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Armarda is actually a pretty good game, agree totally on the cost for what you actually get though.

what it would be much better as is the exact same set of rules, but with a WW2 naval setting, perhaps with squadrons a bit faster - could go with long out of copyright IP stuff to keep the licence costs out etc.

the starter set for Armada though is horrible, expensive, and highly frustrating to actually try to play - partly through the way its balanced (one side is way harder to play than the other at first), but mostly the way the rules are laid out - there being no 'rulebook' to speak of in a product costing that much

The disappointing thing for me was the level of the game. Call a game "Armada" and I expect to be able to field a lot of ships - like Battlefleet Gothic or more - not half a dozen. As soon as I saw the starter set I knew it wasn't the game I wanted, but I bought into it anyway because of Star Wars. Played a couple of games, decided the rules were too clunky - Full Thrust can do 90% of what Armada does in half the time - and I've not played it since.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
The disappointing thing for me was the level of the game. Call a game "Armada" and I expect to be able to field a lot of ships - like Battlefleet Gothic or more - not half a dozen. As soon as I saw the starter set I knew it wasn't the game I wanted, but I bought into it anyway because of Star Wars. Played a couple of games, decided the rules were too clunky - Full Thrust can do 90% of what Armada does in half the time - and I've not played it since.

And a couple dozen guys with a vehicle or two doesn't invoke a "Legion" at all.

For me it is the option to play and that is it. There is so many worlds that I would love to play in but if I cant interest my my mates it is non existent

Man if Legion was small scale and you fielded a legit legion... I'd be all in.

If only you lived in Australia Auticus

 infinite_array wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
The disappointing thing for me was the level of the game. Call a game "Armada" and I expect to be able to field a lot of ships - like Battlefleet Gothic or more - not half a dozen. As soon as I saw the starter set I knew it wasn't the game I wanted, but I bought into it anyway because of Star Wars. Played a couple of games, decided the rules were too clunky - Full Thrust can do 90% of what Armada does in half the time - and I've not played it since.

And a couple dozen guys with a vehicle or two doesn't invoke a "Legion" at all.

“ Armada” is about a squadron. “Legion” is about a platoon. And “X-Wing” didn’t have any X-Wings in it. They need someone else in charge of names.

 Necro wrote:
If only you lived in Australia Auticus

Do they have small scale legion in Australia?

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

“ Armada” is about a squadron. “Legion” is about a platoon. And “X-Wing” didn’t have any X-Wings in it. They need someone else in charge of names.

I blame the marketing department. They probably told their higher ups that "Star Wars: Platoon" and "Star Wars: Squadron" wouldn't sell as well.

There might have been worries about customers being confused by similarity of those names to existing products. I have fantastic in-laws, but I frequently find myself the recipient of all sorts of weird stuff because my MIL thought "Hey, that looks like whatever it is Nurglitch plays."

 AndrewGPaul wrote:


“ Armada” is about a squadron. “Legion” is about a platoon. And “X-Wing” didn’t have any X-Wings in it. They need someone else in charge of names.

'Warmachine' mk1 was about infantry.
'Warmachine' mk2 was funnily enough rather aptly named - for the most part, all you ever saw in a list was 'a' jack.
As for 'hordes', a few big beasties, some supporting grunts and a leader. Not very 'hordey'. :p

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
The disappointing thing for me was the level of the game. Call a game "Armada" and I expect to be able to field a lot of ships - like Battlefleet Gothic or more - not half a dozen.

Quite so. I guess Fantasy Flight Games decided that "Star Wars Flotilla" didn't quite have the same ring to it

Deadnight wrote:

'Warmachine' mk1 was about infantry.

Although to be fair, it didn't start out that way...

When I started, all there was was warjacks (well, and Warcasters; two of them - Stryker and Kreoss. Still got that "mk 0" booklet somewhere). The game started to go downhill for me when the Temple Flameguard were released; well, that was when I started falling behind in painting.

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
The disappointing thing for me was the level of the game. Call a game "Armada" and I expect to be able to field a lot of ships - like Battlefleet Gothic or more - not half a dozen.

Quite so. I guess Fantasy Flight Games decided that "Star Wars Flotilla" didn't quite have the same ring to it

the alternative of Star Wars: A lot less than you saw on screen apparently didn't do well in the focus groups

I was reminded after looking at the Dark Age thread on the new releases section that distribution and advertising are so important.

With so many companies doing business in China now, distribution can be a real issue. Unlike some toy series, which if they are hot and sellout, it is not an issue, in wargaming a disruption in product can really hurt a wargaming community. You can't get new blood, and sometimes cannot keep players if there is not stock to buy. The community just withers.

I am also reminded of comments relating to the starts of games. Star Wars legion did not begin with very many types of units, and releases have been churning along, although not fast enough for the real fans. Monsterpocalypse 2.0 is also beginning with very few models. Some members have commented that they will not even promote it until more stuff is out. However, will that be too late for the game, as by that time it may be seen as a shelf sitter.

It's really expensive to get those molds cut and models produced, and really hard design-wise to get an MVP (minimum viable product) that's fun to play and that scales as you add stuff to it. Not impossible, just a bit of a needle to thread.

certain games will always have at least some player base. Historicals and World War Two in particular has a sort of lasting popularity where people will buy and collect the miniatures and recreate battles as long as there is mini war gaming. The community may not burn with the same vibrancy as 40K, but the interest has always been very consistent.

That is why games like Bolt Action can churn along so reliably with minimal marketing. Because there will always be a market for 28mm World War 2 Wargaming. Indeed, I would argue that this is the reason WW2 mini pricing tends to be so much cheaper than sci fi stuff. You can't slap a copy right on Wehrmacht or a US Airborne model... so your models have to compete with every other manufacturer of WW2 minis, either through quality or quantity.

Of course that doesn't mean Bolt Action can't die, just that World War 2 wargaming won't die. Bolt Action may die, but you could still use your Bolt Action models in a different rule set made by someone else.

I think successful games decline because they all tend to become "same old, same old" in the end, where the company gets a big head over their success, and thus refuses to shakeup what's worked so far, and watches their game become stale and stagnate.

It's exactly why GW had trouble in the last decade or so. They refused to believe that anything of their "perfect" game recipe could be better, so games like WHFB stagnated and died. The Warhammer could have been changed rather than killed, but back then GW was at the ass-end of years and years of game design apathy.

Honestly, I'm more and more of the opinion that it's better for things to "die off" than be changed beyond all recognition - Mordheim "died" years ago but is still going strong all around the world; Blood Bowl "died" years ago but still apparently has enough of a pulse that GW went snuffling around for a second go. The people who like those games and settings still like them and still play them, less frequently sadly but still, and the people who demand "support" have moved on to the Next Big Wotsit as they are wont to do. Better the NBW is actually a new, distinct thing so you're not depriving people of something they enjoy to cater to folk who'll never be satisfied anyway.

Indeed, I'd argue games like Mordheim, Blood Bowl, Necromunda etc are perfect exemplars of why the End Times was a moronic move. GW garnered themselves two short-term boosts in sales(at the beginning when people believed this was GW finally getting off their arse to fix WHFB - which was in the state it was in entirely by their own incompetence - and at the end when non-cynical people finally grasped that those awful "Bubblehammer" rumours were true and panic-bought a bunch of stuff to finish existing armies), but in exchange they've torched any real chance they can bring WHF back later when AoS inevitably has a slump of its own.

If they had just set WHF aside and done AoS as another reality or a pocket dimension in the Realm of Chaos or whatever, they'd have given up the short term profit they got from blowing everything up, but AoS wouldn't have had such a mountain to climb when it first started and the WHF community that remained would be less fragmented into different systems and would be there waiting for a revival in the future if GW ever needed that.

Mind you, I suppose that's all pie in the sky, since to get a version of GW that could even consider thinking longer term than the next half-year financial report they really needed the system shock they got from dumping the system that started their company and having the replacement almost die on its arse.

Do you mean they should have introduced Warhammer Age of Sigmar as a third core game next to Warhammer Fantasy battles? Or just shelved WFB and introduced AoS without the End Times story? The former wouldn't have done anything to solve the problem AoS was introduced to resolve, and I don't see how the latter would have made any difference to those opposed to AoS.

Yes, AoS should have been an additional game rather than a replacement. Because it's not a good replacement, on account of being a completely different game.

AOS seems like they went out to the general community and started seeing what was popular.

Block rank and file games are my preference but they are also vastly in the minority in terms of what people want to play.

People seem to want big heroes, big monsters, big magic, not a ton of models to paint as a requirement, board-game style gameplay and heavy emphasis on list building.

AOS lets you move wherever you want, you can build very small model-count forces, and its about as epic fantasy as you can get.

What I'm hoping for is a specialist game of blocks and ranks brought back. Like warmaster.

auticus wrote:
AOS seems like they went out to the general community and started seeing what was popular.

Block rank and file games are my preference but they are also vastly in the minority in terms of what people want to play.

People seem to want big heroes, big monsters, big magic, not a ton of models to paint as a requirement, board-game style gameplay and heavy emphasis on list building.

AOS lets you move wherever you want, you can build very small model-count forces, and its about as epic fantasy as you can get.

What I'm hoping for is a specialist game of blocks and ranks brought back. Like warmaster.

I got some good news for you:

http://www.manticgames.com/games/kings-of-war.html

Big blocks of infantry, that winds-of-magic like magic system, nearly infinite factions

 insaniak wrote:
Yes, AoS should have been an additional game rather than a replacement. Because it's not a good replacement, on account of being a completely different game.

Unfortunately for GW, it would have died on the vine if they had done that, because if the community had not been forced to switch, they would not have switched (Not that I would have complained, I’m not exactly a fan of AoS).

I'd be really interested to know how many players did switch, and how many AoS players are instead new blood.

Certainly some made the change, but I suspect that quite a lot didn't... Particularly anyone who liked WHFB for the type of game it was, with no interest in the new, different game.

AoS has this weird thing where it's difficult to grasp exactly what the primary setting and conflict are. I think it's mainly because Stormcasts just don't immediately read as "default vanilla character" like marines do. A generic high fantasy setting really needs regular old knights, horses, and archers for it to be relatable and understandable, otherwise it feels more like "alternate" high fantasy which is fine but a harder sell for the average person and also a bit misleading for those looking a replacement for WFB.

 insaniak wrote:
I'd be really interested to know how many players did switch, and how many AoS players are instead new blood.

Certainly some made the change, but I suspect that quite a lot didn't... Particularly anyone who liked WHFB for the type of game it was, with no interest in the new, different game.

Can't speak for others, but this may generate some discussion here....this is how things are in my local area:

Our local scene has a club w/ about 20 members, plus a dozen or so non-aligned gamers. Most of the club folks (I'd say about 15) have been gaming since the 80's. Likewise, about the same amount (15) have played WHFB at least at some point in their gaming career. Of the non-aligned, I know of at least 5 that had played WHFB (including me). At the start of the End Times, there was about 10 total (club/non-club) WHFB players. When AoS dropped, as far as I am aware, all 10 tried it. No one from the old guard stayed with it, but the local scene picked up at least 6 new AoS players. However, as of the mini-convention about a month ago, they couldn't get 4 local people together to play an informal AoS tournament.

Conversely, last year at the same mini-con, there was an 20-man tournament of 40K (there's been one there for the last 15 years or so, without fail, attendance has been around 16 players per year) - this was a few months after 8E 40K dropped. This year was the first year there was no 40K tournament - at all. Surprisingly, there was a big Bolt Action tournament instead. It does make me wonder if, despite 40K have an initial well-received splash at the start of 8E if there is not a growing grumbling undercurrent against what it has become. I know, for one, that my son and I have done more Shadow War that full-fledged 40K since last December.

Then, there's X-Wing. Our local scene had at it's height about 18 players, and had averaged a steady 10 or so (about 5 being the aforementioned club members). When 2E was announced, it seemed like everyone stopped playing and buying, period. There was a recent flurry of buying with the release of 2E (40% off 1E stock helped a lot...), and even I've been involved in some recent games. The local store is starting a league, and they have 8 people already lined up to play. Along with this small drop, I've pretty much decided that though I'd still like to play, I'm not planning on buying any additional content (well, unless they actually follow through on releasing clone trooper ships) from here on out - I'm swamped enough in content as it is.

barboggo wrote:
A generic high fantasy setting really needs regular old knights, horses, and archers for it to be relatable and understandable, otherwise it feels more like "alternate" high fantasy which is fine but a harder sell for the average person and also a bit misleading for those looking a replacement for WFB.

Yeah, but the problem with those regular miniatures is that people buy cheap knock-offs like Kings of War and others, so it doesn't seem like a viable business idea anymore.

If your miniatures are expensive, people will buy cheap knock-off regardless of how convoluted you make your setting. The counter for that is to make your miniatures good enough that enough people buy them to counter those who just want cheap alternatives.


The sad thing is that GW seem to have taken this page of the playbook with AoS, as the minis for that game have been largely outstanding. If they had put this much effort into crafting their WHFB armies, it might not have declined so much in the first place...