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JohnHwangDD wrote:

George Spiggott wrote:

Solorg wrote:WHF: This game is probably the most popular game GW makes.

Apart from 40k and LotR?

If you check his profile, you'll see that Solorg lives in 1989, when WHF doesn't have anything else to compete against...

____

I may live in '89 (Can't Touch This) but that's beside the point. LOTR and WOTR are almost not played at all in my local game shops. In fact, all the local shops are discounting LOTR/WOTR by 40% or more just to make room for other GW stuff. 40K is definitely strong, but I think WHF wins out on popularity because of its greater player base and also the fact that it has more history than 40K.

As for me, 40K is my fave game. Not that interested in Fantasy. But where I live, WHF beats all since it pulls in the tabletop gamers by the pound and ALSO lures in the D&D crowd.

Perhaps different where you live?

BFG is a great game, too. I'd recommend it over Inquisitor.

Go with the better game with better support all-around: Anime Tactics

Solorg wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:

George Spiggott wrote:

Solorg wrote:WHF: This game is probably the most popular game GW makes.

Apart from 40k and LotR?

If you check his profile, you'll see that Solorg lives in 1989, when WHF doesn't have anything else to compete against...

I may live in '89 (Can't Touch This) but that's beside the point. LOTR and WOTR are almost not played at all in my local game shops. In fact, all the local shops are discounting LOTR/WOTR by 40% or more just to make room for other GW stuff. 40K is definitely strong, but I think WHF wins out on popularity because of its greater player base and also the fact that it has more history than 40K.

As for me, 40K is my fave game. Not that interested in Fantasy. But where I live, WHF beats all since it pulls in the tabletop gamers by the pound and ALSO lures in the D&D crowd.

Perhaps different where you live?

Most assuredly so. For example, my group doesn't play in shops, so you'd never see us.

Besides, 40k is well-known to be GW's largest seller, with Space Marines alone outselling all WFB combined. LotR is understood to sell about as well as WFB, and is often claimed to sell better, but again, not in Space Marine numbers. So when you say WFB outsells 40k and LotR, and has a larger player base, that's hard to believe in the aggregate, but easy to believe for specific locations. Yes, WFB is older, but that doesn't mean it's played more or is more popular.

To the Extreme!

Emperors Faithful wrote:@randomfrog: How did you make that connection? Because one uses formations and the other doesn't?

Yeah, pretty much.

Ah, yes. A friend of mine has been using a 'counts as' Chaos Battlefleet for some time. (though he uses 'counts as' pretty much all the time)

When he was explaining the rules to me, they kinda just went *woosh*. In one ear and out the other. Couldn't really make heads nor tails of it. (models are cool though)

What size of fleet would you need for BFG? I really like the forgeworld stuff for tau, but don't knw how many of each ship i'd be expected to use

Trasvi wrote:What size of fleet would you need for BFG? I really like the forgeworld stuff for tau, but don't knw how many of each ship i'd be expected to use

A single pack of cruisers and an escort squadron or two will start you off, and the average 1500pt Fleet tends to include between 3 and 5 cruisers and a battleship, with escorts added to taste.

Fantasy, LOTR is (for me) a rerun of the whole Tolkien thing, and I'm a bit sick of it.
Ofcourse, if you and your brother want to play it, go ahead..

Of the two I'd pick LotR. The rules are much simpler and you don't need to line of your orcs in rows on movement trays. Also LotR has no "wheeling" and the movement rules are much less finicky.

I'm not familiar with WotR, so I don't understand why it's unbalanced in tournament play. But I can tell you that WFB is seriously unbalanced right now. At our last tournament of all the armies, 2 weren't vampires or demons.

When the new Skaven book comes out the big question is: How will it do against VC or demons?



*OR*

Play Helldorado. Or Confrontation. Or something else. I don't know of many fantasy games, but surely they are out there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yeah, forgot about Warmachine/Hordes.

WOTR has some major issues with unclear wording on hero abilities, for example boromir can do things like punch out a 500 point Balrog in one hit. It badly needs an FAQ for competative play. (I think most friendly games would be okay, as you could talk it out, but playing strangers in a competative environment would be a headache.)
Sounds cool, but is not balanced.

I don't know that they were really trying to make a tournament game with it. It's really good fun to play though, I'd reccomend giving it a go.

LOTR LOTR LOTR

JohnHwangDD wrote:Besides, 40k is well-known to be GW's largest seller, with Space Marines alone outselling all WFB combined.

Is that true?

Da Boss wrote:WOTR has some major issues with unclear wording on hero abilities, for example boromir can do things like punch out a 500 point Balrog in one hit.

I am SO adding Boromir to my army.

He is awesome. Read his ability, it's bonkers. Lurtz I think has a similar ability. And he's mad mobile too, because he's an epic hero.

He's awesome in the Skirmish game too, I think the design team love him.

Well, I originally started with Fantasy back in 1997 (I was 13), particularly the Bretonnians. Was always a huge fan of King Arthur and the like. When 6th edition came out I moved on to orcs. Then I eventually dropped the game and I haven't played it since. Now, I can't speak for any others, however I can tell you my personal reasons for stopping fantasy. I haven't really played it since the start of 6th, however my issues were never really with the rules or balance.

Now, the current game I play is mostly 40k, I played mostly LOTR for a several years and I have picked up war of the ring, however have only played 1 game with it.

But, back to Fantasy.

Now, in all honesty, one of the big things that started pulling me off of Fantasy was the release of the Medieval Total War computer game. Now, I know it's silly to compare a computer game to tabletop, however it really was a defining moment for me in my fantasy interest. What I really found was that Total War could do everything Fantasy could do tactics wise but could do it better (in my opinion) and more importantly, 10 times bigger.

Now, I collected a big army, 300 orcs eventually. This led me to my second decision about fantasy. One day, when painting those 300 orcs I came to a realisation.

I was completely and totally wasting my time.

Painting that unit of 50 orcs was really completely pointless. Except for the first 5 or 10 guys.

All those hours I spent painting those models, I was essentially doing glorified wounds markers. Stating the obvious perhaps, but this was really a big deal for me. Yay I've finished another 10 orcs, woohoo + 1 rank bonus.

This really, completely and totally killed the game for me.

And, going back to the M:TW point, looking at your average game and your average armies, it never really visually impressed me. Big 6 by 4 foot board, then you're really controlling a handful of units. I just could never really reconcile my problems with the scale. This may be slight hypocrisy when I talk about WOTR.

A quick mention to why I like/liked 40k, the scale seems to fit better. I primarily play an Imperial Guard, or Tyranid army. The game just always felt to make a better use of the board. Sure, you might have less proper 'numbers' than a warhammer army, but every guy mattered. Sure, I'm deploying 100 guardsmen, but every one of those 100 guardsmen can fire his gun and it might be that one random crappy wee trooper that survives and carries the day when all his squad are dead. So, that's a wee aside, however it is relevant as a comparison to fantasy.


Then, LOTR came out. Ok, the FOTR edition was rather light, and it suffered badly cause of that when most people tried it and were put off forever. I'd be willing to bet that even now the majority of anti LOTR peoples opinions are still coloured by their one experience of that one first edition game they had.

The truth is, a very large amount of what I like in 40k is present in the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game (well, except battle tanks, obviously).

Again, in LOTR, troops matter. You can control every single guy you want, personally. Therefore, each single guy has the opportunity to do something awesome. Yet, aside from this, the Heroes are really the driving force of the game. This tends to put people off LOTR as well, because when you say that, people automatically think of 2nd edition 40k or 5th edition fantasy with heroes laying waste to entire armies single handedly.
It couldn't be further from the truth (Aragorn/Sauron excepting). They're the movers and shakers of your army, the main strategy to the game. Sadly, again, people skimp over on this and blithely ignore the fact that the Heroic Fights and Heroic combats and the correct applications/where-and-when of them are the main tactical elements. This tended to be missed out a lot, with people just running at each other. The main downfall, of course, is that not many people play it anymore.

Now, onto WOTR. War of the Ring is immensely popular at my local gaming club, particularly with those, hmm... outside their 20's.
My semi-problem with the game is ironic, compared to my complaints about Fantasy. I've tried working out my army list and it just feels a bit too big. I mean, we're talking the region of 20-30 points for 8 men. That's a load of dudes to collect I think.

In saying that, however. I've seen the full sized games being played, and yes, to me, unlike fantasy for whatever reason, the game fits my imagination of a battle. Then, again, like 40k, every guy 'counts' - as in, at least you get to roll their dice.

So, yeah, if I weren't so heavily into 40k at the moment, I at least would be into WOTR.

I have no idea if this has helped at all.

The size of WOTR armies is a bit of an issue for me too- especially since you have to buy a box of archers, sword and boarders and axemen everytime, even if you just want archers.
Also, command that costs nearly as much as the other 24 dudes?

The idea that only the first row fights in fantasy really annoys me. In a 30 clanrat unit, only the first 5 fight. The rest just give rank bonus. Why not just have a row of 5 clanrats to represent a big unit instead? It'd be less time-consuming at least.

GW would sell less models?

Yes, but it's all for the Greater Good.

@Compel and Noisy_Marine: Thanks for bringing up the fruitlessness of ranks in Fantasy. That's never actually occured to me before.

I might say that I've been thoroughly convinced to go with LotR. Easterling here I come!!! (well, mabye sometimes...)

Now I just need to find out how to take on the hero's, hmmmm...

In WFB, why not do lots of unit fillers? Makes more sense now.

But you'll then get called out as being a cheapass at every opportunity, no?

And the problem with that is what, exactly?

Noisy_Marine wrote:The idea that only the first row fights in fantasy really annoys me. In a 30 clanrat unit, only the first 5 fight. The rest just give rank bonus. Why not just have a row of 5 clanrats to represent a big unit instead? It'd be less time-consuming at least.

I don't see why it has to annoy you. Only the first row fights because it's a rank
and file game and soldiers waited until they were in the first rank in order to fight. The
rank bonus is from the soldiers in back literally pushing the first rank forward. It
can't be like 40k because 40k gives most troops a gun and formations are open
enough that you can imagine individuals swarming around each other to get to
the fight.

You could do the five clanrats "count as" 30, I suppose, but you'd have to account
for the size of the unit (do a cut out for the unit footprint) for flanking and
maneuvering. Once you do that, however, you're down to just playing a game
with paper instead of playing a miniatures game.

I don't see the problem with painting the back ranks. I'll be honest, I do paint the front rank to a higher standard than the ranks behind, but you still can see the people in the back and it really does make a difference in how it looks.

Also, fighting in ranks is kind of hot. 40k is nice, and I can understand why they made everyone skirmishing, but fighting in ranks really adds a depth to the game you don't see in others.

40k seems to be more of a reactionary game. That is, making your moves based more on what just happened and not what will happen. Granted, you do noeed to think ahead and have some strategy, but that isn't nearly as deep as in Fantasy. In that game I have to have a plan of attack ready for the entire game, know when my knights are going to charge, know where my infantry will be at that time, how to get to their flank so I can make the most of my charges that will probably overrun, etc.

LOTR is nice, actually, and I would probably play it if I had more time. I do like their combat system and the scale of the game makes for a nice fun game rather than a long, drawn out game. Also, the fact that even regular troops can make a big impact means the game is awesome all the way to the very end.

The only thing I don't like about LOTR is the fact that it is based off of LOTR. I think if they had invented a skirmish game off their own IP it would have done much better. Not that I don't like LOTR, I just think it makes the game either too constrained or to contrived, its really hard not to go either way.

Square bases make you 10x more manly.

Serious mode on-While I personally would want to see more LOTR players (Unless you played high elvs *shakes fist*), I'm going to recommend fantasy. It's got a lot more in commen with 40k, and is prone to all kinds of stupid things happening (Good stupid, of course).

As for an army suggestion-Youv'e always seemed a natural Dwarf player to me. And I have no idea why....

A dwarf?!?

Have at you, sir!

I voted fantasy, because that's the path I decided to go after 40k . I got to try some LOTR games at the store... and it was fun, but it definitely seemed like it was more dependent on playing out scenarios... rather than a straightup battle like 40k or fantasy.

So since I rarely get to play and just pop in at the store for a game when I get the chance, it seemed like fantasy would be better.

LOTR has sweet models, though!!!!