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jouso wrote:

In store presence? Perhaps but in terms of actual games being played KoW/9th age and even the odd oldhammer event easily outnumber infinity/bolt action/malifaux/warmahordes etc. (i.e. every skirmish game not called warhammer 40k)

I'm speaking about Spain and Poland which are the countries I mostly game on.

Given the amount of small miniature companies I see coming out of Spain and Poland that provide alternatives for KoW and 9th age that does not surprise me. Generally games like that have a very strong following in Europe and can easily fill tournament spots with ease.

In my neck of the woods (Canada) Infinity/Warmahordes/40k tend to sell out fast. Although we have smaller communities for AoS/Batman/9th age.

 Grot 6 wrote:

dyndraig wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:
I

Mantic is more nitch, and playing off of GW's detractions, rather then building on their own. If it came right down to it, Mantic would lose their shorts if it weren't for Kickstarter, and being able to singlehandedly sell direct to players, THIS is one area where GW is too kool for school.

While I agree Mantic is more niche then GW, there are some inaccuracies here. Mantics "classic" range of fantasy miniatures (Undead, Orcs, Elves, Dwarfs) were all released without kickstarter, in fact, Mantic started in 2008 but had their first KS in 2012, so they were already an established company when they had their first KS. Secondly, the latest edition of Kings of War was released directly without kickstarter, so this idea that mantic is reliant on kickstarter is just wrong.

Also, I also disagree with the idea that mantic is just aping GW without building their own. Mantic are clearly in the early process of building their own fantasy/sci-fi worlds, just have a look at the latest version of Kings of War/Deadzone/Warpath. To quote Mantic directly “We don't blow up worlds. We build them...”

Mantic makes their money and survives from their Kickstarters alone. In every shop in every place I have been, Mantic has zero consumer space, nor are people playing their games regularly. They were on a slow burn prior to KS 1, and as a participant, I saw Mantic grow within that time. Before that, Mantic was a small house companies of GW ex-employees with an axe to grind. And secondly, that they even need to acknowledge GW in response form shows you as to how weak their hand really is. They make a couple of good games. They are good, but not great. Walking Dead, Hellboy, and the Scifi knockoff are fine, but they do not have the staying power, and are taking the roads that Mongoose, Wyrd, and Warmahordes took before them. The ones that were overreaching, self defeating, and end up costing you in sales because you want to try to expand too fast.

Mantic stopped being dependent on KS shortly after the Star Saga KS.

 Grot 6 wrote:

Spoiler:

 Grot 6 wrote:

 Baragash wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:

dyndraig wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:
I

Mantic is more nitch, and playing off of GW's detractions, rather then building on their own. If it came right down to it, Mantic would lose their shorts if it weren't for Kickstarter, and being able to singlehandedly sell direct to players, THIS is one area where GW is too kool for school.

While I agree Mantic is more niche then GW, there are some inaccuracies here. Mantics "classic" range of fantasy miniatures (Undead, Orcs, Elves, Dwarfs) were all released without kickstarter, in fact, Mantic started in 2008 but had their first KS in 2012, so they were already an established company when they had their first KS. Secondly, the latest edition of Kings of War was released directly without kickstarter, so this idea that mantic is reliant on kickstarter is just wrong.

Also, I also disagree with the idea that mantic is just aping GW without building their own. Mantic are clearly in the early process of building their own fantasy/sci-fi worlds, just have a look at the latest version of Kings of War/Deadzone/Warpath. To quote Mantic directly “We don't blow up worlds. We build them...”

Mantic makes their money and survives from their Kickstarters alone. In every shop in every place I have been, Mantic has zero consumer space, nor are people playing their games regularly. They were on a slow burn prior to KS 1, and as a participant, I saw Mantic grow within that time. Before that, Mantic was a small house companies of GW ex-employees with an axe to grind. And secondly, that they even need to acknowledge GW in response form shows you as to how weak their hand really is. They make a couple of good games. They are good, but not great. Walking Dead, Hellboy, and the Scifi knockoff are fine, but they do not have the staying power, and are taking the roads that Mongoose, Wyrd, and Warmahordes took before them. The ones that were overreaching, self defeating, and end up costing you in sales because you want to try to expand too fast.

Mantic stopped being dependent on KS shortly after the Star Saga KS.

No. They still live on Kickstarters.

I see you've been out of the net. And NO, Mantic is not something that comes out in your local shop without you having difficulties getting it. Secondly, they do NOT keep their games stocked, and you are hit or miss on getting add on stuff in your FLGS.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/leagueofinfamy/terraincrate-plastic-affordable-fantasy-terrain

League of Infamy
TerrainCrate 2: CRATE EXPECTATIONS
Hellboy: The Board Game
Kings of War: Vanguard - the fantasy skirmish wargame
TerrainCrate - Plastic, affordable, fantasy terrain!
SINCE Star Saga.

[/quote]I see you've been out of the net. And NO, Mantic is not something that comes out in your local shop without you having difficulties getting it. Secondly, they do NOT keep their games stocked, and you are hit or miss on getting add on stuff in your FLGS

So I dont follow WHFB closely. I read in passing some square base sightings. Did this precede the return of WHFB info?

kenofyork wrote:

I see you've been out of the net. And NO, Mantic is not something that comes out in your local shop without you having difficulties getting it. Secondly, they do NOT keep their games stocked, and you are hit or miss on getting add on stuff in your FLGS

[/i]

I tried to get the 3rd edition Kings of War book at my local store and they could not order it for me. I can find it on Amazon though. I have credit at the store to burn and was hoping to use it for the book.

It might be worth Checking back. My FLGS couldn’t get the book in at release, but they have four copies on the shelf now. I think Mantic’s distributors “pulled a Northstar.”

 Byte wrote:
So I dont follow WHFB closely. I read in passing some square base sightings. Did this precede the return of WHFB info?

Years away, literally years away. So obviously not just a quick reissue of 8th edition or whatever.

 Byte wrote:
So I dont follow WHFB closely. I read in passing some square base sightings. Did this precede the return of WHFB info?

All we got is a logo and name.
Whatever we get is going to be called "warhammer old world" and it will utilise square bases as far as we can tell.

Most people seem to believe/want it to be a reincarnation of a WHFB but at this stage it could end up being virtually anything..

Maybe the chaos dwarf armies on FW are selling extremely well who knows. lol.

Whatever it is in the end, it is literal years away. So anybody enjoying games set in the Old World right now is well advised to use any of the previous editions of WHF, or KoW, or 9th Age, or whatever other ruleset he/she prefers.

 Darnok wrote:
Whatever it is in the end, it is literal years away. So anybody enjoying games set in the Old World right now is well advised to use any of the previous editions of WHF, or KoW, or 9th Age, or whatever other ruleset he/she prefers.

The timing just after the release of KoW 3rd Ed is quite suspect though. Especially for such little meat in the sandwich.

jouso wrote:

 Darnok wrote:
Whatever it is in the end, it is literal years away. So anybody enjoying games set in the Old World right now is well advised to use any of the previous editions of WHF, or KoW, or 9th Age, or whatever other ruleset he/she prefers.

The timing just after the release of KoW 3rd Ed is quite suspect though. Especially for such little meat in the sandwich.

I mean, not too suspect. Mantic did this when AoS was released in 2015. In fact many of the armies that exist as analogues to WHFB armies got created for 2nd edition KoW as a way of taking GW's player base. I imagine releasing this tidbit as 3rd edition comes out is just them trying to take a shot right back at Mantic for what they did back in July of 2015.

 Baragash wrote:

That's not the same thing. They still use KS because it's an effective launch platform that derisks the investment, they don't need it.

It's a Burgerland thing - over there for a lot of folk if it doesn't exist in the FLGS, it doesn't exist at all. The idea that a company can sell direct online to people happily playing in homes and clubs is just so alien some US folks simply can't wrap their brain around it, and so obviously they must be living KS to KS.

 Yodhrin wrote:
It's a Burgerland thing - over there for a lot of folk if it doesn't exist in the FLGS, it doesn't exist at all. The idea that a company can sell direct online to people happily playing in homes and clubs is just so alien some US folks simply can't wrap their brain around it, and so obviously they must be living KS to KS.

No, we're fully aware. And we do often play in our homes and clubs. I run a private club, out of our homes and at recreation clubs. I also work a few hours in a FLGS. They are two different locations for two different kinds of gaming experience (you don't play Necromunda PUG in the FLGS, for example).

Us burgerlanders aren't stupid, I promise.

We threw the tea in the harbor on purpose.

No. Now you are moving the goalpost on the conversation. Nevermind that Mantic doesn't continue to support games after the project is completed, and has to regurgitate projects on kickstarter…

Like I said, they live on kickstarters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Baragash wrote:

That's not the same thing. They still use KS because it's an effective launch platform that derisks the investment, they don't need it.

It's a Burgerland thing - over there for a lot of folk if it doesn't exist in the FLGS, it doesn't exist at all. The idea that a company can sell direct online to people happily playing in homes and clubs is just so alien some US folks simply can't wrap their brain around it, and so obviously they must be living KS to KS.

Be cool. No one asked for that.

 Grot 6 wrote:


Mantic makes their money and survives from their Kickstarters alone.

Which is why they survived for years without kickstarter and decided they didn't need a kickstarter for the latest edition of KoW?

 Grot 6 wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Baragash wrote:

That's not the same thing. They still use KS because it's an effective launch platform that derisks the investment, they don't need it.

It's a Burgerland thing - over there for a lot of folk if it doesn't exist in the FLGS, it doesn't exist at all. The idea that a company can sell direct online to people happily playing in homes and clubs is just so alien some US folks simply can't wrap their brain around it, and so obviously they must be living KS to KS.

Be cool. No one asked for that.

This isn't necessarily incorrect though. There IS the mindset here if it's not sold by a FLGS, it doesn't exist and there's a big stigma against ordering stuff online and playing in a store (whether you buy other things there, pay for a table or what) if the store doesn't have the product. Often this stigma is put in place by players (I've seen people in a group get openly hostile to someone suggesting they try a game that the store doesn't stock to the point where it looked for a minute like it might get into a physical altercation), but I have seen a few stores engage in it too and lose potential customers by not letting them play games that aren't sold in the store there.

I would absolutely believe that people have that mindset. Although to be honest I did feel for a while that Mantic seems to only do Kickstarters, maybe because they seem to do so many for every product they put out. Nothing is developed and then released, it's always through a Kickstarter.

 Grot 6 wrote:
No. Now you are moving the goalpost on the conversation. Nevermind that Mantic doesn't continue to support games after the project is completed, and has to regurgitate projects on kickstarter…

I guess we have missed a lot of their KS as I cannot remember all those Deadzone, Walking Dead and KoW Kickstarter that supported the games after the initial ones

I will echo that for a great swathe of people in my region if it is not sold or played in the FLGS it doesn't exist. The club people playing privately surely exist but they are invisible and prefer to be invisible, which feeds that misperception.

 auticus wrote:
I will echo that for a great swathe of people in my region if it is not sold or played in the FLGS it doesn't exist. The club people playing privately surely exist but they are invisible and prefer to be invisible, which feeds that misperception.

This is what I have also seen in the US in the Midwest, South, and West respectively.

The first rule of game club is...

Are we even close to being on topic anymore?

Like can we even see the original topic anymore?

Maybe it's relevant to the topic that there's a vast, incognito horde of club or home-based hobbyists driving many of GW's decisions that seem otherwise incomprehensible to store and tournament-based hobbyists.

For me, the trouble started with the pricing practices around 8th edition and the game mechanic changes to effectively double the average unit size.

That increased set up time and cost hugely, and then they added megaspells that could destroy your battle line in a single unstoppable cast, so you would spend ages setting up your army only to potentially pack it all away when someone blasted a save or die vortex across it.

Tried it, hated it, moved to KoW, never got any more games.

 Da Boss wrote:
For me, the trouble started with the pricing practices around 8th edition and the game mechanic changes to effectively double the average unit size.

That increased set up time and cost hugely, and then they added megaspells that could destroy your battle line in a single unstoppable cast, so you would spend ages setting up your army only to potentially pack it all away when someone blasted a save or die vortex across it.

Tried it, hated it, moved to KoW, never got any more games.

Yeah all of this snowballs around 2007 which also is when the LOTR bubble burst and the price of pewter skyrocketed. To recoup cost of continuing to support metal minis they had in their inventory GW cancelled the bits service (still salty about that), and began moving to plastic and lovely Failcast.

There are a lot of bad decisions and events that all came to a head all at once that basically helped to kill WHFB. Especially the design decisions for 8th and I say this as someone who really does enjoy 8th edition.

Honestly, if the LOTR bubble bursting was the only thing that happened in that time frame a lot of what happened later on would not of occurred. But it was a perfect storm of bad stuff happening and, franky, bad leadership at the top that lead to all this.

dyndraig wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:


Mantic makes their money and survives from their Kickstarters alone.

Which is why they survived for years without kickstarter and decided they didn't need a kickstarter for the latest edition of KoW?

I don't know where you are getting your information. I'm looking at Mantic here on KS, and they have been running at least 1 KS a year for quite a few now, sometimes more then 1 at a time.

What was the last basic rank and file box GW released for Warhammer before it folded? State Troopers, Orcs, Goblins, Skinks, High Elf spearmen etc? Not elites or monsters, but the lowest level grunts. I can't remember now but it seems like nearly all those were from sixth edition or so. Some (zombies etc.) were from even earlier. The only one I can think of is the updated skeleton warriors, but not sure when they arrived on the scene.

For a game that is supposed to be rank and file, the neglect of the actual rank and file was a major reason for my losing interest. That is always the first thing I look for when thinking of starting or building on an army. I don't think gamers can be blamed for not buying those minis any more when other (and oftentimes better) alternatives were widely available. It seemed to me anyway that GW abandoned that space in favour for multi-part monster kits long before they canned the game completely. Hard to sustain a rank and file game when a company doesn't seem to much want to make new rank and file minis any more...

My hope is this new version sees a returned emphasis on those bottom level grunts. However how GW get back into what is now an extremely competitive market for cheap plastic fantasy minis will be interesting to see...

I think Rountree replacing Kirby is a major event in the timeline.

It may even see the split mending, at least a little. For the first time in more than a decade, I am interested in seeing what GW comes out with.

I lost interest in WHFB with 7th edition, and loathed 8th.

Still picked up the main rulebooks, but never played.

Up until then, I had multiple armies - anywhere from 1,000 to 2,500 points. Some I played, some I loaned to people so they could try the game.

Around 6th edition(?) it seemed that people were going from having and fielding multiple armies to just having one, perhaps because the tournament scene was beginning to dominate the game.

The groups I was gaming with at the time of fourth through sixth editions, most players had at least two armies, with many having three or four.

By the end of 6th edition, it seemed that having multiple armies had become the exception, not the rule.

It helped that fifth edition was the age of inexpensive boxes of large numbers of troops. You could field a nice large force for not that much money.

Then they started upping the prices, shrinking the boxes, and screwing up the rules.

I started playing KoW during the Alpha - and liked the rules a lot more than WHFB - better than 6th edition, and a lot more than 7th or 8th.

But I liked the Old World setting a lot more than Mantica.

So, I used KoW to run games in the third edition Warhammer version of The Old World.(3rd edition of Warhammer remains my favorite - a decadent and corrupt Brettonia, Karl Franz a weakling put on the throne of Empire by Elector Counts that wanted a weak Emperor that would let them have their way. And Chaos eating away at the roots of everything - an Enemy Within.)

And it worked.

Until Rountree replaced Kirby, I was among those convinced that GW was not long for the world - their losing half their value on the stock market inside of a month did not encourage optimism.

I am now... cautiously optimistic - Rountree is most definitely not Kirby - and has reversed a lot of the worst decisions that Kirby and the Kronies(TM) had initiated.

Merret is gone, and with him some of the more iron bound idiocies.

Unlike Kirby, Rountree is willing to admit that mistakes have been made, and change course - steering the Titanic away from the iceberg up ahead. (Close enough to peel the paint off the hull as she veered away.) I am continually astonished at how fast and thoroughly Rountree has improved the outlook for the company.

I still am not buying much GW - not fond of the current aesthetics* - but I am no longer avoiding GW because I loathe the company. This is a major change - it means that if GW does produce something that interests me, I won't turn away going, 'yeah, but it's GW'.

So, when something like Contrast paints catches my eye, I am willing to give it a chance. (I don't use it for what it is intended for - but you can get some very interesting effects using Contrast paints over metallics - I have never been happier with a verdigris effect than using a contrast green over copper or bronze.)

And I do not think I am alone in being willing to give GW another chance.

GW has turned a corner, and is doing much, much better without Kirby.

As for WH:tOW - I look forward to seeing it - and if the miniatures are a return, at least in part, to the aesthetics of earlier editions, and are not as ridiculously priced as the half units that they were selling towards the end of WHFB, I may very well be investing in a few armies.

If not, well, KoW will still be around.

And if the models are good, but the rules suck, or are decent but overly complicated... KoW really doesn't care what minis get used. (We have sixteen players in our KoW group - and six or eight more in our Kids of War group of younger players - you can actually teach the KoW rules to a nine year old**.)

But I am hoping that both.

*EDIT* For the sake of completeness - year before last I ran a six month Gorka Morka campaign and I have also been running an annual Mordheim campaign - and fully intend to get into Newcromunda at some point. The smaller skirmish campaign games still warm my heart. And I do like most of the aesthetics for Newcromunda. But our baby girl keeps insisting on eating our wallets.

The Auld Grump

* I am one of those people that backs Oldhammer Kickstarters.

** She inherited her Abyssal Dwarf army from her father's Chaos Dwarf army from way back when. She has done a better job of painting the models than he did. She also uses them for duergar - who are a major enemy in her Pathfinder game, along with fire giants. She's eleven years old now, and still playing.

Quick note: 7th was when they started doing the price hike/model reduction shenanigans. If memory serves, 7th also hit before 2007 as I took the rulebook from the Skull Pass set with me on my deployment.

 Grot 6 wrote:


I don't know where you are getting your information. I'm looking at Mantic here on KS, and they have been running at least 1 KS a year for quite a few now, sometimes more then 1 at a time.

It's quite simple to google, Mantic was founded in 2008, ran their first KS in 2012 and released KoW 3rd edition November this year without a KS.