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 Mymearan wrote:

Word is that they are blaming the sales staff for its low sales (and it has had low sales) as the managerial team is very happy with the game.

That's insane. I think it's a great game and I want them to keep supporting it for decades to come, but obviously that means being able to respond to the community and not burying your head in the sand...

IMO they are completely right to do so. Sales teams and staff are paid to promote the game and make it more desirable. It is their job and from what I hear from here and there GW store staff has done very little terms of promoting the game and building an enjoyable (and addictive ) experience for possible buyers.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:


Interesting... but do you mean a goodbye to a Fantasy system or will they stop making Fantasy models as well?

If there is no system, I would expect there to be no models.

 Mymearan wrote:

Do you have a source for that?

The anonymous kind There are a fair handful of gaming companies in the Nottingham area, and most have ex-GW staff who still have ties within the company. And gossip is rife Take that for what it is worth and, of course, bear in mind that things can change - what is true for today may not be true for tomorrow.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

Lower than WFB sales was the talk from one of the more well known online retailers.

From an individual retailer, that is more than possible. An overall trend though? I don't think so - I have seen sales spike in the Fantasy arena since AoS come out and I would be amazed if overall Fantasy sales were lower now compared to back then.

The real question, I think, is have they increased enough? That is the biggie. Unless things are really bad (and I don't think they are), I think we are at least a year, probably two, away from getting a sense of what is going on in the wider world. I would guess (based on absolutely nothing solid!) that things are better than a lot of people are fearing/gloating over, but nowhere near awesome/40k territory and that is where they are likely to stay unless something amazing happens - and that could occur with, say, some really amazing Duardin and Aelf releases, allied to a balancing mechanism (which I predict will not be points-based). Forget the idea of a v2 of AoS, as its core really does not need it, but fleshing things out with Battleplans and Time of War sheets is something I think we will see a lot of next year.

The Question might be answerable by around this time in 2016. Perhaps.

MongooseMatt wrote:

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:


Interesting... but do you mean a goodbye to a Fantasy system or will they stop making Fantasy models as well?

If there is no system, I would expect there to be no models.

That is logical, but is a bit at odds with the whole "We make models, not games" Shtick that they keep trying to sell us.

MongooseMatt wrote:
The Question might be answerable by around this time in 2016. Perhaps.

Fully agreed.

To be fair I don't really contribute to sales myself - I've spent around $400 on AoS stuff but all but two characters and one terrain piece have been bought used... in total I have around 60 Stormcast, three AoS-specific terrain pieces and 20-odd Beastmen.

Another thing to consider is that the player base is likely much bigger than the sales would indicate. You have two categories of players who don't contribute to sales at all: Those who already had WHFB armies and those who have bought used armies off of rage quitters. And since the rules are free, they literally don't need to spend one cent in a GW store to play. That user base will probably help sales in the long run, as more factions are released.

MongooseMatt wrote:

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:


Interesting... but do you mean a goodbye to a Fantasy system or will they stop making Fantasy models as well?

If there is no system, I would expect there to be no models.

 Mymearan wrote:

Do you have a source for that?

The anonymous kind There are a fair handful of gaming companies in the Nottingham area, and most have ex-GW staff who still have ties within the company. And gossip is rife Take that for what it is worth and, of course, bear in mind that things can change - what is true for today may not be true for tomorrow.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

Lower than WFB sales was the talk from one of the more well known online retailers.

From an individual retailer, that is more than possible. An overall trend though? I don't think so - I have seen sales spike in the Fantasy arena since AoS come out and I would be amazed if overall Fantasy sales were lower now compared to back then.

The real question, I think, is have they increased enough? That is the biggie. Unless things are really bad (and I don't think they are), I think we are at least a year, probably two, away from getting a sense of what is going on in the wider world. I would guess (based on absolutely nothing solid!) that things are better than a lot of people are fearing/gloating over, but nowhere near awesome/40k territory and that is where they are likely to stay unless something amazing happens - and that could occur with, say, some really amazing Duardin and Aelf releases, allied to a balancing mechanism (which I predict will not be points-based). Forget the idea of a v2 of AoS, as its core really does not need it, but fleshing things out with Battleplans and Time of War sheets is something I think we will see a lot of next year.

The Question might be answerable by around this time in 2016. Perhaps.

Yep, I think GWs handling of AoS over the next year will be absolutely critical to its success or failure.

 CoreCommander wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:

Word is that they are blaming the sales staff for its low sales (and it has had low sales) as the managerial team is very happy with the game.

That's insane. I think it's a great game and I want them to keep supporting it for decades to come, but obviously that means being able to respond to the community and not burying your head in the sand...

IMO they are completely right to do so. Sales teams and staff are paid to promote the game and make it more desirable. It is their job and from what I hear from here and there GW store staff has done very little terms of promoting the game and building an enjoyable (and addictive ) experience for possible buyers.

GW and their staff have done more to promote AoS than any other product in the last five years. FLGSs were getting advanced copies to show off for Sigmar's sake, GW stopped sending their own stores advanced copies of things back in like 2009-2010.

Indeed it may be somewhat more than the usual product promotion that we see from GW, but it's still nowhere near enough. Especially when you take into account the automatic backlash that AoS got from its birth alone.

Sales staff are only as good as a company's recruitment and training structures. If they are pinning the failure of the sales staff they are ignoring the cause.

Aye, if more than the standard support is not enough support then that is management's failing, not the store staff.

 Bottle wrote:
Sales staff are only as good as a company's recruitment and training structures. If they are pinning the failure of the sales staff they are ignoring the cause.

General management is ignoring the cause because they're the cause.

General management believe its a good game that does what they wanted it to do, so it can't be the game that's to blame. Its those pesky customers not giving all their money for it.............so who's job is it to sell the product to them? Sales staff.

Its a logic.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

I am hoping FFG will then discreetly come in and pick up the ball from GW and do a decent game out of it.

FFG have got their hands full with the Star Wars franchise (as in can't keep up with demand); I doubt they'd waste any time trying to bring back Warhammer Fantasy.

One can dream though!

Actually FFG getting their hands on fantasy would be a nightmare for me.

A game where you have to have 100 cardboard counters all over the place and likely pre painted models would definitely kill my interest.

auticus wrote:
Actually FFG getting their hands on fantasy would be a nightmare for me.

A game where you have to have 100 cardboard counters all over the place and likely pre painted models would definitely kill my interest.

GW has been that road before, except for the pre-painted models. Having a small wood's worth of counters and cards is nothing new for older FB players.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
The interesting question to me is if they will still make Fantasy models even if they stop supporting AoS as a Game System.

Well, they are a model company, not a game company. Since most of their sales apparently are to collectors, not people who play the games, I can't imagine why they would stop making and selling fantasy models if their non-market (since anyone who does not buy stuff from them is not their target market) stops playing their games

auticus wrote:
Actually FFG getting their hands on fantasy would be a nightmare for me.

A game where you have to have 100 cardboard counters all over the place and likely pre painted models would definitely kill my interest.

I hear that. As much as I love FFG games, I know to budget a little extra for each game for the Plano boxes I'll eventually buy to store the cardboard chits, and the three differently sized card sleeves each game requires. My Descent 2E collection is about 8 Plano boxes (three different sizes), 10,000 card sleeves (three different sizes), a dozen card boxes (both top loading and side loading for the tiny cards), and some ziploc bags for the table tiles and tarot cards that don't fit in boxes... and then they released Imperial Assault. I think the majority of my discussions with other FFG fans is about Plano boxes.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
The interesting question to me is if they will still make Fantasy models even if they stop supporting AoS as a Game System.

Well, they are a model company, not a game company. Since most of their sales apparently are to collectors, not people who play the games, I can't imagine why they would stop making and selling fantasy models if their non-market (since anyone who does not buy stuff from them is not their target market) stops playing their games

My point exactly

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

auticus wrote:
Actually FFG getting their hands on fantasy would be a nightmare for me.

A game where you have to have 100 cardboard counters all over the place and likely pre painted models would definitely kill my interest.

GW has been that road before, except for the pre-painted models. Having a small wood's worth of counters and cards is nothing new for older FB players.

Its been quite a while since then though. I started with 5th edition and the magic cards. Once 6th came, all of that went away, and that was 15 years ago and I really didn't miss it all that much




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sqorgar wrote:

auticus wrote:
Actually FFG getting their hands on fantasy would be a nightmare for me.

A game where you have to have 100 cardboard counters all over the place and likely pre painted models would definitely kill my interest.

I hear that. As much as I love FFG games, I know to budget a little extra for each game for the Plano boxes I'll eventually buy to store the cardboard chits, and the three differently sized card sleeves each game requires. My Descent 2E collection is about 8 Plano boxes (three different sizes), 10,000 card sleeves (three different sizes), a dozen card boxes (both top loading and side loading for the tiny cards), and some ziploc bags for the table tiles and tarot cards that don't fit in boxes... and then they released Imperial Assault. I think the majority of my discussions with other FFG fans is about Plano boxes.

I need to look those up (Plano boxes) for my descent game and also Armada.

I love Armada to death but all of the counters and dials make it so I only break it out once in a while.

auticus wrote:

I need to look those up (Plano boxes) for my descent game and also Armada.

I love Armada to death but all of the counters and dials make it so I only break it out once in a while.

For the counters, you'll want the Plano 3500 series. You can fit it inside most FFG-size boxes - one of my Descent boxes fits four of 'em. The Plano 3700 series is your general purpose large box, which is useful for miniatures and larger items (like dials). They also make the 3730, which is a deeper version for the taller miniatures. For those tiny cards which don't seem to fit anywhere, side loading deck boxes are perfect. And an extra pro-tip: business card stands, like this one, are great for holding decks of cards. Games like Arkham Horror or Imperial Assault have dozens of tiny little decks you have to keep out to draw from, and these reduce the space they take up tenfold.

After an inital spike when AoS launched it tanked hard, like new coke hard. The sales for the 4 months of AoS only stuff are the lowest since they only had the 1 shop

9th edition is currently in production as they could not pretend it was just fantasy having poor sales when mantic are selling out of KoW even after the ks.

The 30k box set went from limited to general release to try and claw back some sales.

Are you telling us about s dream you had? ;-)

Gw stopped making specialist game models when the games went away.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

 RamRam wrote:
Not so fast with the Doom of Age of Sigmar. The concept of the game and the setting was never to please the actual Fantasy crowd, but to bring new blood. There's no point to please a stagnant gamer demographic that can't support the game.

What I observe with Age of Sigmar is people who are interested more in the miniatures and crafting than the game it self.

At my Job, one person got the starter box. Then, an other person, then 2 more persons. The player archetype for this product is way different than 40k or the old Fantasy.

So now, what GW hopes, is to see it grow. From 0 (rejection from the actual crowd) to a tiny core made from enthousiatic fresh blood, who will become the evangelist of AOS. That loyal tiny core will recruit new players in the next few years, and they won't go after the 40k players or the Old Fantasy player.

No, they will go after people who show interest and who are unfamiliar with miniature games.

This is what I'm already observing. The hate wave is almost over. The people who wanted to quite already have.

GW is not stupid, we just don't see the plan from their perpective.

Please, GW is not an all-seeing, amazingly prescient company so don't paint them as such.There are many, many reasons why even AoS supporters can tell you that GW can be very, very stupid, actually. But nevermind that, really.

Think this is a bit over the top... He never said GW was any of those things, but laid out what the thinks their goal is. Obviously, they have a plan and theory behind AoS, and it's disingenuous to suggest they don't.

What I observe with Age of Sigmar is people who are interested more in the miniatures and crafting than the game it self.

I observe the same thing. Age of Sigmar is not a system that is meant to appeal to gamers (the bulk of who would be on gamer forums) but to hobbyists and painters first and foremost.

The pure gamers that I know all 100% have moved away from Age of Sigmar towards Mantic and Infinity, systems that are very much gamer-first, everything else second.

Now whether or not this is successful - time will tell. I can say I doubt it but I don't have any data to back that up and also I don't know what GW's target numbers are.

I can say with the gamer crowd that it is a flat failure. The question is - can a system survive off of its hobbyists alone?

We will find the answer out soon!

auticus wrote:

I observe the same thing. Age of Sigmar is not a system that is meant to appeal to gamers (the bulk of who would be on gamer forums) but to hobbyists and painters first and foremost.

This is why I almost bought the starter set. I was this close. I just wanted to have half the models (everything except liberators, the 20 bloodbound and the lord celestant). I reasoned against it as I didn't want to have to paint 30 more dudes in heavy armour so I stuck with my lizardmen and daemons. 6 months ago I wouldn't even have thrown a second glance at AoS, but since I moved in another town the hobby aspect has become prevalent and it brought some interest for the game itself. I know that some one or two guys, in a store I used to go to, bought the starter 100% for the models. The game is a bonus for them. AFAIK, they pay very rarely though...

Love the storyline and the game

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Sword Of Caliban wrote:
Have I just wasted money buying the starter....

I think you might have, from every thing i have heard from friends and people online, no one likes age of smegmar

Not true many people like it and it has been growing. The interesting part is it seems that the growth is new players, which is a good thing.

broxus wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Sword Of Caliban wrote:
Have I just wasted money buying the starter....

I think you might have, from every thing i have heard from friends and people online, no one likes age of smegmar

Not true many people like it and it has been growing. The interesting part is it seems that the growth is new players, which is a good thing.

Growth for AoS should not be measured against 0 though, it should be measured against the number of WHFB fans they had. Moreso we have the results of the is it failing in your area poll and store owners themselves here on Dakka suggesting your experience is the exception, not the rule.

I have to believe that with the success of Vermintide and the most likely upcoming success of Total War: Warhammer, which is also set in the old world, they are going to have a hard time having a model range NOT set in that world.

No, guys, you see now we have these models that fight across different planes with realm gates, bleck....I think having a fantasy setting game set in a world of portals, seems utterly stupid and breaks any immersion to fantasy ideas. Might as well have space marines and eldar coming rushing out of portals instead.

They will either take it back to the old world in a setting or let it die on the vine.

One thing is for sure is that they cant kill off Warhammer Fantasy seeing that at least three major games have been released, one of them from the legendary Creative Assembly

Its also one of the few times GW has allowed its IP to be associated with a different franchise, the Total War Series