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The problem about talking about ancient war tactics is not just that the vast majority of people have no real world understanding; but that war evolved and greatly both as time advanced, between different countries and even between different battles and generals within countries.

What can be really simple if you've a Total War understanding of war; can become very complicated if you learn it at a higher level. Plus I'd say that, like a lot of subjects, easy access books and references that make the subject easier to digest and comprehensive are rare to find; and often expensive if you do find them

 Overread wrote:
The problem about talking about ancient war tactics is not just that the vast majority of people have no real world understanding; but that war evolved and greatly both as time advanced, between different countries and even between different battles and generals within countries.

What can be really simple if you've a Total War understanding of war; can become very complicated if you learn it at a higher level. Plus I'd say that, like a lot of subjects, easy access books and references that make the subject easier to digest and comprehensive are rare to find; and often expensive if you do find them

Also how much logistics and culture play in a given army, how and why it fights. So when different cultures fight it can be a bruising experience to one or even both sides) and quite often transform not only their army but their culture.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Overread wrote:
The problem about talking about ancient war tactics is not just that the vast majority of people have no real world understanding; but that war evolved and greatly both as time advanced, between different countries and even between different battles and generals within countries.

What can be really simple if you've a Total War understanding of war; can become very complicated if you learn it at a higher level. Plus I'd say that, like a lot of subjects, easy access books and references that make the subject easier to digest and comprehensive are rare to find; and often expensive if you do find them

Also how much logistics and culture play in a given army, how and why it fights. So when different cultures fight it can be a bruising experience to one or even both sides) and quite often transform not only their army but their culture.

Aye logistics is a massive subject and one we often forget about in wargames as even PC games often don't cover it (Mount and Blade is one of the few that at least makes you feed your troops and a couple - like King Arthur Roleplaying Wargame - have movement limits in winter months). Disease, sourcing of food, proper supply lines, repair and upkeep. Heck the idea of stopping to put your armour on is something we rarely consider and yet would have been very key (a knight didn't spend every day in full plate armour atop their horse).

Heck if we think about horses in most games they are a "get on and go fast" option rather like a car; yet in reality cavalry is very different; horses need food, water and rest and if pushed too far will simply die or be crippled at best. Heck warhammer style horses are also very "racer" type in body build rather than a more stocky heavy build war horse .

This whole discussion on historical warfare is quite interesting but getting well into off topic territory...

 Overread wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Overread wrote:
The problem about talking about ancient war tactics is not just that the vast majority of people have no real world understanding; but that war evolved and greatly both as time advanced, between different countries and even between different battles and generals within countries.

What can be really simple if you've a Total War understanding of war; can become very complicated if you learn it at a higher level. Plus I'd say that, like a lot of subjects, easy access books and references that make the subject easier to digest and comprehensive are rare to find; and often expensive if you do find them

Also how much logistics and culture play in a given army, how and why it fights. So when different cultures fight it can be a bruising experience to one or even both sides) and quite often transform not only their army but their culture.

Aye logistics is a massive subject and one we often forget about in wargames as even PC games often don't cover it (Mount and Blade is one of the few that at least makes you feed your troops and a couple - like King Arthur Roleplaying Wargame - have movement limits in winter months). Disease, sourcing of food, proper supply lines, repair and upkeep. Heck the idea of stopping to put your armour on is something we rarely consider and yet would have been very key (a knight didn't spend every day in full plate armour atop their horse).

Heck if we think about horses in most games they are a "get on and go fast" option rather like a car; yet in reality cavalry is very different; horses need food, water and rest and if pushed too far will simply die or be crippled at best. Heck warhammer style horses are also very "racer" type in body build rather than a more stocky heavy build war horse .

Indeed - even modern day military rarely are able to field an complete unit - there is always someone ill, or injured or away or wahtever.

I can imagine the reaction to having to roll to see how many of your unit actually turn up for battle - roll for malingering, diseased, absent, posted elsewhere, and that's without the fantasy elements.

Medical care was patchy across history - some ancient armies being much better served than later, but then their battles could be much bigger - again partly due to culture and logistics.

Campaign Logistics gets equally interesting when you add in fantasy - Undead benefiting from bloodier battles, having to feed those carnivorous mounts - easier for greenskins

Throw in some politics and internal squabbles between officers and rank and file as well, issues with pay.....be that in coin, blood, meat, whatever.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
This whole discussion on historical warfare is quite interesting but getting well into off topic territory...

It's still relevant to highlight just how different the feel from square-base, ranked-unit WHFB is from round-base, move-as-you-wish AoS.

Obviously if you liked warhammer fantasy AoS scratches a totally different itch. Which is reinforces my (local, anecdotal, etc.) evidence that AoS hit big on mostly 40K players who dabbled at bit on fantasy rather than players for whom WHFB was their main game and have the option to stay in square-based land (be it 9th age, kow or whatever edition of WHFB they want to keep playing).

I find that AOS hits on players that like synergy combo-building deckbuilding style games, which seems to be the majority of the tabletop market.

WHFB is more maneuver battlefield management based and is not very popular, in large part because its a more difficult set of skills to master and combo building and deckbuilding aren't as important. (though with whfb 8th edition they did do their damndest to make it more powerful and featured)

I dont' know that the bases really play any role.

I know a ton of 40k players that won't touch AOS simply because they aren't interested in fantasy at any level. They are sci-fi fans that like tanks and guns.

auticus wrote:
WHFB is more maneuver battlefield management based and is not very popular, in large part because its a more difficult set of skills to master and combo building and deckbuilding aren't as important.

I'd argue it's much less popular on the basis of being a dead game that has no ongoing support. Even then there's still quite a lot of players it seems and WHFB content still draws decently on platforms like YouTube, despite being squatted a few years ago. There was a time when WHFB was huge, much bigger than what AOS is now. Despite all the stick that 4th and 5th edition gets now for being "Herohammer", that was actually the games peak in terms of sales, in large part because it was quite cheap (relatively) to build an army. Then it began the slow descent into madness...

Maybe. But 8th edition was dying out here and additionally, 9th age and Kings of War have very little player base as well. Kings of War is most definitely not dead. Kings of War lets you use any models you want so cost is not a factor really either, but you have to dig deep to find a community in most places that are more than 3 or 4 guys.

If WHFB was dying, KOW has a very small player base, and 9th age doesnt' really exist except for some choice locations on the globe, but AOS is becoming like 40k in that there are players everywhere, I'd argue that battlefield management style games are really not a popular sell. Everything all around me anyway at conventions and the local stores are almost exclusively tied to skirmish games and deckbuilding games that focus on synergy and buffs.

The peak of WHFB I remember was the early 2000s. In the 1990s it was about what AOS is now where I am. I started in 5th edition with undead. The competitive leagues and groups had about 40 players at our peak around 2003 / 2004. When 7th edition dropped, our players started declining for a myriad of reasons.

It might be that rank and file doesn't sell or it could be that Kings of War just doesn't appeal (many of their designs feel rather retro to my eyes at least when compared to a lot of other lines); and that GW actually messed up advertising and marketing their own game. I think running Lord of hte Rings and Fantasy at the same time was a mistake because there was so much pressure on them to push LotR more than fantasy for so long that I think fantasy just fell to one side. A few bad releases; less marketing and a dwindling playerbase all coupled to a game that had a high start up cost (in perception) and no heavily marketed easier/cheaper way in - lots of little and big things that all added up.

It's no surprise AoS has sigmar marines because its marketing GW understands and knows works and have copied over from 40K. They could have easily kept it with square bases and movement trays and I think if they'd put the same energy into that game it would be going well too.

The tactics and challenge of playing are more abstract than many people like to realise. Heck chess and go have very simplistic mechanics and yet the tactics and strategy of them is legendary in terms of how deep some will go.

auticus wrote:Maybe. But 8th edition was dying out here and additionally, 9th age and Kings of War have very little player base as well. Kings of War is most definitely not dead. Kings of War lets you use any models you want so cost is not a factor really either, but you have to dig deep to find a community in most places that are more than 3 or 4 guys.

Oddly if you go back to when 6th edition came around, that's where the numbers seemed to start slipping, because as much as the ravening hordes helped to balance the game out initially, it also started to drive up the cost of building an army. Some of the later army books in that edition began the trend that would cover the next two editions of army book creep, something which did tremendous damage to the game. Nobody wants to hand over a big pile of cash only to find out their army can't win a game without an absurd amount of luck, and so you're left with a handful of power army choices which you either take or leave, and which gradually more and more players opted to leave.

9th age isn't really a game, it's a bunch of fan made rules on a forum. Kings of War seems to have struggled by virtue of a) not being Warhammer and b) being a bit weird. I saw a game the other day on YouTube and it just looked ridiculous with dice behind the units and seemingly was just about pushing blocks of troops forward with no real plan except "make contact with the enemy and hope to roll well". The crazy amount of miniatures on the table (despite only being an average point game) meant there was no real room for any kind of crafty movement. As I understand it that game was written by the same guy that wrote "Infantryhammer" 6th edition.

Overread wrote:I think running Lord of hte Rings and Fantasy at the same time was a mistake because there was so much pressure on them to push LotR more than fantasy for so long that I think fantasy just fell to one side...
It's no surprise AoS has sigmar marines because its marketing GW understands and knows works and have copied over from 40K. They could have easily kept it with square bases and movement trays and I think if they'd put the same energy into that game it would be going well too.

Agreed and agreed. Having two types of fantasy combat game can't have helped, especially as one was based off of what was at the time an insanely popular movie franchise and had lower entry costs. As for Sigmarines, GW knew they'd sell well and they pretty much have. Hell, I'm considering buying some just to paint and put on a shelf, they're that pretty.

The other issue with big start up costs is burn-out. People buy into the faction with good intentions and get the Battletome, starting boxed sets and start building and then burn out in that before they've hardly had a game. Putting movement trays into the boxed sets would have helped (and several of the other games on the market that are going for rank and file are now doing just that); but in the end with bigger time investments its much easier to burn out.

Couple that to all the other things and it didn't help Fantasy - if it had had a lot more marketing and a very active scene the start up costs and issues go away somewhat - esp if a smaller skirmish game also gets pushed alongside. 40K today operates with very similar numbers in several armies and doesn't suffer the burnout issue.

Personally I also expect AoS to increase the model count over time as it gains in popularity and there's more pressure on GW to allow games iwth more models for the growing fanbase. So long as they revamp Skirmish or release Killteam AOS or somesuch it should work wel.

You guys aren't wrong. The thing is there are no actual viable case studies to examine because there isn't a popular rank and flank out there.

I'd say in terms of the public conventions like Adepticon, Kings of War is #1. But it was put into a small corner of a room. Lord of the Rings was double the size of KOW and LOTR is known to be struggling with attendance.

Hail Caesar is another one but also not present at cons at all. In terms of cost, KOW and Hail Caesar armies can be bought for a fraction of the cost of a 40k or AOS army, so cost is not the barrier there.

Marketing sees this. Marketing notices that games that involve rank and flank and maneuver control are hardly present.

Conquest is the newest coming out this winter... the models are beautiful. THe game play was a lot of fun, but I have a feeling it wont' go very far because its not a deckbuilding combo chaining synergy skirmish game.

Thing is Hail Ceasar and Kings of War have marketing that is a tiny fraction of what GW can put into marketing. GW can push marketing way more than any other company in wargaming (except perhaps star-wars tie-ins). That alone does change things because it means that even if other rank and file is doing badly, part of that might just be that no one has noticed it enough - ergo its not gained enough traction.

Of course it could also be that its just not popular; esp at the 30mm scale.

Anecdotally - from 2003 and on rank and file maneuver based gaming has not been popular near me. When Warmachine dropped MK 1, there was a massive exodus toward the combo based synergy deckbuilding game.

I think that was the noticeable point in time where rank and file games were put on notice.

I personally love Kings of War.....at 10mm. I'm not a huge fan of Rank-n-File at 28mm. Just to much big stuff that takes to long to build and paint to be used as a single model or wound markers. Meh. 10mm where you can build a fantastic and fun 2.2k KOW army for around $100 and paint in an afternoon is where rank-n-file belongs.

 Hulksmash wrote:
I personally love Kings of War.....at 10mm. I'm not a huge fan of Rank-n-File at 28mm. Just to much big stuff that takes to long to build and paint to be used as a single model or wound markers. Meh. 10mm where you can build a fantastic and fun 2.2k KOW army for around $100 and paint in an afternoon is where rank-n-file belongs.

I would agree which is why I'd love if Warmaster came back (original or AoS flavour). Rank and file just makes so much more sense at 10mm where you can get a proper feel from the miniatures and terrain and also not feel like you've got to spend thousands and spend months just getting a viable sensible looking army together.

I have posted a few times on this, but my dream is the return of warmaster. Of any fantasy rank and flank game, that was probably the best in terms of what I need in a game. Sadly other than with a few of my buddies from like 20 years ago, it never went beyond a handful of us because it just never hooked attention due to its smaller scale and its lack of listbuilding weight.

bouncingboredom wrote:

auticus wrote:Maybe. But 8th edition was dying out here and additionally, 9th age and Kings of War have very little player base as well. Kings of War is most definitely not dead. Kings of War lets you use any models you want so cost is not a factor really either, but you have to dig deep to find a community in most places that are more than 3 or 4 guys.

Oddly if you go back to when 6th edition came around, that's where the numbers seemed to start slipping, because as much as the ravening hordes helped to balance the game out initially, it also started to drive up the cost of building an army. Some of the later army books in that edition began the trend that would cover the next two editions of army book creep, something which did tremendous damage to the game. Nobody wants to hand over a big pile of cash only to find out their army can't win a game without an absurd amount of luck, and so you're left with a handful of power army choices which you either take or leave, and which gradually more and more players opted to leave.

9th age isn't really a game, it's a bunch of fan made rules on a forum. Kings of War seems to have struggled by virtue of a) not being Warhammer and b) being a bit weird. I saw a game the other day on YouTube and it just looked ridiculous with dice behind the units and seemingly was just about pushing blocks of troops forward with no real plan except "make contact with the enemy and hope to roll well". The crazy amount of miniatures on the table (despite only being an average point game) meant there was no real room for any kind of crafty movement. As I understand it that game was written by the same guy that wrote "Infantryhammer" 6th edition.

Overread wrote:I think running Lord of hte Rings and Fantasy at the same time was a mistake because there was so much pressure on them to push LotR more than fantasy for so long that I think fantasy just fell to one side...
It's no surprise AoS has sigmar marines because its marketing GW understands and knows works and have copied over from 40K. They could have easily kept it with square bases and movement trays and I think if they'd put the same energy into that game it would be going well too.

Agreed and agreed. Having two types of fantasy combat game can't have helped, especially as one was based off of what was at the time an insanely popular movie franchise and had lower entry costs. As for Sigmarines, GW knew they'd sell well and they pretty much have. Hell, I'm considering buying some just to paint and put on a shelf, they're that pretty.

Armies did get marginally larger, not by a lot. AND it was also cheaper to get in as the plastic sets meant you could build that slightly cheaper points cost army for WAY cheaper in actual money spent. My Bretonnians were collected before the Army Book release, and therefore before the newer plastics hit in 6th. My Men at Arms regiments cost approximately $60 bucks a regiment for a unit of 20. The same unit in plastic was $20 or $25. Marked difference, so I don't think the size ratio hurt 6th as much as you think. If you have actual sales data from that time, I'd love to see it. Anecdotally, that's when the WFB players in both areas I gamed at grew. 7th is when they started to fall off.

auticus wrote:Anecdotally - from 2003 and on rank and file maneuver based gaming has not been popular near me. When Warmachine dropped MK 1, there was a massive exodus toward the combo based synergy deckbuilding game.

I guess one thing that might be worth raising is that 4th/5th WHFB were known as "Herohammer" in large part because you could take characters and then tailor their loadouts to the extreme. There were some ridiculously broken combinations, which would fit the combo based, synergy deckbuilding element. Powerful lords on Dragons could reliably take on whole units single handed if tooled up correctly.

Just Tony wrote:Armies did get marginally larger, not by a lot. AND it was also cheaper to get in as the plastic sets meant you could build that slightly cheaper points cost army for WAY cheaper in actual money spent.

The difference was that you couldn't rely so much on characters anymore. In the older editions it was possible for someone to buy a few boxes of the cheap plastic core troops, maybe a unit of something special, and then a couple of characters laden with their own bodyweight in magical items to meet some decently high points tallies.

Yeah. My first grand tournament was in 1999. I had been playing 5th edition hero hammer for a year. I placed 8th out of around 80 people with a chaos lord that had over 40 attacks by himself.

I didn't even need the rest of his "army" which was 10 other models.

My tournament chaos "army" was indeed eleven models. It was ridiculous lol.

The concept of armies was brought back in 6th edition, which for a few years seemed to be very popular and then once warmachine mark 1 dropped, started steadily losing fans in favor or smaller model count again and skirmish based rules with combo chaining synergies.

I started WHF in 5th edition and the Herohammer stuff is true. Chaos and Undead (curse of years multiple proccing was horrible to sit through) were amongst the worst abusers, but Lizzies were up there too with some powerful Slaan.

6th ed/Ravening Hordes really did a lot for the game. Model counts went up by virtue of the fact that heroes were toned down.

7th edition was still a good system and I think this is where "unit strength" and outnumbering came into existence. There was still no pre-measuring in 7th edition. I thought 7th edition was a good ruleset, but the problem was they started to jump the shark again with respect to army books and power creep.

8th edition, in my opinion, really started to crap out. They instituted pre-measuring, random charged distances, and although they buffed infantry with the steadfast rule (which I liked, since I happen to think that warhammer fantasy ought to be about massive ranked infantry), they then made it super easy to slaughter infantry en masse with powerful unit killer spells like purple sun, lurkers, comet, etc, which just turned it back into magi-hero-hammer and enabling the big magic boys, Slaan and High Elves to come out on top.

7th edition was mostly 6th edition rules, so I consider the rules to be fairly good. It was the garbage dark elves, demons, and vampire counts that torpedoed the game because they were extremely broken, alongside the grey knights of the same era in 40k.

7th edition when the demon codex was at its pinnacle is where my community dried up because we were tired of the imbalances being so gross.

8th edition brought some people back but the steadfast hordes of 200 skaven slave units, death stars crammed with wizards, or the high elf banner of mat ward with the 2+ ward save against any magic attack that most of the army sat in kept people from being as invested as they were in the 6th edition days.

I think really a keystone is people don't want high model count armies as a whole, skirmish systems with low model counts are preferred. You can't really do proper rank and flank and maneuver with small model count though.

I find the two to be mutually exclusive. Army-scale games have for the entire 30 years I've been doing wargaming been very very rare in any genre (historical, fantasy, or sci fi).

Huh. We'll have to agree to disagree, Auticus. All the guys I know for those years had no problem buying huge armies, in fact we all loved it. What drove us out of WHF was that the big armies we purchased were constantly being invalidated, most by power creep/imbalances between codexes, and/or the big changes in rules to 8th edition.

I still think that's true to this day. 7th edition 40k did not NEED the drastic change to 8th edition. It just needed a more reigned in balance between the armies.

Rocmistro wrote:
They instituted pre-measuring, random charged distances, and although they buffed infantry with the steadfast rule (which I liked, since I happen to think that warhammer fantasy ought to be about massive ranked infantry), they then made it super easy to slaughter infantry en masse with powerful unit killer spells like purple sun, lurkers, comet, etc, which just turned it back into magi-hero-hammer and enabling the big magic boys, Slaan and High Elves to come out on top.

Have to disagree in particular with the bit in bold. Warhammer had its roots in the RPG genre, especially D&D. It was about a crazy, somewhat over top fantasy setting that drew on pop culture elements like Conan the Barbarian. That always shaped my view of the world and as such I personally want my Warhammer to have Empire Captains riding Griffons doing battle with Elven lords riding star dragons!! C'mon, how can you not love the thought of that?

I think they nailed it with the push towards units of 20-25. They looked nice and neat, with enough bulk to be a company of sorts without breaking the bank to build said units. I've always felt that a big part of the appeal of Warhammer was the characters, either named or ones that you create yourself. They add so much flavour and - well - character, to the game. The problem is finding the balance between the different elements, which starts by taking away the most insane magic items and probably dumping the common pool of magic items (which made it too easy to tailor around the weaknesses of an army) and replacing it with a bigger pool of army specific items, except ones that are actually useful (100 points for +D3 toughness and 1D6 impact hits? Have a word GW). Ideally I'd want to see armies that were a mix of infantry blocks, some war machines and perhaps a general or wizard on some magnificant beast. Keep it so a tooled up beast riding general can take a 20-25 man unit in one turn, but only if he happens to roll remarkably well and pays a solid amount of points for that unit defeating ability. Tone down the magic big time, make it more of a general support/buff/nerf/fireball type system, not one that can kill whole units with one spell. Knock off with the laser guided artillery and I think they'd be headed in the right direction. Give everyone a little bit of what they want.

On a side note, I'm ok with pre-measuring, as even rookie players learned a variety of cheats pretty quickly. Pre-measuring did away with most of the pretence, though you could perhaps keep guessing for the artillery as the longer distances were a bit harder. Random charge ranges I can live with as long success grants some kind of bonus so there is an incentive to take on risky charges and if failure still lets you move up a decent distance (it's ridiculous that often times a unit would stumble forward less than its traditional movement range).

bouncingboredom wrote:

9th age isn't really a game, it's a bunch of fan made rules on a forum.

Yet it draws events with hundreds of people (maybe not in the UK, but over here in the continent it does) . It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it sure has its crowd.

The record (other than the ETC, that's its own beast) is the Polish team championship this July, with 50(!) 5-man teams. Several singles have been held around the 100 mark.

Rocmistro wrote:
Huh. We'll have to agree to disagree, Auticus. All the guys I know for those years had no problem buying huge armies, in fact we all loved it. What drove us out of WHF was that the big armies we purchased were constantly being invalidated, most by power creep/imbalances between codexes, and/or the big changes in rules to 8th edition.

I still think that's true to this day. 7th edition 40k did not NEED the drastic change to 8th edition. It just needed a more reigned in balance between the armies.

My responses are of course only from my own point of view and the perspective of my area. Those were the years I was huge into the tournament scene. I don't think it started out with huge armies driving people out, but yeah I'd say the invalidation coupled with the really really horrible powergaming imbalances played the role of the final nail because no one wanted to have to keep buying huge armies on the regular just so they weren't getting rolled by the bad balance. Thats my same issue with AOS. You have to constantly rotate armies and often the cool models I like are not the ones can give a good game so I lose emotional investment in my force.

jouso wrote:

bouncingboredom wrote:

9th age isn't really a game, it's a bunch of fan made rules on a forum.

Yet it draws events with hundreds of people (maybe not in the UK, but over here in the continent it does) . It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it sure has its crowd.

The record (other than the ETC, that's its own beast) is the Polish team championship this July, with 50(!) 5-man teams. Several singles have been held around the 100 mark.

It's still not a proper "game", it's just a set of rules that walk a fine legal line.

auticus wrote:

Rocmistro wrote:
Huh. We'll have to agree to disagree, Auticus. All the guys I know for those years had no problem buying huge armies, in fact we all loved it. What drove us out of WHF was that the big armies we purchased were constantly being invalidated, most by power creep/imbalances between codexes, and/or the big changes in rules to 8th edition.

I still think that's true to this day. 7th edition 40k did not NEED the drastic change to 8th edition. It just needed a more reigned in balance between the armies.

My responses are of course only from my own point of view and the perspective of my area. Those were the years I was huge into the tournament scene. I don't think it started out with huge armies driving people out, but yeah I'd say the invalidation coupled with the really really horrible powergaming imbalances played the role of the final nail because no one wanted to have to keep buying huge armies on the regular just so they weren't getting rolled by the bad balance. Thats my same issue with AOS. You have to constantly rotate armies and often the cool models I like are not the ones can give a good game so I lose emotional investment in my force.

Ok then I can buy that. What I think is wrong (and I'm not saying that *you* are saying this, just that it's been said), is that rank n' flank games have less of an appeal than skirmish based games. I don't know that that is necessarily true. 7th edition 40k is/was a skirmish game, and interest in had more or less died out prior to 8th dropping because of 1.) rules, codex, book "bloat" and 2.) horrible imbalances between armies (taudar vs. my poor blood angels).

My experience is that warhammer fantasy died out not because people don't like wheeling their regiments, but because of similar problems in balance and such.

But compound that with bouncingboredom's response to my other post. He likes big characters and the flavor they bring to the game. I like characters...but in moderation. My feeling has always been that if I want to play a game where my Elf Lord rides a dragon, then I'll go play D&D, as there is already a game system where you can do that. I've always thought that when you build an ARMY list in Warhammer, you should have, you know, something resembling an army. I don't want to play Herohammer...I want to play Warhammer, and it's much harder for GW to balance that whole equation when they have such extremes. That's not to say my vision of Warhammer is the right one, but when 2 polar visions of warhammer (herohammer vs. hordehammer) are both invested in the system, and GW is trying to satisfy both visions, its bound to come apart. I think WHF came apart because GW could not make both camps happy.

Now, normally that wouldn't bother me...except they already had a skirmish based game to offer. It was called 40k. So for me, when they dropped Fantasy and moved to AoS, which is, more or less, 40k with swords, my response is: what's the point? I already have a skirmish game. So bringing it back around to the OP...AoS offers nothing that 40k doesn't. I'm sure it's not a horrible game....but why bother with the overhead of books, and rules and learning all that and understanding all that when it's effectively the same game?

bouncingboredom wrote:

jouso wrote:

bouncingboredom wrote:

9th age isn't really a game, it's a bunch of fan made rules on a forum.

Yet it draws events with hundreds of people (maybe not in the UK, but over here in the continent it does) . It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it sure has its crowd.

The record (other than the ETC, that's its own beast) is the Polish team championship this July, with 50(!) 5-man teams. Several singles have been held around the 100 mark.

It's still not a proper "game", it's just a set of rules that walk a fine legal line.

Your own reasons to dislike it doesn't make it less of a game.

It has rules, people play it. The supported/commercial/whatever discussion is so 2015.