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AllSeeingSkink wrote:

But yeah, GW really needed to push the small game more. A while back there was the "skirmish" format, it still used rank and file but it was written around armies of a couple of hundred points and could have been developed into a good starter for new players on their way to buying and painting an entire horde.

GW seems far more aware of it today. AoS has Underworld (a handful of models); Warcry (two handfuls of models); Meeting Engagements (small armies) and the full 2K. You can easily build up a 500 point army with a few boxes for Warcry to give you diverse model options so you're already half way to a proper meeting engagement; by which point you're already half way to a 2K army. Provided you're gaming and changing your army composition now and then you'll add models in excess of your target point value for a game steadily any way. So it all adds up. Someone playing lots of Warcry is going to pick up the odd new box or new beasty now and then.

I think a big change has been taking those smaller format games and marketing them as their own game with their own book and products even if its just reboxing existing core market products. In the past we had those smaller format games, on the back pages of the main book. They were mostly pitched as "here's your intro game - now get ready for your next week 2K game" kind of deals. Rather than being the kind of thing you'd script a month long campaign around or things that long term fans would engage with regularly.

it was not to push the small game, but to use different rules for the small games

Because of the ongoing changes for larger units and more expensive larger models, we saw the same point rise for standard games we have now in 40k

2000 points being the standard with a mounted knight being 30-40 points
ending up in 8th with 2500-3000 being the new standard and the same knight at 15-20 points
with the minimum sized Infantry unit changing from 16 models to 20 and 40, at the same time were new plastic models became more expensive than the metal models they replaced because of "more" options

GW did sell models made and priced for smaller Skirmish games for a Mass Battle R&F game hoping that enough people will pay the price to keep things running

going back and having different rules for minimum sized units, amount of heroes, wizard levels etc <1500 points, would have solved some of the problems
but not the main issue increasing the price per model the same time as the points per model decreased and raising the total army points

the problem was not there within the game system by default but because GW got to greedy

The fact that 8th edition made models in a unit mostly really expensive wound counters didn't help in attracting new players.

 kodos wrote:
GW did sell models made and priced for smaller Skirmish games for a Mass Battle R&F game hoping that enough people will pay the price to keep things running

Yeah, I remember having this discussion back in the day. It wasn't that GW charged so much money for a single model, but they charged that much for a model while having the expectation of needing many many many of them.

I don't know whether it was a GW-wide thing or just my local GW store, but they did once have a campaign where you'd gradually build up a small army (I think 1000pts) over the course of several weeks in this campaign, where you'd start at a few hundred points. You could of course use an existing army, but the idea was to encourage starting a new army without the insane goal of immediately building 2000pts. It was a good idea, it got me to buy into Wood Elves, but still moved a bit too fast for my painting speed and the rules didn't really function great at those very low point values and games were often very unbalanced.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 kodos wrote:

I don't know whether it was a GW-wide thing or just my local GW store, but they did once have a campaign where you'd gradually build up a small army (I think 1000pts) over the course of several weeks in this campaign, where you'd start at a few hundred points. You could of course use an existing army, but the idea was to encourage starting a new army without the insane goal of immediately building 2000pts. It was a good idea, it got me to buy into Wood Elves, but still moved a bit too fast for my painting speed and the rules didn't really function great at those very low point values and games were often very unbalanced.

"Growth campaigns" have been common for many many years. Stores likely ran their own when the manager wanted too and there'd have been coordinated efforts from on high too. And gamers would run their own. They are a great idea and work even today at getting a group of people to "start up small and work to big" all at the same time. As you say whilst the idea is to start a new army; nothing stops someone with an existing army using it and just building up slowly over time. A great way to get newbies and experienced players playing together on the same points values over weeks.

They can be great fun, esp if whoever runs them pairs it not just with games but building/painting days/tutorials as well

I'd been playing since early 5th ed WFB. For me the golden spot as an edition was 6th with early 7th being pretty great until the double whammy of Daemons and VC dumpstering the game. I genuinely tried to get into 8th but I tried to show up to 3 RTT's and everytime I was the only person who showed. 8th felt like a wasteland of a game.

Now, part of this is GW's upper management fault of trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip in regards to fantasy. The pricing was unsustainable and 8th took that to 11. Part of it was recognizing that the humble tactical squad accounted for more sales than the entire fantasy line in the early 2000's but not knowing how to make it more attractive. They tried, they created/brought back armies and did massive campaigns in 6th and 7th but it was a black hole that they seemed to have just said f-it. Milk it to in 8th.

Fantasy was always the game that seemed to be the hobby suck. It didn't benefit GW's core buying group of early teens. Remember that in 6th edition fantasy you still generally needed to paint about 100 models. 4ed 40k on the other hand rarely had you painting more than 50. That's a huge difference.

WFB had a lot of issues especially as times moved on. AOS is crushing partly because the current generation of buyers love over the top. Fantasy wasn't giving that and being stuck at perpetual midnight didn't help.

All that said I'm excited for the return of the old world. But I'm trying to temper my anticipation with reality. Reality is that I barely have time to get games in as an adult with 2 kids for 40k and AOS which are significantly easier to get games with than other systems. I've got Underworlds, Armada, and failed Wrath of Kings that I love to play but opportunities are rare. I bought Titanicus stuff but again, time. So I know that even if this game is amazing it's going to be hard to justify timewise unless it goes ham which is unlikely. So that means I have to decide on painting whatever an army of this is that'll sit on my shelf 99% of it's lifespan or add the same number of models to various 40k or AOS armies.

For me I'd like this to be very 6th ed style with some modifications. Calvary in late 6th breaking full regiments with a frontal charge got a bit out of hand and the amount of unbreakable style rules did as well. But I still think that should be the initial template game size and model content wise. I assume this will be a 28mm version of the game even if I'd prefer 10mm. But honestly I think I'd prefer 10mm for an AOS mass battle game over WFB. There just aren't enough super big style models in WFB to make it as cool as AOS. But AOS outside of a few armies suffers from small numbers of overall units so it would have to be more of a Order/Chaos/Beasts/Undead style of system instead of individual armies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
The fact that 8th edition made models in a unit mostly really expensive wound counters didn't help in attracting new players.

Be real, models in units were mostly wound counters throughout WFB. Or worse they were ablative wounds for a character in the front rank.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 kodos wrote:
GW did sell models made and priced for smaller Skirmish games for a Mass Battle R&F game hoping that enough people will pay the price to keep things running

Yeah, I remember having this discussion back in the day. It wasn't that GW charged so much money for a single model, but they charged that much for a model while having the expectation of needing many many many of them.

I don't know whether it was a GW-wide thing or just my local GW store, but they did once have a campaign where you'd gradually build up a small army (I think 1000pts) over the course of several weeks in this campaign, where you'd start at a few hundred points. You could of course use an existing army, but the idea was to encourage starting a new army without the insane goal of immediately building 2000pts. It was a good idea, it got me to buy into Wood Elves, but still moved a bit too fast for my painting speed and the rules didn't really function great at those very low point values and games were often very unbalanced.

Those escalation leagues are pretty common for all systems but　problem is games are hardcoded to 2k and outside　that balance breaks down.

 kodos wrote:
2000 points being the standard with a mounted knight being 30-40 points
ending up in 8th with 2500-3000 being the new standard and the same knight at 15-20 points
with the minimum sized Infantry unit changing from 16 models to 20 and 40, at the same time were new plastic models became more expensive than the metal models they replaced because of "more" options
...
the problem was not there within the game system by default but because GW got to greedy

This is half of why WFB died. The other half of the equation was the fallout of the Chapterhouse lawsuit court resolution, which put the writing on the wall for GW that everything they sold had to be IP defensible. A game of Tolkein derivatives and factions almost entirely designed as historical analogues wasn't worth carrying. This is why AoS is full of gobbledygook names for elves, ogres, orcs, etc. And why their factions are more refined copies of existing ideas (IE, not-300 Persian slaanesh) instead of blatant copies (IE, Egyptian skeletons).

I'm excited for this new project, but when I look at how GW's business model has evolved since I was regularly buying the game, my excitement is generally tarnished. They've moved to armies that require 150 dollar centrepiece models and then a DLC system for some games (look at necromunda). I wish I lived somewhere that there was enough of a gaming community that people still played 6th edition fantasy.

Eh more than half the AoS line is Old World models - the only thing GW needed to change and has changed are unit names. Medusa are melusai is all they've done.

One way to help mitigate the "you need to paint a hundred Core models" would be to take a page from ASOI&F - when you buy a unit, that's your unit. You can't buy six boxes of it to turn it into a Legion or whatever, the unit out of the box is what you get, twelve men or none at all. Want more? Buy another unit/box of it, but it will be it's own unit.

Now GW will never do that of course because they lick their lips at the idea of discounted horde mobs (see: AoS continuing this) but hey, I can hope.

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:

 kodos wrote:
2000 points being the standard with a mounted knight being 30-40 points
ending up in 8th with 2500-3000 being the new standard and the same knight at 15-20 points
with the minimum sized Infantry unit changing from 16 models to 20 and 40, at the same time were new plastic models became more expensive than the metal models they replaced because of "more" options
...
the problem was not there within the game system by default but because GW got to greedy

This is half of why WFB died. The other half of the equation was the fallout of the Chapterhouse lawsuit court resolution, which put the writing on the wall for GW that everything they sold had to be IP defensible. A game of Tolkein derivatives and factions almost entirely designed as historical analogues wasn't worth carrying. This is why AoS is full of gobbledygook names for elves, ogres, orcs, etc. And why their factions are more refined copies of existing ideas (IE, not-300 Persian slaanesh) instead of blatant copies (IE, Egyptian skeletons).

I'm excited for this new project, but when I look at how GW's business model has evolved since I was regularly buying the game, my excitement is generally tarnished. They've moved to armies that require 150 dollar centrepiece models and then a DLC system for some games (look at necromunda). I wish I lived somewhere that there was enough of a gaming community that people still played 6th edition fantasy.

The Chapterhouse thing always seemed odd to me. From memory, the outcome of the Chapterhouse case was that other companies WERE allowed to market their bits as "compatible with XYZ", they just weren't able to market models as actually being XYZ as that could be confusing to the consumer. So you aren't allowed to say "these are bretonnians" but you are allowed to say "these are compatible with GW's bretonnian models" the same way a 3rd party car parts company is allowed to say their part is compatible with a Toyota Yaris even though they aren't allowed to make their own car and call it a Toyota Yaris.

So renaming everything non-generic terms and avoiding things that can be copied with historical miniatures doesn't really make sense, as companies are still allowed to market their bits as compatible with Aelves just as they were previously compatible with Elves.

There was the trademark bullying crap that GW started to pull (remember Spots the Space Marine that GW got removed from Amazon's shelves?) where GW was starting to try and enforce their trademark of common names outside of the realm of wargaming, I'm not really sure how that helped them with much though.

delete

If there was a Total Warhammer AoS I find it would be highly likely it would receive the same thing that happened to it's table top equivalent. This would be sadly hilarious.

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:

 kodos wrote:
2000 points being the standard with a mounted knight being 30-40 points
ending up in 8th with 2500-3000 being the new standard and the same knight at 15-20 points
with the minimum sized Infantry unit changing from 16 models to 20 and 40, at the same time were new plastic models became more expensive than the metal models they replaced because of "more" options
...
the problem was not there within the game system by default but because GW got to greedy

This is half of why WFB died. The other half of the equation was the fallout of the Chapterhouse lawsuit court resolution, which put the writing on the wall for GW that everything they sold had to be IP defensible. A game of Tolkein derivatives and factions almost entirely designed as historical analogues wasn't worth carrying. This is why AoS is full of gobbledygook names for elves, ogres, orcs, etc. And why their factions are more refined copies of existing ideas (IE, not-300 Persian slaanesh) instead of blatant copies (IE, Egyptian skeletons).

I'm excited for this new project, but when I look at how GW's business model has evolved since I was regularly buying the game, my excitement is generally tarnished. They've moved to armies that require 150 dollar centrepiece models and then a DLC system for some games (look at necromunda). I wish I lived somewhere that there was enough of a gaming community that people still played 6th edition fantasy.

All the weird names just reduces gw models being used for other　games. 3rd party companies can do count as modeis same　as before.

Fb　sales tanked because gw didn't release anything. When　gw　started aos development　fb was top3 miniature game seller. Then no new kits, no sales.　kits sell most　of lifelong sales　in first few months.

Sisters of battle? Trickle sales　by now

Nighthaunt? Little trickle.

Fyreslayers? Tiny trickle.

No new kits, no sales.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

The Chapterhouse thing always seemed odd to me. From memory, the outcome of the Chapterhouse case was that other companies WERE allowed to market their bits as "compatible with XYZ", they just weren't able to market models as actually being XYZ as that could be confusing to the consumer. So you aren't allowed to say "these are bretonnians" but you are allowed to say "these are compatible with GW's bretonnian models" the same way a 3rd party car parts company is allowed to say their part is compatible with a Toyota Yaris even though they aren't allowed to make their own car and call it a Toyota Yaris.

this was one part

the more important part was that GW was not able to copyright/trademark models that they did not released yet

so as long as GW had Bretonnian Knights in the Army Book, but did not made any model for it (no need to sell it, but there must be a model, Render/Green or Artwork is not enough), everyone could make Bretonnian Knights and sell them as such

hence GW changed their whole release model from full army books to only provide rules for models that they can make/release in one go
one of the reasons why the Adeptus Mechanicus for 40k was split into 2 books, it was too much for a single release and therefore instead of making it 1 book with 2 release slots they made it 2 armies that were merged into one later

and this affected Warhammer as the Armies were already flashed out and rather big and a new book with the whole line of new models needed was impossible to make
hence why we see Mini-Factions and book splits/re-releases for AoS as well (no 1 Dwarf Army book, but split into 3 sub-factions with their own release)

 BlackoCatto wrote:
If there was a Total Warhammer AoS I find it would be highly likely it would receive the same thing that happened to it's table top equivalent. This would be sadly hilarious.

You mean people would buy it and enjoy it?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
The Chapterhouse thing always seemed odd to me.

The fetishization of that relatively minor case is indeed odd.

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
A ludicrous thing to do and yet its selling better than WHFB ever did and is in fact the best selling fantasy miniatures product line on the planet, whereas WHFB was playing second fiddle in sales to LotR for a number of years - even when LotR was post-peak and barely selling in and of itself.

[...]

Necromunda makes money hand over fist [...]

You have access to detailed sales information I take it? Apart from scarce hints during Twitch interviews (I recall Andy Hoare occasionally referring to "producing more Y than they previously made for release X" and perhaps things selling "well", such specific information is rarely made public.

[

Between icv2, statements made by past and present GW staff (James Hewitt revealed quite a bit about how financially successful the various specialist games were in various interviews) and GWs own statements in legally binding financial disclosures. The info is out there if you know where to look.

There has only ever been one attempt, a new set of rules called War of the Ring, it was dropped after one supplement and the game continued with the skirmish rules, that were never dropped or meant to be superseded anyway.

Thats not accurate at all, War of the Ring was already their 2nd or 3rd attempt at making it a big battle game, before War of the Ring there was Legions of Middle Earth and various sipplements and white dwarf articles have contained rules for bigger battles. A few years after War of the Ring they launched Battle Companies which was for smaller battles than war of the ring but larger battles than the original game. The current iteration of the game laucched 2 years ago completely superceded everything that came before and is pushing the game as a more mass battle experience than it was a decade ago. The original game could be played with a few dozen minis on the table, the current game is played with a few dozen minis *per side*, unless you use the new iteration of battle companies that pushes gamecsize back down to about a dozen minis per side.

They never promised anything of the sort.

Except they did: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/10/11/great-news-for-middle-earthfw-homepage-post-1/

They followed this up with more clarification at one of their events saying they had plans for new plastics and to explore parts of middle earth that nobody has ever looked at before.

However even then, GW have sort of designed themselves into a corner with AoS where it is on the one hand very generic high fantasy with few unique or evocative twists of its own.

Theres nothing generic high fantasy about age of sigmar, its very much a unique mythic sword and sorcery fantasy setting replete with living gods and planar realities that are a far cry from traditional high fantasy staples. The lack of those generic high fantasy tropes like a world map featuring kingdoms with well defined borders, thousand year long histories, and notable heroes is probably the biggest issue people have with the setting. Whereas Warhammers setting felt like am actual world, Age of Sigmar feels like a backdrop that people travel through once and will never revisit because its so vast and undefined.As much as I like the setting as a concept, the execution thus far has failed as its absent any well defined locales or regions.

In WHFB you have places like Ulthuan, Altdorf, Mordheim, Praag, Bretonnia, Araby, Blackfire Pass, etc etc etc.

In 40k you have Terra, Cadia, the Eye of Terror, Armageddon, Kar Duniash, the Damocles Gulf, the Nachtmund Gauntlet, etc.

In Age of Sigmar you have.... 8 planar realms that are less places and more thematic concepts and... thats basically it. Theres Azyrheim, the Eightpoints/Archaons tower, a handful of "free cities", and as of late "the Great Parch" seems to be popping up as a popular corner of the setting to explore, but all of these things exist without any real context relevant to eachother or the wider setting. Azyrheim notwithstanding, I dont think most people know which realm any of the free cities or the great parch are in or what trade routes between them might look like or what the surrounding geography looks like, etc. I think thats the challenge AoS has for itself as a setting and why so many people bounce off it so hard - theres nothing to connect to.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:

 kodos wrote:
2000 points being the standard with a mounted knight being 30-40 points
ending up in 8th with 2500-3000 being the new standard and the same knight at 15-20 points
with the minimum sized Infantry unit changing from 16 models to 20 and 40, at the same time were new plastic models became more expensive than the metal models they replaced because of "more" options
...
the problem was not there within the game system by default but because GW got to greedy

This is half of why WFB died. The other half of the equation was the fallout of the Chapterhouse lawsuit court resolution, which put the writing on the wall for GW that everything they sold had to be IP defensible. A game of Tolkein derivatives and factions almost entirely designed as historical analogues wasn't worth carrying. This is why AoS is full of gobbledygook names for elves, ogres, orcs, etc. And why their factions are more refined copies of existing ideas (IE, not-300 Persian slaanesh) instead of blatant copies (IE, Egyptian skeletons).

I'm excited for this new project, but when I look at how GW's business model has evolved since I was regularly buying the game, my excitement is generally tarnished. They've moved to armies that require 150 dollar centrepiece models and then a DLC system for some games (look at necromunda). I wish I lived somewhere that there was enough of a gaming community that people still played 6th edition fantasy.

The Chapterhouse thing always seemed odd to me. From memory, the outcome of the Chapterhouse case was that other companies WERE allowed to market their bits as "compatible with XYZ", they just weren't able to market models as actually being XYZ as that could be confusing to the consumer. So you aren't allowed to say "these are bretonnians" but you are allowed to say "these are compatible with GW's bretonnian models" the same way a 3rd party car parts company is allowed to say their part is compatible with a Toyota Yaris even though they aren't allowed to make their own car and call it a Toyota Yaris.

So renaming everything non-generic terms and avoiding things that can be copied with historical miniatures doesn't really make sense, as companies are still allowed to market their bits as compatible with Aelves just as they were previously compatible with Elves.

There was the trademark bullying crap that GW started to pull (remember Spots the Space Marine that GW got removed from Amazon's shelves?) where GW was starting to try and enforce their trademark of common names outside of the realm of wargaming, I'm not really sure how that helped them with much though.

It's probably more to do with 'brand awareness'. If Lil Timmy searches for Dwarf Warriors then Google might give him World of Warcraft, D&D, or - GASP - a different company's minatures!!!

However if he searches for Duradin Karakwardun (or whatever) he's only going to get results tailored to Games Workshop, or at least articles/sellers only talking about GW.

That's probably also why we ended up with 'Astra Militarum'. Stick Imperial Guard on Google and odds are you'll get results for Napoleon's Best Bois or the Praetorian Guard which might include historical miniatures and GW can't have that.

It's less copyright and more about keeping eveything contained within a GW bubble without any outside influence potentially tainting Lil Timmy to knowledge there's other companies who produce minatures.

chaos0xomega wrote:


GW tried to make changes and revitalize the game for a decade - its actually really dumb to think they didn't or that there were still other viable options on the table that they could have exercised considering the costs involved with them not only abandoning all their past work and development but also the investment needed to launch the new game.

If AoS and therefore the destruction of the setting was the only solution, why would they be bothering to return to that in a big way like this project seems to be? This doesn't appear to be some small nostalgia-focused thing aimed at just a few people who still have interest, so it's absurd to think that the heavy-handed solution to the problem they went for was the only option available to them. They could have done something similar to the gameplay changes and lore updates that came with AoS but without the complete destruction of the game and the setting, which is pretty much what they're doing now with this project. The reasons for WHFB not doing well were not so much to do with the lore of WHFB and neither was the gameplay changes of AoS something that couldn't have been done with the setting without the AoS lore side of it, it wasn't doing well due to difficulty getting into it and not really recieving that much attention from GW in comparison to 40K or how they do things now.

The success of AoS now does not really necessarily support that it was the right move in itself to get rid of WHFB as a lot has happened since then, It's not like the nitial launch of AoS was some sort of overnight success either - it took a lot of extra-effort after that to get the game and lore into something that was worthwhile, something that also happened to coincide with a change in management and overall approach to things like interacting with the community. I see no reason to think that if they'd done with they did but without the destruction part, so instead continued to update WHFB lore while providing a more concise easy to get into scale game, that WHFB would have also become much more successful than it used to be, especially when when video games like Total War Warhammer and Vermintide introduced people the setting shortly after.

They had the option to put the same level of effort as AoS receives now or this project will seemingly have into WHFB at the time, the full reboot they went for was not the only thing they hadn't tried. The End Times event was already generating far more interest in the game than it had for a long time, because they were actually doing something with it again.

I'd just like to point out that no one here actually knows anything about the internal workings of GW.

 Hulksmash wrote:

Be real, models in units were mostly wound counters throughout WFB. Or worse they were ablative wounds for a character in the front rank.

Yes but the goal of good game design is to make it feel like they weren't just a bunch of wound counters, 8th didn't even try to hide that. 6th edition, while not that divergent from 8th rule wise, by virtue of the fact units weren't super killy and could hold out a turn or two even with bad break tests, felt like the unit was fighting and holding their own.

8th was such a dice roll kill fest you needed two tables to play. One for the game and the other to hold the casualties.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:

Be real, models in units were mostly wound counters throughout WFB. Or worse they were ablative wounds for a character in the front rank.

Yes but the goal of good game design is to make it feel like they weren't just a bunch of wound counters, 8th didn't even try to hide that. 6th edition, while not that divergent from 8th rule wise, by virtue of the fact units weren't super killy and could hold out a turn or two even with bad break tests, felt like the unit was fighting and holding their own.

8th was such a dice roll kill fest you needed two tables to play. One for the game and the other to hold the casualties.

It didn't work however. In no edition has it ever felt like any models mattered outside of the front rank and the characters. It's what put me off for the longest time that 90% of the army felt utterly redundant compared to the few that actually felt like they were doing something.

Thanks for the thoughts. I sold my 6k pts of lizards
other than a few models back when Sigmar was starting and rumors were lizards won't get new models anymore.

Just wondering.

Hopefully whatever it is, the armies that are part of it get some awesome models

Sf

 Just Tony wrote:

StarFyre wrote:Will lizardmen be part of the old world since they have been on the planet for ages?

Sf

There's no reason they shouldn't be, if the setting is picking up anywhere between the Fall Of The Old Ones and the End Times, Lizardmen have been there.

chaos0xomega wrote:

StarFyre wrote:
Will lizardmen be part of the old world since they have been on the planet for ages?

Sf

We don't know, but my guess is unlikely. The Old World isn't the name of the planet, its the name of a continent - and the lizardmen don't really ever go to that continent.

They've been to the Old World continent lots. By boat, by magic portal, or from the Southlands. No reason to discount 5hem out of hand, especially with all the other races that just pop in constantly.

StarFyre wrote:
Thanks for the thoughts. I sold my 6k pts of lizards
other than a few models back when Sigmar was starting and rumors were lizards won't get new models anymore.

Just wondering.

Hopefully whatever it is, the armies that are part of it get some awesome models

Sf

Lizardmen about to get new models via Warhammer Underworlds eg:

Spoiler:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Carlovonsexron wrote:
It's difficult to imagine being successful without lower buy-in costs, that's for sure.

I think this is why the 10mm idea continues to get mentioned.

Just the Empire or Bretonia would require 3-5 new kits each for their core, plus characters and special stuff. Which players need to buy, build and paint.

A 10mm game could do most factions on a single sprue and would take just a few hours for players to have something ready to go.

I'm not saying I want 10mm or even expect it, but relaunching all of TOW, in plastic, while supporting 2 other fantasy games just seems so... unlikely.

Was anyone else on here collecting and/or playing in the early 2,000's? Does anyone else remember the "toybox" promotion where they ran fresh copies of 2nd Ed. 40K plastics, along with Talisman, Warhammer Quest, and 4th and 5th edition Fantasy plastics? Quite a few characters in my many armies came from the Adventurers and Wizards boxes, and all my Swarms and a fair share of my Minotaurs came from the Dungeon Denizens box. Some of those molds were at least a decade old when the promotion ran, so there's literally nothing stopping GW from running fresh frames off as long as they kept the dies. Hell, Revell just ran off a bunch of out of print 40K plastics, you can't tell me it's not possible.

Eliminate production overhead and this becomes even cheaper to start up than another small scale game that'll crash and burn like the last one...

 Just Tony wrote:
Was anyone else on here collecting and/or playing in the early 2,000's? Does anyone else remember the "toybox" promotion where they ran fresh copies of 2nd Ed. 40K plastics, along with Talisman, Warhammer Quest, and 4th and 5th edition Fantasy plastics? Quite a few characters in my many armies came from the Adventurers and Wizards boxes, and all my Swarms and a fair share of my Minotaurs came from the Dungeon Denizens box. Some of those molds were at least a decade old when the promotion ran, so there's literally nothing stopping GW from running fresh frames off as long as they kept the dies. Hell, Revell just ran off a bunch of out of print 40K plastics, you can't tell me it's not possible.

I remember those! I still have the Talisman Witch Elf and that sorceress that looked like the Dark Elf Sorceress from the OLD DE army book!
I think I still have the plastic Light Wizard, Bright Wizard, and halfling, come to think of it.

chaos0xomega wrote:

Spoiler:

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
A ludicrous thing to do and yet its selling better than WHFB ever did and is in fact the best selling fantasy miniatures product line on the planet, whereas WHFB was playing second fiddle in sales to LotR for a number of years - even when LotR was post-peak and barely selling in and of itself.

[...]

Necromunda makes money hand over fist [...]

You have access to detailed sales information I take it? Apart from scarce hints during Twitch interviews (I recall Andy Hoare occasionally referring to "producing more Y than they previously made for release X" and perhaps things selling "well", such specific information is rarely made public.

[

Between icv2, statements made by past and present GW staff (James Hewitt revealed quite a bit about how financially successful the various specialist games were in various interviews) and GWs own statements in legally binding financial disclosures. The info is out there if you know where to look.

Games Workshop's financial statements and annual reports don't contain game-specific numbers.

There has only ever been one attempt, a new set of rules called War of the Ring, it was dropped after one supplement and the game continued with the skirmish rules, that were never dropped or meant to be superseded anyway.

Thats not accurate at all, War of the Ring was already their 2nd or 3rd attempt at making it a big battle game, before War of the Ring there was Legions of Middle Earth and various sipplements and white dwarf articles have contained rules for bigger battles. A few years after War of the Ring they launched Battle Companies which was for smaller battles than war of the ring but larger battles than the original game. The current iteration of the game laucched 2 years ago completely superceded everything that came before and is pushing the game as a more mass battle experience than it was a decade ago. The original game could be played with a few dozen minis on the table, the current game is played with a few dozen minis *per side*, unless you use the new iteration of battle companies that pushes gamecsize back down to about a dozen minis per side.

Despite the name, Legions had nothing to do with big battles; if anything it restricted them (bringing in a model limit for certain points sizes). Every iteration has been playable with a few models or dozens of models on the table. Battle Companies was always smaller than the typical game, with only a dozen models per side (aside from Goblin warbands, and Hobbits once those were added). While the basic game would typically have a few dozen per side (the figures were typically sold in boxes of 24 for a reason), the very first rulebook (Fellowship of the Ring, released with the first movie) already included a scenario with 50 Men of Gondor and 50 High Elves against 248 Mordor Orcs. (And this was when the Orcs were only available in metal!) So, yeah, the game was always one for potentially large armies. Literally since the very start.

They never promised anything of the sort.

Except they did: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/10/11/great-news-for-middle-earthfw-homepage-post-1/

They followed this up with more clarification at one of their events saying they had plans for new plastics and to explore parts of middle earth that nobody has ever looked at before.

Yeah, that article doesn't state anything of what you mentioned. No interview with Adam Troke nor Jay Clare I've ever read (or conducted) said what you claim. "Don't expect new plastics" was the post-Hobbit line. Only in recent years has that become a possibility due to presumably good sales numbers, but it was never promised or even expected.

KidCthulhu wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
Was anyone else on here collecting and/or playing in the early 2,000's? Does anyone else remember the "toybox" promotion where they ran fresh copies of 2nd Ed. 40K plastics, along with Talisman, Warhammer Quest, and 4th and 5th edition Fantasy plastics? Quite a few characters in my many armies came from the Adventurers and Wizards boxes, and all my Swarms and a fair share of my Minotaurs came from the Dungeon Denizens box. Some of those molds were at least a decade old when the promotion ran, so there's literally nothing stopping GW from running fresh frames off as long as they kept the dies. Hell, Revell just ran off a bunch of out of print 40K plastics, you can't tell me it's not possible.

I remember those! I still have the Talisman Witch Elf and that sorceress that looked like the Dark Elf Sorceress from the OLD DE army book!
I think I still have the plastic Light Wizard, Bright Wizard, and halfling, come to think of it.

Depending on how attached to those models you are, we may want to have a financially related chat...

I'm really looking forward to this game. So much so, that I'm basically focusing on finishing what I have, and selling off what I don't want to finish so that I jump into this when it launches.