I think it might also be possible that GW might be re-releasing Advanced Heroquest. Why not? They did it with Space Hulk. Also, there seems to be an upsurge of this style of game. First, that Spanish company (can't remember the name) did a crowd-funded redo of Heroquest. Then Mantic does their version, and right now Monolith is doing a Conan KS version. Maybe all of the fantasy round base rumors are actually for Advanced Heroquest. The rumors about short term releases would also make sense if you were talking about expansion packs for Advanced Heroquest. It would also be a good year to make that their surprise Fall release if they are also pushing WFB this year. And there are other signs. Before GW re-released Space Hulk, didn't they release a video game version?. And didn't GW release an Advanced Heroquest video game just recently?
As an owner of a retail store myself, I am annoyed by GW's wall of secrecy. I have a collection of White Dwarves dating back to the 80's, when people actually waited with anticipation for the next White Dwarf. I don't understand why they can't look at their own history and figure out what works and what doesn't. The fact that GW does not interact with the gaming community is the reason there is so much ill will out there, and the reason they can't seem to make good decisions. Most of the time, when I talk to their reps or even their higher ups I feel like I am being talked down to like a child by an all-knowing infallible parent.
ClassicCarraway wrote: ... GW may be using ET as a way to introduce a new system while still using the more popular ranges in the WHFB catelog. This will be GW's attempt at taking on the skirmish level game market that is becoming so popular, using an established IP and model range, adding to it as the game evolves. The cost for them initially is minimal, just a new rule book, as the expansive model range for WHFB allows them to pick and choose what existing fantasy models are available to the new factions.
This is what I'm hoping for. But I feel like that would be a logical thing to do, so I'm not holding my breath :(
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Or they could not burn their bridges and leave WHFB mostly the way it is (it could use some small fixes) and launch a side system based off the same IP or look at WHY WHFB isn't selling well when once upon a time it did sell.
Adding another Fantasy game would simply increase costs and burn money even faster.
In a rational company, Fantasy would have been put out of its misery years (decades) ago. Fantasy is a profit-eating white elephant that basically drives no benefit for GW aside from its longevity of 8 editions. GW has tried pretty much all of the possible fixes:
- expanding Fantasy under a "more gets more" by splitting Undead & Chaos, adding Ogres;
- keeping Fantasy under a "hold for same";
- moving Fantasy to a super-premium game.
Of these, only the super-premium approach of dataslates, limited editions, limited production and megamodels seems to be working.
Now it's time for GW to downsize Fantasy to a sustainable level, which is what 8E ET is doing as preparation for 9E.
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Smellingsalts wrote: I don't understand why they can't look at their own history and figure out what works and what doesn't.
GW works the numbers very clearly, which is why they are taking all of the money away from LGS and keeping it in house. GW doesn't care about you at all.
I think one of the biggest issues with the decline of WHFB was that GW set themselves up for an inevitable fall in profits if not also with players, although that happened too apparently. The whole line just got too bloated. Too many armies, too many rules, too many minis etc. If the intent by GW was to always make a new edition ever 5 years or so then they never should have expanded the range the way they did. It's a logistical nightmare to have 10 army factions
Space Hulk is definitely a board game. Pretty good one, too.
Fantasy 8E has more than 10 Army Factions: HE WEDE; Emp Bret; Dorf; VCTK; BoCWoCDoC; OnG; Skaven; OK; Lizard - that's 15, not counting FW's CD. Also, GW was experimenting with a 4-year cycle for WFB and 40k. So the nightmare is actually 15 armies every 4 years (avg 4 annually), not 10 armies every 5 years (avg. 2 annually), ignoring the rules bloat. Going to 6 armies every 6 years would be ideal.
In the end, when this is all said and done, I really hope GW publishes a book with all the models rules. Its getting ridiculous the amount of publications I need on my table to use these models. I hope when 9e launches I can buy one simple thing will all the rules for all the models for "insert army" and not need an army book, a White dwarf weekly, and some clippings out of a b/w instructions manual...
JohnHwangDD wrote: Adding another Fantasy game would simply increase costs and burn money even faster.
It all depends how adventurous they're actually being. To completely destroy WHFB and start from the ground up is going to cost them far more than keeping WHFB and adding a side game with the same models. They're probably doing something half way in between those 2 extremes, we just don't know how far at this point.
In a rational company, Fantasy would have been put out of its misery years (decades) ago. Fantasy is a profit-eating white elephant that basically drives no benefit for GW aside from its longevity of 8 editions. GW has tried pretty much all of the possible fixes:
- expanding Fantasy under a "more gets more" by splitting Undead & Chaos, adding Ogres;
- keeping Fantasy under a "hold for same";
- moving Fantasy to a super-premium game.
Of these, only the super-premium approach of dataslates, limited editions, limited production and megamodels seems to be working.
Do you actually have any data to back up any of those assumptions? WHFB has been popular around this area from the mid 90's through to about 2010 when 8th edition came out.
GW works the numbers very clearly, which is why they are taking all of the money away from LGS and keeping it in house. GW doesn't care about you at all.
They don't do a very good job of working them, they too naive to realise they can't actually take away money from LGS and expect to keep it for any length of time.
Smellingsalts wrote: I think it might also be possible that GW might be re-releasing Advanced Heroquest. Why not? They did it with Space Hulk. Also, there seems to be an upsurge of this style of game. First, that Spanish company (can't remember the name) did a crowd-funded redo of Heroquest. Then Mantic does their version, and right now Monolith is doing a Conan KS version. Maybe all of the fantasy round base rumors are actually for Advanced Heroquest. The rumors about short term releases would also make sense if you were talking about expansion packs for Advanced Heroquest. It would also be a good year to make that their surprise Fall release if they are also pushing WFB this year. And there are other signs. Before GW re-released Space Hulk, didn't they release a video game version?. And didn't GW release an Advanced Heroquest video game just recently?
As an owner of a retail store myself, I am annoyed by GW's wall of secrecy. I have a collection of White Dwarves dating back to the 80's, when people actually waited with anticipation for the next White Dwarf. I don't understand why they can't look at their own history and figure out what works and what doesn't. The fact that GW does not interact with the gaming community is the reason there is so much ill will out there, and the reason they can't seem to make good decisions. Most of the time, when I talk to their reps or even their higher ups I feel like I am being talked down to like a child by an all-knowing infallible parent.
I'd actually love to see a Warhammer Quest reboot, with the roleplay book updated for all of the stuff that has been released since the original was published. All those random monster tables made a great excuse to go grab a box or two of all the units from each 'bad-guy' army, plus one or two of all of the big beasties. Now that they have all of these wonderful new plastic versions of everything (and the digital files available to make a couple of new board game specific sprues with various 'monsters' on them. Maybe add a few new sculpts to the mix (Orc Boys and standard Goblins being good candidates due to tired sculpts). I know this is just wish-listing, and likely will not happen, but I think it makes sense at least as a splash release like Space Hulk...I think it would sell almost, if not as well.
I haven't played Fantasy since before some of you were born, so...
LotR is coming to an end for GW, unless Peter Jackson intends to make a series of movies of the rest of the Silmarillion. (F#*k, shouldn't have put that idea out there!) Warhammer Fantasy took a backseat after 40K exploded in the late '80s. It was clear back then what the market wanted. In fact if GW is blowing the Horn of Fate on the Old World, I'm surprised it took this long. See Fantasy has been staring at a long slow death for a while now. Add in that many third party miniatures companies sell proxies that are as good if not better than GW's own offerings and again I wonder why it took so long. And that doesn't even take into account other games stealing part of their pie... WarmaHordes, I'm looking at you.
If GW ever has a chance of making another decade someone should be asking, "how do we get new players into Fantasy?" If your base is shrinking and you don't release a lot for that shrinking base to buy then Fantasy has a very gloomy future, by which I mean none at all. If one is to believe the rumours of a tighter and more compact Fantasy, you don't need to understand why... there just isn't enough money in the current incarnation of the game. i personally think Epic and Warmaster were great games, better than the games that inspired them, but they had no financial future. Buy your army, play the game and realize that without critical mass you can't keep making the game chasing less and less people. And maybe GW realizes that's Fantasy's future.
So in order to "save" Warhammer, it must right size it into a sustainable game. Ideally the game would appeals to current players of previous Warhammer Fantasy, current (but soon to be eventually ex-GW) LotR players and hopefully appeals to players of other games especially ones who never played Fantasy. And in order to do that you need a smaller, more accessible game with less generic armies appealing to more people. No revision to the current rules can do that. All you can do is gracefully blow up the old game and setting, priming/non-upsetting as many current players for a new game with new armies. End times storyline seems to fit the bill perfectly, roll armies into each other, kill off characters and show that big things are in store. Better to have a quick death than a slow drawn out one with far too many SKUs that don't move.
Awesome GW, you may have done something right for once.
The problem is what comes next. So all your old Fantasy players... might not like the new skirmish friendly rules that require rebasing at best or eBaying old armies at worst. Hell, I don't have a lot of old Fantasy models, but I love the Dark Elf stuff and will be sad to see it go if the rumours are true. I also loved playing LotR. It is in my personal opinion the best set of Warhammer rules GW has ever produced... unfortunately, I was never a fan of Middle Earth. So I sold all my LotR minis because while I liked the true scale approach, they didn't have any Warhammer flair to them. In my case there are are multiple ways to lose me in a new Warhammer Fantasy: 1) continue with old Fantasy rules, 2) keep with cartoony miniatures, 3) offer generic/overly-stylized armies, ... And each opposite to me loses current players. It's almost a no win scenario, and yet still better than the slow death and massive support of a dwindling game.
All through out I've made a huge assumption, Warhammer Fantasy is dying. There are anecdotes, financial reports, and anecdotes of financial reports all about Fantasy slimming away. This radical path that GW is now pursuing literally screams "End Times" for WHFB. The question really is, how can the current GW keep its current players, bring in new ones and create a buzz for a game that was old when 40K stumbled into the spotlight and propelled GW into the 800b gorilla it was until recently?
ClassicCarraway wrote: I am still of the mind-set that the rumored game is NOT WHFB 9th edition, but a new skirmish level game set in the post End-Times. Hear me out....
1) The rumors contradict themselves by saying the core rules remain the same but now everything will be on round bases and in skirmish formations. By changing to default skirmish, this goes against saying the rules are "largely unchanged".
2) WHFB is largely done, as most of the armies have hardback 8th edition books. Additionally, the WHFB fanbase is largely happy with 8th edition as a ruleset. Many I know personally have said a new edition is simply not needed.
3) This one is the biggie for me. While WHFB army sales may be sluggish, End Times and the associated models has been extremely popular. Unfortunately, End Times has also gutted or severely disrupted a number of armies, both in the rules and in the fluff. If rumors of the future ET books are to believed, this will just continue at an accelerated rate. Any kind of post-End Times release would almost have to be something completely new, and GW may be using ET as a way to introduce a new system while still using the more popular ranges in the WHFB catelog. This will be GW's attempt at taking on the skirmish level game market that is becoming so popular, using an established IP and model range, adding to it as the game evolves. The cost for them initially is minimal, just a new rule book, as the expansive model range for WHFB allows them to pick and choose what existing fantasy models are available to the new factions.
4) This would allow GW to introduce the WHF setting to new players at a much lower price point, and allow existing WHFB players to get the occassional new model as they are introduced (with dual rule sets, one for the new game, one for the old). They double their target audience for each new fantasy release. If done right, this could end up being a win-win for everybody involved..
Anyway, that's my theory.
Please let this be true, please oh please.
To add to the validity of this idea is the simple fact of all the new kits they have made for the end times. Think about this the land raider mold cost over $1,000,000 to make just so they could sell land raiders. Think of what nagash cost?????
I dont seem them trashing the big battles portion of the game. NOW rewriting it to be a lotr SBG with a WOTR style of game on top of that is great. Killing most of the armies is truly sad though
In a rational company, Fantasy would have been put out of its misery years (decades) ago. Fantasy is a profit-eating white elephant that basically drives no benefit for GW aside from its longevity of 8 editions.
Do you actually have any data to back up any of those assumptions?
WHFB has been popular around this area from the mid 90's through to about 2010 when 8th edition came out.
You can go look at GW Fantasy sales rank for the past 20 years. 40k3 eclipsed Fantasy to the point that it has been repeatedly stated by GW insiders that Space Marines alone have outsold all Fantasy combined for a very long time.
The anecdote of your little town matters not at all when we look at global trends.
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Chairman Aeon wrote: All through out I've made a huge assumption, Warhammer Fantasy is dying. There are anecdotes, financial reports, and anecdotes of financial reports all about Fantasy slimming away. This radical path that GW is now pursuing literally screams "End Times" for WHFB. The question really is, how can the current GW keep its current players, bring in new ones and create a buzz for a game that was old when 40K stumbled into the spotlight and propelled GW into the 800b gorilla it was until recently?
Iain.
People do realize that 8E and ET armies will be valid for the duration of 9E, right? That GW is radically changing the background, but the armies and models are still playable, right? That everything should still play together.
Or is there some super-secret army of GW gnomes that are going to sneak into people's homes and take away their stuff? Is that what's happening?
Chairman Aeon wrote: i personally think Epic and Warmaster were great games, better than the games that inspired them, but they had no financial future.
The last version of Epic did £5m in it's launch year and £1m the following year when they failed to support it. The issue wasn't that it wasn't profitable/didn't make money, just that it didn't for GW.
If GW had licensed it's Specialist Games out to smaller companies it could have had a small amount of revenue without bearing as much of the risk and remained competitive in areas that it's ceded to other companies.
Chairman Aeon wrote: And in order to do that you need a smaller, more accessible game with less generic armies appealing to more people. No revision to the current rules can do that.
I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. Fantasy died overnight when the rules became too random to be played competitively. Overnight. I could give you the date if you want. It has nothing to do with the factions being generic. In fact, that is its strength. Even today it is far, far easier for a new garage company to survive by giving us the n-th iteration of a Dwarf, Elf or Zombie, than by trying to sell something strange and unfamiliar. If GW tries to sell us weird new armies using the same unplayable rules, it will sell the same or worse as Fantasy does now, at a colossal waste of development resources.
Chairman Aeon wrote: And in order to do that you need a smaller, more accessible game with less generic armies appealing to more people. No revision to the current rules can do that.
I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. Fantasy died overnight when the rules became too random to be played competitively. Overnight. I could give you the date if you want. It has nothing to do with the factions being generic. In fact, that is its strength. Even today it is far, far easier for a new garage company to survive by giving us the n-th iteration of a Dwarf, Elf or Zombie, than by trying to sell something strange and unfamiliar. If GW tries to sell us weird new armies using the same unplayable rules, it will sell the same or worse as Fantasy does now, at a colossal waste of development resources.
Yah, this. Well fantasy might not as sold as well as 40k, it still sat at 2nd best seller for a lot of disturbers for years.
Chairman Aeon wrote: LotR is coming to an end for GW, unless Peter Jackson intends to make a series of movies of the rest of the Silmarillion. (F#*k, shouldn't have put that idea out there!)
That's never going to happen unless the plan includes making Christopher Tolkien have "an unfortunate accident".
lord_blackfang wrote: Even today it is far, far easier for a new garage company to survive by giving us the n-th iteration of a Dwarf, Elf or Zombie, than by trying to sell something strange and unfamiliar.
You sure about that?
Let's look at Kings of War as "the n-th interation of Dwarf, Elf or Zombie":
. Kings of War 1E pulled $355k
. Kings of War 2E pulled $366k
Supposedly, Mantic's Kings of War "solves" all of the WFB problem by providing generic, cheap Fantasy rules and models that dramatically undercut GW pricing. Sure, the quality is crap, but when you're getting "100 models for $100", something's gotta give.
Now let's look at garage companies "trying to sell something strange and unfamiliar:"
. Kingdom Death : Monster pulled $2.0M
. Cthulu Wars pulled $1.4M
Either of these games outsold all Kings of War 2:1 or 3:1. Combined, they outsold Kings of War 5:1.
Generic Fantasy is dead. I haven't bought any WFB in years. But I did back KD:M at HoD level for their huge and awesome monsters:
I am super excited to receive Spidicules, Sunstalker, Dragon King and Gorm later this year.
I am also very interested in the Others : 7 Sins, announced last year.
The monsters look awesome, and are better for being "strange and unfamiliar".
I, for one, am not excited by more of the same, generic stuff.
Chairman Aeon wrote: And in order to do that you need a smaller, more accessible game with less generic armies appealing to more people. No revision to the current rules can do that.
I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. Fantasy died overnight when the rules became too random to be played competitively. Overnight. I could give you the date if you want. It has nothing to do with the factions being generic. In fact, that is its strength. Even today it is far, far easier for a new garage company to survive by giving us the n-th iteration of a Dwarf, Elf or Zombie, than by trying to sell something strange and unfamiliar. If GW tries to sell us weird new armies using the same unplayable rules, it will sell the same or worse as Fantasy does now, at a colossal waste of development resources.
Since when were the rules for 8th edition bad? You are quite off. 8th is a solid ruleset that may need to tweeking but no major overhaul at all
namiel wrote: Since when were the rules for 8th edition bad?
Since the day of release. You could tell because most of the competitive player base got up and walked away. Doesn't matter one bit what you think of the system. That's what happened.
Doubling the number of models needed for a functional unit while halving the number of models per box didn't really help, either.
In a rational company, Fantasy would have been put out of its misery years (decades) ago. Fantasy is a profit-eating white elephant that basically drives no benefit for GW aside from its longevity of 8 editions.
Do you actually have any data to back up any of those assumptions?
WHFB has been popular around this area from the mid 90's through to about 2010 when 8th edition came out.
You can go look at GW Fantasy sales rank for the past 20 years. 40k3 eclipsed Fantasy to the point that it has been repeatedly stated by GW insiders that Space Marines alone have outsold all Fantasy combined for a very long time.
The anecdote of your little town matters not at all when we look at global trends.
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Chairman Aeon wrote: All through out I've made a huge assumption, Warhammer Fantasy is dying. There are anecdotes, financial reports, and anecdotes of financial reports all about Fantasy slimming away. This radical path that GW is now pursuing literally screams "End Times" for WHFB. The question really is, how can the current GW keep its current players, bring in new ones and create a buzz for a game that was old when 40K stumbled into the spotlight and propelled GW into the 800b gorilla it was until recently?
Iain.
People do realize that 8E and ET armies will be valid for the duration of 9E, right? That GW is radically changing the background, but the armies and models are still playable, right? That everything should still play together.
Or is there some super-secret army of GW gnomes that are going to sneak into people's homes and take away their stuff? Is that what's happening?
Obviously most of the armies unit entries will be different, and possibly require re basing, if certain rumors are to believed. Considering they are now " streamlining " the armies to 6, it does feel that the factions are getting short changed.
Fine Space Marines sell I'm not disputing that, FwHH sold so well that's basically all they do now, okay fine.
GW is a company and it wants to make money, yes okay also fine.
However as we saw with companies such as Cadbury ditching the Wispa then being pestered to bring it back.
I can see GW being pestered but doing nothing. They've given SoB nothing but lip service for a long time, they removed every avenue save strictly controlled events of customer / company interaction.
They've shown that they do not give a heck about customer loyalty since about 1998? ( I'm not sure when the skulls promotion was now)
Look I loved this company I truly honestly did, I even got some stuff Published in the old Citadel Magazine, and did some other work with them. They were never very receptive to feedback honestly but at least you could interact with them.
Mantic is honestly trying too ride the coat tails of peoples frustration, I had 2 Complimentary figures from them, and they were just awful, I'm sorry but they were, I gave gave them away as soon as I saw them. The rules are all right but Its not something that makes me do cartwheels.
Now I love KD and hope that Nico gets a new re release.
Now in my mind there is space for a mass battle fantasy game if a company can pull it off however you need good sculpts and reasonable prices with a flexible yet evolving rule system. Gw is just throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I've play tested most big companies games and they all have flaws and exploits. That's why I hope somebody like Corvus Belli who are awesome guys consider taking this niche because honestly if they don't then its just Mantic left and that's really really sad.
If I wasn't so heavily involved in rpg games at this moment my focus would be on this.
This is said with all due respect to everybody your all great guys here and I'm glad this is so civil.
Kanluwen wrote: OH NO! The competitive player base walked away?!
Good riddance.
Yeah those nasty competitve players can you show me on the troll where they facerolled you?
Srsly get over yourself because it's obvious the casuals/fluff bunnies did not spend enough to keep fantasy alive and as a whole don't spend enough to support a game.
Kanluwen wrote: OH NO! The competitive player base walked away?!
Good riddance.
Competitive players and casual players want the same thing, Kan. Both want a clearly written, balanced ruleset that allow interesting choices to be made, because the ruleset that allows a casual player to understand the rules and build an effective army around whichever theme tickles their fancy is also a ruleset that allows a competitive player to avoid rules arguments and build a top tier army that suits their playstyle.
Kanluwen wrote: OH NO! The competitive player base walked away?!
Good riddance.
Competitive players and casual players want the same thing, Kan. Both want a clearly written, balanced ruleset that allow interesting choices to be made, because the ruleset that allows a casual player to understand the rules and build an effective army around whichever theme tickles their fancy is also a ruleset that allows a competitive player to avoid rules arguments and build a top tier army that suits their playstyle.
Absolutely true; but to suggest that the yardstick of the rules being bad is "because most of the competitive player base got up and walked away" is ridiculous.
I mean, more than usual for your hyperbolic one-liner binary statements...
Yeah, you're right.
But at the same time, the people that I see who identify themselves as "competitive players" are not really the kinds of people who make tabletop gaming fun.
Kanluwen wrote: OH NO! The competitive player base walked away?!
Good riddance.
And that's obviously a poorly thought through sentiment. You may not be a competetive player, you may not like competetive players but they are the best indicator for the state of a game. If you have competetive players that means the game is ballanced. These "power games" would no play it, if one or two factions would be overpowered. There's a lot of theorycraft and mathhammer going into this, so if it does not add up, people don't play it competetively.
I'm neither a comp player nor a fantasy player for that matter, but if what blackfang said is true and the competetive part just packed their bags and went to the greener lands over yonder, that means the rules are crap, easy as that.
I mean, more than usual for your hyperbolic one-liner binary statements...
Yeah, you're right.
But at the same time, the people that I see who identify themselves as "competitive players" are not really the kinds of people who make tabletop gaming fun.
You really are terrible for coming out with those one-liners and them reading badly. Sorry mate but you really must spend a lot of time tasting your own shoe.
I understand what I think is the intention behind it, that you don't like aggressive tournament players. That's fine, I don't either. I will tell you that every tournament I've been to, as a fluffy player, I've met far far more decent human beings than douche canoes, but I understand where you were coming from even if I don't agree, because for every socially inept mouthbreathing suckarse who is 'positive the truth can injure'... there are a thousand average blokes and blokettes who enjoy the social aspect of tourney play, and we as a wider hobby really need to drop the labeling and encampment about the us and them of event play as much as the instant labeling of fanboi vs hater.
I also think the point that was being made before you insta-dismissed it as 'great news', was that competitive players served in this instance as canaries in the mine, they left WHFB in droves and now the game is teetering on an abyss so absolute that it's parent company is staging THE in-game apocalypse.
There is no 'good riddance' in this instance, it's 'oh god, more people stopped playing this game'...
Necros wrote:So, Kings of War .. I'm assuming all the WFB armies are in KOW? Will my lizardmen and night goblin armies work in KOW? Will I get to use my skink bowmen again?
KoW isn't even my first fantasy battle game of choice. Although it's fairly solid and I don't like when it's basic mass-battle principles are sneered at in favour of Bloathammer. Button-pusher.
Anyways. It's at this point I trot out my obligatory 'Have a look at Mayhem or Legions of Battle too' bit. KoW has a lot of well-made fanlists (Matt Gilbert's 'ratmen' list got me very interested for a while) but those other games have fairly nifty rules for building up a unit from basic stats and general weapon and trait rules. In Mayhem I'd maybe give skink archers D8 movement (quicker than humans, which I'd give D6), D20 Combat Quality (bad rating, with the understanding that they're diminutive archers not sticking around for close-up brawls), D12 Ballistic Armour Rating (very basic protection), Short Bow, maybe Disciplined to represent Cold Blooded to some degree - 17 crowns per unit. 18 with the skirmisher trait, for giggles.
Not really, GW's latest attempts to target the board game market have tanked even more spectacularly than 8th ed WHFB! See Deadfleet for reference.
I continue to argue that since every single one of their old rules writers left, GW currently lacks the skill and talent needed to create a tactically engaging game that is outside their "randomize everything" method of rules writing.
Bit of a typo there, but an appropriate one.
Also: yes.
Prestor Jon wrote:I think one of the biggest issues with the decline of WHFB was that GW set themselves up for an inevitable fall in profits if not also with players, although that happened too apparently. The whole line just got too bloated. Too many armies, too many rules, too many minis etc. If the intent by GW was to always make a new edition ever 5 years or so then they never should have expanded the range the way they did. It's a logistical nightmare to have 10 army factions that each have to be updated every time a new edition gets released and to pile on expectations that each army update will include a new book, new units, new rules for the new units, updated rules for existing units, new sculpts of existing units and continued support for everything that from previous editions is even more masochist and crazy.
Oh yes.
AlexHolker wrote:
Chairman Aeon wrote: LotR is coming to an end for GW, unless Peter Jackson intends to make a series of movies of the rest of the Silmarillion. (F#*k, shouldn't have put that idea out there!)
That's never going to happen unless the plan includes making Christopher Tolkien have "an unfortunate accident".
I'm off to build Chris Tolkien a golden throne right now.
JohnHwangDD wrote:Generic Fantasy is dead. I haven't bought any WFB in years.
What were you saying about what happens in your own little town?
Anyways, what I said to Wonderwolf. Mantic's weird design choices and flubs are not the fault of generic fantasy, and arguably diverging from it to some degree. (flat-headed heater-shield dwarfs are just... wrong) I've said I was disappointed with the minis, and 100 minis for $100 didn't tempt me even a little. I wouldn't have minded, for some good ol' generic fantasy mass battle gaming, but I just don't want the designs, no matter how cheap. I don't know if that was the mindset of anyone else who didn't go for it (let's go and ask an Uzbekistanian sheepherder) but I'll say it was some kind of factor.
And again, >10x their KS target. No, not as impressive as others, but not to be sniffed at. Hardly the death of generic fantasy.
Whereas Kingdom Death and Cthulhu Wars are arguably two of the kind of gamer/collector crossover that GW claims it is. Very exquisitely sculpted, desirable models, with many of a size that would sit on a collector or painter's shelf much more impressively than a 28mm plastic dwarf. (I saw some of the actual Cthulhu Wars sculpts at Salute, a couple of years ago, and they were POW. If I ever want a Cthulhu mini for a game I know where to look.)
Not to mention the slightly pertinent fact that both KD: Monster and CW seem pretty squarely aimed at the boardgame market too. (Got it this time, Baragash!) Moreso than at wargamers or collectors. If Mantic's own generic fantasy/sci-fi boardgames with their own minis outsell KoW, I don't doubt that the hype machine around these other two will do the same.
I, for one, am not excited by more of the same, generic stuff.
I, for one, want even more generic fantasy. (a greater degree, rather than greater quantity) In the last few years I've been gaming the Dark Ages, looking at the DA-themed Middle-Earth illustrations by Ted Nasmith and Victor Ambrus, looking at other gamers' converted DA Gondorians, looking at the goofy cartooniness running through a lot of newer fantasy lines... Now I want a line of very mundane-looking Norman elves and Vendel dwarfs. Only, looking good.
That's one side of the coin, IMO. Part of the problem between GW and Mantic that I've mentioned before: price vs. quality, and never the twain shall meet. I swear it's like watching an episode of The Apprentice where all these puffed-up know-it-alls have a surefire way of making a truly fantastic product and making scads of money off it, but you can see them making a ballsup of it as soon as they start, and no matter how many times you shout "No! No! Don't do that! Can you hear yourself?" at the screen, in the end they're showing off some cringeworthy thing like razorblade-flavoured yoghurt (with extra bits!) or clear perspex curtains. And maybe I've got the luxury of sitting on my arse at home to pontificate through the screen, but it just seems so easy to fix, it's painful.
I'm not saying everything produced in white metal or styrene has to replicate the painstaking sculpting and wooshy designs of Kingdom Death; but if you have a pretty good line of basic models for the purposes of selling loads for mass battles, don't charge an arm and a leg for them. If you have a nice, low-priced line of basic models for the purposes of selling loads for mass battles, don't think any old kind of '80's-'90's shonk will do just fine. Don't charge £3.50 for one plastic witch elf, and don't sign off on drakon riders and melty goblins. Simples.
Historical plastics seem to pull it off pretty well, for the most part. Especially anything from the Perrys. If I could get 100 of their HYW minis for $100, I'd go for it... but they sell for cheaper than that anyway. Why does it seem so difficult to do for fantasy?
Kanluwen wrote:OH NO! The competitive player base walked away?!
WHFB might still end up as generic fantasy, since steampunk with a hint of cthulu is the new generic fantasy. Am I the only one who is getting bored by all the new games (a lot of them kickstarted) who proclaims that they have a new and unique setting while still sporting the same old goggles and brass machinery.
In a rational company, Fantasy would have been put out of its misery years (decades) ago. Fantasy is a profit-eating white elephant that basically drives no benefit for GW aside from its longevity of 8 editions.
Do you actually have any data to back up any of those assumptions?
WHFB has been popular around this area from the mid 90's through to about 2010 when 8th edition came out.
You can go look at GW Fantasy sales rank for the past 20 years. 40k3 eclipsed Fantasy to the point that it has been repeatedly stated by GW insiders that Space Marines alone have outsold all Fantasy combined for a very long time.
The anecdote of your little town matters not at all when we look at global trends.
I'm not aware of any global data that tracks sales or popularity of games, let alone the profitability of different games, got any links?
What I have seen is from GW's data they released with the chapterhouse case is that WHFB was around a third the sales of 40k in the days of 7th edition. It's not really possible to make such wide statements as "it's profit eating". If they dropped fantasy, I doubt their expenses would drop by a quarter to account for the loss and I reckon it'd be a big task to try and invent a new product that can fill such a large deficit.
WHFB doesn't need to be 50/50 with 40k for it to be worth keeping. It just needs to be making more than it costs to maintain it, it doesn't need a new release every month, it doesn't need big shake ups, it doesn't even need the full range to be kept in each and every store. Support it with tournaments, advertising, events. GW's biggest expenses aren't maintaining games, it's maintaining the infrastructure to sell games, if they drop fantasy I'd suggest their expenses would barely even shift.
And the "space marines are bigger than fantasy" argument is a bit shallow, space marines are bigger than the rest of 40k combined as well, but I doubt anyone would suggest GW drop all products that aren't space marines.
jorny wrote: WHFB might still end up as generic fantasy, since steampunk with a hint of cthulu is the new generic fantasy. Am I the only one who is getting bored by all the new games (a lot of them kickstarted) who proclaims that they have a new and unique setting while still sporting the same old goggles and brass machinery.
Steampunk is so 2004.
Ha! Good point.
My own, personal setting what I've been adding to lately, is new and unique. It's just populated by same-old mail-clad elves and Sutton Hoo dwarfs.
JohnHwangDD wrote: I have yet to see any requirement for people to have to re-base the models they already have.
I imagine it will end just like the 32mm 40k uproar. GW just wanted the minis to look cool so used different bases...
I imagine it will be like the 40mm Terminator bases and round Bike bases - models may always use the bases that were (originally) supplied with the model. My Terminators are still on 25mm bases, and anyone who doesn't like that can go pound sand. And don't forget that WFB is 100s of models, not handsfuls of Bikes / Temies. No chance that GW will require wholesale rebasing.
namiel wrote: Since when were the rules for 8th edition bad?
Since the day of release. You could tell because most of the competitive player base got up and walked away. Doesn't matter one bit what you think of the system. That's what happened.
Doubling the number of models needed for a functional unit while halving the number of models per box didn't really help, either.
The 7th edition competitive players were all Daemon and HE power players who were abusing the game system to have 25+ power dice.
They weren't competitive, they were abusing rules that were actually the problem with 7th edition.
8th edition may not be perfect, but its a much more fair system than 7th was. It gave everyone, after some army book updates, some parity.
Needing to buy more stuff is always lame, but its worth it to have a better game.
JohnHwangDD wrote: I have yet to see any requirement for people to have to re-base the models they already have.
I imagine it will end just like the 32mm 40k uproar. GW just wanted the minis to look cool so used different bases...
It is possible. But I remember having to replace weapons on figures before.
I don't remember this at all. I remember "count as" in 3E, and people swapping weapons for better effectiveness, but I don't require GW saying modeled weapons could not be used in some way.
Kanluwen wrote: OH NO! The competitive player base walked away?!
Good riddance.
And do you wonder why Fantasy died? Think about it for a while and get back to us.
Increased buy-in price, increased unit size, poor reception among the player base, lack of a player base to begin with in some areas...
There are a lot of possibilities that aren't "Because the competitive players went away".
Also, as an edit note:
I don't consider people who play solely in tournaments to be "competitive players". I consider competitive players to be the individuals who no matter the kind of game feel it necessary to bring the most powerful list possible and actively try to dissuade players from taking certain units because "they're not points efficient".
Vermis wrote: Don't charge £3.50 for one plastic witch elf, and don't sign off on drakon riders and melty goblins. Simples.
I understand what you mean, and I have something for you. Here:
Spoiler:
I hope you're feeling better now
This is something we've actually discussed in the past I think. My mind if still the same... Mantic's whole product line is mostly hit/miss. Their fantasy undead range is mostly good, the dwarves are so-so (I don't mind the heater shields, but mostly because I wanted to convert them into chaos dwarfs and my chaos dwarfs either have big heater shields or small round shields), the elves look bad and some specific things - drakon riders! - seem to be the product of a ridiculous concept design. Then you have the warpath range, which mostly looks pretty decent - although prices there tend to be more expensive as well.
In any case I agree the whole fantasy miniatures market seems overpriced if you start comparing it with historicals. It's not just the Perrys, plastic 28mm historical infantry is always (or almost always) under the 1€/mini price. I just don't see why the fantasy manufacturers truly need to charge more for products that many times just don't deserve it.
GW are obviously an special case. The case of a dominant and powerful company, which once had the potential to completely dominate their market, but have allowed and encouraged competition by progressively pricing themselves out of their own market while alienating their own player base. It's got to a point where their pricing strategy seems to be purely "charge as much as we can get away with". If you have a game like WHFB, where most infantry squads need to have at least 20 models to be a viable option, and try to charge 40€ (or more) for 10 plastic infantry minis, the only reasonable outcome is people not buying it (there will always be someone buying it, always, but that's for another debate).
The whole "dimensional bubbles wars" looks like the most stupid way possible to revamp well stablished fluff across 8 editions and around 30 years, but if you think about it, considering what GW has been doing in the last 10 years, it would be fitting to a degree.
Hive City Dweller wrote: Not sure if this was posted/mentioned (apologies if it was) but this picture from today's post on GW site shows dwarf fighting in ranks with Ogres.
Wonder if it means anything for the future of both factions or if its merely an artistic concept. Have to say the ogres seem to fit in nicely with the little guys; almost an Age of Mythology like esthetic.
What do you guys make of this?
If my Ogres could fight with stunties, i'd be all over that.
... come to think of it... weren't half the Ogres marching west towards the Empire ? That'd take them through Dwarf lands wouldn't it ?
Hive City Dweller wrote: Not sure if this was posted/mentioned (apologies if it was) but this picture from today's post on GW site shows dwarf fighting in ranks with Ogres.
Wonder if it means anything for the future of both factions or if its merely an artistic concept. Have to say the ogres seem to fit in nicely with the little guys; almost an Age of Mythology like esthetic.
What do you guys make of this?
If my Ogres could fight with stunties, i'd be all over that.
... come to think of it... weren't half the Ogres marching west towards the Empire ? That'd take them through Dwarf lands wouldn't it ?
I think all of the ogres are migrating out of the mountians of mourn through the badlands into dwarf lands
Wow, I'm pretty stunned. Not disappointed or angry, but this is definitely a big change. Time will tell, I guess, but the economic and game-play arguments are pretty strong to my mind.
Wow, that pic is epic, but I have no idea how it will work with the square bases! Still, I'm intrigued, as this would make it easy to construct a chaos dwarf army from standard rules. I'll be watching
JohnHwangDD wrote:Generic Fantasy is dead. I haven't bought any WFB in years.
What were you saying about what happens in your own little town?
Whereas Kingdom Death and Cthulhu Wars are arguably two of the kind of gamer/collector crossover that GW claims it is. Very exquisitely sculpted, desirable models, with many of a size that would sit on a collector or painter's shelf much more impressively than a 28mm plastic dwarf.
both KD: Monster and CW seem pretty squarely aimed at the boardgame market too.
I, for one, am not excited by more of the same, generic stuff.
I, for one, want even more generic fantasy.
That's one side of the coin, IMO. Part of the problem between GW and Mantic that I've mentioned before: price vs. quality, and never the twain shall meet.
I'm not saying everything produced in white metal or styrene has to replicate the painstaking sculpting and wooshy designs of Kingdom Death;
Historical plastics seem to pull it off pretty well, for the most part. Especially anything from the Perrys. If I could get 100 of their HYW minis for $100, I'd go for it... but they sell for cheaper than that anyway. Why does it seem so difficult to do for fantasy?
My personal note is simply as reference for those who might care to what extent I put (or don't put) my money where my mouth is.
My sense is that the new Nagash and Thankyouall are large and impressive, comparable to the CW stuff, though I'm doubtful that they will match the KD:M Dragon King or Spidicules. I suspect that some portion of those models are being purchased for paining purposes, only.
Many people backed KD:M and CW for the models, not the game. I personally backed KD:M on the strength of the models (because the KD gameplay isn't yet complete), and my friend backed CW for DnD minis.
I wish you luck in finding the "right" generic fantasy stuff.
I hate the look of Mantic fantasy, refuse to back any of it; their Dreadball stuff looks very fair for the price, as 3-D board game tokens might go.
GW's stuff is actually pretty intricate now, has been progressively moving this direction for years. They're really getting their Grimdark(tm) style down.
My Dogs of War (& ex-Empire) have lots of pseudo-historical models, purchased way back when, but I don't follow that scene at all. I'll dabble in Flames of War, later.
All good!
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AllSeeingSkink wrote:
JohnHwangDD wrote: You can go look at GW Fantasy sales rank for the past 20 years. 40k3 eclipsed Fantasy to the point that it has been repeatedly stated by GW insiders that Space Marines alone have outsold all Fantasy combined for a very long time.
The anecdote of your little town matters not at all when we look at global trends.
I'm not aware of any global data that tracks sales or popularity of games, let alone the profitability of different games, got any links?
What I have seen is from GW's data they released with the chapterhouse case is that WHFB was around a third the sales of 40k in the days of 7th edition. It's not really possible to make such wide statements as "it's profit eating". If they dropped fantasy, I doubt their expenses would drop by a quarter to account for the loss and I reckon it'd be a big task to try and invent a new product that can fill such a large deficit.
WHFB doesn't need to be 50/50 with 40k for it to be worth keeping. It just needs to be making more than it costs to maintain it,
And the "space marines are bigger than fantasy" argument is a bit shallow, space marines are bigger than the rest of 40k combined as well, but I doubt anyone would suggest GW drop all products that aren't space marines.
Right now, WFB is just as broad as 40k, so it has the same effective cost structure of armies to support, but 1/3 the revenue. There is no question that WFB is definitely eating a disproportionate share of GW profits and preventing GW from properly re-investing back into 40k or other activities.
I would not be surprised if Fantasy's cost share (say 30-40%) was 2x it's revenue share (15-20%). In such a scenario, a GW that drops Fantasy to retain 80-85% of its revenue at 60-70% of its cost is a far more profitable and healthy company.
Space Marines play with the other 40k stuff, but look at Forgeworld - hasn't SM-centric 30k HH been pretty much their entire focus lately?
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What I have seen is from GW's data they released with the chapterhouse case is that WHFB was around a third the sales of 40k in the days of 7th edition. It's not really possible to make such wide statements as "it's profit eating". If they dropped fantasy, I doubt their expenses would drop by a quarter to account for the loss and I reckon it'd be a big task to try and invent a new product that can fill such a large deficit.
WHFB doesn't need to be 50/50 with 40k for it to be worth keeping. It just needs to be making more than it costs to maintain it,
And the "space marines are bigger than fantasy" argument is a bit shallow, space marines are bigger than the rest of 40k combined as well, but I doubt anyone would suggest GW drop all products that aren't space marines.
Right now, WFB is just as broad as 40k, so it has the same effective cost structure of armies to support, but 1/3 the revenue. There is no question that WFB is definitely eating a disproportionate share of GW profits and preventing GW from properly re-investing back into 40k or other activities.
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The problem seems to be that since those 33% days (7th), the proportion of sales has dropped to 8% (8th). Other than cutting costs for gw, i don't see how bubblehammer is actually going to bring in more sales for fantasy.
lord_blackfang wrote: I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. Fantasy died overnight when the rules became too random to be played competitively. Overnight. I could give you the date if you want.
I'd love to hear your date, it would have to be before 1987, since the game was a mess when Rogue Trader came out. Having being hooked on Space Marines, Space Elves and Space Orks, no one in my small village by the sea could make heads or tails of 3rd edition WFB. Complete disaster. Oh ya, 40K wasn't playable competitively, but sold gangbusters because...
lord_blackfang wrote: It has nothing to do with the factions being generic. In fact, that is its strength. Even today it is far, far easier for a new garage company to survive by giving us the n-th iteration of a Dwarf, Elf or Zombie, than by trying to sell something strange and unfamiliar. If GW tries to sell us weird new armies using the same unplayable rules, it will sell the same or worse as Fantasy does now, at a colossal waste of development resources.
There wasn't a single game on the market like Rogue Trader. I know all you youngness take that for granted, but even Shadowrun was two years away from arming elves and orcs with automatic rifles. But that's not what I meant. The more generic a Tolkien/D&D base the easier it is to allow third parties to eat your lunch. There is a bit of irony that at one time Warhammer had its own flavour before Blizzard and others stole the Warhammer look and feel.
lord_blackfang wrote: If GW tries to sell us weird new armies using the same unplayable rules, it will sell the same or worse as Fantasy does now, at a colossal waste of development resources.
And this is where my business degree points you to the fact that if GW sells at the same levels they do now, but severely reduces their costs (production, inventory, logistics) then they might actually make some money from fantasy... or a whole lot more. But I don't think their goal is to sell as much WFB as Privateer does Warmachine. I think GW wants WFB to be a close second to 40K and is betting the farm to build a new base for that game. They might actually be taking the long view for once. After all, if one army in 40K sells more than all of WFB, they really don't have much to lose no matter how conservative or radical they want to go.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Right now, WFB is just as broad as 40k, so it has the same effective cost structure of armies to support, but 1/3 the revenue. There is no question that WFB is definitely eating a disproportionate share of GW profits and preventing GW from properly re-investing back into 40k or other activities.
What do you mean "just as broad"?
I would not be surprised if Fantasy's cost share (say 30-40%) was 2x it's revenue share (15-20%). In such a scenario, a GW that drops Fantasy to retain 80-85% of its revenue at 60-70% of its cost is a far more profitable and healthy company.
You really believe those figures are in the ball park? I'd say not a chance in hell.
Our best estimates are the stores alone consume 50-60% of expenditure, that cost isn't going to change much with WHFB going away unless you start closing stores (you might argue that you could have smaller stores, I don't think it would be a large difference though). So then of the remaining 40-50% of costs, how much would it be reduced, you have shipping (remembering that the cost of shipping tends to decrease the more you send), staff (aside from those working in the stores themselves as that's in our 50-60% above, so everyone in control of distribution, management, liaison and supply to independents, etc) warehousing (which typically won't halve even if you halve the volume), casting (would only decrease by the same % as revenue decreases) and anything else I have forgotten. The only bit that would actually come close to halving is paying sculptors, artists, writers and so on which I really don't think take a large slab out of the remaining 40-50% of costs.
I think it's being generous to say WHFB would cost 25% of the remaining costs, so the total cost would be in the 10-12.5% range.
So if WHFB was in the 25% of revenue range like it was in 7th, or even if we call it 15-25%, dropping WHFB altogether would put GW somewhere between almost breaking even and losing enough profit to be in the red.
Space Marines play with the other 40k stuff, but look at Forgeworld - hasn't SM-centric 30k HH been pretty much their entire focus lately?
I imagine the FW stuff is barely a blip on GW's overall radar, but either way that wasn't my point, just because something isn't an equal share of revenue doesn't mean it should be dropped unless the cost of keeping it is more than the cost of continuing it, I don't think WHFB is there yet, or if it is I think 8th edition is to blame and it was probably in the black before that.
40k is still the big boy in global wargaming (maybe excluding historicals, I have no idea how popular they are globally). To have a game that is 1/3 of the biggest game out there is hardly something to snub, you certainly wouldn't drop it thinking you can instantly create another golden egg laying goose like 40k or LOTR. Not even GW are that stupid, they are trying to transform it instead (which is still stupid depending on how much they change it, but certainly less stupid than killing it entirely ).
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Torga_DW wrote: The problem seems to be that since those 33% days (7th), the proportion of sales has dropped to 8% (8th). Other than cutting costs for gw, i don't see how bubblehammer is actually going to bring in more sales for fantasy.
If that's true then it's a shame, though I'm sure part of it would come from the fact 4 out of 5 releases** have been 40k instead of WHFB (prior to the end times). If you don't put any effort at all in to selling something then it will tend to not sell all that well, but the costs associated with it will also drop.
I guess my numbers were more for the 7th ed days. Maybe by now 8th ed revenue has dropped further but I'd suggest the associated costs have also fallen.
**I totally just guessed 4 out of 5, lol, I can't be bothered adding them up, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
More on the end of Warhammer during this interview with Gav Thorpe:
Very unlikely. After I finished Grudgebearer I did intend to write more books on some of the other characters – the mad engineer, for example, but the The Sundering came along and filled up my time. With the End Times upon us, I genuinely don’t know yet what kind of Warhammer novels Black Library will be looking for in the future.
Graham McNeill apparently also stated that he has written his last Warhammer novel ever, which will be about the last stand of Kislev.
Does SpaceHulk count as a board game? People seem to like it, at least it sells well from what I hear. I've only played the version of SpaceHulk that came on 3.5" disks with a D-Rok soundtrack so I have no experience with the board game version.
Yes, Space Hulk counts as a board game and a pretty good one at that.
It is also a re-release of a 20+ year old game that the current crop of "developers" at GW had absolutely nothing to do with.
Does SpaceHulk count as a board game? People seem to like it, at least it sells well from what I hear. I've only played the version of SpaceHulk that came on 3.5" disks with a D-Rok soundtrack so I have no experience with the board game version.
Yes, Space Hulk counts as a board game and a pretty good one at that.
It is also a re-release of a 20+ year old game that the current crop of "developers" at GW had absolutely nothing to do with.
In fairness, the current space hulk is a rerelease of third edition, which is much different from the 20 year old original release.
Does SpaceHulk count as a board game? People seem to like it, at least it sells well from what I hear. I've only played the version of SpaceHulk that came on 3.5" disks with a D-Rok soundtrack so I have no experience with the board game version.
Yes, Space Hulk counts as a board game and a pretty good one at that.
It is also a re-release of a 20+ year old game that the current crop of "developers" at GW had absolutely nothing to do with.
In fairness, the current space hulk is a rerelease of third edition, which is much different from the 20 year old original release.
I haven't played 1st edition but I've been told 1st is very similar to 3rd which is the same as 4th minus a few missions and tiles, 2nd edition being the odd one out (which was 1996). Frankly I don't think 2nd is all that different either.
Over a 25 year span it doesn't seem like Space Hulk has changed in any considerable way.
Does SpaceHulk count as a board game? People seem to like it, at least it sells well from what I hear. I've only played the version of SpaceHulk that came on 3.5" disks with a D-Rok soundtrack so I have no experience with the board game version.
Yes, Space Hulk counts as a board game and a pretty good one at that.
It is also a re-release of a 20+ year old game that the current crop of "developers" at GW had absolutely nothing to do with.
In fairness, the current space hulk is a rerelease of third edition, which is much different from the 20 year old original release.
From what I've heard the 3rd edition is nothing more than a copy of the first one, but with slight updates to fit the contemporary 40k universe. The "4th" edition, is basically the third, but with some extra floor pieces.
Lockark wrote: @Vermis: My feelings about kings of war seem to be alot like yours. I would be more interested if every other sculpt wasn't so bad.
I've never understood this sentiment. Like GW models? Play KoW using those. Unlike GW, Mantic's official stance is "please enjoy using whatever models you like, even at a competitive level".
KoW is an amazing ruleset (about to get even better), that gives the WHFB minis you own a wonderful second life, IF WHFB really does morph into something unrecognizable.
Does SpaceHulk count as a board game? People seem to like it, at least it sells well from what I hear. I've only played the version of SpaceHulk that came on 3.5" disks with a D-Rok soundtrack so I have no experience with the board game version.
Yes, Space Hulk counts as a board game and a pretty good one at that.
It is also a re-release of a 20+ year old game that the current crop of "developers" at GW had absolutely nothing to do with.
Debatable since one of the Old Guard still runs the design studio.
Does SpaceHulk count as a board game? People seem to like it, at least it sells well from what I hear. I've only played the version of SpaceHulk that came on 3.5" disks with a D-Rok soundtrack so I have no experience with the board game version.
Yes, Space Hulk counts as a board game and a pretty good one at that.
It is also a re-release of a 20+ year old game that the current crop of "developers" at GW had absolutely nothing to do with.
Debatable since one of the Old Guard still runs the design studio.
He must be the one responsible for the attitude of "take everything that was good before and make it suck."
Lockark wrote: @Vermis: My feelings about kings of war seem to be alot like yours. I would be more interested if every other sculpt wasn't so bad.
I've never understood this sentiment. Like GW models? Play KoW using those. Unlike GW, Mantic's official stance is "please enjoy using whatever models you like, even at a competitive level".
KoW is an amazing ruleset (about to get even better), that gives the WHFB minis you own a wonderful second life, IF WHFB really does morph into something unrecognizable.
This is exactly what happened with me. I started playing Warhammer Fantasy in 4th edition. 6th edition was my favorite period - though 7th edition had better base rules (codex creep, however, ruined any balance... 7th ed rules w/ 6th ed codices = best). 8th edition drove me away because it is an absolutely terrible ruleset and people who defend it are wrong. I believe fans of 8th literally have no other frame of reference for good rules design. Kings of War is nearly everything I want in a ruleset - fast, tactical, huge battles. Games with twice as many models as the largest WHFB6 battle are done in half the time without that weird Warhammer headache you'd get after a long game.
And I use whatever models I want. Gamezone Dark Elves, GW Empire, Red Box Games Helsvakt, Mierce monsters, etc.
Actually, my Kings of War armies look way better than Warhammer armies because I have been picking and choosing the models I want to use, so look infinitely better than pure Citadel armies.
I feel that people that say "I would be more interested if the models weren't bad" are just trying to be diplomatic about not wanting to play a new ruleset. Everyone knows Kings of War is a better game but there's some weird hypnosis that some players have where they don't want to try it because it's not stamped with the "Games Workshop" logo - despite being designed by someone who a few years before had been a GW employee. Alessio wrote Mordheim and Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game... am I missing something? Are those not nearly universally heralded as the greatest things GW ever did?
Lockark wrote: @Vermis: My feelings about kings of war seem to be alot like yours. I would be more interested if every other sculpt wasn't so bad.
I've never understood this sentiment. Like GW models? Play KoW using those. Unlike GW, Mantic's official stance is "please enjoy using whatever models you like, even at a competitive level".
KoW is an amazing ruleset (about to get even better), that gives the WHFB minis you own a wonderful second life, IF WHFB really does morph into something unrecognizable.
Because I need people to play kings of war with, and the bad models makes people think it's a bad rule set. Sadly unlike my Friday knights I can't play with myself.
As much as people praise Mantic, I don't think their policy of "please enjoy using whatever models you like" is a choice but rather a necessity. They're not the big dog or the 800lb gorilla in any of the genres that they service (other than maybe futuristic sports combat games... mainly because they're the only choice). The key will be if Mantic ever does become a market leader in the hobby for a major genre with a full and diverse line of figs whether they enforce an "our models only" rule. That isn't a dig on mantic but rather reality since when companies get to that position they traditionally do enforce that type of rule (see FOW). They've traditionally been running on the "alternative to GW" ticket and the refugee crowd they've catered to won't generally stand for another evil Nottingham overlord so soon.
Lockark wrote: @Vermis: My feelings about kings of war seem to be alot like yours. I would be more interested if every other sculpt wasn't so bad.
I've never understood this sentiment. Like GW models? Play KoW using those. Unlike GW, Mantic's official stance is "please enjoy using whatever models you like, even at a competitive level".
KoW is an amazing ruleset (about to get even better), that gives the WHFB minis you own a wonderful second life, IF WHFB really does morph into something unrecognizable.
Because I need people to play kings of war with, and the bad models makes people think it's a bad rule set. Sadly unlike my Friday knights I can't play with myself.
There are exceptions - and it might help if those exceptions got more exposure.
Ogres - good minis, and they aren't marching in lock step with the GW designs for ogres.
Undead - There are a fair number of folks in my area that play Kings of War with GW figures, but there are also a fair number of people that play WHFB with Mantic Undead.... Possibly the best looking army in their line.
Orcs - I know folks that use Mantic Orcs for running a Lord of the Rings game using Kings of War....
Personally... I have to admit that I like the much maligned Dwarfs and Elves by Mantic. Dwarfs are my main army in Kings of War, and my army is shared with my girlfriend.
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Back on Topic:
I rather expect that the rumors about resizing bases is false - or at least being exaggerated. We will see a few things on round bases, but mostly the old bases will be kept.
I first read the first edition WHFB - but first played the second edition. (The first game that I played was The Tragedy of McDeath - which was a hoot and a holler.)
I... have not been happy with what GW is doing with the setting since 4th edition. (Back when Karl Franz was a weakling placed on the throne because the Elector Counts felt that they could manipulate him. Not a super hero mounted on a gigantic griffon....)
But 8th was the first edition that I have skipped entirely - and that was because of the rules, not because of changes to the setting. The randomization of so many, many things.... Randomization favors the less tactically minded - the best plans can be hosed by random charge distances.
More than anything else, this is what led to my area switching to Kings of War (mostly using GW miniatures).
I do not think that this new post-End-Times edition is going to fix the problems - I have no confidence in the current crop of game designers that GW employs.
I am also less than optimistic about the current crop of miniatures designers - I really do not like a lot of the most recent miniatures - from the treeman to Nagash. (Alright... much as I dislike the current Nagash... he is a huge improvement to the metal Muppet of Doom that was the original....)
I think that GW needs somebody with a clue club, to whack them upside the head when they decide that an eagle with a trailer hitch is a good idea....
JohnHwangDD wrote: I have yet to see any requirement for people to have to re-base the models they already have.
I imagine it will end just like the 32mm 40k uproar. GW just wanted the minis to look cool so used different bases...
It is possible. But I remember having to replace weapons on figures before.
Yeah, every edition and every codex change, some weapons change. Clipping off some power fists and adding power weapons is different than rebasing your whole army.
JohnHwangDD wrote: I have yet to see any requirement for people to have to re-base the models they already have.
I imagine it will end just like the 32mm 40k uproar. GW just wanted the minis to look cool so used different bases...
It is possible. But I remember having to replace weapons on figures before.
Yeah, every edition and every codex change, some weapons change. Clipping off some power fists and adding power weapons is different than rebasing your whole army.
Beastmen Ungors would like to speak. ;_;
(I realize they're likely not someone's entire army, but they went 20mm -> 25mm -> 20mm I believe?)
Does SpaceHulk count as a board game? People seem to like it, at least it sells well from what I hear. I've only played the version of SpaceHulk that came on 3.5" disks with a D-Rok soundtrack so I have no experience with the board game version.
Yes, Space Hulk counts as a board game and a pretty good one at that.
It is also a re-release of a 20+ year old game that the current crop of "developers" at GW had absolutely nothing to do with.
Debatable since one of the Old Guard still runs the design studio.
He must be the one responsible for the attitude of "take everything that was good before and make it suck."
Every ruleset his name has been attached to does seem to love randomness.
NewTruthNeomaxim wrote: Like GW models? Play KoW using those. Unlike GW, Mantic's official stance is "please enjoy using whatever models you like, even at a competitive level".
If Mantic ever becomes successful, expect them to pull a BattleFront and push to get rid of competitor product (bulk PSC).
OK I haven't read all the thread but I just went to download Lizardmen FAQ and it's not on their website!
Is it secretly hidden in the stars or perhaps there are no mistakes or issues in the army book..that would be a first...is it logical to assume that the Lizards have no further place in this world and are indeed off to another spawning pool on another planet.
Any help would be appreciated if someone has a link to the FAQ's as they used to be
Cheers
I understand what you mean, and I have something for you. Here:
Spoiler:
I hope you're feeling better now
You git. I was expecting a pic of a nicely painted Pathfinder dragon.
In any case I agree the whole fantasy miniatures market seems overpriced if you start comparing it with historicals. It's not just the Perrys, plastic 28mm historical infantry is always (or almost always) under the 1€/mini price. I just don't see why the fantasy manufacturers truly need to charge more for products that many times just don't deserve it.
Agreed with what you say, though I can (partly) understand a bit of 'fantasy tax' on some plastic minis if 'heroic' scales*, poses and masses of bits reduces the number of actual bodies you can fit on a sprue... though that's certainly not to excuse GW's prices, just that I wouldn't mind stretching to €1/£1 per fantasy plastic, depending on what it was and how it looked.
*Although, I actually have a couple of Mantic elves beside me here, an old sample I got years ago. Even then I didn't realise how teeny they are. The details are pretty good and sharp too. I just wish they were... different details.
judgedoug wrote: I feel that people that say "I would be more interested if the models weren't bad" are just trying to be diplomatic about not wanting to play a new ruleset. Everyone knows Kings of War is a better game but there's some weird hypnosis that some players have where they don't want to try it because it's not stamped with the "Games Workshop" logo - despite being designed by someone who a few years before had been a GW employee. Alessio wrote Mordheim and Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game... am I missing something? Are those not nearly universally heralded as the greatest things GW ever did?
Cavatore was involved with MH, but Tuomas Pirinen gets the main credit. As per the credit page of MH...by Tuomas Pirinen with RP and AC.
Cavatore was a bit mixed as a designer, IMO. He was the guy pushing stripped-down, basic codicies in mid 4th edition 40K. That's why the CSM and CD codicies were such snooze-fests. If that was all in the name of balance, fine...but his track record on that was a little mixed too. Some of those codices had notable internal balance issues. And then you have his Skaven army book.
It's also completely asinine to suggest that anyone who hasn't embraced KoW is being stubborn or is somehow bamboozled. People like what they like, for their own valid reasons.
Lockark wrote: @Vermis: My feelings about kings of war seem to be alot like yours. I would be more interested if every other sculpt wasn't so bad.
I've never understood this sentiment. Like GW models? Play KoW using those. Unlike GW, Mantic's official stance is "please enjoy using whatever models you like, even at a competitive level".
Well that's what I've been moaning about! Mantic prices good, Mantic quality/designs hmm. GW quality/designs good (mostly), GW prices y'wha...!?!
Granted, I've pulled a fair amount of skaven, uruk-hai etc. off ebay, but sometimes it's not as easy as often made out. (Currently looking for and failing to find the last metal screaming bell among listfuls of plastic ones, which are currently looking for and failing to find a £100+ sale.) It'd be a lot easier if some people in Lenton woke up from their delusions of grandeur.
No worries about my ability to separate minis from rulesets, too...
KoW is an amazing ruleset (about to get even better), that gives the WHFB minis you own a wonderful second life, IF WHFB really does morph into something unrecognizable.
Mayhem isn't too bad either. (The writer's an Origins award nominee, y'know...)
Alessio was pushing for balance because IIRC he was the Italian Warhammer Grand Champion for a few years before he got hired by GW. So it's no surprise he wanted a solid set of rules that fostered competitive play.
This is exactly what happened with me. I started playing Warhammer Fantasy in 4th edition. 6th edition was my favorite period - though 7th edition had better base rules (codex creep, however, ruined any balance... 7th ed rules w/ 6th ed codices = best). 8th edition drove me away because it is an absolutely terrible ruleset and people who defend it are wrong. I believe fans of 8th literally have no other frame of reference for good rules design. Kings of War is nearly everything I want in a ruleset - fast, tactical, huge battles. Games with twice as many models as the largest WHFB6 battle are done in half the time without that weird Warhammer headache you'd get after a long game.
And I use whatever models I want. Gamezone Dark Elves, GW Empire, Red Box Games Helsvakt, Mierce monsters, etc.
Actually, my Kings of War armies look way better than Warhammer armies because I have been picking and choosing the models I want to use, so look infinitely better than pure Citadel armies.
I feel that people that say "I would be more interested if the models weren't bad" are just trying to be diplomatic about not wanting to play a new ruleset. Everyone knows Kings of War is a better game but there's some weird hypnosis that some players have where they don't want to try it because it's not stamped with the "Games Workshop" logo - despite being designed by someone who a few years before had been a GW employee. Alessio wrote Mordheim and Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game... am I missing something? Are those not nearly universally heralded as the greatest things GW ever did?
WayneTheGame wrote: Alessio was pushing for balance because IIRC he was the Italian Warhammer Grand Champion for a few years before he got hired by GW. So it's no surprise he wanted a solid set of rules that fostered competitive play.
Yeah, it's no accident that post-Alessio Warhammer no longer had Crown of Command, Heart of Woe and Black Gem of Gnar in every single army list.
The one WD game was funny, remarking that there must have been a Tilean factory cranking them out en masse.
WayneTheGame wrote: Alessio was pushing for balance because IIRC he was the Italian Warhammer Grand Champion for a few years before he got hired by GW. So it's no surprise he wanted a solid set of rules that fostered competitive play.
Yeah, it's no accident that post-Alessio Warhammer no longer had Crown of Command, Heart of Woe and Black Gem of Gnar in every single army list.
The one WD game was funny, remarking that there must have been a Tilean factory cranking them out en masse.
Perhaps, but to be fair, Alessio turned the single worst publication GW ever released, the Andy Chambers & Phil Kelly Chaos 3.5 Codex, into one of the best publications GW ever released, the Chaos 4.0 Codex, before it went back to Kelly's magical turn-gold-into-gak desk.
Kelly was on vacation when the final draft of the codex was made. From my understanding Jervis is the person who made several changes to it that Kelly didn't like.
Jervis is also the same person whose name seems to crop up a lot on projects that turn out to be utter drek.
ClockworkZion wrote: Kelly was on vacation when the final draft of the codex was made. From my understanding Jervis is the person who made several changes to it that Kelly didn't like.
Jervis is also the same person whose name seems to crop up a lot on projects that turn out to be utter drek.
Yeah, judging by the comments Jervis made in the rule writing for the Imperial Knights in a WDW, it seems most of his work in this area is creating a rough estimate/"feel" for where something should be and then leaving it at that.
ClockworkZion wrote: Kelly was on vacation when the final draft of the codex was made. From my understanding Jervis is the person who made several changes to it that Kelly didn't like.
Jervis is also the same person whose name seems to crop up a lot on projects that turn out to be utter drek.
Wonderwolf wrote: Perhaps, but to be fair, Alessio turned the single worst publication GW ever released, the Andy Chambers & Phil Kelly Chaos 3.5 Codex, into one of the best publications GW ever released, the Chaos 4.0 Codex, before it went back to Kelly's magical turn-gold-into-gak desk.
ClockworkZion wrote: Kelly was on vacation when the final draft of the codex was made. From my understanding Jervis is the person who made several changes to it that Kelly didn't like.
Jervis is also the same person whose name seems to crop up a lot on projects that turn out to be utter drek.
ClockworkZion wrote: Kelly was on vacation when the final draft of the codex was made. From my understanding Jervis is the person who made several changes to it that Kelly didn't like.
Jervis is also the same person whose name seems to crop up a lot on projects that turn out to be utter drek.
Wasn't he behind BFG? That game was awesome.
Pretty sure BFG was mostly Chamber's kid, although JJ is mentioned as the co-author along with Thorpe, right below Chambers.
ClockworkZion wrote: Kelly was on vacation when the final draft of the codex was made. From my understanding Jervis is the person who made several changes to it that Kelly didn't like.
Jervis is also the same person whose name seems to crop up a lot on projects that turn out to be utter drek.
Wasn't he behind BFG? That game was awesome.
Pretty sure BFG was mostly Chamber's kid, although JJ is mentioned as the co-author along with Thorpe, right below Chambers.
I believe Andy Chambers was the main guy behind BFG, and I believe he is writing the rules for a battle ship game for Hawk wargames.
Wonderwolf wrote: Perhaps, but to be fair, Alessio turned the single worst publication GW ever released, the Andy Chambers & Phil Kelly Chaos 3.5 Codex, into one of the best publications GW ever released, the Chaos 4.0 Codex, before it went back to Kelly's magical turn-gold-into-gak desk.
Wonderwolf wrote: Perhaps, but to be fair, Alessio turned the single worst publication GW ever released, the Andy Chambers & Phil Kelly Chaos 3.5 Codex, into one of the best publications GW ever released, the Chaos 4.0 Codex, before it went back to Kelly's magical turn-gold-into-gak desk.
Careful now...
You hold him, I'll beat him.
Yeah. What the feth? The 3.5 Chaos book was the best. Jervis' 3.0 was utter garbage. What are you talking about?!?
ClockworkZion wrote: Kelly was on vacation when the final draft of the codex was made. From my understanding Jervis is the person who made several changes to it that Kelly didn't like.
Jervis is also the same person whose name seems to crop up a lot on projects that turn out to be utter drek.
Wasn't he behind BFG? That game was awesome.
Fixed that for you Hwang
Nope. Was. The self-appointed stewards of BFG have fethed it up to nerf things in direct contradiction to what the game designer specifically confirmed to be his intent.
I will be glad to play RAWBFG, but no way I'm playing the more recent houserule gak. When they decided to move BFG to house rules, I stopped paying attention.
Wonderwolf wrote: Perhaps, but to be fair, Alessio turned the single worst publication GW ever released, the Andy Chambers & Phil Kelly Chaos 3.5 Codex, into one of the best publications GW ever released, the Chaos 4.0 Codex, before it went back to Kelly's magical turn-gold-into-gak desk.
Careful now...
You hold him, I'll beat him.
Yeah. What the feth? The 3.5 Chaos book was the best. Jervis' 3.0 was utter garbage. What are you talking about?!?
Nope. 3.0 and 4.0 CSM were the best. Clean and smooth.
ClockworkZion wrote: Kelly was on vacation when the final draft of the codex was made. From my understanding Jervis is the person who made several changes to it that Kelly didn't like.
Jervis is also the same person whose name seems to crop up a lot on projects that turn out to be utter drek.
Yeah, judging by the comments Jervis made in the rule writing for the Imperial Knights in a WDW, it seems most of his work in this area is creating a rough estimate/"feel" for where something should be and then leaving it at that.
Significant play-testing is for nerds!
Funnily enough I was reading a Q&A in White Dwarf today that stressed precisely the opposite, whereby the points value of certain units might seem unnecessarily low or high, but extensive and repeated playtesting at GW headquarters shows the values of units can vary according to how the unit is played, and what it is played against. Really interesting stuff. White Dwarf 195, circa 1996.
ClockworkZion wrote: Kelly was on vacation when the final draft of the codex was made. From my understanding Jervis is the person who made several changes to it that Kelly didn't like.
Jervis is also the same person whose name seems to crop up a lot on projects that turn out to be utter drek.
Yeah, judging by the comments Jervis made in the rule writing for the Imperial Knights in a WDW, it seems most of his work in this area is creating a rough estimate/"feel" for where something should be and then leaving it at that.
Significant play-testing is for nerds!
Funnily enough I was reading a Q&A in White Dwarf today that stressed precisely the opposite, whereby the points value of certain units might seem unnecessarily low or high, but extensive and repeated playtesting at GW headquarters shows the values of units can vary according to how the unit is played, and what it is played against. Really interesting stuff. White Dwarf 195, circa 1996.
Yeah, too bad that was nearly twenty years ago and doesn't represent the studio during 4th or later when most of those devs where gone.
I am pretty sure that today's internal and external balance between units and factions is not obviously worse than what we had in 1996 (WFB 5E / 40k 2E)... I seem to recall huge swings in effectiveness, depending on who got first turn, and whether particular models were sniped away.
I wonder how many points the 2E Tyranid pre-game table would be worth today, how GW would cost it and balance it.
Accolade wrote: Yeah, judging by the comments Jervis made in the rule writing for the Imperial Knights in a WDW, it seems most of his work in this area is creating a rough estimate/"feel" for where something should be and then leaving it at that.
Significant play-testing is for nerds!
When Jervis was left to his own devices to run Specialist Games, he conducted an extensive public playtest of Epic Armageddon. So I have significant doubts that this no-playtest mindset was his idea.
You git. I was expecting a pic of a nicely painted Pathfinder dragon.
After I'm finished with some kheyos spess mehreens and a few diverse things still on my painting table, I'll get on with the dragon. It's a promise
Agreed with what you say, though I can (partly) understand a bit of 'fantasy tax' on some plastic minis if 'heroic' scales*, poses and masses of bits reduces the number of actual bodies you can fit on a sprue... though that's certainly not to excuse GW's prices, just that I wouldn't mind stretching to €1/£1 per fantasy plastic, depending on what it was and how it looked.
*Although, I actually have a couple of Mantic elves beside me here, an old sample I got years ago. Even then I didn't realise how teeny they are. The details are pretty good and sharp too. I just wish they were... different details.
I don't mind paying 1€, perhaps even more (£1 yeah) for a plastic infantry miniature if I think the deal is worth it (i.e. the minis are truly good quality, there are enough quality bits in the sprue to be of any use in any of my evil projects, etc). Then you have some deals I can consider borderline "decent" but little else. 20 mantic dwarves for 20€? (actually a bit less, considering the discount). Ok deal. 30 AoW vestals for 35€? (pre-order deal). Ok deal. I consider neither of them to be great kits, just good enough to deserve my money. I'm sure GW's witch elves are of higher quality than AoW vestals, but I'm simply not willing to spend 45€ on a 10-girls box. Because even if WFB 8th is not my thing (I'm leaning more towards Oldhammer nowadays), still you're hardly going anywhere with a unit of 10 girls in any proper "mass-battle" game. The AoW deal gets me 30 girls I'll probably organize in two squads of 15.
The issue here is, 45€ for 10 plastic infantry miniatures would be somewhat acceptable if those 10 minis would let you assemble a whole band in a skirmish game. We would be still talking about an expensive product, but you buy the 10 girls and then you can play the game, end of it. In WHFB though, you pay 45€ for the girls, then you buy another box for the same money in order to field an useful unit... congratulations, after spending 90€ you already have a unit that perhaps represents... 10%? 15%? of your whole army. Insanity.
You can't charge skirmish game prices for minis intended to be used on a mass battle game, and expect to get away with it forever. People are not that stupid ffs.
BTW, since we're at it in a rumors thread, any credibility to the rumors about a new army of "ascended" warriors à la Karl Franz 2.0 a.k.a. spess mehreens with bows and halberds? Because I once thought nothing worse could happen after some of Matt Ward's worst fanfics became canon material in the 40k universe, but now I'm beginning to think I was wrong.
Lockark wrote: @Vermis: My feelings about kings of war seem to be alot like yours. I would be more interested if every other sculpt wasn't so bad.
I've never understood this sentiment. Like GW models? Play KoW using those. Unlike GW, Mantic's official stance is "please enjoy using whatever models you like, even at a competitive level".
KoW is an amazing ruleset (about to get even better), that gives the WHFB minis you own a wonderful second life, IF WHFB really does morph into something unrecognizable.
Because I need people to play kings of war with, and the bad models makes people think it's a bad rule set. Sadly unlike my Friday knights I can't play with myself.
Indeed. If you look at the thread about "which army woudld you choose" in the 40k forum --
47% of the respondents say, "how the army looks" and 30% say, "the fluff of the army". That's a combined 77% out of 187 votes.
Looks don't just matter, they're almost *everything* that matters to people who play 40k/whfb. There are people like me, who would rather play the best models in the world using the weakest army of the game, with the worst rules in the world, than the other way around. Mostly, I'm there to play with my friends and have a good time. Even if I lose, it's fine, as long as the table looks awesome and I had a good time.
The problem with games like KoW is that without great looking models, *nobody will play the game*. With great looking models, people will simply stop buying models from other companies. This isn't just me saying it, it's a reality of what happens at local stores. Think to your FLGS, and ask yourself when the last time someone played KoW.
PP is successful because it's models are pretty good, and there are a lot of people who really like that aesthetic.
And/but: People do judge books by their covers, and people judge movies by their trailers and posters. People buy MtG cards because they have pretty paintings, not because it's the best TCG system in the world. A cute blonde girl needing help with her bicycle will get many offers of assistance, while an averagish man will be largely ignored. I don't care if there are old adages warning against it -- if you want your stuff to sell, make it pretty, or suffer the consequences.
Talys wrote: Looks don't just matter, they're almost *everything* that matters to people who play 40k/whfb. There are people like me, who would rather play the best models in the world using the weakest army of the game, with the worst rules in the world, than the other way around. Mostly, I'm there to play with my friends and have a good time. Even if I lose, it's fine, as long as the table looks awesome and I had a good time.
And/but: People do judge books by their covers, and people judge movies by their trailers and posters. People buy MtG cards because they have pretty paintings, not because it's the best TCG system in the world. A cute blonde girl needing help with her bicycle will get many offers of assistance, while an averagish man will be largely ignored. I don't care if there are old adages warning against it -- if you want your stuff to sell, make it pretty, or suffer the consequences.
This. WFB 9E needs to simplify things, because I'm mostly there to shoot the gak while I drink a beer and look at pretty toys. Excessive rules and detail just gets in the way, because it breaks the conversation and flow any time someone needs to stop and look something up.
Also totally agreed that looks are super important. The stuff a good-looking person (esp. girl) can get away with is insane. In this sense, WFB 9E likely being the grimdarkest grimdark we ever saw might be a bad thing if it ruins the look.
Agreed. I've maintained for a long time now that the rules aren't suited for sober play, let alone beer & pretzels. The rules were more of an issue for me than the cost, although the prices certainly didn't help.
As much as i like/d the models, if i'm playing a game with them i don't want to be certain to lose every time because of their rules, no matter how good the models look themselves.
Barfolomew wrote: I'm putting it down now, the new rulebook will be $100 easily. The current one is $75, 40K is $85, so $100 easy.
My prediction:
- Limited Edition set for $250 with a free plastic slipcover instead of a cardboard one, and one foldout map poster that has irreparable creases in it. Sold out in 5 minutes because of high demand for plastic slipcovers.
- Hardcover set for $95 or $99 (a la 40k).
- Softcover mini for free in 9th edition starter box.
Ebay Softcover mini for $30
Later on, mini hardcover version for $75 or something silly.
if you want your stuff to sell, make it pretty, or suffer the consequences.
The only word I would change is pretty to appealing.
Agreed But, physically appealing (rather than intellectually) -- because the human race is a shallow one. See, we still 38,000 years to go, and we're already headed down the path of Chaos.
New Skaven characters do not have scenic bases on their sprues like most (all?) other recent plastic characters, but come with separate bases instead. I say this is because of the upcoming base change.
Crimson wrote: New Skaven characters do not have scenic bases on their sprues like most (all?) other recent plastic characters, but come with separate bases instead. I say this is because of the upcoming base change.
Well they still come with a 20mm SQUARE base so I'm not sure where you're going with this.
Crimson wrote: New Skaven characters do not have scenic bases on their sprues like most (all?) other recent plastic characters, but come with separate bases instead. I say this is because of the upcoming base change.
Well they still come with a 20mm SQUARE base so I'm not sure where you're going with this.
They come with a square base currently as it is currently still 8th edition. The fact that the base is not on the sprue as standard is a definate indicator of something. But what exactly, we don't quite know.
They come with a square base currently as it is currently still 8th edition. The fact that the base is not on the sprue as standard is a definate indicator of something. But what exactly, we don't quite know.
Exactly. Other plastic characters come with a scenic base in their sprue, these come with a separate square base, and could easily be packaged with a different kind of a base.
I just can't believe in the more extreme rumors. Switching to round bases will make every single rulebook/army book/supplement for WHFB obsolete.
This is something they haven't done since 1998 with 3rd edition 40k. But in that instance there was a gap between the last 2nd edition codex (summer 1997) and 3rd edition (summer 1998).
If these rumors are to be true, they are currently releasing lots of new rules in very expensive rule books (End Times) that will be made obsolete just a few months later.
The only way I can believe these rumors is if 8th edition will continue to live on side by side with 9th edition (which will be another game entirely, rather than "9th").
But the round base rumor still confuses me. You can play skirmish games with square bases but you can't play rank-and-file games with round.
Would GW really invalidate all the WHFB rulebooks?? Some coming out just a few months before...
Bottle wrote: This is something they haven't done since 1998 with 3rd edition 40k. But in that instance there was a gap between the last 2nd edition codex (summer 1997) and 3rd edition (summer 1998).
WHFB had a full rewrite which obsoleted old army books in 2000 (6th edition). There was also a gap of about a year between the last 5th ed army book (Vampire Counts in June 1999) and the 6th ed rulebook in Oct 2000.
However I wouldn't put it past GW to do something like that now, since the powerhouse days of the late 90's GW has dropped specialist games and released 2 editions of 40k within just 2 years of each other, things I don't think they would have done back then.
Also, if you ignore the end times, the last WHFB army book was 8 months ago, so we already have quite a gap since then.
But we'll see, I also struggle to believe some of the more extreme rumours like round bases... but not long ago I also would have said I didn't believe they'd destroy Lustria, so times are changing.
Considering GW doesn't force people to switch bases I imagine they won't force people, they just may have to move the unit as a formation (like now) instead of more like a skirmishing unit.
They come with a square base currently as it is currently still 8th edition. The fact that the base is not on the sprue as standard is a definate indicator of something. But what exactly, we don't quite know.
Exactly. Other plastic characters come with a scenic base in their sprue, these come with a separate square base, and could easily be packaged with a different kind of a base.
Not true, Araloth didn't come with a scenic base in his sprue.
The models that have came with a scenic base "on their sprue" have had something interesting/unique about the base. The Dwarf Dragon Slayer might as well not have come with his base on the sprue, barring the simple fact that it needed the cut so the dragon head decoration could be shown.
Bottle wrote: This is something they haven't done since 1998 with 3rd edition 40k. But in that instance there was a gap between the last 2nd edition codex (summer 1997) and 3rd edition (summer 1998).
WHFB had a full rewrite which obsoleted old army books in 2000 (6th edition). There was also a gap of about a year between the last 5th ed army book (Vampire Counts in June 1999) and the 6th ed rulebook in Oct 2000.
However I wouldn't put it past GW to do something like that now, since the powerhouse days of the late 90's GW has dropped specialist games and released 2 editions of 40k within just 2 years of each other, things I don't think they would have done back then.
Also, if you ignore the end times, the last WHFB army book was 8 months ago, so we already have quite a gap since then.
But we'll see, I also struggle to believe some of the more extreme rumours like round bases... but not long ago I also would have said I didn't believe they'd destroy Lustria, so times are changing.
Thanks for the info, I didn't realize 6th did a hard reset too. I see the destruction on Lustria to be just another obvious move at shrinking the map.
Ravening Hordes is correct, and it was a serious stripping down from 5th: each army fit onto a page, maybe a page and a half if they were lucky. Empire suffered the most, we lost our most iconic toy during RH (got it back in 6th): the Runefang. 5th edition had the right of it though, where you could have multiple Runefangs on the table, seeing how 12 existed!!
Most of these rumors that are floating around are fake and made up by some internet troll. GW is not going to get rid of their model range becase that would be incredibly stupid on a buisness perspective. They would be losing thousands of dollars if they did that. Round bases will not be the new standard for Warhammer fantasy. Any fantasy player would be pissed at GW and many players would probably quit. Whoever believes that 9th edition fantasy will be round bases, you are incredibly stupid.
Mindstrike1 wrote: Most of these rumors that are floating around are fake and made up by some internet troll. GW is not going to get rid of their model range becase that would be incredibly stupid on a buisness perspective. They would be losing thousands of dollars if they did that. Round bases will not be the new standard for Warhammer fantasy. Any fantasy player would be pissed at GW and many players would probably quit. Whoever believes that 9th edition fantasy will be round bases, you are incredibly stupid.
Case in point Squats, Genestealer hybrid models, and specialist games.
Mindstrike1 wrote: Most of these rumors that are floating around are fake and made up by some internet troll. GW is not going to get rid of their model range becase that would be incredibly stupid on a buisness perspective. They would be losing thousands of dollars if they did that. Round bases will not be the new standard for Warhammer fantasy. Any fantasy player would be pissed at GW and many players would probably quit. Whoever believes that 9th edition fantasy will be round bases, you are incredibly stupid.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: [WHFB doesn't need to be 50/50 with 40k for it to be worth keeping. It just needs to be making more than it costs to maintain it, it doesn't need a new release every month, it doesn't need big shake ups, it doesn't even need the full range to be kept in each and every store. Support it with tournaments, advertising, events. GW's biggest expenses aren't maintaining games, it's maintaining the infrastructure to sell games, if they drop fantasy I'd suggest their expenses would barely even shift.
That's not quite right. Games Workshop also has to consider the opportunity cost of supporting Fantasy. Let's use some utterly ridiculous made-up numbers!
If it costs £100,000 to keep Fantasy running, and you get back a profit of £25,000, that sounds good. But if Games Workshop can put that same £100,000 into something new for 40K, and get back even £30,000, just £5,000 more, they might judge that to be a better use of their £100,000.
It's not as simple as that, either, because the Fantasy IP has a value of its own that is created and sustained by the existence of the game(s) which use it. But, again, if these rumours are true, perhaps Games Workshop are hoping that they can put their £100,000 into developing this new skirmish Fantasy game, and maybe get back the £30,000 they'd get from investing it in 40K, or more, which serves the dual purpose of increasing profits and keeping the IP alive. Or, even better, if they put £50,000 into this new game and get £15,000 back, that means they can put the other £50,000 into 40K as well and keep the IP viable for half the overhead.
I'm actually more inclined to believe that Games Workshop would try a radical revamp of Fantasy like this than I would be to believe they'd just give up on it, because of the value of the Fantasy IP. I also think the small-scale regular churn of limited-edition releases makes sense - it refreshes the IP, gets players into the store regularly for the new stuff, and doesn't leave a backlog of depreciating inventory taking up warehouse space.
I would be very surprised if Games Workshop makes much money on old metal figures like Sisters of Battle troops at this point. How long ago did they go out of production, and how much inventory has been sitting there costing them warehouse overhead and asset taxes?
Mindstrike1 wrote: Most of these rumors that are floating around are fake and made up by some internet troll. GW is not going to get rid of their model range becase that would be incredibly stupid on a buisness perspective. They would be losing thousands of dollars if they did that. Round bases will not be the new standard for Warhammer fantasy. Any fantasy player would be pissed at GW and many players would probably quit. Whoever believes that 9th edition fantasy will be round bases, you are incredibly stupid.
You must be new here....
Are you kidding? Some of the rumors are true, I know that for a fact. Bubble dimensions are going to happen. But destroying a model range, you would have to be crazy to believe that.
Isn't all the new plastic hero models have the square base molded on to the frame with the miniature?
So they are going to need to recast all plastic hero models even ones that just came out?
Genoside07 wrote: Isn't all the new plastic hero models have the square base molded on to the frame with the miniature?
So they are going to need to recast all plastic hero models even ones that just came out?
They've stopped that with recent releases, they have a standard base included now.
And if the rats did destroy Lustria, where does that leave the lizardmen?
Todays Beasts if War show discussed this, as their Lizardmen player mentioned losing his army when they talked about the original rumours a week or so back.
And they said that someone who would know got in touch behind the scenes to tell them not to worry about the army it would still be there. They to be accurate when they discuss what they have been told from their own internal contacts at GW, and explained it that the number of army books would definitely be reduced, but that the talk of all these armies disappearing was not what is coming.
I've come to the conclusion that if GW is serious about this reboot, and actually makes a good, modern ruleset then I might just buy into this madness.
If however, they maintain backwards compatibility by simply "developing" the gak heap of a rules system they currently have, then I'll keep my distance.
angryboy2k wrote: I've come to the conclusion that if GW is serious about this reboot, and actually makes a good, modern ruleset then I might just buy into this madness.
If however, they maintain backwards compatibility by simply "developing" the gak heap of a rules system they currently have, then I'll keep my distance.
Due to the enormous damage to The Old World during the End Times Crisis there is only going to be one surviving army in the Fantasy setting.
The Space Marines.
The Auld Grump - remember, you heard it here first....
AllSeeingSkink wrote: [WHFB doesn't need to be 50/50 with 40k for it to be worth keeping. It just needs to be making more than it costs to maintain it, it doesn't need a new release every month, it doesn't need big shake ups, it doesn't even need the full range to be kept in each and every store. Support it with tournaments, advertising, events. GW's biggest expenses aren't maintaining games, it's maintaining the infrastructure to sell games, if they drop fantasy I'd suggest their expenses would barely even shift.
That's not quite right. Games Workshop also has to consider the opportunity cost of supporting Fantasy. Let's use some utterly ridiculous made-up numbers!
If it costs £100,000 to keep Fantasy running, and you get back a profit of £25,000, that sounds good. But if Games Workshop can put that same £100,000 into something new for 40K, and get back even £30,000, just £5,000 more, they might judge that to be a better use of their £100,000.
It's not as simple as that, either, because the Fantasy IP has a value of its own that is created and sustained by the existence of the game(s) which use it. But, again, if these rumours are true, perhaps Games Workshop are hoping that they can put their £100,000 into developing this new skirmish Fantasy game, and maybe get back the £30,000 they'd get from investing it in 40K, or more, which serves the dual purpose of increasing profits and keeping the IP alive. Or, even better, if they put £50,000 into this new game and get £15,000 back, that means they can put the other £50,000 into 40K as well and keep the IP viable for half the overhead.
I'm actually more inclined to believe that Games Workshop would try a radical revamp of Fantasy like this than I would be to believe they'd just give up on it, because of the value of the Fantasy IP. I also think the small-scale regular churn of limited-edition releases makes sense - it refreshes the IP, gets players into the store regularly for the new stuff, and doesn't leave a backlog of depreciating inventory taking up warehouse space.
I would be very surprised if Games Workshop makes much money on old metal figures like Sisters of Battle troops at this point. How long ago did they go out of production, and how much inventory has been sitting there costing them warehouse overhead and asset taxes?
But that only works conceptually if you consider "IP" to be nothing more than the branding. If someone is a fan of the IP(as opposed to someone who just plays because it's convenient, easy to get a game etc), it's because of the substance of the IP, not the name on the box. If the new game shares almost nothing recognisable with the old Warhammer, it doesn't matter what they call it, it won't really be Warhammer, it will be a new IP in a Warhammer-skin suit.
Bottle wrote: Thanks for the info, I didn't realize 6th did a hard reset too.
They did - they published a book of army lists (Ravening Hordes?) at the same time so you could keep playing your old army.
And that's the key point - GW may change the rules behind various models, but it is very rare that they don't allow you to keep playing the models you purchased, built and painted.
*cough*Dogs of War*cough*
*cough*Squats*cough*
*cough*Chaos Dorfs*cough*
The big squattings of fully-playable armies occurred in the past 20 years:
- Squats disappeared with 40k3 (never had a 2E Codex).
- Chaos Dorfs got squatted in WFB6 (from WD compliation in 5E).
- Dogs of War got squatted hard in WFB7 (had full 5E Army Book, full WD list in 6E).
And Slann went from being an entire army of Aztec warrior frogs that waged war to stem their own burgeoning population to being sterile frog gods on a plate.
I pretty much count them as having been squatted.
The Auld Grump
*EDIT* One of the first folks to embrace Kings of War in my group had a Dogs of War army from Warhammer - he didn't need to change anything.
The Squats had a tiny pathetic range and virtually no plastic minis. They received not a single model release after Rogue Trader/1st Ed. Lizardmen on the other hand have a complete range of mostly plastic miniatures. It's a far harder thing to believe that they'd dump such a thing, and so soon after their last book.
The Squats had a tiny pathetic range and virtually no plastic minis.
Surely squats had as many plastic miniatures as most armies did in those days - a single box with interchangeable weapons. It was only Marines that tended to have more due to being featured in boxed games funding the sprues (Space Marine Scouts and Terminators from Advanced Space Crusade & Space Hulk for example).
The Squats had a tiny pathetic range and virtually no plastic minis.
Surely squats had as many plastic miniatures as most armies did in those days - a single box with interchangeable weapons. It was only Marines that tended to have more due to being featured in boxed games funding the sprues (Space Marine Scouts and Terminators from Advanced Space Crusade & Space Hulk for example).
They had more plastics than the Eldar for the entirety of the Rogue Trader/Chapter Approved days.
Are we sure they're being squatted? I heard they were just flying above the old world, but not wiped out. If they were wiped out then yes, squatted, but until they are completed dead according to GW then no.
The Squats had a tiny pathetic range and virtually no plastic minis.
This line simply isn't true and I think you'll be quite surprised to find that the early squat range was SIGNIFICANTLY larger than any range that GW supports today.
My count of the Squat range for 1st edition was 173 individual metal models, of which three were artillery pieces (thudd gun, mole mortar, alternate thudd gun), three were repeats of earlier models that had separate backpacks and were later remolded with the backpacks as integral elements, ten were bikers (nine riders, one sidecar passenger) with a total of six different bike variants, eight were chaos squats, and three exo trikes used the same riders as three exo-armored squats I've counted separately.
At a bare minimum then, excluding variants and repeated bike riders there were 146 different metal infantry models, 9 different bikers, and 8 chaos squats.
In addition to this, there were three plastic bodies and three head designs in the "Space Dwarf" boxed set, which gave slightly less variety than the other plastic boxes of the time.
Eight unreleased squats were made for 2nd edition, and a ninth unreleased squat has been seen but they don't really count for the purposes of this post.
angryboy2k wrote: This line simply isn't true and I think you'll be quite surprised to find that the early squat range was SIGNIFICANTLY larger than any range that GW supports today.
But the same could be said of any range that GW had in those days because they pretty much only did metal models meaning that every range had tons and tons or random garbage models in all sorts of poses.
By the time 2nd Ed rolled around Squats just weren't around any more (aside from Epic, which is a totally different story). They never got a new release - not a one! - and I can't recall ever seeing them in any White Dwarf for the time. Them getting the boot is significantly different to the concept of Lizardmen - an army that got a few new monsters and a new book not long ago - getting thrown aside.
For Squats it made sense - they were a nothing-y army with a mostly unavailable and ancient full-metal line of miniatures mostly made for a version of the game that simply didn't exist any more. For Lizardmen it makes far less sense.
angryboy2k wrote: This line simply isn't true and I think you'll be quite surprised to find that the early squat range was SIGNIFICANTLY larger than any range that GW supports today.
But the same could be said of any range that GW had in those days because they pretty much only did metal models meaning that every range had tons and tons or random garbage models in all sorts of poses.
By the time 2nd Ed rolled around Squats just weren't around any more (aside from Epic, which is a totally different story). They never got a new release - not a one! - and I can't recall ever seeing them in any White Dwarf for the time. Them getting the boot is significantly different to the concept of Lizardmen - an army that got a few new monsters and a new book not long ago - getting thrown aside.
For Squats it made sense - they were a nothing-y army with a mostly unavailable and ancient full-metal line of miniatures mostly made for a version of the game that simply didn't exist any more. For Lizardmen it makes far less sense.
I'm not actually addressing the wider issue of "squatting" the Lizardmen or whether or not "squatting the squats" made sense. I'm purely answering your statement that the Squat range was "tiny" and "pathetic". The range was large - I'd even say surprisingly so - and diverse with a great many poses, styles and possibilities. Even the plastic models, while slightly less interesting than other boxes out at the time, were quite comparable to the IG and Ork boxes of the era.
The line also wasn't "mostly unavailable". I ordered upwards of a hundred squat code models in 2000.
Yodhrin wrote: But that only works conceptually if you consider "IP" to be nothing more than the branding. If someone is a fan of the IP(as opposed to someone who just plays because it's convenient, easy to get a game etc), it's because of the substance of the IP, not the name on the box. If the new game shares almost nothing recognisable with the old Warhammer, it doesn't matter what they call it, it won't really be Warhammer, it will be a new IP in a Warhammer-skin suit.
Well, an advancement of the timeline and a shake-up of the factions isn't a new IP.
I take your point about the substance changing. As a D&D player, I'm very familiar with timeline advancements in settings and how it can screw things up for the fanbase.
But the thing is, they don't have to keep publishing 8E for, say, Total War: Warhammer to use that version of the setting, or something based on it. If they're saying, "This world of bubble-states floating in a chaos soup is the development of this older material," that keeps the older stuff protected.
Plus, the ultimate point is that "fans of Fantasy as it exists today" are presumably not enough to keep the line going as it exists today. So a drastic revamp at least has the chance of turning Fantasy into something that makes enough money to keep it going, which is presumably not the case right now, and would otherwise lead to the setting/IP/game being mothballed.
Yodhrin wrote: But that only works conceptually if you consider "IP" to be nothing more than the branding. If someone is a fan of the IP(as opposed to someone who just plays because it's convenient, easy to get a game etc), it's because of the substance of the IP, not the name on the box. If the new game shares almost nothing recognisable with the old Warhammer, it doesn't matter what they call it, it won't really be Warhammer, it will be a new IP in a Warhammer-skin suit.
Well, an advancement of the timeline and a shake-up of the factions isn't a new IP.
I take your point about the substance changing. As a D&D player, I'm very familiar with timeline advancements in settings and how it can screw things up for the fanbase.
But the thing is, they don't have to keep publishing 8E for, say, Total War: Warhammer to use that version of the setting, or something based on it. If they're saying, "This world of bubble-states floating in a chaos soup is the development of this older material," that keeps the older stuff protected.
I can't agree. End Times, no matter how stupid I may think most of it is, is part of the same IP. Advancing the timeline by a substantial amount "off-screen" but leaving most of the recognisable elements intact would make the new game part of the same IP. But what's rumoured is a several-century "off-screen" timeline advance resulting in unrecognisable or entirely new factions, a completely new setting(Old World gone, Bubbleverse ho!), new characters, new fluff etc etc. You can try tying the new to the old by writing some blurb and retaining the name, but I've seen people write convincing fanfic that makes Terminator a prequel to 40K, they're still not the same thing. We're not talking about the difference between, say, 30K and 40K, we're talking about the difference between Warhammer Fantasy and Warmachine. Now, you could rename Warmachine as Warhammer, and write some blurb about how the former became the latter, but the latter still wouldn't actually be Warhammer to anyone who'd actually experienced real Warhammer.
And honestly, I'm not so much interested in seeing the "old" fluff "protected" as I am in seeing it developed and continued. I like Warhammer because of the characters, factions, and locations that comprise the setting, I want to see and purchase more content featuring that setting. I have exactly zero interest in buying Fantastical Marines for Bubblehammer.
Plus, the ultimate point is that "fans of Fantasy as it exists today" are presumably not enough to keep the line going as it exists today. So a drastic revamp at least has the chance of turning Fantasy into something that makes enough money to keep it going, which is presumably not the case right now, and would otherwise lead to the setting/IP/game being mothballed.
Well, perhaps. The issue is whether there are actually too few fans of Fantasy to make it a viable line, or whether GW's business decisions have driven away enough fans of Fantasy to make it non-viable, and if the latter is the case, then you have to question whether tearing the setting down is more likely to draw those players back than simply making better decisions.
The problems with Fantasy are primarily about cost. It's too expensive to get into and even more expensive to collect a complete army - it's extremely discouraging to see a box of lovely models on the shelf, and then realising there's no point buying one box unless you're prepared to buy four or five, because the newer rulesets require ever larger blocks of infantry; and it no longer has an entry-level game to draw people into the fiction since they got rid of Mordheim.
And frankly, personally, I'd rather they had mothballed Fantasy entirely until they had some serious ideas how to fix their mistakes than see them tear the whole setting to shreds and move forward with the sole objective of cutting costs, which seems to be their only play these days. Either way I'd be stuck playing a "dead" game, but at least if they'd mothballed it there would be a chance it would return in the foreseeable future as something recognisable.
Even if this Bubbleverse rumours are true, nothing stops them from reversing it in the future. Wizards of the Coast has just done exactly that with the Forgotten Realms.
In Fourth Edition D&D, the planet Toril that the Forgotten Realms setting is on underwent a patchwork "merger" with its sister planet, Abeir, with big chunks of the world literally replaced by chunks of Abeir, populated by different races and monsters and cultures. The timeline also jumped forward about a century, if memory serves.
In Fifth Edition D&D, all of those pieces of Abeir swapped places with what used to be there. Hell, while they haven't dialed back the timeline, what they have done is literally bring back to life all of the main characters of the most popular novel series set in the Forgotten Realms, most of whom either died while adventuring or of old age when they did the time-jump. They're even rejuvenated to the prime of life.
This is obvious pandering to everyone who hated the Fourth Edition changes - but the analogy is that nothing stops them from publishing a future 10E of Fantasy where all the bubbles come together and reform the Old World more or less as-was, maybe with a few lasting changes to keep whatever was successful in 9E alive.
Anyway, look, D&D also offers another bit of insight, in that it's extremely hard to get back fans and players once they've decided they've had enough and moved on to something else. Even if Games Workshop were willing to take Fantasy back to an earlier era and try to recapture the grognards who have moved on, I think that's a hard sell. Everyone likes different editions' rules, everyone likes different editions' lore. Wizards of the Coast is having a hell of a time recapturing the lapsed playerbase with Fifth Edition D&D even though they explicitly wanted it to be a "greatest hits" version combining the best features of everything that came before.
I guess we'll see what happens when and if this is confirmed or debunked.
I think GW is watching the money coming from WFB circling down the drain and the line has probably been running in the red for some time. Add in the CHS which proved they had a lot of stuff that was just too generic to protect and I think we have all the right ingredients to lead to a drastic change to try and save the game before they are forced to kill it completely.
Yes, this is a thing that angers a lot of veteran players, but how often are veteran players actually buying anything for WFB? Locally it's only when a release comes out and then it's just the rulebook, and maybe some of the new kits. There are little to no new players joining the game anymore because starting an army is as expensive, if not more expensive than starting a Sisters army, so when an old player leaves there is no money coming in to replace them.
The game is dying because GW tried to pander to veterans and collectors and have priced out everyone else by requiring huge model counts to even start an army. Could they just update things with a new edition and hope it starts to draw people in? Sure. But look at how much discussion is generating. I mean we've only had the smallest shreds of rumors on what the lore alone is doing and the smallest hinting of rules and we're at 35 pages and counting.
Sure, GW might lose some money from veteran players (though with rumors saying the rules will support a play style similar to 8th edition means that they could still use the rulebook even if they don't want to use new stuff or follow the new lore), but a drastic change like this is generating discussion and in turn will generate interest by newer players and may be the kind of shot in the arm the game needs to bring people back to WFB.
Are people going to be mad? Sure. People are always mad when things change in a different direction than they expect or want (I expect a LOT of rage when Star Wars Episode VII releases for just that reason), but if this helps the game in the long run then a few pissed off people now is worth it.
Worst case is this seals WFB's fate and they kill the game sooner than they would now, best case is it starts to grow a community again and the game stops running in the red all the time.
Fantasy Battles just needs to follow the modern video game format... reboot a classic, name is The Warhammer Fantasy Battles, make it grittier and streamline out a bunch of bullcrap.
ClockworkZion wrote: Yes, this is a thing that angers a lot of veteran players, but how often are veteran players actually buying anything for WFB?
Worst case is this seals WFB's fate and they kill the game sooner than they would now, best case is it starts to grow a community again and the game stops running in the red all the time.
I don't need to buy anything for my Grimdark(tm) counts-as Dogs of War. I have several in-progress conversions and whatnots that I could restart at any time, but I choose not to. If WFB9's rules put a damper on the bullgak, and the coming Grimdark(tm) Armies of Man book gives a decent way to play what I own, I'll dust off my Fantasy models and give the new edition a chance.
Fantasy won't die, but it could go on an even longer hiatus than what we've seen. GW made 40k a priority, which is why they rushed photo catalog Codices to protect the IP that actually matters. WFB 9 is going to parallel 40k7, to reset all of the Fantasy IP. After that, expect more WFB releases to bring the new look.
How I learned to stop worrying and love the bubbleverse...
Yeah that never happened. At least I pretend that.
I'm hearing allot of chat about sisters but that's all it is chat, I've had more solid info about Skitari then sisters though people are saying that it's this year.
How I learned to stop worrying and love the bubbleverse...
Yeah that never happened. At least I pretend that.
I'm hearing allot of chat about sisters but that's all it is chat, I've had more solid info about Skitari then sisters though people are saying that it's this year.
Lizardmen are probably gone just like Brets.
Brets are joining the Armies of Man thing if rumors are true, and if all their units still exist you'll still be able to field a pure classic Bret army like you can now from the book. Hell they got some fluff in the End Times books too from what I understand too
Spoiler:
The Green Knight is their First King who is still alive and is back.
Lizardmen are looking like they're more completely gone, unless they're just getting a rework and will come back later with some new design choices. So they're actually looking to be worse off than the Brets on this one right now.
How I learned to stop worrying and love the bubbleverse...
Yeah that never happened. At least I pretend that.
I'm hearing allot of chat about sisters but that's all it is chat, I've had more solid info about Skitari then sisters though people are saying that it's this year.
Lizardmen are probably gone just like Brets.
Brets are joining the Armies of Man thing if rumors are true, and if all their units still exist you'll still be able to field a pure classic Bret army like you can now from the book. Hell they got some fluff in the End Times books too from what I understand too
Spoiler:
The Green Knight is their First King who is still alive and is back.
Lizardmen are looking like they're more completely gone, unless they're just getting a rework and will come back later with some new design choices. So they're actually looking to be worse off than the Brets on this one right now.
Brets joining the army of men is part of the rumor BUT the entire bret line still existing is NOT part of the rumors. The rumors basically say that when the books get combined lots of units will be cut out of the books. So empire will be down to just halberds no more swordsmen or spearmen just the one basic state troop, etc. Thats the worst part is finding out half of the models you have are no longer part of your army
How I learned to stop worrying and love the bubbleverse...
Yeah that never happened. At least I pretend that.
I'm hearing allot of chat about sisters but that's all it is chat, I've had more solid info about Skitari then sisters though people are saying that it's this year.
Lizardmen are probably gone just like Brets.
Brets are joining the Armies of Man thing if rumors are true, and if all their units still exist you'll still be able to field a pure classic Bret army like you can now from the book. Hell they got some fluff in the End Times books too from what I understand too
Spoiler:
The Green Knight is their First King who is still alive and is back.
Lizardmen are looking like they're more completely gone, unless they're just getting a rework and will come back later with some new design choices. So they're actually looking to be worse off than the Brets on this one right now.
Brets joining the army of men is part of the rumor BUT the entire bret line still existing is NOT part of the rumors. The rumors basically say that when the books get combined lots of units will be cut out of the books. So empire will be down to just halberds no more swordsmen or spearmen just the one basic state troop, etc. Thats the worst part is finding out half of the models you have are no longer part of your army
I very much doubt that specific example as they are all part of the same kit. More likely boxed sets that are old and models that are still only resin and metal will be culled first.
How I learned to stop worrying and love the bubbleverse...
Yeah that never happened. At least I pretend that.
I'm hearing allot of chat about sisters but that's all it is chat, I've had more solid info about Skitari then sisters though people are saying that it's this year.
Lizardmen are probably gone just like Brets.
Brets are joining the Armies of Man thing if rumors are true, and if all their units still exist you'll still be able to field a pure classic Bret army like you can now from the book. Hell they got some fluff in the End Times books too from what I understand too [spoiler]The Green Knight is their First King who is still alive and is back.
Lizardmen are looking like they're more completely gone, unless they're just getting a rework and will come back later with some new design choices. So they're actually looking to be worse off than the Brets on this one right now.
Brets joining the army of men is part of the rumor BUT the entire bret line still existing is NOT part of the rumors. The rumors basically say that when the books get combined lots of units will be cut out of the books. So empire will be down to just halberds no more swordsmen or spearmen just the one basic state troop, etc. Thats the worst part is finding out half of the models you have are no longer part of your army
I very much doubt that specific example as they are all part of the same kit. More likely boxed sets that are old and models that are still only resin and metal will be culled first.
[/spoiler]
Thats exactly what will happen, but lots of people still use lots of those minis. Look at bret knights. Only knights of the realm and knights errant have a plastic box(a VERY old plastic box) and the others are in resin. So do brets now only have 1 knight option? If the point of this is to cut down then i dont see them making new plastic sculpts for those, thus lots of those units will be cut. Units that many people have models for.
Thats exactly what will happen, but lots of people still use lots of those minis. Look at bret knights. Only knights of the realm and knights errant have a plastic box(a VERY old plastic box) and the others are in resin. So do brets now only have 1 knight option? If the point of this is to cut down then i dont see them making new plastic sculpts for those, thus lots of those units will be cut. Units that many people have models for.
My guess is that if the culling and combination of armies happens then the Armies of Man (or however it's supposed to be called) will have two or three cavalry variations (normal, elite, light, or something like that) with many options. That way they can classify and sort all the old cavalry (all the Bret. knight, Kislev, and Empire) into these three (or four or whatever) categories.
The same probably goes for infantry (skirmisher, archer, average main block stuff, some elite) where most Dwarves are put into elite infantry. Artillery can be cannon type, catapult type, and other.
Add a lot of special characters that unlock a few unique options (units or rules), like a Dwarf Engineer for Gyrocopters, and all the old miniatures are covered with fewer modern unit types and you don't destroy any armies but make them more generic and easier to balance by having less stuff to compare.
It would probably be even easier for elves where a lot of similar stat lines exist and the play-style probably can be adjusted so all flavours can use all the army list variations. This would probably mean that some Wood Elf lists need more adjustment than others but it would also reduce the number of army books by two, from three to one with a few sub-lists.
I feel pretty confident that it will be the following six-ish armies:
1. Human Alliance: Sound like WoW? Well, it is pretty much, except exchange elves for Ogres (a good example of this shows up in the Warhammer Quest computer remake that came out- ogre mercenaries are a common thing, especially before the advent of Ogre Kingdoms). In addition, you get Fantasy Marines, which could either be their whole new concocted thing or maybe all the Bretonnian knights hit power levels over 9000. Plus dwarves very much in the same vein as WoW (muskets, machines, etc.).
2. Chaos: This is just basically putting everything back into the book the way it originally was...well, plus a twist. So you have your Chaos warriors, beastmen, and daemons all back in the book like they used to be. The *new* addition (which has been pretty heavily pointed at in the END TIMES: Thanquol book) would be Skaven to this army. It makes enough sense since they're pretty evil little blighters, plus there's nothing to stop Chaos forces from fighting each other.
3. Orcs and Goblins: Don't really go well with any other groups except maybe Ogres, but I think they'll be alone to prevent being too cliche (remember, GW is trying to make this stuff at least somewhat unique).
4. Undead: Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings, back together again. Just like Chaos, cut out books that didn't really need to ever have been separate.
5. Elves: All three forces unified. This concept feels a bit weird, but I'm guessing GW is approaching it from the concept of it being more unique than shoving High Elves with humans and Dark Elves with, oh I don't know, Chaos. All three elf factions together means they can spend their time dicking everyone over in a thematic/fluffly way.
6. Lizardmen: Everyone is talking about the possibility of these guys disappearing but I don't frankly see it happening. For a while I wasn't sure where they would go since I was considering Skaven a separate faction from Chaos. With the lore coming in from the newest End Times book, putting Skaven in with Chaos leaves a sixth spot wide open, right where these guys will go. They're probably going to be pretty pissed off at everyone for letting the world get destroyed, so they'll work well independently the same way Orcs do.
Haha, I know it seems kind of strange to put Skaven in with the rest of the Chaos forces. I just think the dealings Thanquol (at least, I believe it's Thanquol) has with Archeon sets the stage for the Skaven to essentially meld with the other forces of Chaos. This also puts all the most-evil-of-the-evil forces together (Dark Elves excluded since their speciesism outweighs their evilness in the event of the Bubble Wars (TM)).
Two groups of Lizardmen survived. One group (in the space temples) contained all the Slann and a lot of their skink attendants, the second group (sheltered in Kroak's force bubbles) contains the surviving special characters (eg. ascended Kroq-Gar) and the surviving armies.
My bet is that the second group will come back, but its a toss-up whether the Slann return.
I think GW wishes they could sell Lizardmen in 40k. Heck, Necrons became significantly more "Tomb Kings in Space" with the more recent codex (although they've always had a flair of the Egyptian).
However, I think they are worried that cannibalizing Lizardmen in WHFB to have them released in 40k would (a) Really piss off ALL WHFB fans since it would be a huge, HUGE snub, and (b) Further push WHFB into obscurity than it already is.
For all the cries of Lizardmen getting squatted, I don't see it. Not only does the End Times indicate there are survivors, but also Lizardmen are only one of three WHFB armies that hasn't seen any of their plastic kits go to direct only. The other two armies are Demons (obvious 40K cross sales) and Dark Elves. That none of those armies have had kits go direct would suggest they still enjoy healthy sales. GW won't get rid of a good selling army.
Spoiler:
Also given that Dark Elves are selling well might explain the outcome of the ET:Khaine book.
If the armies are going to be condensed downward, I can't see any one single army riding this thing out alone. Lizardmen would either have to be paired up with another army or two, or I think they will be discontinued.
The only other option I could see is if they become some sort of mercenary faction - say with Ogres and *maybe* beastmen.
The thing to remember is that, according to these rumours, the current way of doing things is not the model. The rumours say that we should expect rapid and small additions to the six factions in turn, which I shall call 'waves', and that these waves will be time-limited. For this model, keeping an army simply because it has a lot of kits doesn't matter; the whole idea is to bring out lots of new kits with interesting and unique looks, in a fire-and-forget format that allows GW to avoid having a huge range of boxes. They don't want to have an Elven faction with 89 boxes; they want an Elven faction with a half-dozen long-lasting boxes (call it the 'essentials' range: bog standard core units, for which the current Dark Elf infantry box is a very strong contender), and a revolving stock of another half dozen boxes, all with unique IP qualities. Having lots of current kits thus is totally irrelevant to the future, since the current range (with millions of kits, and various ancient Core plastic boxes) is not envisaged as playing any role in the future range.
You should probably not expect the current army book titles to remain. Instead, I would expect a new more unique title, and then the Lizards may or may not turn up as a recurring element in one of those. As a purely speculative example: 'The Savage Hierarchy', for which the initial wave includes Saurus Cavalry and Skink skirmishers (both sexy new kits with round bases), along with a big monster (Carnosaur kit for example). Then six months later we get a Fishmen wave for them, which has a bunch of stuff like swarms and tough heavy infantry. Six months later you get Saurus Beserkers, who are a unit of super-heavy infantry. Six months after that, they retire the Fishmen wave, and bring out a new wave. And so on.
This is all assuming that the rumours are correct, and that I've interpreted those rumours correctly.
streamdragon wrote:Beastmen HATE the Wood Elves and vice versa. Sticking them together? Might as well put Archaon in the Empire.
Not sure any of the rules relating to logic in the fluff apply anymore. Dark Elves hate High Elves according to the pre-established lore and look how GW has dealt with that!
Accolade wrote:I feel pretty confident that it will be the following six-ish armies:
1. Human Alliance: Sound like WoW? Well, it is pretty much, except exchange elves for Ogres (a good example of this shows up in the Warhammer Quest computer remake that came out- ogre mercenaries are a common thing, especially before the advent of Ogre Kingdoms). In addition, you get Fantasy Marines, which could either be their whole new concocted thing or maybe all the Bretonnian knights hit power levels over 9000. Plus dwarves very much in the same vein as WoW (muskets, machines, etc.).
2. Chaos: This is just basically putting everything back into the book the way it originally was...well, plus a twist. So you have your Chaos warriors, beastmen, and daemons all back in the book like they used to be. The *new* addition (which has been pretty heavily pointed at in the END TIMES: Thanquol book) would be Skaven to this army. It makes enough sense since they're pretty evil little blighters, plus there's nothing to stop Chaos forces from fighting each other.
3. Orcs and Goblins: Don't really go well with any other groups except maybe Ogres, but I think they'll be alone to prevent being too cliche (remember, GW is trying to make this stuff at least somewhat unique).
4. Undead: Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings, back together again. Just like Chaos, cut out books that didn't really need to ever have been separate.
5. Elves: All three forces unified. This concept feels a bit weird, but I'm guessing GW is approaching it from the concept of it being more unique than shoving High Elves with humans and Dark Elves with, oh I don't know, Chaos. All three elf factions together means they can spend their time dicking everyone over in a thematic/fluffly way.
6. Lizardmen: Everyone is talking about the possibility of these guys disappearing but I don't frankly see it happening. For a while I wasn't sure where they would go since I was considering Skaven a separate faction from Chaos. With the lore coming in from the newest End Times book, putting Skaven in with Chaos leaves a sixth spot wide open, right where these guys will go. They're probably going to be pretty pissed off at everyone for letting the world get destroyed, so they'll work well independently the same way Orcs do.
This is my hypothesis on the matter.
On the possible factions of a new Warhammer I think the Chaos and Undead are the smoothest transitions as unifying their current factions into single books makes sense. The unification of the elves, like much of the awkward fluff in Khaine, doesn't convince in the slightest.
1. Chaos
2. Humans and allies
3. Skaven - very strong IP, more than strong enough to form their own book/faction
4. Undead
5. Elves - forget all the previous fluff and imagine a single Elven race, similar to how there used to be just one Elven Blood Bowl team
1. Chaos
2. Humans and allies
3. Skaven - very strong IP, more than strong enough to form their own book/faction
4. Undead
5. Elves - forget all the previous fluff and imagine a single Elven race
6. Lizardmen
I largely agree with you, but with some small adjustments:
1. Chaos Space Marines
2. Space Marines and Human allies
3. Skaven Marines
4. Death Guard
5. Emperor's Children with Elven Allies
6. Vulkan and First Company Terminators
The game is dying because GW tried to pander to veterans and collectors and have priced out everyone else by requiring huge model counts to even start an army.
How exactly did 8th edition "pander to veterans"?
8th edition made the previous style of armies that generally consisted of a large variety of small units completely obsolete and instead forced everyone to double or triple their infantry unit sizes if they wanted to remain competitive while simultaneous making other unit choices completely unviable. The overwhelming majority of veterans that I knew about abandoned the game in 8th edition, not one of the changes that GW made was made with veterans in mind except perhaps by "forcing" them to re-buy large amounts of models that they already had just to serve as wound counters.
The game is dying because GW tried to pander to veterans and collectors and have priced out everyone else by requiring huge model counts to even start an army.
How exactly did 8th edition "pander to veterans"?
8th edition made the previous style of armies that generally consisted of a large variety of small units completely obsolete and instead forced everyone to double or triple their infantry unit sizes if they wanted to remain competitive while simultaneous making other unit choices completely unviable. The overwhelming majority of veterans that I knew about abandoned the game in 8th edition, not one of the changes that GW made was made with veterans in mind except perhaps by "forcing" them to re-buy large amounts of models that they already had just to serve as wound counters.
Locally, at least, people were more willing to abandon 8th edition than they were to abandon their armies - it was a huge shot in the arm for Kings of War. (Which, ironically, actually handles huge armies better than 8th edition Warhammer does.)
But then my area also has a thriving Battlesystem community. (The old TSR mass combat game for AD&D.) We don't let go of our minis easily....
The Auld Grump - heck... last year I watched folks playing with Laser Burn miniatures....
The game is dying because GW tried to pander to veterans and collectors and have priced out everyone else by requiring huge model counts to even start an army.
How exactly did 8th edition "pander to veterans"?
8th edition made the previous style of armies that generally consisted of a large variety of small units completely obsolete and instead forced everyone to double or triple their infantry unit sizes if they wanted to remain competitive while simultaneous making other unit choices completely unviable. The overwhelming majority of veterans that I knew about abandoned the game in 8th edition, not one of the changes that GW made was made with veterans in mind except perhaps by "forcing" them to re-buy large amounts of models that they already had just to serve as wound counters.
8th made big armies with high models counts needed for even the standard sized games resulting in only vets having enough to really field proper armies, much less have enough models to have any real flexibility. Newer players commonly didn't even get as far as building their first army to a completely legal level before the cost of doing so caught up with them.
Basically the lack of a smaller level of play is what made it an edition that pandered more to the vets than to anyone else. You needed a lot of models to play just about anything.
The game is dying because GW tried to pander to veterans and collectors and have priced out everyone else by requiring huge model counts to even start an army.
How exactly did 8th edition "pander to veterans"?
8th edition made the previous style of armies that generally consisted of a large variety of small units completely obsolete and instead forced everyone to double or triple their infantry unit sizes if they wanted to remain competitive while simultaneous making other unit choices completely unviable. The overwhelming majority of veterans that I knew about abandoned the game in 8th edition, not one of the changes that GW made was made with veterans in mind except perhaps by "forcing" them to re-buy large amounts of models that they already had just to serve as wound counters.
8th made big armies with high models counts needed for even the standard sized games resulting in only vets having enough to really field proper armies, much less have enough models to have any real flexibility. Newer players commonly didn't even get as far as building their first army to a completely legal level before the cost of doing so caught up with them.
Basically the lack of a smaller level of play is what made it an edition that pandered more to the vets than to anyone else. You needed a lot of models to play just about anything.
That's not really pandering to the vets. I'm sure veterans wished it was cheaper, and that more people were picking the game up. What games workshop did was pander to no one, but price newcomers out. No one won there. If they'd pandered to the Vets, the vets would have at least got something out of it.
There's a difference between 'pandering to the veterans' and 'pricing anyone who isn't a veteran out'.
ImAGeek wrote: I've just got my copy of Thanquol and just flicking through all its done is remind me why I love the Lizardmen. I hope they aren't gone.
Lizardmen are dinosaurs riding dinosaurs..................They sell well and the whole range is pretty much in plastic. The lizards are staying
Are we positive they are getting squatted? My partner and i heard these were simply flying across the old world, but not erased. Should they had been destroyed then yes, squatted, however right up until they are completed dead according to GW after that absolutely no.
perrsyu wrote: Are we positive they are getting squatted? My partner and i heard these were simply flying across the old world, but not erased. Should they had been destroyed then yes, squatted, however right up until they are completed dead according to GW after that absolutely no.
I dont see them squatting a whole PLASTIC range of badass minis. We are talking about molds that GW spent in the neighboorhood of $20mil to have made
MaxT wrote: That wasn't so much pandering to the vets as it was trying to sell more product.
Hell, most of the vets that I know hate the 8th edition rules.
Giving the vets rules that they hate is not pandering to them.
What GWreally wanted was Little Timmy buying a huge army - and he didn't.
Mostly because he was happily playing X-Wing.... (Seriously - X-Wing is a great gateway drug for the hobby - Little Timmy is happy, and so are the older players.)
The veterans already having enough figures does not help GW - they weren't after the vets, they were after Little Timmy.
Have fun with X-Wing, Little Timmy, and bring others in with you.
The Auld Grump, and the grognards are old enough to have fond memories of Star Wars, so they are happy too....
TheAuldGrump wrote: The veterans already having enough figures does not help GW - they weren't after the vets, they were after Little Timmy.
GW is always about little timmy. Veteran gamers WILL spend money and for the most part are loyal to where they play. Little timmy spends a lot more of his parents money then the vets. GW's philosophy has always been all about the new player because existing ones will buy regardless.
This policy of veteran gamers buying regardless is beginning to change. At least in my area. Too many quality games are coming out
Charles Rampant wrote: The thing to remember is that, according to these rumours, the current way of doing things is not the model. The rumours say that we should expect rapid and small additions to the six factions in turn, which I shall call 'waves', and that these waves will be time-limited. For this model, keeping an army simply because it has a lot of kits doesn't matter; the whole idea is to bring out lots of new kits with interesting and unique looks, in a fire-and-forget format that allows GW to avoid having a huge range of boxes. They don't want to have an Elven faction with 89 boxes; they want an Elven faction with a half-dozen long-lasting boxes (call it the 'essentials' range: bog standard core units, for which the current Dark Elf infantry box is a very strong contender), and a revolving stock of another half dozen boxes, all with unique IP qualities. Having lots of current kits thus is totally irrelevant to the future, since the current range (with millions of kits, and various ancient Core plastic boxes) is not envisaged as playing any role in the future range.
You should probably not expect the current army book titles to remain. Instead, I would expect a new more unique title, and then the Lizards may or may not turn up as a recurring element in one of those. As a purely speculative example: 'The Savage Hierarchy', for which the initial wave includes Saurus Cavalry and Skink skirmishers (both sexy new kits with round bases), along with a big monster (Carnosaur kit for example). Then six months later we get a Fishmen wave for them, which has a bunch of stuff like swarms and tough heavy infantry. Six months later you get Saurus Beserkers, who are a unit of super-heavy infantry. Six months after that, they retire the Fishmen wave, and bring out a new wave. And so on.
This is all assuming that the rumours are correct, and that I've interpreted those rumours correctly.
Exalted.
I think you get it, Charles, and this is also the way I see this whole thing playing out. A set of core boxes for each army book is kept on the shelves. Duplicate boxed sets that fulfill the same tabletop role get phased out, with limited splash releases on a regular basis to keep each faction buying throughout the year. The old model of updated army books every 3-5 years with 4-6 new kits per release is gone.
A new kit gets a weekly White Dwarf spotlight, it's kept as a Direct Order SKU for a number of months, then it gets discontinued if it doesn't sell.
ClockworkZion wrote: Grump, X-Wing hasn't been out that long. Timmy was buying into Warmahordes/Hormachine first.
Or 40k if he was dumb lol
I never see beginners play Fantasy anymore.
I don't really like 8th ed, but I hate 7th ed more (mostly due to the horrible overpowered codexes that were made in it).
I also dislike 6th and 7th ed of 40k so sold most everything but my rarest orks (eg armourcast trukk, 1st ed stuff, what have you).
The only army I'll really keep is my Wood Elves because they... well are my own bizarre creation and I like them.
I do suppose I can sell the dwarves if someone wants to make Squats lol (they're the old school 6th ed ones)
ClockworkZion wrote: Grump, X-Wing hasn't been out that long. Timmy was buying into Warmahordes/Hormachine first.
I haven't seen many Little Timmys playing WARMAHordes at all. I think that the youngest player in the WARMAHordes group is in his early twenties. (He is youngest for both games - he plays Khador and Circle.)
Mostly the Little Timmys that I have seen have been playing HeroClicks and X-Wing - and I think X-Wing is the better of the two. (There are also a few playing Flames of War... and really enjoying it on all levels, including the history. It reminds me of me at that age. )
I have promised to start a Flames of War force now that they are doing WWI. (The little Timmys can sometimes drag in a grognard.)
The Auld Grump,If you want to find the General, I know where he is,
I know where he is, I know where he is.
If you want to find the General, I know where he is,
He's pinning another medal on his chest.
I saw him, I saw him, pinning another medal on his chest,
I saw him, pinning another medal on his chest....
perrsyu wrote: Are we positive they are getting squatted? My partner and i heard these were simply flying across the old world, but not erased. Should they had been destroyed then yes, squatted, however right up until they are completed dead according to GW after that absolutely no.
Lustria was destroyed and the remains of the Lizardmen flew of into space in giant spaceships.
perrsyu wrote: Are we positive they are getting squatted? My partner and i heard these were simply flying across the old world, but not erased. Should they had been destroyed then yes, squatted, however right up until they are completed dead according to GW after that absolutely no.
Lustria was destroyed and the remains of the Lizardmen flew of into space in giant spaceships.
perrsyu wrote: Are we positive they are getting squatted? My partner and i heard these were simply flying across the old world, but not erased. Should they had been destroyed then yes, squatted, however right up until they are completed dead according to GW after that absolutely no.
Lustria was destroyed and the remains of the Lizardmen flew of into space in giant spaceships.
For all intents and purposes they are dead.
wait what?
Someone took a picture from the new Thanquol book:
namiel wrote: I dont see them squatting a whole PLASTIC range of badass minis. We are talking about molds that GW spent in the neighboorhood of $20mil to have made
20 million what? Not dollars
tooling a sprue is a few thousand bucks at most - about $8k to contract out to someone else. GW owns all their own equipment, so it's much cheaper. Let's say we'll overestimate and say GW has no idea what they're doing and they spend $10,000 per sprue. That means the Lizardmen have over 2000 sprues tooled? Hell let's go crazy and say they're using titanium molds and it's cut by laser diamonds mounted on jetpack sharks and they cost $20k per sprue to tool - so there's 1000 Lizardmen tools?
perrsyu wrote: Are we positive they are getting squatted? My partner and i heard these were simply flying across the old world, but not erased. Should they had been destroyed then yes, squatted, however right up until they are completed dead according to GW after that absolutely no.
Lustria was destroyed and the remains of the Lizardmen flew of into space in giant spaceships.
For all intents and purposes they are dead.
wait what?
Someone took a picture from the new Thanquol book:
namiel wrote: I dont see them squatting a whole PLASTIC range of badass minis. We are talking about molds that GW spent in the neighboorhood of $20mil to have made
20 million what? Not dollars
tooling a sprue is a few thousand bucks at most - about $8k to contract out to someone else. GW owns all their own equipment, so it's much cheaper. Let's say we'll overestimate and say GW has no idea what they're doing and they spend $10,000 per sprue. That means the Lizardmen have over 2000 sprues tooled? Hell let's go crazy and say they're using titanium molds and it's cut by laser diamonds mounted on jetpack sharks and they cost $20k per sprue to tool - so there's 1000 Lizardmen tools?
The base landraider kit was over $1mil to produce. Just that one kit was OVER $1mil
It doesn't say lizardmen are extinct, it sounds more like they're in floating bubble worlds, so their floating bubbles can collide with the other floating bubbles all the other races have and they can fight each other.
I really dunno why everything needs to be in bubbles to explain why far away races fight each other. It's easier to just use one sentence, like "They got on a boat."
The base landraider kit was over $1mil to produce. Just that one kit was OVER $1mil
Source?
former employees(same info several sources)
So what you are saying is that it takes 1 million dollars to produce a single plastic kit? How is a small company like Wyrd, that doesn't have even a fraction of that money available, capable of producing entire lines of miniatures in that material?
That number is a fabrication with no basis in reality.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Necros wrote: It doesn't say lizardmen are extinct, it sounds more like they're in floating bubble worlds, so their floating bubbles can collide with the other floating bubbles all the other races have and they can fight each other.
I really dunno why everything needs to be in bubbles to explain why far away races fight each other. It's easier to just use one sentence, like "They got on a boat."
It says that Kroak sent them "up and beyond the horizon of the world" i.e. into space.
The base landraider kit was over $1mil to produce. Just that one kit was OVER $1mil
Source?
former employees(same info several sources)
So what you are saying is that it takes 1 million dollars to produce a single plastic kit? How is a small company like Wyrd, that doesn't have even a fraction of that money available, capable of producing entire lines of miniatures in that material?
That number is a fabrication with no basis in reality.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Necros wrote: It doesn't say lizardmen are extinct, it sounds more like they're in floating bubble worlds, so their floating bubbles can collide with the other floating bubbles all the other races have and they can fight each other.
I really dunno why everything needs to be in bubbles to explain why far away races fight each other. It's easier to just use one sentence, like "They got on a boat."
It says that Kroak sent them "up and beyond the horizon of the world" i.e. into space.
I like to think they are on Laputa islands all peaceful and stuff. And plant flowers and some children fly there to complete the one's father's dying dreams and the empire are after them, their leader voiced by Mark Hammil...
namiel wrote: I dont see them squatting a whole PLASTIC range of badass minis. We are talking about molds that GW spent in the neighboorhood of $20mil to have made
20 million what? Not dollars
tooling a sprue is a few thousand bucks at most - about $8k to contract out to someone else. GW owns all their own equipment, so it's much cheaper. Let's say we'll overestimate and say GW has no idea what they're doing and they spend $10,000 per sprue. That means the Lizardmen have over 2000 sprues tooled? Hell let's go crazy and say they're using titanium molds and it's cut by laser diamonds mounted on jetpack sharks and they cost $20k per sprue to tool - so there's 1000 Lizardmen tools?
The base landraider kit was over $1mil to produce. Just that one kit was OVER $1mil
It was £250k. Source: I spoke to the production guys at Games Day UK just after it was released.
EDIT: and that was, what, 1998? Technology has moved on since then too.
namiel wrote: I dont see them squatting a whole PLASTIC range of badass minis. We are talking about molds that GW spent in the neighboorhood of $20mil to have made
20 million what? Not dollars
tooling a sprue is a few thousand bucks at most - about $8k to contract out to someone else. GW owns all their own equipment, so it's much cheaper. Let's say we'll overestimate and say GW has no idea what they're doing and they spend $10,000 per sprue. That means the Lizardmen have over 2000 sprues tooled? Hell let's go crazy and say they're using titanium molds and it's cut by laser diamonds mounted on jetpack sharks and they cost $20k per sprue to tool - so there's 1000 Lizardmen tools?
The base landraider kit was over $1mil to produce. Just that one kit was OVER $1mil
It was £250k. Source: I spoke to the production guys at Games Day UK just after it was released.
EDIT: and that was, what, 1998? Technology has moved on since then too.
If GW paid £250k for the Land Raider then they are idiotic, even for 1998. I'm a little shocked to learn that Aoshima Tamiya Italeri Bandai Hasegawa Airfix and the DOZENS of other plastic injection hobby kit companies including small timers in Russia are able to release so many kits per month - they must be spending billions of dollars EACH
Wargames Factory charges roughly $8000 for a milled steel tool - source: Wyrd, Kingdom Death, Dreamforge, Wild West Exodus. Renedra - which is actually run by the former head of the GW plastics division - charges $20,000 for a 3up scan sprue. Source: Perry Miniatures, Gripping Beast, Warlord Games
Charles Rampant wrote: The thing to remember is that, according to these rumours, the current way of doing things is not the model. The rumours say that we should expect rapid and small additions to the six factions in turn, which I shall call 'waves', and that these waves will be time-limited. For this model, keeping an army simply because it has a lot of kits doesn't matter; the whole idea is to bring out lots of new kits with interesting and unique looks, in a fire-and-forget format that allows GW to avoid having a huge range of boxes. They don't want to have an Elven faction with 89 boxes; they want an Elven faction with a half-dozen long-lasting boxes (call it the 'essentials' range: bog standard core units, for which the current Dark Elf infantry box is a very strong contender), and a revolving stock of another half dozen boxes, all with unique IP qualities. Having lots of current kits thus is totally irrelevant to the future, since the current range (with millions of kits, and various ancient Core plastic boxes) is not envisaged as playing any role in the future range.
You should probably not expect the current army book titles to remain. Instead, I would expect a new more unique title, and then the Lizards may or may not turn up as a recurring element in one of those. As a purely speculative example: 'The Savage Hierarchy', for which the initial wave includes Saurus Cavalry and Skink skirmishers (both sexy new kits with round bases), along with a big monster (Carnosaur kit for example). Then six months later we get a Fishmen wave for them, which has a bunch of stuff like swarms and tough heavy infantry. Six months later you get Saurus Beserkers, who are a unit of super-heavy infantry. Six months after that, they retire the Fishmen wave, and bring out a new wave. And so on.
This is all assuming that the rumours are correct, and that I've interpreted those rumours correctly.
Exalted.
I think you get it, Charles, and this is also the way I see this whole thing playing out. A set of core boxes for each army book is kept on the shelves. Duplicate boxed sets that fulfill the same tabletop role get phased out, with limited splash releases on a regular basis to keep each faction buying throughout the year. The old model of updated army books every 3-5 years with 4-6 new kits per release is gone.
A new kit gets a weekly White Dwarf spotlight, it's kept as a Direct Order SKU for a number of months, then it gets discontinued if it doesn't sell.
It's not that people don't understand the concept, it's that people can't believe even GW would do something so monumentally idiotic.
I think you get it, Charles, and this is also the way I see this whole thing playing out. A set of core boxes for each army book is kept on the shelves. Duplicate boxed sets that fulfill the same tabletop role get phased out, with limited splash releases on a regular basis to keep each faction buying throughout the year. The old model of updated army books every 3-5 years with 4-6 new kits per release is gone.
A new kit gets a weekly White Dwarf spotlight, it's kept as a Direct Order SKU for a number of months, then it gets discontinued if it doesn't sell.
I think that we have already seen 40k moving in this direction. I mean, the Stormclaw boxed set was incredible value, and disappeared almost instantly. As did the Void Shield. I think that Games Workshop have decided on a collectors approach: bring out exciting things that won't be around forever, prompting their customers to go crazy trying to get them. It allows them to quietly ignore the Ebay market - since they are in the business of selling new exciting kits, rather than updating old models - and means that their designers (both model and rules) can focus entirely on designing new and cool things, rather than trying to balance them against older ones. To take a recent example: they wouldn't need to care whether the Stormfiends were a good addition to the Rare slot, since at the time of their release they would be the only thing in that slot. People buy them or not. Then they are away to design the next thing.
Is this good for us as customers? Interesting question. If it results in a game that you can play with a smaller investment - say that all you need is 2 monsters, a character and a pair of 10-20 man regiments - then it could arguably be a lot easier to get into, resulting in far higher buy in. This means more players. You won't be able to collect everything released for a given faction, and indeed you might have a fairly limited set of model options at any given moment. Some people will really get annoyed by that, for various reasons. It also seems clear that backward compatibility, though explicitly mentioned as a thing in these rumours, won't be a huge priority going forward. I mean, currently if GW brings out another Tomb Kings book then they need to worry about updating loads of rules for old models as well as adding new ones. I don't think that they will bring out any new army books. So my collection of Tomb Kings won't be updated, in terms of rules, and if I want to use them then proxies and counts-as are likely to be how I'll do it. But you get a whole bunch of cool (?) kits releasing for your chosen faction every once in a while. You potentially get a cheaper game to play, meaning that you can spread your hobby money around further within the game. You maybe even avoid the charge that the game is about replicating the same models, if instead we start seeing armies full of relatively unique units.
So am I excited? Er, sort of. I'm interested to see how it goes. I'm certainly not possessed of the view that Games Workshop owes it to me to keep my current ranges totally valid and pristine - I can see how that isn't really to their benefit - but I'm also certainly not excited to have my hard work ruined. I am, however, a huge fan of Games Workshop models, and love how WFB currently plays. So I'm hoping that, even if these rumours come true, that I'll have a game identifiable as WFB which I can play with a larger fanbase, which has lots of cool models to paint and play with, and which stops the endless moaning at my gaming clubs about "models are only wound counters".
Brennonjw wrote: I hope not, I mean, It seems like they may as well cancel WHFB and make a new game.
Yeah, it's like...when you're a kid, trying to cut a circle from a piece of paper, you make a mistake so cut some more off, then more and more, you eventually give up because it's too small and try again.
Only GW sets theirs on fire and tries to burn it into a circle.
I'm a guy who would love to play WHFB but not as a skirmish game. Massed ranks of troops is very cool in fantasy. But the GW approach seems designed to soak me constantly. Another thing and maybe I'm wrong so correct me, it seems like armies are not based around massed groups of infantry and cavalry but more about large expensive models with a couple units of regulars to fill it out.
I'm not the type who is going to read WH books and stuff but the fluff is cool, or at least was as far as I know since most of my knowledge of the World of Warhammer comes from WHFB 2e and the first two editions of WHFRP. I'd like to get into WH more but GW costing on books and models is frankly insane compared to other options, and the way the rules are seemingly secondary to pretty models is just not what I'm looking for.
But since I'm not a store/tourney player much I'm fine with just using what I've got and use KoW, or one of the older rule books I've got with my older WH models. Perry miniatures line would work great with Empire or Bretonnian armies and I've got an old copy of 6e and RH.
The "problem" with cavalry is that they require work to play. Any blind monkey can play a typical Skaven or Goblin army, but a cavalry-army requires careful pre-planning and tactical skill instead of just spamming big hordes and rare choices.
As a consequence, a lot of players fall flat on their faces when playing cavalry and then blame the units whereas in fact, it's a lack of experience.
Let me see if I get this right from what I have read for the new Fantasy Game Model:
- At any given time, I will be able to purchase a very bland version of a given army which may or may not be table capable with the continuously produced models.
- During the year, GW will release a limited run of additional, more "spicy" models for my army, which I need to buy almost instantaneously or I will not be able to get them. I may or may not know the rules for them ahead of time and they may or may not be balanced.
- Given enough time, there will be models/rules that I have for my army that new players have no way of getting because they are out of print. This may or may not give me an advantage.
Barfolomew wrote: Let me see if I get this right from what I have read for the new Fantasy Game Model:
- At any given time, I will be able to purchase a very bland version of a given army which may or may not be table capable with the continuously produced models.
- During the year, GW will release a limited run of additional, more "spicy" models for my army, which I need to buy almost instantaneously or I will not be able to get them. I may or may not know the rules for them ahead of time and they may or may not be balanced.
- Given enough time, there will be models/rules that I have for my army that new players have no way of getting because they are out of print. This may or may not give me an advantage.
It is unlikely you will have rare oop characters or units. Rare generic models are more likely. I think it would Bo like that recluse chaplain in the space marine box from last year.
Laemos wrote: It is unlikely you will have rare oop characters or units. Rare generic models are more likely. I think it would Bo like that recluse chaplain in the space marine box from last year.
But that is not what the rumours say. The rumours specifically state limited edition rules that go along limited edition models.
How I learned to stop worrying and love the bubbleverse...
Yeah that never happened. At least I pretend that.
I'm hearing allot of chat about sisters but that's all it is chat, I've had more solid info about Skitari then sisters though people are saying that it's this year.
Lizardmen are probably gone just like Brets.
Brets are joining the Armies of Man thing if rumors are true, and if all their units still exist you'll still be able to field a pure classic Bret army like you can now from the book. Hell they got some fluff in the End Times books too from what I understand too [spoiler]The Green Knight is their First King who is still alive and is back.
Lizardmen are looking like they're more completely gone, unless they're just getting a rework and will come back later with some new design choices. So they're actually looking to be worse off than the Brets on this one right now.
Brets joining the army of men is part of the rumor BUT the entire bret line still existing is NOT part of the rumors. The rumors basically say that when the books get combined lots of units will be cut out of the books. So empire will be down to just halberds no more swordsmen or spearmen just the one basic state troop, etc. Thats the worst part is finding out half of the models you have are no longer part of your army
Bottle wrote:I very much doubt that specific example as they are all part of the same kit. More likely boxed sets that are old and models that are still only resin and metal will be culled first.
Thats exactly what will happen, but lots of people still use lots of those minis. Look at bret knights. Only knights of the realm and knights errant have a plastic box(a VERY old plastic box) and the others are in resin. So do brets now only have 1 knight option? If the point of this is to cut down then i dont see them making new plastic sculpts for those, thus lots of those units will be cut. Units that many people have models for.
No. Why would they cut Empire swordsmen and spearmen when they make up the same kit as the Halberdiers? Much more likely all variants will still exist, named something like -insert unique IP name here- Human Infantry but they will drop the Brettonian Men-At-arms Kit. (And people who play brets now can field their old models as counts-as)
This is what we are going to see. Old and unpopular kits dropped when there is a better kit that offers similar options in another of the armies they are combining with.
I think it would be kinda cool if both 40k and fantasy could be played with round or square bases and a few more armies were cross platform. I always thought that was pretty cool of Deamon of Chaos. I always saw more value in that army because of it.
So in the end, WFB is now just going to be Mordhiem on another scale?
You can use your armies and play skirmish? The setting is just abysmal now to even seem to be fantasy. This is now just more or less looking more and more like Necromunda with a sword and a bow then anything even remotely old world.
And for all out there saying " even GW isn't this stupid..". I'm sorry, but you must be either a new player or someone who doesn't know GW very well. This is exactly the type of dick move GW is now known and laughed at for. They are known for this exact very same thing because they know what you want, and if you don't like it, its your fault.
WFB is dead, and even if I'm on the sidelines now just watching a train wreck, I feel sorrow for all of us die hards that actually had hope that they would stop fuel injecting kool aid and actually see what's really going on in the gaming world and how the economy is now pushing us away from mutts like GW.
namiel wrote: The base landraider kit was over $1mil to produce. Just that one kit was OVER $1mil
It was £250k. Source: I spoke to the production guys at Games Day UK just after it was released.
EDIT: and that was, what, 1998? Technology has moved on since then too.
It's OVER 9000!!!
The 250k GBP number almost certainly includes the cost of the machine, setup, learning, along with sculpting, proofing, and fair chunk of Kirby's yacht.
IMO, GW will produce all new X-in-1 kits for infantry, cavalry, etc.
- Grimdark Skaven and Grimdark Chaos need very little change from what they are today, being strong GW IP, just a little cleanup.
- Grimdark Elves are likely to be similar to Dark Elves, no problem.
- Grimdark Undead will probably look closer to VC, like their Crypt Ghouls - the Egyptian stuff is far too generic, so it's worthless.
- Grimdark Men will all new kits. as the entirety of the existing models are slightly-tweaked historicals of some sort - GW is completely unprotected with their Landsknect infantry, their Teutonic Knights, etc. This is a huge problem for GW, and likely where a lot of work has gone.
- Grimdark Orks are more problematic from a theme standpoint, as they were always a goofy, cheerful lot. I wonder how this is going to work.
Man, too funny. I can see this working for about 6 months, then people will get peeved with it. The first unit that comes out that creates a step change in an army's capability or crushes someone's theme when they can't get a hold of it will pave the way for GW loosing customers.
This turns Fantasy into a collectible miniature game, just like collectible card games so many hate on this forum. I play MTG and the one thing most people complain about with that game is the barrier of entry into competitive constructed play; even with all the secondary market support it has. Fantasy has no real sponsored tournaments to help drive the secondary market and the beer and pretzel motif mean GW will not provide support. The one thing most table top bases have going for them is that everyone has an equal opportunity to acquire the models they want, but not with this model.
Laemos wrote: It is unlikely you will have rare oop characters or units. Rare generic models are more likely. I think it would Bo like that recluse chaplain in the space marine box from last year.
But that is not what the rumours say. The rumours specifically state limited edition rules that go along limited edition models.
I have a feeling that'll be more like campaign books like Shield of Baal that have a limited release set that has one or two unique models with a bunch of generic ones.
Barfolomew wrote: Let me see if I get this right from what I have read for the new Fantasy Game Model:
- At any given time, I will be able to purchase a very bland version of a given army which may or may not be table capable with the continuously produced models.
- During the year, GW will release a limited run of additional, more "spicy" models for my army, which I need to buy almost instantaneously or I will not be able to get them. I may or may not know the rules for them ahead of time and they may or may not be balanced.
- Given enough time, there will be models/rules that I have for my army that new players have no way of getting because they are out of print. This may or may not give me an advantage.
Is the above correct?
Or you buy the rules digitally and convert/3rd party the model and give Kirby the vapors!
Egads! Other companies, making models? Why I never...
So you're rejecting an edition release 6+ months out that can be completely different than what some of the rumors are saying?
Given GW's general attitude and track record...
If only they were giving us information to assuage concerns. But what kind of company would engage with its customers before a major change to let them know the reasons behind it and what the future holds? Clearly such things are otiose.
In all seriousness though, that's part of the issue. GW should be in constant communication via White Dwarf or other mediums (if they had them, you know...) to be up front about the changes, give previews, answer questions from people (such as a Lizardman player concerned about the future of their army). Instead, they're silent and all we have to go on is rumors until probably a month (if even) before it's out. And then it will be "Surprise, new edition of Warhammer Fantasy! Get your wallets ready!" like everything else they do.
is it any wonder why people are upset? GW's lack of communication and general disdain for its customers is astounding.
So you're rejecting an edition release 6+ months out that can be completely different than what some of the rumors are saying?
Given GW's general attitude and track record...
If only they were giving us information to assuage concerns. But what kind of company would engage with its customers before a major change to let them know the reasons behind it and what the future holds? Clearly such things are otiose.
In all seriousness though, that's part of the issue. GW should be in constant communication via White Dwarf or other mediums (if they had them, you know...) to be up front about the changes, give previews, answer questions from people (such as a Lizardman player concerned about the future of their army). Instead, they're silent and all we have to go on is rumors until probably a month (if even) before it's out. And then it will be "Surprise, new edition of Warhammer Fantasy! Get your wallets ready!" like everything else they do.
is it any wonder why people are upset? GW's lack of communication and general disdain for its customers is astounding.
Like back in the day when they gave us a playtest version of 4th edition's assault rules in 40k to try out and get used to, with a list of the reasoning behind the changes. Those days of "by gamers, for gamers" design are long gone.
I know people are upset and I get that the lack of communication isn't helping but we've been down this sort of road where "BIG CHANGE IS COMING!!!! EVERYONE PANIC!!!! SCISSORS 61!!!!111!" comes up and it turns out to either be better than we were expecting or nowhere close to what was rumored.
Yes some pieces seem to be falling into place (bubble hammer, round bases) but they aren't the same as we were told either. The bubbles seem to be Lizardmen centric (and didn't completely remove them from the setting), and the round bases showed up on two Skaven models that didn't have bases before but there is still stuff on square bases.
Plus, you know, we've seen round bases in Fantasy before:
Yes, change is coming. But it's too early to claim it's coming exactly as predicted.
What it is looking like is that the game is getting a major shake up and some of the lines are being consolidated because the game just can't support so many different armies when no one is buying. With a streamlined army count and room to create new characters to replace some of the old ones who were slain so far we're seeing progression in the story. Where that progression takes us remains to be seen, but it is progression.
Sigvatr wrote: The "problem" with cavalry is that they require work to play. Any blind monkey can play a typical Skaven or Goblin army, but a cavalry-army requires careful pre-planning and tactical skill instead of just spamming big hordes and rare choices.
As a consequence, a lot of players fall flat on their faces when playing cavalry and then blame the units whereas in fact, it's a lack of experience.
I've been playing for 12 years, but because I suck I don't need anymore handicaps lol
Those days of "by gamers, for gamers" design are long gone.
Maybe for GW but Wyrd (Makers of Malifaux) still do an open beta toward the end. One should be starting soon actually.
Yeah, that's what I meant. Most other companies are good about keeping communication open. Mantic is great at it.
A company that leans on crowdfunding to promote every single thing they produce had better be good, if not great, at communication.
I honestly dont think that mantic needs it, i think they do it because they can. Sure they give away great deals on minis during the kickstarter (its viewed as a bonus to their customers) but they also get money with little to no risk. It keeps start up costs down for the company which looks better to owners/shareholders(should they be public IDK)
Mantic i bet has the capital to start new projects, they just see the value in kick starters. It is good PR giving out deals and less money out of their pockets to start mini lines.
Before the launch of the KoWII KS Ronnie explained on the blog that they get a significant number of new customers each KS, they use KS a) because of the marketing reach and b) it allows them to bring more variety in terms of factions to the game launch (Ronnie believes you need at least 4 factions/teams to launch a game).
Baragash wrote: Before the launch of the KoWII KS Ronnie explained on the blog that they get a significant number of new customers each KS, they use KS a) because of the marketing reach and b) it allows them to bring more variety in terms of factions to the game launch (Ronnie believes you need at least 4 factions/teams to launch a game).
Not to mention that Kickstarter acts as both advertising and as a way to fund the game - from Mantic's point of view it is a win/win. (Heck, the first KoW Kickstarter is still one of my two favorite Kickstarters - in part because they weren't expecting to hit their first stretch goal. Kickstarter has been very good for Mantic.)
Plus, you know, we've seen round bases in Fantasy before:
.
Really? I mean Really? Of hundreds of minis in WFB we have those and some fanatics as exceptions to the rule and you come here pointing out exactly what? round bases its a WFB thing?
Thats just silly mate.
Changing bases is a problem and enough to make many people really upset specially if they wish to follow WFB 9th ( assuming rumors are correct). Armies have hundreds of minis in square bases and most vets have multiple armies. So yeah it sucks. And before you come and say you could always ignore the 9th and continue on 8th... That is not the point!
Personally It does not affect me that much, I can change them if I feel like it but do not for a minute minimize this frustrating change and try to disguise it as something common in wfb or a non issue.
In theory changes are generally good on a system that is not preforming well... but in practical therms if the changes are handled in a autistic way they have the potential to kill that system.
GW knows about these rumors, they know about people concerned with 32mm bases in 40k... yet they seem to have taken a chill suppository and brush everything as ' non a issue'.
Guess what, its a problem its not pretty and will make many people pissed.
From now until GW decides to actually clarify their customers ( I bet never) there are several months of people not buying, waiting for conclusive news, projects on pause etc... That alone will make things harder for the new edition kick start. You know, people investing serious hobby money on a new army kind of like to know simple things like what freaking bases will I do them... or will I buy 3 boxes to make a regiment that is rendered discontinued?
THeres a big thing to be said about PR and client management and GW is failing big time there... as always. SO want to change something to gather more interest? Start there.
What I was pointing out that just because we've seen two models on round bases it doesn't mean the game is going to round bases. Boneripper was still a squarebase in that image afterall.
ClockworkZion wrote: What I was pointing out that just because we've seen two models on round bases it doesn't mean the game is going to round bases. Boneripper was still a squarebase in that image afterall.
Hush, you, the sky is falling!!!
Question: Does anyone remember whether Dakka freaked out when the NG Fanatics moved to round bases?
I always thought goblin fanatics had a good reason to not be in regular square bases- they obviously can't rank up and the round bases just look more uniform, especially for a unit that ignores large sections of the rules (ie being in ranks, etc.)
The round base rumors I believe come from the solid rumormongers over on Warseer, mentioned in conjunction with everything about 9th.
It's quite a big difference between a model like the Fanatics, that can't rank up etc, and the Screaming Bell, which literally has to be in a unit to work as per the current rules, being on a round base.
I would be depressed if it goes to round bases, not gonna lie. I'll deal with it though after play testing enough of 9th and if it warrants switching to round bases. But man does it suck right now in limbo. I have said it before, but I really enjoy painting, I have been picking up a box here and there from almost each army minus TK and Brets. So ya its a little frustrating I got some really nice painted models with sticky tacked feet to bases while I wait this out. Now having to re-base my 30 block of crypt ghouls or the 50 skaven slaves, most likely not gonna happen. My OCD I dont think will let me play with a mixed batch of bases.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Question: Does anyone remember whether Dakka freaked out when the NG Fanatics moved to round bases?
No, because we have deductive reasoning. And the Fanatics weren't released under the context of great upheaval with the game itself and rumours of major changes.
Jesus Christ DD you really are the frickin' Emperor of badly thought out false equivalencies. It's like you practice it or something.
Was Dakka even around when round based Fanatics first came out? lol.
But yeah, Fanatics came out in the heyday of GW, when they were on the rise, even before LOTR came out (I don't know exactly when they first came out, but there are round based Fanatics even older than they ones you posted in my 1998 Citadel Annual). That, and they Fanatics are unique in that they are markers for destruction more than they're units, they can't do anything that would require a square base.
docdoom77 wrote: Yeah, that's what I meant. Most other companies are good about keeping communication open. Mantic is great at it.
No, they aren't. Have you read the Mantic thread recently? People's inability to contact Mantic about Mantic's failure to provide the product they paid for is a regular feature.
docdoom77 wrote: Yeah, that's what I meant. Most other companies are good about keeping communication open. Mantic is great at it.
No, they aren't. Have you read the Mantic thread recently? People's inability to contact Mantic about Mantic's failure to provide the product they paid for is a regular feature.
I wasn't discussing customer service, something which GW is still not too bad at (at least online... not perfect mind you). I was talking about discussing development and future plans with customers. Mantic is good at that. GW used to be good at that, but now, everything is a big secret.
So it wasn't even a false equivalency. It was just false.
Perfect.
Yeah. I remember Fanatics being on round bases when I played WHFB, and that was circa 1995. So not sure what that was supposed to be other than misinformation designed to make it look like we're all just crazy whiners.
docdoom77 wrote: I wasn't discussing customer service, something which GW is still not too bad at (at least online... not perfect mind you). I was talking about discussing development and future plans with customers. Mantic is good at that. GW used to be good at that, but now, everything is a big secret.
Are you kidding? GW sucks at this, but at least they show you the finished miniatures at the same time they ask you to preorder them. With Mantic you might not even see the concept art for months after preorders have closed - the gargoyles from the first KoW Kickstarter, for example.
ClockworkZion wrote: Elves are being reunited according to Rumors. Also from the End Times fluff:
Spoiler:
Dark Elves also won the civil war with the High Elves and the island has been sunk
.
Only by the most general of interpretations.
Malekith was confirmed as the one true Phoenix King, all other Phoenix Kings since he was denied the throne have been unintentional usurpers. Malekith fights against Khaine Incarnate, embodied by Tyrion who draws the widowmaker. After fighting the good fight, Malekith has his blade knocked from him by Tyrion. As Tyrion goes to strike a mortal blow, Alith Anar shoots him dead with the moonbow, hitting a spot that Imrik had hit with the Starlance, damaging the Dragon Armor of Anerion. Malekith is declared from Phoenix King to Eternity King by Alarielle, the Everqueen, who has also walked through the steps of Avatar of Isha, and into the Incarnate of Life (she's infused with the wind of Life Magic). Teclis intended to complete Malekiths transformation from sadism of the dark elves to a being of hope and light by infusing him with Aqshy, the Wind of Fire, but instead he's infused with the Wind of Shadow. Alith Anar promises that if Malekith is playing a role in being the savior of the elves, or if he ever falls back to his old ways, he'll be there, and he'll finish the job.
Ulthuan does sink, but it has nothing to do with Malekith, and everything to do with the magical vortex being shattered. Ultuan, not being a natural land mass, and losing its magical anchor, sinks.
So.... the dark elves don't "win" and the high elves didn't lose. More like, the issues that split the elves asunder finally worked themselves out, but not really how any of the three tribes of elves foresaw.
Those days of "by gamers, for gamers" design are long gone.
Maybe for GW but Wyrd (Makers of Malifaux) still do an open beta toward the end. One should be starting soon actually.
Yup, and when Warmachine / Hordes went from MK1 to MK2, they did an open beta and gave EVERY player the opportunity to submit as much feedback as they wanted.
It's been done, successfully, by other company's before.
Malekith was confirmed as the one true Phoenix King, all other Phoenix Kings since he was denied the throne have been unintentional usurpers. Malekith fights against Khaine Incarnate, embodied by Tyrion who draws the widowmaker. After fighting the good fight, Malekith has his blade knocked from him by Tyrion. As Tyrion goes to strike a mortal blow, Alith Anar shoots him dead with the moonbow, hitting a spot that Imrik had hit with the Starlance, damaging the Dragon Armor of Anerion. Malekith is declared from Phoenix King to Eternity King by Alarielle, the Everqueen, who has also walked through the steps of Avatar of Isha, and into the Incarnate of Life (she's infused with the wind of Life Magic). Teclis intended to complete Malekiths transformation from sadism of the dark elves to a being of hope and light by infusing him with Aqshy, the Wind of Fire, but instead he's infused with the Wind of Shadow. Alith Anar promises that if Malekith is playing a role in being the savior of the elves, or if he ever falls back to his old ways, he'll be there, and he'll finish the job.
That sounds like bad fan fic. Seriously. I'd expect the next chapter of that to have Alith and Malekith confess their love for one another.
Malekith was confirmed as the one true Phoenix King, all other Phoenix Kings since he was denied the throne have been unintentional usurpers. Malekith fights against Khaine Incarnate, embodied by Tyrion who draws the widowmaker. After fighting the good fight, Malekith has his blade knocked from him by Tyrion. As Tyrion goes to strike a mortal blow, Alith Anar shoots him dead with the moonbow, hitting a spot that Imrik had hit with the Starlance, damaging the Dragon Armor of Anerion. Malekith is declared from Phoenix King to Eternity King by Alarielle, the Everqueen, who has also walked through the steps of Avatar of Isha, and into the Incarnate of Life (she's infused with the wind of Life Magic). Teclis intended to complete Malekiths transformation from sadism of the dark elves to a being of hope and light by infusing him with Aqshy, the Wind of Fire, but instead he's infused with the Wind of Shadow. Alith Anar promises that if Malekith is playing a role in being the savior of the elves, or if he ever falls back to his old ways, he'll be there, and he'll finish the job.
That sounds like bad fan fic. Seriously. I'd expect the next chapter of that to have Alith and Malekith confess their love for one another.
I'm sure it exists somewhere. And I imagine it'd be something like this:
As Alith stared into Malekith's eyes he whispered, "be gentle sempai." And then they kissed. [AUTHOR'S NOTE SELF: ADD SEXY SEX SCENE LATER]
Malekith was confirmed as the one true Phoenix King, all other Phoenix Kings since he was denied the throne have been unintentional usurpers. Malekith fights against Khaine Incarnate, embodied by Tyrion who draws the widowmaker. After fighting the good fight, Malekith has his blade knocked from him by Tyrion. As Tyrion goes to strike a mortal blow, Alith Anar shoots him dead with the moonbow, hitting a spot that Imrik had hit with the Starlance, damaging the Dragon Armor of Anerion. Malekith is declared from Phoenix King to Eternity King by Alarielle, the Everqueen, who has also walked through the steps of Avatar of Isha, and into the Incarnate of Life (she's infused with the wind of Life Magic). Teclis intended to complete Malekiths transformation from sadism of the dark elves to a being of hope and light by infusing him with Aqshy, the Wind of Fire, but instead he's infused with the Wind of Shadow. Alith Anar promises that if Malekith is playing a role in being the savior of the elves, or if he ever falls back to his old ways, he'll be there, and he'll finish the job.
That sounds like bad fan fic. Seriously. I'd expect the next chapter of that to have Alith and Malekith confess their love for one another.
I'm sure it exists somewhere. And I imagine it'd be something like this:
As Alith stared into Malekith's eyes he whispered, "be gentle sempai." And then they kissed. [AUTHOR'S NOTE SELF: ADD SEXY SEX SCENE LATER]
docdoom77 wrote: I wasn't discussing customer service, something which GW is still not too bad at (at least online... not perfect mind you). I was talking about discussing development and future plans with customers. Mantic is good at that. GW used to be good at that, but now, everything is a big secret.
Are you kidding? GW sucks at this, but at least they show you the finished miniatures at the same time they ask you to preorder them. With Mantic you might not even see the concept art for months after preorders have closed - the gargoyles from the first KoW Kickstarter, for example.
Ape arm basilians, pee-pee dance ogres, nuns on house cats, and unannounced material changes. Yeah, Mantic is aces in the communications department.......not.
That sounds like bad fan fic. Seriously. I'd expect the next chapter of that to have Alith and Malekith confess their love for one another.
Naturally. Matt Ward wrote it.
I highly fething doubt it. He doesn't work for GW anymore and hasn't since at least the middle of last year, and before that wasn't actually writing anything directly. So please kindly just stop flogging that horse. It's not even dead anymore. It's been buried and a tree has grown where it's corpse was laid to rest.
That sounds like bad fan fic. Seriously. I'd expect the next chapter of that to have Alith and Malekith confess their love for one another.
Naturally. Matt Ward wrote it.
I highly fething doubt it. He doesn't work for GW anymore and hasn't since at least the middle of last year, and before that wasn't actually writing anything directly. So please kindly just stop flogging that horse. It's not even dead anymore. It's been buried and a tree has grown where it's corpse was laid to rest.
That sounds like bad fan fic. Seriously. I'd expect the next chapter of that to have Alith and Malekith confess their love for one another.
Naturally. Matt Ward wrote it.
I highly fething doubt it. He doesn't work for GW anymore and hasn't since at least the middle of last year, and before that wasn't actually writing anything directly. So please kindly just stop flogging that horse. It's not even dead anymore. It's been buried and a tree has grown where it's corpse was laid to rest.
Oh, so then it's CS Goto's work?
No, because he's too busy writing your posts for you.
That sounds like bad fan fic. Seriously. I'd expect the next chapter of that to have Alith and Malekith confess their love for one another.
Naturally. Matt Ward wrote it.
I highly fething doubt it. He doesn't work for GW anymore and hasn't since at least the middle of last year, and before that wasn't actually writing anything directly. So please kindly just stop flogging that horse. It's not even dead anymore. It's been buried and a tree has grown where it's corpse was laid to rest.
Matt Ward wrote:Just as Siege of Gondor was the first book I saw through from beginning to end, Warhammer: Khaine is the last. That's not to say it's the last one I wrote (there's one to go yet), but it is the final book upon which I worked closely with the artists, designers, rules writers and so on.
Matt Ward wrote:No, I think Khaine was my favourite to write ....
That sounds like bad fan fic. Seriously. I'd expect the next chapter of that to have Alith and Malekith confess their love for one another.
Naturally. Matt Ward wrote it.
I highly fething doubt it. He doesn't work for GW anymore and hasn't since at least the middle of last year, and before that wasn't actually writing anything directly. So please kindly just stop flogging that horse. It's not even dead anymore. It's been buried and a tree has grown where it's corpse was laid to rest.
Oh, so then it's CS Goto's work?
No, because he's too busy writing your posts for you.
I'm quite apprehensive about this. Im all for change and all, but if the Lizardmen have indeed been squatted then that is a slap in the face to customer relations.
Regarding the limited runs of models, would GW manage to retain ownership of the IP if they no longer produce the model?? If that be the case I could see some of the quality third party manufacturers doing their own versions of the most popular models once they are no longer available
That sounds like bad fan fic. Seriously. I'd expect the next chapter of that to have Alith and Malekith confess their love for one another.
Naturally. Matt Ward wrote it.
I highly fething doubt it. He doesn't work for GW anymore and hasn't since at least the middle of last year, and before that wasn't actually writing anything directly. So please kindly just stop flogging that horse. It's not even dead anymore. It's been buried and a tree has grown where it's corpse was laid to rest.
Becuase when he left, GW expunged his works from the records and didn't use any of what he was working on when he left at all. Oh no.
Becuase when he left, GW expunged his works from the records and didn't use any of what he was working on when he left at all. Oh no.
And as pointed out above, he's said he wrote it.
Well, they did a whole campaign series around Blood Angels & Necrons bro-fisting, including a BL advent story with a Necrons/Blood Angels strike cruiser called Fratrem Pugno, literally "Brother Fist" or, if you're so inclined "Bro Fist"
Becuase when he left, GW expunged his works from the records and didn't use any of what he was working on when he left at all. Oh no.
And as pointed out above, he's said he wrote it.
Well, they did a whole campaign series around Blood Angels & Necrons bro-fisting, including a BL advent story with a Necrons/Blood Angels strike cruiser called Fratrem Pugno, literally "Brother Fist" or, if you're so inclined "Bro Fist"
Wait, are you serious... I knew about the necron/BA thing, didn't know that the cruiser was called Bro Fist
Malika2 wrote: And who says BL doesn't have a sense of humour?
Nobody - it simply appears to be the sense of humour of a man who laughs at his own farts.
Not entirely fair. BL/GW didn't come up with the "Bro Fist" thing. BL just took it from the "interwebs" and went with it. A case of fiction the 40K-community wants/deserves?
Wonderwolf wrote: A case of fiction the 40K-community wants/deserves?
No. The internet came up with the "bro fist" thing to mock GW's gakky writing. It was not an endorsement of that writing, or a plea for more of the same.
Becuase when he left, GW expunged his works from the records and didn't use any of what he was working on when he left at all. Oh no.
And as pointed out above, he's said he wrote it.
Well, they did a whole campaign series around Blood Angels & Necrons bro-fisting, including a BL advent story with a Necrons/Blood Angels strike cruiser called Fratrem Pugno, literally "Brother Fist" or, if you're so inclined "Bro Fist"
Actually, fratrem pugno means "I fight my brother". Source: Latin degree.
Wonderwolf wrote: A case of fiction the 40K-community wants/deserves?
I'm not sure how you arrived at that conclusion.
There's such a thing as acknowledging your mistakes and a bit of self-deprecation can regain a bit of respect; but with the amount of bloopers GW makes it begins to seem less like a friendly wink & nudge and 'd'you remember that time', and more like a colourful gesture to anyone getting peeved by the constant muck-ups.
There's a short line from Michael Crichton's original The Lost World sequel to Jurassic Park. (the awful movie bore almost no resemblance, but I digress) It's very obscure, almost a throwaway line, not particularly ground-breaking; but it's stuck with me for years, and comes to mind in situations like this:
Wonderwolf wrote: A case of fiction the 40K-community wants/deserves?
I'm not sure how you arrived at that conclusion.
There's such a thing as acknowledging your mistakes and a bit of self-deprecation can regain a bit of respect; but with the amount of bloopers GW makes it begins to seem less like a friendly wink & nudge and 'd'you remember that time', and more like a colourful gesture to anyone getting peeved by the constant muck-ups.
There's a short line from Michael Crichton's original The Lost World sequel to Jurassic Park. (the awful movie bore almost no resemblance, but I digress) It's very obscure, almost a throwaway line, not particularly ground-breaking; but it's stuck with me for years, and comes to mind in situations like this:
"Don't be sorry; be right!"
I thought the original Necron vs. Blood Angels story in the "enemy of my enemy"-spirit was all right. Certainly less grating then previous "allies"-attempts (e.g. Striking Scorpions & Space Wolves in the old Space Wolves codex). The "Bro Fist mockery" exaggerated the original story to a point, where the object of mockery had little resemblance to the original. It implied levels of intimacy that were clearly not intended by the original.
Either way, whatever intentions GW might have had with "Fratrem Pugno" (assuming it was even meant as a "Bro Fist-pun", i.e. I've got no Latin degree), the analogy of "laughing at their own farts" is off, as they were laughing/catering to/mocking/embracing/referencing/whatever an internet-meme specifically, not (just) the original Mat Ward paragraph (assuming he literally wrote it himself, which he might not have done, even if he was the lead on the old Cron codex). The "reference" would obviously have been impossible without the internet-meme. There is no "bro fist" in the original story.
Wonderwolf wrote: I thought the original Necron vs. Blood Angels story in the "enemy of my enemy"-spirit was all right.
Necrons did not do "enemy of my enemy" until Ward got his hands on them. Eldar and Imperials? Tau and Imperials? These are factions that are capable of interacting on a level other than murder. Necrons and Space Marines? Not a fething chance.
Wonderwolf wrote: I thought the original Necron vs. Blood Angels story in the "enemy of my enemy"-spirit was all right.
Necrons did not do "enemy of my enemy" until Ward got his hands on them. Eldar and Imperials? Tau and Imperials? These are factions that are capable of interacting on a level other than murder. Necrons and Space Marines? Not a fething chance.
Perhaps. But when the design brief was to change the dull old mono-dimensional Necrons, moving away from an uninspired "Terminator"-rip-off and turn them into something that is actually open to personalisation, hobby-creativity in painting/conversions and campaign-games by players with Necron-armies, then illustrating it - among other things - by showing they are now capable of basic military strategy and alliances of necessity sounds like the reasonable thing to do.
Otherwise, Necrons would still be stuck in the same dead-end Tyranids are still in. A "cool idea" for about 5 seconds, but nothing you can really do with it beyond that.
Malika2 wrote: And who says BL doesn't have a sense of humour?
Nobody - it simply appears to be the sense of humour of a man who laughs at his own farts.
Not entirely fair. BL/GW didn't come up with the "Bro Fist" thing. BL just took it from the "interwebs" and went with it. A case of fiction the 40K-community wants/deserves?
Indeed, its like this thread about Fantasy keep moving to the 40k setting. Mockery turning painfully true?
Becuase when he left, GW expunged his works from the records and didn't use any of what he was working on when he left at all. Oh no.
And as pointed out above, he's said he wrote it.
Well, they did a whole campaign series around Blood Angels & Necrons bro-fisting, including a BL advent story with a Necrons/Blood Angels strike cruiser called Fratrem Pugno, literally "Brother Fist" or, if you're so inclined "Bro Fist"
Actually, fratrem pugno means "I fight my brother". Source: Latin degree.
This is getting off topic, however.
Out of curiosity, what would be the proper translation of "Bro fist" in to latin?
Becuase when he left, GW expunged his works from the records and didn't use any of what he was working on when he left at all. Oh no.
And as pointed out above, he's said he wrote it.
Well, they did a whole campaign series around Blood Angels & Necrons bro-fisting, including a BL advent story with a Necrons/Blood Angels strike cruiser called Fratrem Pugno, literally "Brother Fist" or, if you're so inclined "Bro Fist"
Actually, fratrem pugno means "I fight my brother". Source: Latin degree.
This is getting off topic, however.
Out of curiosity, what would be the proper translation of "Bro fist" in to latin?
heartserenade wrote: Regarding bad fanfic, there might be a reason why it's called BL. In slash circles, BL means Boy Love. Gives BL Collection a whole new meaning.
On topic however, what I find alarming is not how insane these rumors are, it's how it sounds veeeeery plausible for GW to do said rumors.
streamdragon wrote: Are we really expecting perfect Latin from a company that can barely get clear rules in English?
Exactly this.
If you insert "fratrem pugno" into Google Translate, you come out with "Brother Fist" which probably was what BL did.
It goes right along with Murderfang the Murderclaw wielding dreadnought that suffers from Murderlust! GW probably thinks that its an incredibly funny bit of self-deprecating humour, when instead it just comes out as ridiculous and only cheapens the setting...
streamdragon wrote: Are we really expecting perfect Latin from a company that can barely get clear rules in English?
Burn!
I do like that they changed Necrons from mindless Terminators to sentient beings with goals and desires.
But then they just made them Tomb Kings in space.
Another example of GW having a good idea and ruining it in the execution.
Wonderwolf wrote: I thought the original Necron vs. Blood Angels story in the "enemy of my enemy"-spirit was all right.
Necrons did not do "enemy of my enemy" until Ward got his hands on them. Eldar and Imperials? Tau and Imperials? These are factions that are capable of interacting on a level other than murder. Necrons and Space Marines? Not a fething chance.
Perhaps. But when the design brief was to change the dull old mono-dimensional Necrons, moving away from an uninspired "Terminator"-rip-off and turn them into something that is actually open to personalisation, hobby-creativity in painting/conversions and campaign-games by players with Necron-armies, then illustrating it - among other things - by showing they are now capable of basic military strategy and alliances of necessity sounds like the reasonable thing to do.
Otherwise, Necrons would still be stuck in the same dead-end Tyranids are still in. A "cool idea" for about 5 seconds, but nothing you can really do with it beyond that.
Necrons were kind of a mess conceptually in their original codex. They were a mix of traditional killer robots, straight horror, Lovecraftian horror, The Terminator, fantasy undead, ancient Egypt...etc. Meanwhile, the C'Tan -- who were apparently behind everything bad that's ever happened, including the Kennedy assassination, acid rain, the subprime mortgage crisis, and Cain slaying Abel -- received all the personality and intelligence, while the Necrons were nothing more than drones who walked around thinking only "EXTERMINATE...EXTERMINATE".
Pushing the Star Gods to the background and bringing the Necrons to the forefront of the NECRON codex was clearly the right move, IMO. The Necrons are much more interesting to me as CALCULATING villains.
To your point, as a Tyranid player I think the Tyranids are positioned perfectly. But yeah, the game only needs so many "faceless drone" armies.
streamdragon wrote: Are we really expecting perfect Latin from a company that can barely get clear rules in English?
Burn!
I do like that they changed Necrons from mindless Terminators to sentient beings with goals and desires.
But then they just made them Tomb Kings in space.
Another example of GW having a good idea and ruining it in the execution.
Agreed. They went a bit far with it. I'm (probably vainly) hoping it's been toned down a bit in this codex.
I do really like the Lovecraftian evil feel of the Necrons (like IA12), hope they brought some of that back too.
Although it's fairly solid and I don't like when it's basic mass-battle principles are sneered at in favour of Bloathammer. Button-pusher.
(Got it this time, Baragash!) Moreso than at wargamers or collectors. If Mantic's own generic fantasy/sci-fi boardgames with their own minis outsell 
Really? I mean Really? Of hundreds of minis in WFB we have those and some fanatics as exceptions to the rule and you come here pointing out exactly what? round bases its a WFB thing?
