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Chamleoneyes wrote:I dunno about these new rules.pretty much ruins any chance of me making the chaos army I've been drawing up lists for. Oh well, back to the wood elves.

What are you doing out of your room?

Back to Fantasy, I say, back!

I sort of agree with Yak, but more with Salvage. GW of course needs to convince people to buy more stuff to make money. However, I do think they plans for convincing us are often faulty, and do a lot to drive down the good will of the fan base.
In general, I think there are good ways to encourage new purchases, and bad ways. Good ways would be introducing new unit types for armies, adding new armies, creating new versions of existing models, etc. Bad ways are chopping up armies, invalidating units, essentially anything that creates uncertainly and a lack of stability in people's minds over the future of their investment).
I absolutely understand that there are reasons that GW feels they need to make seemingly unpopular decisions to keep moving forwards. I just often think that they do not fully understand the cost of what they do, or do not pay enough attention to other options, taking too much of a seemingly arrogant approach. I am worried they might need to hit a low point in the vein of GE, where they take it in the pants until someone clever comes and really turns them around.

In my case, I am making my entire Mortals army out of counts as off brand infantry, with just some GW knights. I think they have a lot of room to update the look of the line, but I don't want to wait for them to do it when there are perfectly cool Rackham things on sale


Chameleon Eyes, why the devil are you in Canada?

I also note your Chaos icon isn't followed by "Mud hole stomped by girls" :-P

yakface wrote:
Games Workshop has to continue to sell models to existing gamers or they go out of business. At this point they can't produce new models without removing something from their range.

So would you prefer they stop making anything new for 40k and WHFB?
Would you prefer the completely jettison entire races to make new races?

First off I dispute the premise of this arguement. GW's extensive web presense and monthly magazine means they can more or less retire an army for a time, keep it visible from time to time and available to those who want it (including as special orders for stores) while freeing up space at the high street/main street shops for something new.

For literally years Wood Elfs and Dark Space Elfs were treated that way.

People only object when GW pulls a 'squat' and not only kills a product but refuses to make it available by any channel, edits books to remove references and mocks anyone who brings it up again.

So yeah, I would love for GW to pull some existing factions from the stores (whomever is at the bottom of the queue for a new book) and bring in something new.

For us long-term gamers Skaven v8 or Blood Angels v5 just isn't that interesting or exciting.

Heck, even Celestial Lions would be more interesting than Blood Angels v5.

While yakface has a point, I don't think increasing model sales and invalidating whole armies has to go hand in hand. Solid rules, interesting background and good models should be what drives sales, not some rules designed gimmick intent on forcing sales. Case in point the PP model, while it may reach a critical state at some point, I still like that I've never felt forced to buy models, Ive just wanted too.

I guess what I am saying is, I agree that if you have a problem with having to update your army from time to time, then yeah you are in the wrong hobby. But that doesn't excuse GW from encouraging people to invest lots of time and money into an army that they invalidate a few years later. They could certainly mitigate that type of pain without forcing apocalypse down our throats, but they've chosen not too.

yakface wrote:Games Workshop has to continue to sell models to existing gamers or they go out of business. At this point they can't produce new models without removing something from their range.

Games Workshop isn't some burglar sneaking into our rooms at night stealing money from our pockets. If you like the game and you want it to continue to evolve (which means crazy things like splitting up armies to sell more miniatures) then yeah, you go out and buy more miniatures because you like to play the game that makes up your hobby.

Here is my thought on this and why PP does a better job than GW does on selling their product.

I want to play army X and I want it to be supported FOREVER
When GW comes out with a new army, I really wonder if they will support it. They already have a ton of armies, some of which recieve no support as far as I am concerned. This means buying another non-core army may result in me having useless models in the future (ala squats). The only armies that are garaunteed to be around forever in 40K are SM and CSM. Others have legitimate cases to stay, but that could change based on popularity.

PP has few factions and hasn't really added any, therefore I feel more comfortable in buying any of the factions.

I want to use different tactics with my army
Each army in 40K has a core tactic it is built around. If you deviate too much from that tactic, you won't win usually. I can't really make a tournament level H2H Guard army or a shooting based Demon army. This means that your army will play pretty much the same no matter what you change and you will end up knowing what's going on with your opponent purely based on their army selection. Swapping out 1 or 2 models isn't going change up your army that much.

You can play many of the factions drastically different in PP and still be within the bounds of the army. Additionally, you can change the army completely by swapping warcasters or warlocks.

I want clear rules
GW doesn't even do FAQs anymore and the FAQs they did release read as if they were written by monkeys.

PP responds to questions on their forums and has a regularly updated FAQ thread.

I want continued developement
This is the reason to keep buying the product. GW releases new editions, new codecies and new models constantly. They continually swap around who has the most power and whats good and bad. I don't buy new product each edition change anymore because I know it will eventually reverse and I have a lot of the current models. I'd like to buy some of the new models, but because of the unit value instability, I don't want to invest heavily in a unit that was once bad, now is good and will eventually be bad again.

PP updates everyone at the sametime. They also don't tend to make units obselete as much as GW does. A new unit may be good when it comes out, but usually they just fill a different gap in a different way, so it's a tweak unit. Some will like the new unit, some will not care. I can usually see cases where the unit would be good, even if I don't use it. I look forward to PP updates because I know my army won't A) be rendered useless because it's not the fotm B) will get some new stuff. PP can also just release new models and get my dollar because of the consitancy in the unit power.

What I am reading is so wrong I had to sign up so I could post.

Anyone who has the gall to say that PP doesnt preclude models, replacing older ones and making them obsolete or unusable in any decent army, has no idea what they are talking about. Warmachine and hordes both have a HUGE power creep. Ask any Proctectorate commander which he would rather field: Deliverers or Zealots. 95% will say Zealots, and the other 5% are running a death sentence force which make up a tiny niche.

How about Bane Thralls? Can anyone say Bane Knights...

When Warmachine or Hordes hit 25 years old, they will have just as many instances of units being replaced as WFB or 40k; its just easier to look at GW's games critically because they release lists all at once and not a few models at a time.

All that being said, I do like PP as a company better than GW, I just dont think that they are the altruistic saviors of Miniature Wargaming that people make them out to be. Given the opportunity to make two bucks instead of one, they would screw us just as fast as GW would.

Techboss wrote:
Here is my thought on this and why PP does a better job than GW does on selling their product.

I want to play army X and I want it to be supported FOREVER
When GW comes out with a new army, I really wonder if they will support it. They already have a ton of armies, some of which recieve no support as far as I am concerned. This means buying another non-core army may result in me having useless models in the future (ala squats). The only armies that are garaunteed to be around forever in 40K are SM and CSM. Others have legitimate cases to stay, but that could change based on popularity.

PP has few factions and hasn't really added any, therefore I feel more comfortable in buying any of the factions.


I want continued developement
This is the reason to keep buying the product. GW releases new editions, new codecies and new models constantly. They continually swap around who has the most power and whats good and bad. I don't buy new product each edition change anymore because I know it will eventually reverse and I have a lot of the current models. I'd like to buy some of the new models, but because of the unit value instability, I don't want to invest heavily in a unit that was once bad, now is good and will eventually be bad again.

PP updates everyone at the sametime. They also don't tend to make units obselete as much as GW does. A new unit may be good when it comes out, but usually they just fill a different gap in a different way, so it's a tweak unit. Some will like the new unit, some will not care. I can usually see cases where the unit would be good, even if I don't use it. I look forward to PP updates because I know my army won't A) be rendered useless because it's not the fotm B) will get some new stuff. PP can also just release new models and get my dollar because of the consitancy in the unit power.

Don't you see that these two ideals: 'I want continued development' and 'I want my army to be supported forever' in the long run are conflicting?

I'm not saying that Privateer Press doesn't do a whole lot of things better than GW and that you shouldn't like the mechanics of Warmachine better than 40k or WHFB.

But there will be day when Warmachine's stock of units reaches a point where adding any more units to the game will literally be impossible due to limitations of shelf space and production capacities. It may take 5 years, 10 years, who knows for sure but it will indeed come.

There was a time back in the day when GW brought out miniatures each month for different factions (Rogue Trader). They also published new armies and new rules regularly too. Now, PP is doing this a whole lot better than GW did back in the day (the benefit of learning from the past), but the fact remains they are still in the stage of their game where they are building their factions.

Those factions (and the game) will naturally reach a point someday where you just have too many units available to add more without bloating the game to an unreasonable point.

I too have been a long time lurker but have recently signed up to chime in on a discussion that I think is relevant and meaningful. I am inclined to agree with Yakface as I was an employee at GW Glendale back when the store was first opened (I think Yak was even a customer there). Back then I had completely taken the GW kool-aid and I saw so many of their unpopular decisions as choices trying to balance the tricky plates of company growth (one of the evils after going public), integrity of the product, quality of IP, customer service and overall quality. I worked at the store as I built a writing career and man was that a great time in my life. For a nine dollar an hour retail job I actually was proud of the company I worked for. Regardless of what people thought even then, GW US retail had customer satisfaction as our driving principal. Were encouraged to find ways to make the hobby more fun and accessible for everyone. Yes, it was a stated company goal to have a copy of the 40k starter game in every twelve-year-olds hands, but it was also a stated goal to have the very best miniatures and games so they were still playing and entering the Golden Deamons well into their forties. I was, in many ways (with obvious drama intentional), a true believer.

What really kills me about this is that I just don't see the same company anymore. When our matt sealer used to screw up people's chaos knights because the temp outside wasn't right or they held the can too far away, we'd respray them instore AND give them a new box of knights. (As an aside, most of the fuzziness problems with that stuff can be fixed by respraying your models under the right temp and humidity conditions very close to the models... )

Sorry, this has been a bit of a rant, it's just that I feel that company I loved is lost. Dramatic again, I know, but at least 60% true. I hate now that the status quo is freaking corporate and cold with CYA as the primary mandate. I wanted to strangle Kelly or whoever it was when he said in white dwarf that chaos was split up to keep things simple and clean, but now you get to have an entire demon force! like that was a new thing. I had that in storm of chaos with cavalry and chariots too. Granted balance in that book sucked. But would it be impossible to try and balance it out? I guess I would agree with Yak completely if I was able to actually get something new for the change but I don't feel like I have. I now have less. Chaos fantasy and 40k (my passion that fills eight figure cases with painted models) used to allow for mixed armies, power specific armies... chaos was like a game in itself. And the power issues that were there couldn't have been fixed with a balance rather than tossing out the whole design principal? Really? I would appreciate GW more if they were more direct about it. The designers have a new vision now, and instead of "how do we make this stuff as cool as possible to justify the price" it seems more to be "how do we keep this ship afloat for as long as possible? Simplify, streamline, reduce." Doesn't matter if it's products or service, everything that made it cool is going out the window.

Basic point is, I put up with all this stuff: price increases, poor FAQs, clunky rules, army paradigm shifts - when I truly felt the overall attitude was - aren't these things fricking cool? We love this s**t. Now it seems like - yeah they’re great, buy... blah blah blah. Clearly I'm a jaded old man and I really never thought I'd get here, but I appreciate privateer press for having that "we're all in" spirit. I know people will see great fault in my looking for a general spirit as my motivation to invest in a miniature game, but seriously, they're toys for grown ups. Rational is fuzzy at best all things considered.

I find it interesting that everyone is so quick to jump on the Privateer bandwagon. Privateer has only been around for a few years now, where as GW just celebrated the 25th anniversary of Warhammer and has been a company for over 30 years. It will be very interesting to see where Privateer is in a few years.

No one has mentioned that Privateer has exceeded GW on their prices as of late. Their new models are way above GW prices and in many instances, just priced insanely. How new Epic warcasters can be $20 for a single, on foot model is beyond me. The fact that Fenris with his mounted and foot version is $45 is crazy. I can't see how people are accepting this so readily and they are so quick to condemn the GW pricing. Even when in many instances the GW prices are actually getting better with the new plastics!

Jeff

JHall wrote:I find it interesting that everyone is so quick to jump on the Privateer bandwagon. Privateer has only been around for a few years now, where as GW just celebrated the 25th anniversary of Warhammer and has been a company for over 30 years. It will be very interesting to see where Privateer is in a few years.

No one has mentioned that Privateer has exceeded GW on their prices as of late. Their new models are way above GW prices and in many instances, just priced insanely. How new Epic warcasters can be $20 for a single, on foot model is beyond me. The fact that Fenris with his mounted and foot version is $45 is crazy. I can't see how people are accepting this so readily and they are so quick to condemn the GW pricing. Even when in many instances the GW prices are actually getting better with the new plastics!

Because people love to hate somebody. It's just that simple. GW prices are bad, PP prices are bad, but one of them gets away with it because they're playing Mussolini to GW's Hitler in the eyes of the community here at Dakka.

Slightly more objectively, though, nothing GW has done of late is worth much applause, as even their much-lauded "new plastics" are still of lackluster quality and on the upper end of the price bracket. The quality of their sculpts has improved slightly, but the quality of their rules has not.

The rules have always suffered. Knowing the designers as I have had the opportunity to do, it has nothing to do with incompetence or malice though. They are genuinely trying to come up with a great product and incorporate things they think will be worthwhile and fun. Unfortunately, that doesn't alway lead to the best gameplay in tournaments and number crunching armies like we tend to make.

I have to disagree that new plastics are of lackluster quality. It all comes down to the kit. I think the Bloodletters are awesome and so have been the new Vampire Counts models (Ghouls and Dire Wolves aside - they are much more a matter of personal taste).

GW has a long road ahead of them to turn around some of their practices and mistakes. I question more than anyone some of their decisions and recent ideas, but in the end, it is a hobby I have loved for 20 years and I love painting models. I buy what I like and play games with people I like. I don't see the need to wail and nash teeth at everything that happens like it is the end of the world. Play with your friends and have fun!

JHall wrote:And by the way, I have read the new WD mortal list in detail and most people are way off in their rumours!

Sir, I certainly have no idea what you're talking about. Perhaps you could be more specific.

JHall wrote:No one has mentioned that Privateer has exceeded GW on their prices as of late. Their new models are way above GW prices and in many instances, just priced insanely. How new Epic warcasters can be $20 for a single, on foot model is beyond me. The fact that Fenris with his mounted and foot version is $45 is crazy. I can't see how people are accepting this so readily and they are so quick to condemn the GW pricing. Even when in many instances the GW prices are actually getting better with the new plastics!

PP is still cheaper over all because less product is required to play a game. To fill your compulsery choices in a SM army, you need to spend around $65 for roughly 500 points. If you want anything outside of a flamer or rocket launcher, you get to buy another $10 model per squad. This puts it at $85 for 500 points, which isn't NEARLY a standard game. Doubling to 1000 points costs $170 for a minimalist force with no options or flavor. A fully tricked out army costs players around $700 for 2000 points with some options.

On other hand, PP standard games are 500-750 points and can befielded for around $200. As there are no unit options, you always get what you need to put the unit on the table in the base box, rather than having to buy the base box AND some bits or other models. If you have a 1000 point Warmachine army, then it would probably be around $450 and have more than enough to have a large, long battle. Therefore, I get twice the army "value" for my dollar from PP even though I have 1/2 the models. This puts GW at 4x the cost of PP for the same per model "value".

The other reason PP can get higher money for their product is because it's all metal. People are more willing to pay extra money for a metal model, even if plastic is of the same quality, becuase it feels more solid and the preception is that plastic = cheap. While some relieze that the model design cost is factored in, most people know that mass production plastics are cheaper to make and therefore should cost less than metal. GW also prices core units competatively, but RAPES people on higher end stuff. A land raider is a far less complex model than many of the "traditional" model kits, yet costs 2-3 times as much. Therefore people feel ripped off. If it were metal, people wouldn't care as much.

Lastly, people are willing to pay a premium price for customer service and accessablity. This is constantly reflected in what people buy and why. Buying stuff from a particular store, particular company or particular website, even if others are cheaper are prime examples of this. Thewarstore is a prime example. They have competative prices and great customer service, so people are willing to use them over what may be cheaper (30% discount) sites. PP has really good customer service and is a 1000 times more accessable than GW, therefore people will deal with their higher prices easier than the Evil Empire that is GW.

Lets not get OT here comparing PP prices to GW. Yes, PP requires fewer models to field therefore a whole army is cheaper but on a model by model basis they are equally or more expensive.

There, I summed it up and saved this thread from going on for 10 more pages until lock.

Now Jeff, since you have seen the WD and opened your mouth to tell us the rumors were wrong, please enlighten us.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Lastly, people are willing to pay a premium price for customer service and accessablity. This is constantly reflected in what people buy and why. Buying stuff from a particular store, particular company or particular website, even if others are cheaper are prime examples of this. Thewarstore is a prime example. They have competative prices and great customer service, so people are willing to use them over what may be cheaper (30% discount) sites. PP has really good customer service and is a 1000 times more accessable than GW, therefore people will deal with their higher prices easier than the Evil Empire that is GW.

This is really my point. It's not the prices or the wonky rules that have caused me to stop spending my money on GW products at a time in my life when I could probably afford to really indulge (as opposed to the month years back when I didn't pay car insurance and floated the rent check so I could get all the stuff I wanted for the 3rd edition Tyranid release). I've switched to PP as far as my purchases go because I have fun with the game (a bit more than GW), dig a lot of the models (a little less so than GW), think the story is good (but not as good as GW) but really, I like the company. Are they in a better position than GW with a fairly new game and a release model that's easy to support? Of course. But those facts and especially, especially their overall attitude towards customers has made me, while I refrain from using the word convert, at least a current supporter in the way of purchases.

When I saw Matt Wilson at Gencon a few years back, he was cornerd by a fan who was going off about Sorcha's feat being way too powerful. Now, he's been dealing with this less than Jervis or Gav, but still he smiled, seemed interested, gave a counterpoint, listened again and finally (and this is what has impresses me about the company) said, "You know, we've really thought about that and listened to what people are posting. I think you'll be happy with what we're releasing in a couple months." It was Prime remix he was talking about and addressed quite a few of people's concerns. Now people on line whine and moan all the time about these games, but I get sick of GW pulling their usual, "army list only matters 10% of the time in 40k" or "Now you can have an all demon army!" It's just the corporate misdirect feeling of "no, this is what you really want." And then, when they finally address a major problem, it skews things all to the other side of the boat. Are Bane Knights ridiculously good? Yep. But Bane Thralls are still good and still worth taking. So are Mechanithralls, and trenchers, and... really any unit in the game can work wonders with the right caster. Tell that to Empire or Guard players...

I can afford this stuff. I budget some money for my nerdom each month. Now recently it's gone to Xbox, Privateer Press, some d20 books, AT-43 books and a lot of painting supplies. It used to be all GW. And almost twice as much $ with a sufficiently smaller income. You can credit some of that to changing focus in my life and a vast collection of models, but largely I attribute it to having a bad taste in my mouth where GW is concerned and them doing little to win me back. I was really excited by Apocalypse but then the (hopefully uncertain) disappearance of bits, breaking up of chaos fantasy and 40k, and just general "we don't care" attitude that seems prevalent has pushed me away. Not a big deal really, but the similar shift in my gaming friends, and some of these posts make me think I'm not alone...

Sorry Oz, you're right, I hadn't seen your post yet. There are other places for this, it's just the mortal list rumors got me worked up. I want to paint the Harry the Hammerer model I just bought and use him in an army I will hopefully still be interested in.

A mortal only chaos army without a beastman or demon to be seen doesn't feel very chaos-like to me. Seems like evil men. Or pirates. Not people who have sold their souls to the damning powers of hell. Will we have Trolls? Dragon Ogres? That Shaggoth I converted? Or are we the clean-cut only need apply of chaos...?

efarrer wrote:Battletech is a great example of a game that has avoided this. Given that GW's business plan does not include longterm players at any rate that's a pretty poor arguement. No one in the two year an gone target audience will face that problem.

As an aside, it ccertainly does explain why people leave the "GW hobby" for the "minature wargaming hobby", as well as the true strength of FoW.

Huh? GW's plan is actually designed around long-term players. Without change, there is nothing that a long-term player needs besides a new Rulebook and Codex.

Privateer is doing well. I wonder if GW should attribute the success to zero-option named Special Characters and zero-option units and carry that forward into the next edition? Could you imagine the outcry if GW were to go this route?

Flames of War is still pretty early in it's cycle. I don't think they have any where near the same level of gaming saturation in groups as 40k/WFB or WM/Hordes. I wish them luck and great success.

As for Battletech being great, I thought that it stabilized and died. It's back?

Just take a look at Rackham. They hit saturation on Confrontation, and overall problems with updating cards and models. To fix this, they hit the entire reset button. They pretty much made a new game with entirely new miniatures.....

I'll take the slow creep and replacement of my figs any day.

I have been "forced" to buy many a PP model. Just to keep up and counter some of the "newest" combos out there. It just happens in different ways......

You'll all see the list in a few days as soon as the new WD hits. All I will say for certain is that there is absolutely nothing in there that lets you take Daemons or Beasts. Just isn't happening. It is a Mortal list with the Mortal units we all know and love. Plain and simple!

Remember, it is just to get you by until the new book comes out, not the definitive list for the ages.
Jeff

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Flames of War is still pretty early in it's cycle. I don't think they have any where near the same level of gaming saturation in groups as 40k/WFB or WM/Hordes. I wish them luck and great success.

As for Battletech being great, I thought that it stabilized and died. It's back?

Flames is already in its 2nd edition. With Historicals, there is little wiggle for the models. A Sherman always looks like a Sherman. Quality of castings vs cost is the only sell point. There is plenty of competition for models in that scale.

The rules need to be good and stay tight, or players will just take their models to the next hot WWII game

I'm aware of Flames being 2nd Edition.

But amusingly, Flames armies aren't exactly pure historicals armies. Flames allows pretty broad a-historical mixtures of units and variations that never would have seen service alongside one another. Particuarly Mid-War, where there was rapid technological shift.

So in a sense, Flames locks the player into their ahistorical model mix, because switching rulesets carries a penalty of having to adjust the army to conform to actual historical norms. It's very clever when you think about it.

In addition, Flames isn't exactly forthcoming about model scale, despite the necessity of being in true scale with one another and 1:1 ground scale. More cleverness.

JohnHwangDD wrote:So in a sense, Flames locks the player into their ahistorical model mix, because switching rulesets carries a penalty of having to adjust the army to conform to actual historical norms. It's very clever when you think about it.

How so? Nothing in FoW forces you to take historically inaccurate lists. If in doubt go for the latest date of the period, that makes it less hard to go wrong.

JohnHwangDD wrote:In addition, Flames isn't exactly forthcoming about model scale, despite the necessity of being in true scale with one another and 1:1 ground scale. More cleverness.

Very many WWII model tank manufacturers are unable to keep to scale (or one of them does and all the other can't) FoW stuff fits in well with Peter Pig (the only WWII manufacturer I'm familiar with to that level) a 15mm WWII army is an investment for life, you'll always have a use for it. Unless of course you were describing their aircraft, in which case you're spot on.

Old Glory has a line of 15mm that I have a good share of. Most of my U.S. models are from them.

As far as scale, Battlefront (FoW's parallel to Citadel) has a creep thing going also.
Compare one of their tanks from the 1st ed to now, ex, Panzer III, you can see the difference.

From a TRUE Historicals perspective no army that doesn't conform to an actual historical army should be fielded.

But Flames allows the player to field an army that never existed. Nor does Flames provide the sort of detailed OOB information that would support true historical list-building.

Heck, Flames doesn't even give year-in-service information so that one can create a more-plausible fights-together force.

So once naturally concludes that Flames isn't really Historical gaming in the proper sense. Flames is historical-flavored miniatures gaming.


And FWIW, my WW2 minis are Old Glory 15mm as well.

yakface wrote:
And while privateer press does handle community related issues much better IMHO, they haven't yet had to deal with the reality of a game that has reached capacity.

There will be a point when the Warmachine game will reach the point where they cannot expand anymore and then they will have to start to cut, re-shuffle or abandon parts of their game in order to continue to update stuff.

It is inevitable. If you don't think so then I fear you're going to be in for a rude awakening in several more years.

I think we're about to. And I think their just going to open up new factions....but, time will tell.

But you leave one thing missing, as you say, PP handles community relations light years better than GW. So folks are going to cut them some slack and listen. And perhaps be patient.

GW's burned more than a few bridges in the customer department, and has the ivory tower mentality.

The difference in the two will explain alot about customers reactions to that decision. Its why GW gets no slack ever.

Seeing how PP does things, there will likely be a 3rd game line following a 3rd mechanic with another 4 or 5 factions that is semi-compatible with Warmachine / Hordes. Like Hordes, this will help them forestall the inevitiable. But when they hit 12-odd factions, they'll be in the same spot as 40k and WFB, facing real problems as to how to expand the line and how to balance the various mechanics off against each other.

Let's see how PP is viewed 15 years from now, after they've hit saturation a couple times and had to retrench a couple times.

Assuming they last that long.

Most likely, the disillusionment with PP will be even higher, as their fans will feel more deeply betrayed by how PP became "just like GW!"

I can't stand the 'get you by lists' They seem to use that excuse to 'get themselves by' without having to actually put enough thought into the product.

With that said I will reserve judgment until I actually see the lists in total.

I do know that the dragon ogres, bloodletters, furies and flesh hounds will have to go on the shelf and that's troubling.

I repeat my earlier question: Does anyone know if there are plans to do an interim list for Beasts of Chaos as well?

Certainly hope not...

While I like PP a great deal and am totally behind their customer support so far, I didn't mean to imply that I was blinded with love for them. I like the company, products, and games so I buy them and will continue to do so. They may indeed have many problems in store for them, especially if they go public which I don't think they have yet. I get that GW probably had to, but going public is what put them in a bind ala lord of the rings and having to sustain retail and corporate growth.

If PP drops the ball I'll probably feel the same way I do about GW, which is not "you betrayed me, I hate GW!" but more "Not into this so much, that sucks, I used to love this game" and, I think importantly to them as this is a company-wide panic in GW right now, "I'm spending my money elsewhere." (not that I think GW is panicing about me directly but I know there have been a great many retail and I'm sure company-wide meetings addressing the unsettling problem - "why are we losing our long-time hobbyists?")

I wasn't upset about the lack of any beasts or demons in the get-you-by list but the designer came right out in white dwarf and said you won't be seeing the three chaos list mixing again. Period. I don't have the issue in front of me, but it was pretty solid and what made me say, "less chaos, more trollbloods." No big deal. But if someone felt that way about my product, I'd be interested why...

JohnHwangDD wrote:But amusingly, Flames armies aren't exactly pure historicals armies. Flames allows pretty broad a-historical mixtures of units and variations that never would have seen service alongside one another. Particuarly Mid-War, where there was rapid technological shift.

So in a sense, Flames locks the player into their ahistorical model mix, because switching rulesets carries a penalty of having to adjust the army to conform to actual historical norms. It's very clever when you think about it.

In addition, Flames isn't exactly forthcoming about model scale, despite the necessity of being in true scale with one another and 1:1 ground scale. More cleverness.

This isn't really accurate. While Flames of War does allow some ahistorical mixing of units (and I agree, this is more common in Mid-war), it's ridiculous to suggest that the rules "lock" the player into an ahistorical mix of units. The armies that are "ahistorical" often aren't any more powerful than "historical" armies. More often, if you're playing an army from the same time frame (i.e. early '42, late '43, etc.) the more "historical" armies are more effective. You can field as historical an army as you want.

Also, Flames of War has a 1:1 model scale (i.e. 1 tank = 1 tank, 1 man = 1 man), but it does not have a 1:1 ground scale. To claim that it does is absolutely false. Read the designer's notes in the back of the rulebook if you don't believe me.

JohnHwangDD wrote:From a TRUE Historicals perspective no army that doesn't conform to an actual historical army should be fielded.

But Flames allows the player to field an army that never existed. Nor does Flames provide the sort of detailed OOB information that would support true historical list-building.

Heck, Flames doesn't even give year-in-service information so that one can create a more-plausible fights-together force.

So once naturally concludes that Flames isn't really Historical gaming in the proper sense. Flames is historical-flavored miniatures gaming.

This is also mostly false. Battlefront has been releasing army books that gives detailed OOBs and year-in-service information on different units, often covering specific days of fighting, such as the Viller's Bocage battles of Panzerlehr Division vs. the 7th Armored Division. Yes, you can field an army that never existed, but you can easily field a more historical army, and Battlefront has been encouraging this. No, they don't print their own line of FOW text books, but many OOBs are just a mouse-click away, and there is plenty of good information to be found on Battlefront's forums.

You can go either way with FOW, but to suggest that FOW is cleverly "locked" into an ahistorical mix of units is ludicrous.