact that they're bringing back some version of the setting and game with The Old World project shows it didn't "Need" to happen in a way that got rid of it all. If they had given it the same attention as they do to their games these days then I expect it would have been even more popular than AoS.

That's not correct. During 8th it had a significant amount of attention. Only 3 books were not updated, Brettonia, Beasts and Skaven. There were at least 3 supplements too, Storm of Magic, Blood on the Badlands and i'm certain there was at least one more. So there's definitely no lack of attention.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
I don't believe this really. WHFB had issues, sure, but I get the impression a big part of the reason for its failure was due to the complete lack of attention they were giving it, there was nothing inherent about the setting itself that meant it had to be completely destroyed even if the game wasn't doing well. The polularity of the WHFB video games and the fact that they're bringing back some version of the setting and game with The Old World project shows it didn't "Need" to happen in a way that got rid of it all. If they had given it the same attention as they do to their games these days then I expect it would have been even more popular than AoS.

The setting was fine. The concept of a rank and file infantry block game sold at GW prices was not. I mentioned in my first post on the WHFB topic that GW made a significant error by blowing up the entire setting instead of making a new game in the existing WHFB setting.

...but we're getting a rank and file infantry block game set in the WHFB setting that'll be sold at GW prices again with The Old World?

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
...but we're getting a rank and file infantry block game set in the WHFB setting that'll be sold at GW prices again with The Old World

But not as a primary game. The Old World will be a side game like Aeronautica Imperialis where it doesn't really matter if it sells poorly compared to 40k and AoS. And based on the long delay between GW announcing the new game and actually having a finished product it's very clear that development of it is a low priority at best.

And yet Tyranids and Orks in 40K are using rank and file numbers. AoS runs well on rank and file numbers too - granted 3rd edition has messed with this a lot; but 2.0 (where it grew) had a lot of big infantry blocks which were very much 30 models to a block or more in a few cases.

This issue isn't a rank and file game at GW prices; the issue was multiple. The price and numbers was more because the Old World game just didn't really work well until you hit at least 1K points and ideally 1.5K. Couple that to a dwindling fanbase so the few people who were playing were at the 2K level not beginners getting started and bumbling their way along to 2K.

The lack of a really engaging smaller point level game that worked and was fun; the lack of an active amount of GW marketing and interest and thus a healthy influx of new customers and more - these all conspired together to cause problems.

Old World wasn't just 1 error, it was multiple that steadily added up. On their own most of them were fairly minor or surmountable; the issue was all of them at once and the fact that the game steadily went from growing to dwindling customers/fans. Cause once that starts that in itself becomes and issue

 Overread wrote:
The lack of a really engaging smaller point level game that worked and was fun; the lack of an active amount of GW marketing and interest and thus a healthy influx of new customers and more - these all conspired together to cause problems.

That lack is a direct result of the rank and file problem. Yeah, 40k has horde armies but even with those horde armies you can start at a smaller point level and build up from there. With a rank and file game there's a minimum point level to get proper infantry blocks on the table. And there's a lot less room for creativity to keep people engaged as they build up to a full army. With a skirmish-style game like 40k or AoS your models stand on their own and you can customize them as much as you like. With a rank and file game you're slogging through a bunch of effectively identical models that will barely be seen in the middle of the block and have severe limits on customization because they need to fit neatly into the movement tray.

And you can say all you like that it shouldn't be a problem but the reality is that it was a common complaint I heard back then from people who decided not to pick up WHFB.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
...but we're getting a rank and file infantry block game set in the WHFB setting that'll be sold at GW prices again with The Old World

But not as a primary game. The Old World will be a side game like Aeronautica Imperialis where it doesn't really matter if it sells poorly compared to 40k and AoS. And based on the long delay between GW announcing the new game and actually having a finished product it's very clear that development of it is a low priority at best.

They're developing a new version of the setting and an entire game. It's only been close to 3 years since it was announced, and it apparently takes them 2-3 years between design and release for a standard new model so I don't see where this "long delay" between announcement and release is.

I don't think it's actually been said it's a side game like Aeronautica? I'd assume it'll be at least as much attention as the Horus Heresy they just announced/released rather than the smaller specialist games.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
They're developing a new version of the setting and an entire game. It's only been close to 3 years since it was announced, and it apparently takes them 2-3 years between design and release for a standard new model so I don't see where this "long delay" between announcement and release is.

Remember, the point of the game is to give people WHFB back. GW will certainly make some new kits but they've already got the entire existing WHFB range. They don't need a bunch of new kits to make the game work. And it certainly doesn't take 2-3 years to make a rule update to WHFB if they're prioritizing it like a real game. The fact that we've seen nothing but very superficial "here's a picture of a map" updates so far is pretty strong evidence that they aren't putting a high priority on getting the new game out. My guess would be that it's being treated as a side project to fill in time between major 40k/AoS projects, probably because there was a situation like the original 30k game where a single person wanted to pursue it as a passion project.

I don't think it's actually been said it's a side game like Aeronautica? I'd assume it'll be at least as much attention as the Horus Heresy they just announced/released rather than the smaller specialist games.

It hasn't been said explicitly, it's just been strongly implied by the way GW is treating it. And it makes sense from a business point of view. GW doesn't want to cannibalize their own product lines and any secondary game needs to justify its development resources with additional sales, not just taking customers from another game. 30k does this well because it's fully compatible with 40k and just like with past 30k releases GW knows a bunch of 40k marine players are going to buy kits for their 40k armies. WHFB, on the other hand, isn't compatible with AoS. It's using square bases and the old WHFB lines have a completely different aesthetic from AoS so you're not going to get people buying stuff for their AoS armies. And does GW really have the market to sustain three separate fantasy games?

 kodos wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Was Kirby behind Primaris?

Rumours say ( and the fact that models are 3-4 years in development, so everything up until 2018 was "his"), say the plan for 40k was similar to what happend for AoS
new upgraded poster-boy model line replacing the old ones, more large centerpiece models, reduced rules to a minimum, people being able to put their collections on the table and only narritive updates to advance the plot

but because AoS failed hard, this was changed and not done as originally planned (but still done, just not as "strict")

I'm guessing this is where power level came from. It was supposed to be THE way to play and replace points but people started burning their armies on Youtube when AoS came out without points so they decided to make it optional/casual rather than the only way to play.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
They're developing a new version of the setting and an entire game. It's only been close to 3 years since it was announced, and it apparently takes them 2-3 years between design and release for a standard new model so I don't see where this "long delay" between announcement and release is.

The fact that we've seen nothing but very superficial "here's a picture of a map" updates so far is pretty strong evidence that they aren't putting a high priority on getting the new game out. My guess would be that it's being treated as a side project to fill in time between major 40k/AoS projects, probably because there was a situation like the original 30k game where a single person wanted to pursue it as a passion project.

They've also designed two entirely new faction in Cathay and Kislev. Possibly Vampire Coast as well. Creative Assembly aren't able to put anything into Total War: Warhammer unless it existed in the game prior to The End Times without GWs say so and we know that the GW designers have been working with CA on designing these new factions. We also know that Kislev will be a full faction for The Old World when it releases so it's not unreasonably to think that Cathay and Vampire Coast will get a model line at some point.

 Sim-Life wrote:
They've also designed two entirely new faction in Cathay and Kislev.

You mean rebooted two existing factions from older editions. And there's no reason the launch of the game as a whole would need to be held up for those factions to get new models, GW could easily launch the rules with the old WHFB miniatures now and then use the new factions to build hype for a second wave.

Regarding you can’t play WHFB at small point levels; there is nothing in the mechanics of the game that means you can’t, just the same as AoS. People may have not done that, but it was playable with a handful of small units (at least in terms of rules mechanics).

AoS was balanced at 2,000 points and playing at less than that didn’t work very well, as I found out many times before I gave up on it. The idea that you and a pal could pick up a start collecting box each and have fun games with AoS was hogwash, as my poor greenskins discovered whenever they played a game!

Luke82 wrote:
there is nothing in the mechanics of the game that means you can’t

There absolutely is: the need to have large blocks of rank and file infantry. You need to fill those 30-man blocks to have units function properly, and you need to have enough total points that you have a reasonable number of units on the table once you do. A game of 40k or AoS with 30 models is a game, a game of WHFB with 30 models is a farce where each player has one unit and the only thing you can do is meet in the middle of the table and roll dice to see who wins.

no, you don't need to use large blocks
a game of 30 models is a game, depending on the army, in all 3 of them, as just because Marines, Stomcast and Chaos Warriors can do it, does not mean all other factions can
and picking the elite forces for AoS and 40k, while ignoring the others, and pick the mass-factions for Warhammer Fantasy, while ignoring the elite ones, to support the argument is just stupid

and than none of those games work well at 500 points anyway, neither AoS, 40k, or WHFB, but you can play all of them at that size

the need for the large blocks in 8th Edition Fantasy came from other units doing a stupid amount of damage
on lower points you cannot take those monsters and wizards, so you don't need to bring in large units to counter them

there was a reason tournament players changed from 2000 points to 2500 with 8th, because you could not field those Monsters and Heroes into 2k either and still have an army around them
some people even wanted tournaments to change to 3000 points so they could bring all of the strong units they army offered (yep WAAC players that liked GW power creep and did not mind the cost were always a thing)

yes, 8th Edition rules were made to sell more models with a higher price, it was not aimed to bring new people in but milk those that are still playing (same for the price change with Lord of the Rings, GW did not expect many new people so doubled the prices and added rules for larger games to get more money from those that do)
so the rules were made to make those that already have a 2k army to buy more models

yet there rules were fine to be played with 750/1500/2000 points, no big problems (and comps were a thing for Fantasy anyway, so restriction on some of the stuff that was a problem was there anyway)

for the same reason some people claim that 40k is impossible to be played below 1500 points (you cannot bring Knights in a 750 point game) or AoS (no Mega Gargants in 500 point games, so 2000 is a must)

with 8th Edition Warhammer was already dead, it was killed by GW with those core rules, it just took them a while for the funeral and most people got this and left as the first army book released showed which direction the game was going

 kodos wrote:
and picking the elite forces for AoS and 40k, while ignoring the others

I ignored nothing. I play guard, a textbook horde army, and a 500 point list for me is ~25 infantry and a couple of tanks.

and than none of those games work well at 500 points anyway, neither AoS, 40k, or WHFB, but you can play all of them at that size

40k doesn't work well at 500 points for balance reasons (unless people agree to take starter box style armies and not try to break it). WHFB doesn't work well at 500 points because you have 1-2 units per player. These are two very different things.

the need for the large blocks in 8th Edition Fantasy came from other units doing a stupid amount of damage

And rank bonuses in combat. And having enough models left after casualty removal to get to do anything. 20-30 model blocks were the minimum in WHFB for a long time, not just a problem of 8th.

and comps were a thing for Fantasy anyway

Yet another example of WHFB being a fundamentally broken game.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Luke82 wrote:
there is nothing in the mechanics of the game that means you can’t

There absolutely is: the need to have large blocks of rank and file infantry. You need to fill those 30-man blocks to have units function properly, and you need to have enough total points that you have a reasonable number of units on the table once you do. A game of 40k or AoS with 30 models is a game, a game of WHFB with 30 models is a farce where each player has one unit and the only thing you can do is meet in the middle of the table and roll dice to see who wins.

No where in the WHFB rules does it say “minimum unit size is 30 models” so this is just incorrect. It will say “a minimum rank is x” and the army books will give minimum unit size, same as AoS does.

Luke82 wrote:
No where in the WHFB rules does it say “minimum unit size is 30 models” so this is just incorrect. It will say “a minimum rank is x” and the army books will give minimum unit size, same as AoS does.

And for all practical purposes you need more than the minimum to have your units function correctly.

I'm really not sure why this is a controversial claim given the fact that people at the time were citing "requires too many models" as a reason for not playing WHFB. Every time I looked into playing the game I very quickly decided it wasn't worth the investment because even a basic starter army was just too many models. And I was not even close to the only person saying it.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Luke82 wrote:
No where in the WHFB rules does it say “minimum unit size is 30 models” so this is just incorrect. It will say “a minimum rank is x” and the army books will give minimum unit size, same as AoS does.

And for all practical purposes you need more than the minimum to have your units function correctly.

I'm really not sure why this is a controversial claim given the fact that people at the time were citing "requires too many models" as a reason for not playing WHFB. Every time I looked into playing the game I very quickly decided it wasn't worth the investment because even a basic starter army was just too many models. And I was not even close to the only person saying it.

It seems like you’re stacking the odds in your favour a bit here. You concede that 40k (and presumably AoS?) work at 500 if both people are refraining from trying to break the game, but don’t extend the same courtesy to WHFB? Nothing would stop an AoS player from putting his 500 points into a giant Death Star unit of Ogres, just like a WHFB player could run multiple 10 man units of empire swordsmen. Obviously there is an efficient way to play all these games, but nothing in the rules for any of them stipulates a minimum size before which the mechanics cease to function.

Your argument that 30 man blocks is needed for WHFB presumes that the 10 man blocks are running into 30-40 man blobs all the time, this wouldn’t be the case if both people are restricted by points? It also ignores the MSU tactics some armies could work pretty well with. I do wonder what you suggest would happen if 10 AoS chumps ran into a unit of 30 enemies, if you think the outcome would be any different than the example you give for WHFB?

I’ve played small games of AoS, they were terrible. The mechanics worked for sure, but the balance was appalling. So I am always dubious of the claim that AoS was so much better than WHFB because you could play at any points level.

For what it’s worth, my beastman army in WHFB is worth more points than in AoS so I really don’t see how AoS fixed the ‘too many models’ problem (which was definitely a thing but it remains a thing with GW in general, not just WHFB).

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 kodos wrote:
and picking the elite forces for AoS and 40k, while ignoring the others

I ignored nothing. I play guard, a textbook horde army, and a 500 point list for me is ~25 infantry and a couple of tanks.

and I can take Skaven, a textbook horde army, with 20 infantry and a couple of Monsters, not a problem

CadianSgtBob wrote:
Yet another example of WHFB being a fundamentally broken game.

as is AoS and 40k, as comps exits for them as well

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Luke82 wrote:
No where in the WHFB rules does it say “minimum unit size is 30 models” so this is just incorrect. It will say “a minimum rank is x” and the army books will give minimum unit size, same as AoS does.

And for all practical purposes you need more than the minimum to have your units function correctly..

and were is this different to 40k and AoS?
so in 40k and AoS, you just take the minimum model count of each unit and have a viable list that will have a good chance to win games?

I have the feeling you play a different 40k/AoS, or never played 500 point games in any of them

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
They've also designed two entirely new faction in Cathay and Kislev.

You mean rebooted two existing factions from older editions. And there's no reason the launch of the game as a whole would need to be held up for those factions to get new models, GW could easily launch the rules with the old WHFB miniatures now and then use the new factions to build hype for a second wave.

Are you new to GW or something? Cathay has never existed as a faction in WHFB and Kislev has only ever had a few supplemental units to use in an Empire army that quickly went OOP. Also you expect GW to (re)launch a new game line with no new big expensive models to show off? No big expensive limited released starter box full of new models, some of which are exclusive to the starter set? Are you confusing GW with a different mini company?

I don't think Cathay even had a line for Warmaster, though Araby did.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
They're developing a new version of the setting and an entire game. It's only been close to 3 years since it was announced, and it apparently takes them 2-3 years between design and release for a standard new model so I don't see where this "long delay" between announcement and release is.

Remember, the point of the game is to give people WHFB back. GW will certainly make some new kits but they've already got the entire existing WHFB range. They don't need a bunch of new kits to make the game work. And it certainly doesn't take 2-3 years to make a rule update to WHFB if they're prioritizing it like a real game. The fact that we've seen nothing but very superficial "here's a picture of a map" updates so far is pretty strong evidence that they aren't putting a high priority on getting the new game out. My guess would be that it's being treated as a side project to fill in time between major 40k/AoS projects, probably because there was a situation like the original 30k game where a single person wanted to pursue it as a passion project.

I don't think it's actually been said it's a side game like Aeronautica? I'd assume it'll be at least as much attention as the Horus Heresy they just announced/released rather than the smaller specialist games.

It hasn't been said explicitly, it's just been strongly implied by the way GW is treating it. And it makes sense from a business point of view. GW doesn't want to cannibalize their own product lines and any secondary game needs to justify its development resources with additional sales, not just taking customers from another game. 30k does this well because it's fully compatible with 40k and just like with past 30k releases GW knows a bunch of 40k marine players are going to buy kits for their 40k armies. WHFB, on the other hand, isn't compatible with AoS. It's using square bases and the old WHFB lines have a completely different aesthetic from AoS so you're not going to get people buying stuff for their AoS armies. And does GW really have the market to sustain three separate fantasy games?

They announced the game pretty much the moment it was announced and said it would be years away, that involves a different and mostly unexplored version of the WHFB setting, that they've said will be a return to the Rank-and-File gameplay with square bares, that is a big enough project for them to choose to make what is practically an entirely new army of Kislev and also work on Cathay, an even more unexplored part of the setting....and you think it'll effectively be just a rules update along the lines of going from 8th to 9th edition, that they won't really make new models for (despite them designing entire new armies), and therefore it's taking too long even though the release timeframe for just a basic model is 2-3 years let alone a full game, and think that it's just a stopgap passion project basically no one wanted to do? That's utterly absurd.

As for thing with their other products....just what are you on about? 30k isn't "fully compatible" with 40k, there are plenty of things limited to just that that you can't swap over, but it's even more baffling that you're claimnig that WHFB models aren't comparable and think there's "completely different aesthetic" when a significant chunk of the AoS range is still made up of WHFB models.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
As for thing with their other products....just what are you on about? 30k isn't "fully compatible" with 40k, there are plenty of things limited to just that that you can't swap over, but it's even more baffling that you're claimnig that WHFB models aren't comparable and think there's "completely different aesthetic" when a significant chunk of the AoS range is still made up of WHFB models.

This is definitely veering into "tell me you don't know what you're talking about without telling me you don't know what you're talking about" territory...

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Overread wrote:
The lack of a really engaging smaller point level game that worked and was fun; the lack of an active amount of GW marketing and interest and thus a healthy influx of new customers and more - these all conspired together to cause problems.

That lack is a direct result of the rank and file problem. Yeah, 40k has horde armies but even with those horde armies you can start at a smaller point level and build up from there. With a rank and file game there's a minimum point level to get proper infantry blocks on the table. And there's a lot less room for creativity to keep people engaged as they build up to a full army. With a skirmish-style game like 40k or AoS your models stand on their own and you can customize them as much as you like. With a rank and file game you're slogging through a bunch of effectively identical models that will barely be seen in the middle of the block and have severe limits on customization because they need to fit neatly into the movement tray.

And you can say all you like that it shouldn't be a problem but the reality is that it was a common complaint I heard back then from people who decided not to pick up WHFB.

Even in AoS you still can't run the entire game from one standard model box.

You don't have to take rank and file away, you just present a different game format which uses the same models. Just like Underworlds, Warcry and Killteam. Each one is a single box of models that works right out of the box - heck Underworlds even has push-fit models in coloured plastic for playing in 5 mins.

Old World needed something like that to get people buying the fantasy models. Then it just needed a refined set of rules like Meeting Engagements to help bridge the gaps from 500 to 1500 (because if you've made it that far you are likely going to hang around).


That's all. It didn't need removing or going full round base skirmish style; though AoS proves that it does work. But they did need to address the issue of a steep entry point to help jump-start a new generation or three of gamers picking up the game

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
and you think it'll effectively be just a rules update along the lines of going from 8th to 9th edition, that they won't really make new models for (despite them designing entire new armies), and therefore it's taking too long even though the release timeframe for just a basic model is 2-3 years let alone a full game, and think that it's just a stopgap passion project basically no one wanted to do? That's utterly absurd.

No, I think they could release the game itself initially and add more models in following waves. Obviously they're going to add more models but that isn't a reason to hold up the rest of the game.

30k isn't "fully compatible" with 40k, there are plenty of things limited to just that that you can't swap over

Virtually everything in the 30k marine range, the overwhelming majority of 30k, has 40k rules in some form. You may not be able to use every squad exactly 1:1 with its 30k configuration but pretty much every model can be used as at least an aesthetic alternative to a 40k model. And we know that a lot of 30k kits are bought by 40k marine players.

Knights are exactly equivalent to 40k, every 30k knight has 40k rules.

Militia have no model range at all.

Admech were intended to have 40k rules until GW decided to cancel the book for no apparent reason.

The only 30k faction that doesn't have 40k rules and never had a plan for them is solar auxilia, a dead product line (the sculptor left GW) with hardly any players.

but it's even more baffling that you're claimnig that WHFB models aren't comparable and think there's "completely different aesthetic" when a significant chunk of the AoS range is still made up of WHFB models.

First of all, square bases vs. round bases is a compatibility issue. Second, yes, AoS still has some legacy WHFB products included but GW seems to intend to replace them. And those replacements aren't really a good aesthetic match with WHFB. You aren't going to have nearly as much of the "40k marine players buying 30k shoulder pads for their 40k armies" effect with a new WHFB release.

CadianSgtBob wrote:


No, I think they could release the game itself initially and add more models in following waves. Obviously they're going to add more models but that isn't a reason to hold up the rest of the game.

GW being well known for their willingness to launch new games with no models of course.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

First of all, square bases vs. round bases is a compatibility issue. Second, yes, AoS still has some legacy WHFB products included but GW seems to intend to replace them. And those replacements aren't really a good aesthetic match with WHFB. You aren't going to have nearly as much of the "40k marine players buying 30k shoulder pads for their 40k armies" effect with a new WHFB release.

Honestly square vs round isn't as big an issue. Put the models on round bases then make a movement tray that has round slots and you've instantly got things square again. I agree its a little more messy for characters and monsters though.

As for legacy models - eh. Skaven, Daughters of Khaine, Seraphon (lizardmen); Cities of Sigmar, Vampires, Flesheaters, Orruks, I could go on. The overwhelming majority of AoS models ARE Old World models. Thing is most AoS stuff would 100% fit into the Old World too. The Dwarves had airship technology, they just didn't use it and there's no reason they couldn't have had a huge change of heart through the End Times and unlocked reserves of ancient technology and allowed insane (possibly scottish) dwarven engineers to refine the tech into smaller airships that used concentrated bubbles to fly (because even now GW couldn't start putting full airships down).


It's the same really all over, heck some of the bigger models like the new Greater Demons were released during the End Times. The new dragon models would 100% fit even if the asthetics have changed. Old World, as noted many times, had a very high magic component. It just never quite made it through on the models for various reasons and likely just evolution of the style of models and sculpting. Eg Night Haunt are a very new style of creating models with loads of flowing parts that allow detached hands to work and such. Old World was full of ghouls and ghosts in the dark places.
Heck Old World had a whole race of living skeletons powered by magic.





GW could have just said that the End Times failed and the world continued on but after the huge events many of the races unlocked new powers, ancient technologies and the setting shifts from one where mages are super rare and most humans live mundane lives where skaven can be lies; to one where they are on the front lines fighting skaven every day and where the well of magic is unleashed and wizards are more common.

 Overread wrote:

GW could have just said that the End Times failed and the world continued on but after the huge events many of the races unlocked new powers, ancient technologies and the setting shifts from one where mages are super rare and most humans live mundane lives where skaven can be lies; to one where they are on the front lines fighting skaven every day and where the well of magic is unleashed and wizards are more common.

Honestly the only thing that doesn't fit into The Old World would be Sigmar being a physical presence and Stormcast (even then they'd be terrible in terms of fluff but you could make them work if you squinted). Literally every other part of the AoS setting could be easily explained or placed within the Old World with little to no disruption of the setting. I have no idea why GW decided to trash it all.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
and you think it'll effectively be just a rules update along the lines of going from 8th to 9th edition, that they won't really make new models for (despite them designing entire new armies), and therefore it's taking too long even though the release timeframe for just a basic model is 2-3 years let alone a full game, and think that it's just a stopgap passion project basically no one wanted to do? That's utterly absurd.

No, I think they could release the game itself initially and add more models in following waves. Obviously they're going to add more models but that isn't a reason to hold up the rest of the game.

Of course that's a reason. What a terrible idea it would be to return to a beloved setting people have been wanting to see more of and then just go "Here's just the book! Wait at least a few months if you want a handful of new models". That would have a big detrimental effect on the overall launch, disappoint some people and just be a poor move that doesn't capitalize on the games release. It's like you're basically saying that making it a more substantial initial release to get peoples attention better and get them invested with both a new game and new models isn't a good reason. This isn't just about "the game" you know.

30k isn't "fully compatible" with 40k, there are plenty of things limited to just that that you can't swap over

Virtually everything in the 30k marine range, the overwhelming majority of 30k, has 40k rules in some form. You may not be able to use every squad exactly 1:1 with its 30k configuration but pretty much every model can be used as at least an aesthetic alternative to a 40k model. And we know that a lot of 30k kits are bought by 40k marine players.

Knights are exactly equivalent to 40k, every 30k knight has 40k rules.

Militia have no model range at all.

Admech were intended to have 40k rules until GW decided to cancel the book for no apparent reason.

The only 30k faction that doesn't have 40k rules and never had a plan for them is solar auxilia, a dead product line (the sculptor left GW) with hardly any players.

Being able to proxy something doesn't mean it's "fully compatible"....

but it's even more baffling that you're claimnig that WHFB models aren't comparable and think there's "completely different aesthetic" when a significant chunk of the AoS range is still made up of WHFB models.

First of all, square bases vs. round bases is a compatibility issue. Second, yes, AoS still has some legacy WHFB products included but GW seems to intend to replace them. And those replacements aren't really a good aesthetic match with WHFB. You aren't going to have nearly as much of the "40k marine players buying 30k shoulder pads for their 40k armies" effect with a new WHFB release.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
With a rank and file game there's a minimum point level to get proper infantry blocks on the table. And there's a lot less room for creativity to keep people engaged as they build up to a full army. With a skirmish-style game like 40k or AoS your models stand on their own and you can customize them as much as you like. With a rank and file game you're slogging through a bunch of effectively identical models that will barely be seen in the middle of the block and have severe limits on customization because they need to fit neatly into the movement tray.

And you can say all you like that it shouldn't be a problem but the reality is that it was a common complaint I heard back then from people who decided not to pick up WHFB.

Another problem was unit footprint. With the base ruleset and expected move values etc. on a 6x4 table there are limits to unit footprint before things start to break down. That was fine back in the day of 3rd but the more model, more sales, rules to encourage more models and sales progressively broke that manoeuvre element of the game. Which actually was the game. In common with a lot of other rank and file games with that sort of unit footprint.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Overread wrote:

GW could have just said that the End Times failed and the world continued on but after the huge events many of the races unlocked new powers, ancient technologies and the setting shifts from one where mages are super rare and most humans live mundane lives where skaven can be lies; to one where they are on the front lines fighting skaven every day and where the well of magic is unleashed and wizards are more common.

Honestly the only thing that doesn't fit into The Old World would be Sigmar being a physical presence and Stormcast (even then they'd be terrible in terms of fluff but you could make them work if you squinted). Literally every other part of the AoS setting could be easily explained or placed within the Old World with little to no disruption of the setting. I have no idea why GW decided to trash it all.

Thing is Sigmar doesn't even have a model in the setting, he's about the only God who doesn't along with the Chaos Gods who, whlist they will never have a model, are at least semi-represented by their greater demons.

So even Sigmar being physical isn't a huge change. Stormcast would indeed be a bit of a hard sell, but you could downsize them and just have them as an elite army plucked from the best of humanity across the known world. Heck even advancing the time line past the End Times by a few hundred years. Enough that a new Stormcast Kingdom could arise; the Dwarves could reinvent many of their technologies and that magic would surge in the world. Sure you might have lost a few named heroes along the way, but you could easily keep a few around through various means (way easier than the AoS angle where the setting is technically already thousands upon thousands of years after the end of the Old World and is likely comparable to a dinosaur managing to wrangle its way back to life in the world we live in)

 Sim-Life wrote:
Honestly the only thing that doesn't fit into The Old World would be Sigmar being a physical presence and Stormcast (even then they'd be terrible in terms of fluff but you could make them work if you squinted). Literally every other part of the AoS setting could be easily explained or placed within the Old World with little to no disruption of the setting. I have no idea why GW decided to trash it all.

Realms with an infinite capacity are better for creative freedom than a single planet.

 Gert wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Honestly the only thing that doesn't fit into The Old World would be Sigmar being a physical presence and Stormcast (even then they'd be terrible in terms of fluff but you could make them work if you squinted). Literally every other part of the AoS setting could be easily explained or placed within the Old World with little to no disruption of the setting. I have no idea why GW decided to trash it all.

Realms with an infinite capacity are better for creative freedom than a single planet.

Actually I'd argue yes and no.

On the one hand the AoS setting is almost devoid of creative restriction. You can have almost anything you want.
However at the same time it also means that because anything is possible and everything is so vast, it becomes hard to actually cover it in a meaningful way. You can't as easily have maps, or regions or concepts of terrain and factions. You have so many creative choices that trying to satisfy that with product becomes nearly impossible. The setting itself is actually very hard to get to grips with lore wise because everything is so mindbogglingly vast. Is that Kingdom of Dwarves important, or is it ultimately so tiny that it is insignificant.

This is a huge area that AoS struggles with even before we hit issues such as the lack of an effective dating and timeline system or the fact that some realms are so wildly fantasy that working out how they work is hard (eg the metal realm - how the freaking heck does it work. Food production, how do you actually live with rust storms that should scour your lungs and leave you probably dead and if not crippled with lung and breathing problems) .



Plus its not as if we'd even covered half the races and factions in Old World. You could easily have added several undersea factions from merpeople to a full on Idoneth style army. Araby, Cathay, Nippon - several major factions that were never touched. Kislev beingfleshed out from an addon to other factions to its own faction. There are vast areas of the Chaos wastes ripe for adding new Chaos factions and forces. There were armies of Valkyries and various other nations nestled away in the world. Wood Elves splintering into the living elf side with a few trees and a full on tree force. There's the Sylvaneth appearing in Old World without any issues at all and some potential for a cross over force of both sides allied together or fully separate forces allied only in lore
GW could easily have had island peoples isolated from the world coming to the fore and just take major lands from others etc...
Old World might not be so totally free that you can have a realm where even the beasts are a mix of machine and organics; but it had a huge amount of creative potential still within it. Heck I'd argue most of the AoS races could easily have appeared there



One world like Old World has benefits in that whilst you are restricted, you are also able to use those restrictions as guides for creative content. It helps to bridge gaps between factions - oh look the Empire has a cannon unit inspired by Dwarven technology. Lore wise its also much easier to have maps and story and for characters and nations to have an impact on the world.

In AoS if a city falls - meh. Actually where the freaking heck is it
In Old World if Nuln fell - freaking heck that's a massive story point. Maps are redrawn, lines adjusted.



Restrictions might limit creativity but they also help to shape and give it structure. It's very hard for a free-form system to achieve similar; especially when it has no overarching creator directing things to a universal series of standards and styles.

 Gert wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Honestly the only thing that doesn't fit into The Old World would be Sigmar being a physical presence and Stormcast (even then they'd be terrible in terms of fluff but you could make them work if you squinted). Literally every other part of the AoS setting could be easily explained or placed within the Old World with little to no disruption of the setting. I have no idea why GW decided to trash it all.

Realms with an infinite capacity are better for creative freedom than a single planet.

Overread basically stated everything I would say on the matter. The Old World works for me BECAUSE its small. The stakes are higher and the losses more personal. Even 40k is just too big for me to form any sort of attachment to. Whole star systems are killed off in a one sentence bit of blurb in a codex and it effects nothing. The millions of people who died? Just a big number. Who cares? Entire chapters of space marines and craftworld ships just cease existing to make things seem cool and there is no repercussions because everything is BIG.

Expand this to the "infinite" realms of AoS and it just expounds the problem.

Oddly I find 40K works but a big part of that is the the number of factions is very heavily constricted. The big names that have models are basically the only major players. Other races are out there, but they are nearly always on the fringes. Even if they are powerful within their region. So for 40K it works.

Also whilst the setting is vast GW have given it dates and maps. Yes the Imperium can lose a thousand worlds and its nothing, but at the same time within that choke points; key worlds and such have all arisen which act as nodal points for major events within the setting.

Plus within those worlds things run in a logical "real world" way - barring Chaos worlds of course. So again we can envision how the Imperium works quite easily. Either they are growing food in soil or vats; or they are shipping it in from vast agri worlds and such. We can understand how a world rich in metal will trade with worlds rich in foods to sustain themsleves etc..


AoS is harder. It's so open and infinite. Meanwhile trade is heavily restricted between realms due to the Realmgates. How does a whole realm of metal survive when cut off from trade; how do you conduct trade when everyone has to go through the same very limited number of major realmgates. The realms themselves run on different logic.
There's a few, like Ghur, which are fairly close to reality; then you've got a realm of Death where everyone who ever dies ends up unless they were pledged to chaos or stolen by sigmar.

 Gert wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Honestly the only thing that doesn't fit into The Old World would be Sigmar being a physical presence and Stormcast (even then they'd be terrible in terms of fluff but you could make them work if you squinted). Literally every other part of the AoS setting could be easily explained or placed within the Old World with little to no disruption of the setting. I have no idea why GW decided to trash it all.

Realms with an infinite capacity are better for creative freedom than a single planet.

Creativity on an infinite blank slate is substantially less impressive than creativity within an existing structured world.

What we've seen for Cathay, for example, is more interesting than any of the new AOS factions due to how it needs to be integrated into the existing Old World framework.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Gert wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Honestly the only thing that doesn't fit into The Old World would be Sigmar being a physical presence and Stormcast (even then they'd be terrible in terms of fluff but you could make them work if you squinted). Literally every other part of the AoS setting could be easily explained or placed within the Old World with little to no disruption of the setting. I have no idea why GW decided to trash it all.

Realms with an infinite capacity are better for creative freedom than a single planet.

Creativity on an infinite blank slate is substantially less impressive than creativity within an existing structured world.

What we've seen for Cathay, for example, is more interesting than any of the new AOS factions due to how it needs to be integrated into the existing Old World framework.

For you, maybe. Trying to shove not-china, yet another human faction into the setting is about as eye-rollingly boring as it could possibly be.

Cathay is not entirely composed of humans. And it’s not like they can’t add other, less human forces to the Old World.

Cathay is the biggest human empire in the setting, vastly different in form and function to the Empire, and an aesthetic has been ridiculously underserved in tabletop war gaming.

It really didn't need a 4th huiman faction. There's so many other options that could have been gone with. The tiger-headed beastmen of Ind for example. A totally different type with no idea if they're chaos based or something completely different. It's just incredibly dull to go with yet another human faction.

Same issue with Squats coming back. A galaxy full of interesting alien choices and it's just the imperium at its core again. But short.

but that is the point, 90% being just different human factions works for 40k
so GW will do the same again, not doing any risky exotic stuff that is really something new, but the boring humans agains because they sell for sure

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
Of course that's a reason. What a terrible idea it would be to return to a beloved setting people have been wanting to see more of and then just go "Here's just the book! Wait at least a few months if you want a handful of new models". That would have a big detrimental effect on the overall launch, disappoint some people and just be a poor move that doesn't capitalize on the games release. It's like you're basically saying that making it a more substantial initial release to get peoples attention better and get them invested with both a new game and new models isn't a good reason. This isn't just about "the game" you know.

You aren't releasing just a book with no game, you're releasing the book alongside an existing model range that people can start playing with on day one. And remember that WHFB isn't like 30k, where 95% of the players have the army in the starter box as their only force. WHFB had a much more even split between factions and there's a large market of players that will have zero interest in the faction(s) in a new starter box.

Being able to proxy something doesn't mean it's "fully compatible"....

Using your 10-man lascannon squad as two 5-man devastator squads and a couple of tactical squad heavy weapons is not proxying, it's just a different use for the models. And 40k players absolutely will buy that box of heavy weapons to use on their 40k models, just like 40k players bought the previous plastic 30k starter sets to get a bunch of tactical marines and terminators for their 40k armies.

The bases are an issue, but outside of that you said the product line and and aesthetic. The models that have been replaced haven't really been some complete aesthetic style change as you're making out and even some of the new armies aren't really that different to the point they couldn't fit.

Really? Because when I look at them I see a completely different aesthetic. WHFB had a fairly subdued and realistic style with restrained poses (needed so the models fit into movement trays), AoS has gone a lot more in the high-magic fantasy direction with dramatic posing, magical effects everywhere, giant centerpiece diorama scenes, etc. Put a space marine stormcast kit next to a WHFB armored knight and the different is obvious IMO.

 kodos wrote:
but that is the point, 90% being just different human factions works for 40k
so GW will do the same again, not doing any risky exotic stuff that is really something new, but the boring humans agains because they sell for sure

Does it though? It's Space Marines that sell for 40K, not the guard. It's the super human side that's the massive seller, guard are a fraction of that. If the space marine players end up going to 30k, i think you would see a lot more diversity in the armies played throughout 40k

CadianSgtBob wrote:


Really? Because when I look at them I see a completely different aesthetic. WHFB had a fairly subdued and realistic style with restrained poses (needed so the models fit into movement trays), AoS has gone a lot more in the high-magic fantasy direction with dramatic posing, magical effects everywhere, giant centerpiece diorama scenes, etc. Put a space marine stormcast kit next to a WHFB armored knight and the different is obvious IMO.

Some of it is restrained pose because of rank and file and some is just because a lot of fantasy models are a lot older.
Look at the Witch Aelves for Daughters of Khaine. Those are pretty dynamic and they were designed for rank and file. The core army models for Lumineth are archers, spearmen and light cavalry - each of which can again rank up pretty well (spearmen perhaps slightly less well due to the angle of their spears and not much more).


Endless Spells are pretty new, but the Old World had just as many magical elements and the concept could very easily have been ported over into the setting. Heck you can argue that the Wood Elves have been doing it for years with their summonable woodland. It's the same as how faction terrain became a think (which is arguably closer ot what Wood Elves were doing for years).

Giant Centerpiece models started with Old World when GW updated the Greater Demons to knight their current much larger forms - heck they are now Forgeworld sized.


Again all these things are more the evolution of GW's design philosophy, technology, investment, plastic skill etc... Rather than inherent things that could "never work" in the original game. Heck looking at the artwork for Old World the Empire could have easily had a huge marching religious ceremony in the middle of the battlefield much like the Sisters of Battle have their huge walking reliquary diorama.



In many ways the total freedom of AoS has not really been unlocked as yet. Much of what we have model wise is still pretty much Old World compatible and would easily fit into the setting - which is understandable. A lot of it likely IS drawn from concept art, dreams and ideas of staff who were working for 30 years on the Old World setting. The lore for AoS goes further, some impossible (walking behemoths with cities on their backs) some very possible - eg the Metal Realm has animals and beasts that are a fusion of machine parts and living organics without being chaos. The Cities of Sigmar should, in theory, be a full steam punk style army at their human core. Not just a little steam, but full on walking robots style steam punk the like of which, in the Old World, would only have been touched upon by the Dwarves.



I think we will start to see these things as the setting establishes itself and as it progresses.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
It really didn't need a 4th huiman faction. There's so many other options that could have been gone with. The tiger-headed beastmen of Ind for example. A totally different type with no idea if they're chaos based or something completely different. It's just incredibly dull to go with yet another human faction.

Same issue with Squats coming back. A galaxy full of interesting alien choices and it's just the imperium at its core again. But short.

Considering GW’s attempts to fight its image as fostering a toxic fanbase, I think they would have been ill-advised to deepen their Europeans=humans, non-Europeans=monsters tradition.

Besides, GW is pumping out new boxes every month. They could release Cathay one month and then Tiger People a couple months later. Acting like WHFB releases are a zero sum game was part of what killed the game.

There's nothing specifically linking the beastmen to actual India. It's just the region they're from. Same way you don't link regular Beastmen to the Empire, despite that's where a massive number of them come from.

And despite the boxes they pump out, actual new armies are quite rare. The Squats are what, the first brand new army since the cults?

We don’t link beastmen to the Empire because we have all kinds of background about the humans who make up the Empire. If all we ever meet from Ind are the Beastmen, then we will associate Ind with beastmen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
New armies: Squats, Sisters, Cults, Admech, AOS undead dudes, fish dudes, all kinds of weird chaos subfactions, cow elves, spider goblins, worse Orcs, probably others. I haven’t paid close attention.

If GW wanted to make the Old World new again, their best bet would be to introduce new factions and generate new interest while selling the extant old factions the old players already love. Which appears to be what they are doing.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
Of course that's a reason. What a terrible idea it would be to return to a beloved setting people have been wanting to see more of and then just go "Here's just the book! Wait at least a few months if you want a handful of new models". That would have a big detrimental effect on the overall launch, disappoint some people and just be a poor move that doesn't capitalize on the games release. It's like you're basically saying that making it a more substantial initial release to get peoples attention better and get them invested with both a new game and new models isn't a good reason. This isn't just about "the game" you know.

You aren't releasing just a book with no game, you're releasing the book alongside an existing model range that people can start playing with on day one. And remember that WHFB isn't like 30k, where 95% of the players have the army in the starter box as their only force. WHFB had a much more even split between factions and there's a large market of players that will have zero interest in the faction(s) in a new starter box.

And again, releasing it without any new miniatures would be a terrible idea that wouldn't capitalize on peoples hype for the project. Impatiently releasing just the game side because you don't want to wait for the models alongside it to make it a bigger release that'll get more people interested at the start is not a good move.

[quote

Being able to proxy something doesn't mean it's "fully compatible"....

Using your 10-man lascannon squad as two 5-man devastator squads and a couple of tactical squad heavy weapons is not proxying, it's just a different use for the models. And 40k players absolutely will buy that box of heavy weapons to use on their 40k models, just like 40k players bought the previous plastic 30k starter sets to get a bunch of tactical marines and terminators for their 40k armies.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
And again, releasing it without any new miniatures would be a terrible idea that wouldn't capitalize on peoples hype for the project. Impatiently releasing just the game side because you don't want to wait for the models alongside it to make it a bigger release that'll get more people interested at the start is not a good move.

You're again ignoring the difference in faction splits between WHFB and 30k. Holding the 30k box until the full plastic line is ready makes sense because 95% of your players are using only the faction in the starter box. Holding the WHFB release until the new kits are ready is a bad strategy because most players are going to shrug and say "not my faction", with their sole interest being in getting the new rulebook to play with their existing factions (and maybe buy some new models from the existing product lines).

No. I'm not talking about the units that actually do have a counterpart in 40k and can therefore find a use. The ones that you claimed are an "aesthetic alternative" i.e. don't have an actual 40k thing, are proxies.

Which units are those? Assuming you're willing to use volkite weapons as plasma (an obvious choice since volkite already looks like plasma) there's what, a handful of special character models that don't have 40k equivalents with their exact weapon options? The vast majority of 30k marine models are fully WYSIWYG with a 40k model, and the non-marine stuff is barely relevant in 30k.

Just what do you think wouldn't fit aesthically?

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Lumineth-Realm-lords-Sevireth-Lord-of-the-Seventh-Wind-2021

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Kharadron-Overlords-Arkanaut-Ironclad-2017

Can you adapt the lore to fit them? Maybe. But I don't think someone who loved WHFB as it was and wants to continue playing WHFB will have much interest in those models.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
And again, releasing it without any new miniatures would be a terrible idea that wouldn't capitalize on peoples hype for the project. Impatiently releasing just the game side because you don't want to wait for the models alongside it to make it a bigger release that'll get more people interested at the start is not a good move.

You're again ignoring the difference in faction splits between WHFB and 30k. Holding the 30k box until the full plastic line is ready makes sense because 95% of your players are using only the faction in the starter box. Holding the WHFB release until the new kits are ready is a bad strategy because most players are going to shrug and say "not my faction", with their sole interest being in getting the new rulebook to play with their existing factions (and maybe buy some new models from the existing product lines).

No. I'm not talking about the units that actually do have a counterpart in 40k and can therefore find a use. The ones that you claimed are an "aesthetic alternative" i.e. don't have an actual 40k thing, are proxies.

Which units are those? Assuming you're willing to use volkite weapons as plasma (an obvious choice since volkite already looks like plasma) there's what, a handful of special character models that don't have 40k equivalents with their exact weapon options? The vast majority of 30k marine models are fully WYSIWYG with a 40k model, and the non-marine stuff is barely relevant in 30k.

Just what do you think wouldn't fit aesthically?

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Lumineth-Realm-lords-Sevireth-Lord-of-the-Seventh-Wind-2021

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Kharadron-Overlords-Arkanaut-Ironclad-2017

Can you adapt the lore to fit them? Maybe. But I don't think someone who loved WHFB as it was and wants to continue playing WHFB will have much interest in those models.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
And again, releasing it without any new miniatures would be a terrible idea that wouldn't capitalize on peoples hype for the project. Impatiently releasing just the game side because you don't want to wait for the models alongside it to make it a bigger release that'll get more people interested at the start is not a good move.

You're again ignoring the difference in faction splits between WHFB and 30k. Holding the 30k box until the full plastic line is ready makes sense because 95% of your players are using only the faction in the starter box. Holding the WHFB release until the new kits are ready is a bad strategy because most players are going to shrug and say "not my faction", with their sole interest being in getting the new rulebook to play with their existing factions (and maybe buy some new models from the existing product lines).

New miniatures would appeal to people interested in that army, new players and people who just like those models. That they wouldn't appeal to everyone doesn't mean it's pointless.

Which units are those? Assuming you're willing to use volkite weapons as plasma (an obvious choice since volkite already looks like plasma) there's what, a handful of special character models that don't have 40k equivalents with their exact weapon options? The vast majority of 30k marine models are fully WYSIWYG with a 40k model, and the non-marine stuff is barely relevant in 30k.

Seriously? It's absurd how you give an example of proxying Volkite as an aesthetic alternative to Plasma, choose to discredit the rest, and then act as if there isn't anything. Reminder that your original claim was that 30k is "fully compatible". It evidently isn't based on your own post there.

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Lumineth-Realm-lords-Sevireth-Lord-of-the-Seventh-Wind-2021

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Kharadron-Overlords-Arkanaut-Ironclad-2017

Can you adapt the lore to fit them? Maybe. But I don't think someone who loved WHFB as it was and wants to continue playing WHFB will have much interest in those models.

...A dwarf airship and a magic Antlope archer is unfitting aesthetically for a setting that had Dwarf Airships, Steamtanks, Ironclad battleships etc and all sorts of mystical fantasy creatures? Nothing about those designs would be entirely out of place with the setting.

 Overread wrote:
I think he was just an accountant who wound up running a firm and wasn't really trained nor skilled in that role. So his early days where he most certainly cut costs and improved GW's overall financial health worked well. Because that was all numbers.

However when it came to managing the firm and carrying it forward; to community engagement; recruiting; product focus; market research and all. I feel that he just didn't have the right skill set. Aided by having staff under him who were more yes-men who also had weak points in sklil (their legal guy wasn't trained in copyright/IP law or anything) and you've a setup for an echo-chamber team that didn't take the company to its full potential.

Like you said Kirby was a accountant who somehow ended up as CEO for one of two reasons 1) noone else wanted it or 2) he knew how to play the politics game at GWHQ.

The real poison in GW at that time was Alan Merrett the so called 'lore keeper'. The person who said "Genestealer cults and Squats will NEVER be armies as long as im around."
Notice how fast he was kicked out the door once his front man Kirby was given his golden para-shoot. I worked at GW right before the 1man stores came into being and they where canning people for any old reason to reduce costs especially full timers.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." I had some damn good fun there working for GW but man the crap from HQ we had to put up with was crazy. It was even worse as I worked in Canada so it went from nottingham to GW Canada HQ then twisted to suit the regional managers then filtered down to us in the stores.

 FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:

The real poison in GW at that time was Alan Merrett the so called 'lore keeper'. The person who said "Genestealer cults and Squats will NEVER be armies as long as im around."
Notice how fast he was kicked out the door once his front man Kirby was given his golden para-shoot. I worked at GW right before the 1man stores came into being and they where canning people for any old reason to reduce costs especially full timers.

Was he also the one who'd fire staff almost at random where managers would hide up staff and such if he was around the main site just to avoid having their staff cut from under them and such? I do certainly recall more than few stories floating around that there was at least one middle/lower tier manager who was a bane of many staff.

Also there's the guy (might be same guy?) who was the one the design team for AoS was trying to appease which resulted in the whole total mess of launch. I know Kirby gets a lot of the blame for everything, when in reality it was him and his management team under him. Not all, but enough to cause trouble.

 FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:


The real poison in GW at that time was Alan Merrett the so called 'lore keeper'. The person who said "Genestealer cults and Squats will NEVER be armies as long as im around."

Interesting.

Now someone find out who said that the Inquisition should not be a 40k faction!

For anybody saying another faction in fantasy that was human would be boring should seriously look at the state of all the human factions in 40k. More than half of the forces in 40k are human as about half are all belonging to the imperium. That fact alone is pretty absurd.

Ofc i agree too many human factions in a fantasy world is boring which is why in 8th ed fantasy when they suggested a type of ocean faction with needle fanged teeth i was getting hyped for some sort of cthulu, fish pirates or some sort of invertebrate faction of ocean raiders. Yeah i suppose dark elves somewhat fit the bill but still it could've been interesting.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
It really didn't need a 4th huiman faction. There's so many other options that could have been gone with. The tiger-headed beastmen of Ind for example. A totally different type with no idea if they're chaos based or something completely different. It's just incredibly dull to go with yet another human faction.

Same issue with Squats coming back. A galaxy full of interesting alien choices and it's just the imperium at its core again. But short.

Considering GW’s attempts to fight its image as fostering a toxic fanbase, I think they would have been ill-advised to deepen their Europeans=humans, non-Europeans=monsters tradition.

Besides, GW is pumping out new boxes every month. They could release Cathay one month and then Tiger People a couple months later. Acting like WHFB releases are a zero sum game was part of what killed the game.

Actually if i recall Warhammer Fantasy was more a fantastical fantasy version of the real world as a bunch of superstitious old world europeans would've seen it. The rats of the plagues being skaven, the lizardmen sorta being aztecs but also predicting the end of the world where the dinos go extinct, etc. I mean if what you say is true they find american colonies to sorta be a bunch of deviant slavers and yes i know it might take a jab at the americas but it's just a game. JUST A GAME! I'm american and i don't care. Sheesh. I suppose we should get rid of orks in 40k being a joke on football hooligans.

First of all, I didn’t say they should get rid of anything. I suggested that adding a colorful new human faction representing a people not yet seen in the game is better than introducing new monsters representing a people not yet seen in the game.

Second, “Just a game!” isn’t really an excuse for everything, otherwise you should demand they bring the pygmies back. “It’s just a game!”

Third, I’m going to need a quote or something on the idea that the setting was consciously designed to represent the world according to old European superstitions. It seems plausible, but I would like to know who pushed for this and when, because….

Fourth, as you yourself pointed out, mesoamerican lizard people don’t really fit in with that schema. If that was the original intent behind the Okd World setting, GW clearly abandoned it by 5th edition, probably much sooner.

Fifth, you can have both monsters and people outside of Europe. It is not a zero sum game where everything east of Kislev and south of Araby has to be monsters or you won’t get your Estalian mercenaries. If you only choose to have monsters everywhere else, you are sending a message, whether you mean to or not.

 Overread wrote:
Actually I'd argue yes and no.

On the one hand the AoS setting is almost devoid of creative restriction. You can have almost anything you want.
However at the same time it also means that because anything is possible and everything is so vast, it becomes hard to actually cover it in a meaningful way. You can't as easily have maps, or regions or concepts of terrain and factions. You have so many creative choices that trying to satisfy that with product becomes nearly impossible. The setting itself is actually very hard to get to grips with lore wise because everything is so mindbogglingly vast. Is that Kingdom of Dwarves important, or is it ultimately so tiny that it is insignificant.

The big map on my wall says otherwise. GW very much created focuses for the specific eras of AoS so far and those regions have been fleshed out pretty well. We've got the big important Free Cities (the fate of which isn't set in stone as we have seen with both Excelsis and Anvilgard) and quite a few named regions within the Realms. I disagree that the scale means nothing is ever important when the setting is vast and I think AoS is a much more event-driven setting compared to 40k or WHFB.

You talk about how you don't understand how certain Realms work and if you literally just read the AoS core book it tells you that the Realms aren't consistent in design. They have hallmarks but just because Aqshy is the Realm of Fire, doesn't mean the whole thing is volcanoes. It's not like Minecraft biomes where one minute it's a jungle and the next icebergs but there are still different climates, landmasses, oceans, and stuff. Likewise, the Realm of Death isn't just dead things because death is only part of the cycle, even Bone Daddy himself knows that.
Could some of the AoS armies have been in WHFB? Sure, but there's still not as much space as the Realms which is the important part. My counter to the bit about the importance of locations is sort of similar to yours. On paper Sigmar losing Anvilgard to Morathi means little for the entirety of the Mortal Realms, of course, it means loads of the Khainites and the Sigmar's alliance but for the players, they can still use the armies they've built because they aren't confined to one area.

I think a lot of your problems come from the fact you don't have any investment when things happen. You aren't interested in the setting and as such don't understand why events are important.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dysartes wrote:
Creativity on an infinite blank slate is substantially less impressive than creativity within an existing structured world.

Sometimes. WHFB had a fairly rigid definition of its world with the only real unexplored parts being Cathay, Ind, and the Japan mirror that uses a term that comes dangerously close to a racial slur.

What we've seen for Cathay, for example, is more interesting than any of the new AOS factions due to how it needs to be integrated into the existing Old World framework.

That's subjective.

Nippon is a normal word. The slur is derived from that word, but the word itself is not a slur.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Nippon is a normal word. The slur is derived from that word, but the word itself is not a slur.

It is in fact the Japanese word for Japan.

Anyway, I personally find well-developed humans more interesting than monsters. Monsters tend to either end up one-dimensional or just humans in fancy dress (Aztec lizardmen, Samurai Klingons, etc). So why not just use humans?

Humans are interesting! I'm human! So are most of my friends!

I think it depends how the lore evolves as to how interesting a faction is. In the past with things like Old World some races, eg Orks, were kind of left out being the "big bad" always rolled out as rough and ready to raid, attack or be used anywhere that needed blunt brute force and a simple opponent.

It's kind of plagued them and I think its why AoS orks are slowly turning more into 40K ones, which whilst they've had even fewer books of their own; are at least fairly well fleshed out with personality of their own.



In the end most alien and fantasy races take on human qualities and elements and even if they don't, the nature of storytelling often imparts them onto them so that we can easily engage with the stories.

I think the real element is if GW wants and does focus lore, stories, adventures, heroes and such on the faction rather than anything inherent to the faction such as race or species.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Nippon is a normal word. The slur is derived from that word, but the word itself is not a slur.

Hence why I said "comes dangerously close to" and the point still stands. I am well aware that one of the names for Japan is Nippon, the other being Nihon. But considering the former also forms the basis of a racial slur, I don't think it's being oversensitive or anything to suggest that maybe GW doesn't go for a focus on it.

You're being absurd. You wouldn't even use it in your original post, but weirdly felt the need to point out that it's like a slur, which is backwards, the slur is like the actual word.

It does not come dangerously close to a slur. The slur is derived from the word.

Nippon is a perfectly normal word and any attempts at giving it a different connotation are on you and you alone.

 Gert wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Nippon is a normal word. The slur is derived from that word, but the word itself is not a slur.

Hence why I said "comes dangerously close to" and the point still stands. I am well aware that one of the names for Japan is Nippon, the other being Nihon. But considering the former also forms the basis of a racial slur, I don't think it's being oversensitive or anything to suggest that maybe GW doesn't go for a focus on it.

I don’t understand this tack. Nippon is one of their least objectionable foreign place names. What else would they call it? It can’t be “Japan” since it’s the basis for that whole “slap a ___” slur. Yamato? Perhaps at the time Yamato seemed less appropriate?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You're being absurd. You wouldn't even use it in your original post, but weirdly felt the need to point out that it's like a slur, which is backwards, the slur is like the actual word.

Not "like", "close to". There is a difference. Do not change what I have said to suite your argument.

It does not come dangerously close to a slur. The slur is derived from the word.

So it comes close to the slur. As in, the only difference is three letters.

Nippon is a perfectly normal word and any attempts at giving it a different connotation are on you and you alone.

Has an associated racial slur but has no connotations. Mk.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don’t understand this tack. Nippon is one of their least objectionable foreign place names. What else would they call it? It can’t be “Japan” since it’s the basis for that whole “slap a ___” slur. Yamato? Perhaps at the time Yamato seemed less appropriate?

Nihon is right there. Or, yknow they could be creative and not just call it "Japan" but in foreign.

Huh???? there's nothing wrong with calling it Nippon.

WTF are you going on about? What racial slur are you even thinking about? Is this something people actually use, or are you just digging up some obscure term from hundreds of years ago that most people won't even recognize?

CadianSgtBob wrote:
WTF are you going on about? What racial slur are you even thinking about? Is this something people actually use, or are you just digging up some obscure term from hundreds of years ago that most people won't even recognize?

It’s not an obscure slur, the first half of Nippon. Granted, it’s not used as much since the war, but I’ve heard it used. And not always ironically (although mostly ironically).

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
It’s not an obscure slur, the first half of Nippon. Granted, it’s not used as much since the war, but I’ve heard it used. And not always ironically (although mostly ironically).

I don't think I've ever heard that one, but maybe it's a regional thing. Still a bit silly when by the same argument "Japan" is not an acceptable name since the first half of it has also been used as a slur (and a more common one even).

Wow holy crap! Wasn’t this thread about Tom Kirby? It went to death of fantasy by Kirby, then fantasy in general and now offensive terms. Can we get back on topic? A fight will end in the thread getting locked as we know arguing about offense (like politics and religion) always leads there.

——-

Back on topic. When warhammer fantasy died and some people were asking around to see if they could play some discontinued games at the gw the gw would always say ask the manager. When I noticed the pattern was almost always a no I suspected something was up. I asked a previous employee of gw and he said what I suspected. Apparently most of gw’s games aside from maybe lotr, aos, 40k and blood bowl were not allowed to be played at gw stores.

Yes that’s right gw tried to push the blame on to their bottom rung employees. I’m not sure if it was just an awful GW move or a Kirby move but that’s just scummy.

Blaming frontline employees is all too common. And when the employees follow policy, angry customers call corporate, get the employees in trouble, and then get a free gift card out of it. I bet Kirby GW even skimped out in the free gift cards.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
It’s not an obscure slur, the first half of Nippon. Granted, it’s not used as much since the war, but I’ve heard it used. And not always ironically (although mostly ironically).

I don't think I've ever heard that one, but maybe it's a regional thing. Still a bit silly when by the same argument "Japan" is not an acceptable name since the first half of it has also been used as a slur (and a more common one even).

I went to a school named after a Japanese-American war hero, so that was a big part of it. Kids gotta have edge.

 Gert wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You're being absurd. You wouldn't even use it in your original post, but weirdly felt the need to point out that it's like a slur, which is backwards, the slur is like the actual word.

Not "like", "close to". There is a difference. Do not change what I have said to suite your argument.

It does not come dangerously close to a slur. The slur is derived from the word.

So it comes close to the slur. As in, the only difference is three letters.

Nippon is a perfectly normal word and any attempts at giving it a different connotation are on you and you alone.

Has an associated racial slur but has no connotations. Mk.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don’t understand this tack. Nippon is one of their least objectionable foreign place names. What else would they call it? It can’t be “Japan” since it’s the basis for that whole “slap a ___” slur. Yamato? Perhaps at the time Yamato seemed less appropriate?

Nihon is right there. Or, yknow they could be creative and not just call it "Japan" but in foreign.

The hell you are talking about? You take a word in one language (not only that but one of the ways the inhabitants of that country call themselves), point out that in another country, and another era people made a ratial slur out of that word so now we cannot use it because it's just three letters away?

Negro is a perfectly normal Spanish word that Americans have decided to derive a ratial slur from. It's just a few letters away from said slur now 580 million people, including about 50 million in hte US, better stop using it because the associated slur.

M.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Humans are interesting! I'm human! So are most of my friends!

I'm yet to be convinced about a significant portion of people posting on Dakka, however. Pretty sure some of them are malignant machine learning scripts.

 Gert wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Nippon is a normal word. The slur is derived from that word, but the word itself is not a slur.

Hence why I said "comes dangerously close to" and the point still stands. I am well aware that one of the names for Japan is Nippon, the other being Nihon. But considering the former also forms the basis of a racial slur, I don't think it's being oversensitive or anything to suggest that maybe GW doesn't go for a focus on it.

Go ahead, tell Japanese people it's racist to describe their homeland as "Nippon."

 Miguelsan wrote:

Negro is a perfectly normal Spanish word that Americans have decided to derive a ratial slur from. It's just a few letters away from said slur now 580 million people, including about 50 million in hte US, better stop using it because the associated slur.

M.

If you want a laugh go to twitter and search (from:crayola) negro and see how often Crayola has to respond to people getting upset over a crayon.

 Gert wrote:

The big map on my wall says otherwise. GW very much created focuses for the specific eras of AoS so far and those regions have been fleshed out pretty well. We've got the big important Free Cities (the fate of which isn't set in stone as we have seen with both Excelsis and Anvilgard) and quite a few named regions within the Realms. I disagree that the scale means nothing is ever important when the setting is vast and I think AoS is a much more event-driven setting compared to 40k or WHFB.

Just make new areas of the map with more cities? Nothing stops you. This effects 40k as well, the intent being originally every player could have their own worlds and corner of space to make games in and it was fine. Instead you concentrate on the setting and look and feel (and slow interstellar transit - you can find an old article by Priestly bemoaning having the same chapters appear all over space in the time frame of a few years when they were meant to be regional an it isn't possible to travel that much). Now obviously GW being hacks hasn't been able to stick with this, and anyway soap operas are popular for a reason.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
Just make new areas of the map with more cities? Nothing stops you. This effects 40k as well, the intent being originally every player could have their own worlds and corner of space to make games in and it was fine. Instead you concentrate on the setting and look and feel (and slow interstellar transit - you can find an old article by Priestly bemoaning having the same chapters appear all over space in the time frame of a few years when they were meant to be regional an it isn't possible to travel that much). Now obviously GW being hacks hasn't been able to stick with this, and anyway soap operas are popular for a reason.

I think you've maybe got confused here. That post was in response to someone saying AoS has no points of focus or any places of importance. I was highlighting that while the Realms are large canvases that allow for creative freedom, there are still important places.

As for everyone else, you are all correct. There's nothing wrong with a bunch of white English people from the 80s using a term for their Not-Japan which is commonly associated with a slur used in the English-speaking world.
I mean there's no way that they could have:
A - Just made up a name.
B - If they wanted to use something related to the real world, used the other option that doesn't have a slur attached.
We should never ever question whether or not things done in the past are perfectly fine in the modern day. Nope never.

I appreciate this might be tricky for you to understand, Gert, but you are allowed to admit when you're wrong...

I feel like Gert is one of those people who uses the term "Latinx", even though a majority of the latino population absolutely hate the term. I doubt any Japanese person has ever seen the Old World map, looked at Nippon and flown into a rage over racist english white men. More likely they probably wondered what the designers take on their country would be and would like to know more about it.

They probably laughed and wondered why the fictional version of Japan is called "Japan", but in Japanese.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
They probably laughed and wondered why the fictional version of Japan is called "Japan", but in Japanese.

In fairness Albion is just an alternative name for Britain as well.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
They probably laughed and wondered why the fictional version of Japan is called "Japan", but in Japanese.

In fairness Albion is just an alternative name for Britain as well.

Yep, and as a Brit I am OUTRAGED!

Yeah getting offended over words esp. when avoiding context and intent is usually a peak First World problem. Honestly i understand why 3rd world nations would hate us given our "problems". My favorite bit is when people tried to push their ways on to asian or latino people (like with anime rewriting or editing or trying to un-gender latino's language). You know like that isn't what angered them before in the past.

not that there is no racism in the world building of Warhammer, but it is not in the names that were used but on a level were GW made very clear differences between French, Englisch, Germans, Italians, Spanish, than put all Slavs into one faction, all ancient South Americans into one faction and all north Africans and middle east into one faction

this is not something unusual, were you go into details for the stuff you know and are more interested yourself, and the stuff you don't know or have no interst at all is all ruled into one thing with the most popular cliches

so Nippon in Warhammer being racist, yeah if Cathay, Ind and Japan would have all being 1 faction that is called Nippon it would be, but for now it is not

You can be racist without lumping multiple cultures together.

For instance by leaning on racist tropes or stereotypes. If all the warhammer-japan people were designed with exaggerated squinting eyes and buck teeth then they would definitely be racist, regardless of whether they did or did not incorporate elements of other Asian cultures.

Worth stating in the period Warhammer is set in people did group massive foreign regions as single entities and split areas close to themselves in tiny seperate bits. I can give you a basic description of many towns in England but I'd struggle to do it in France or Germany and utterly fail with Poland so that is accurate to the period being shown and well represented. It's not necessarily not racist but the Empire's main concern would be the Empire itself and those areas would be far better known

 Llamahead wrote:
Worth stating in the period Warhammer is set in people did group massive foreign regions as single entities and split areas close to themselves in tiny seperate bits. I can give you a basic description of many towns in England but I'd struggle to do it in France or Germany and utterly fail with Poland so that is accurate to the period being shown and well represented.

I mean that's just normal and isn't just limited to countries or peoples. We do the same thing with pretty much everything. Those elements of the world that are important to us, or that we are directly involved with we know in more detail with more breakdown of groupings, subgroupings and information. Those which are not important to us or which basically don't have any direct influence/impact in our lives are more fringe. So we do group them into simpler groupings and concepts.

 Gert wrote:

Nihon is right there. Or, yknow they could be creative and not just call it "Japan" but in foreign.

"In foreign"? You object to calling Japan by the name it's own people call it, in their own language? .....

ccs wrote:
"In foreign"? You object to calling Japan by the name it's own people call it, in their own language? .....

No, I object to calling a fantasy equivalent of Japan, "Japan" in Japanese. It's almost as lazy as Ind.

 Gert wrote:

ccs wrote:
"In foreign"? You object to calling Japan by the name it's own people call it, in their own language? .....

No, I object to calling a fantasy equivalent of Japan, "Japan" in Japanese. It's almost as lazy as Ind.

But Albion, Skeggi, Araby, Norsca, Lemuria, Tilea etc. are all fine, amirite?

And that wasn't his initial problem. His problem was that he thought Nippon was so close to a slur that he wasn't going to say it.

 kodos wrote:
not that there is no racism in the world building of Warhammer, but it is not in the names that were used but on a level were GW made very clear differences between French, Englisch, Germans, Italians, Spanish, than put all Slavs into one faction, all ancient South Americans into one faction and all north Africans and middle east into one faction

this is not something unusual, were you go into details for the stuff you know and are more interested yourself, and the stuff you don't know or have no interst at all is all ruled into one thing with the most popular cliches

so Nippon in Warhammer being racist, yeah if Cathay, Ind and Japan would have all being 1 faction that is called Nippon it would be, but for now it is not

Well given that the game was clearly designed with The Empire at the centre of the world and everything else in terms of information radiates outwards from it, it kind of makes sense that we would know most about the areas directly around the centre of The Old World than the fringe areas. The fact that the areas that are furthest away from the Empire are the ones we know least about is pretty thematic IMO.