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 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
You know, i was looking through the site last night and the amount of old kits aren't nearly as prevelant as you think. The only armies that genuinely are are Beastmen, Ogres and Skaven as they haven't had a range refresh yet. The others that aren't unique don't contain that much old stuff either anymore.

Daughters of Khaine still have witchaelves and the cauldron; Flesheaters are all old models; death cart and necromancer are old; Dwarves, Dark Elves, bits of high and wood elf are all still pre AoS models. Slaanesh still has their old seeker riders, deamonettes, chariots and all. Khorne still have their skullthrower and demons and such.

There have been lots of updates ,but there's still plenty of old things kicking around that look fine.


Plus don't forget whilst you're all focused on the Knight, there were plenty of fairly new kits retired in the big change-over. Tombkings had some pretty modern kits (and honestly a good many that would look perfectly fine in AoS)


My points is the age of a kit isn't always important. If it looks good and people like it and want it then it will sell. Heck I've bought several old metal models (mostly leader types) just because I like the sculpt.

 nathan2004 wrote:
I realize I might be in the minority here but in the time I’ve been playing warhammer (40k and fantasy), some of my favorite painted armies to see on the tabletop were Brets. I went to the last games day here in the US back in 2013 and there was someone there playing in a tournament with a Bret army and I just marveled at every single piece in that persons army. The level of detail even on the old mini’s was absolutely incredible.

I've kind of been wanting a full mounted knight army for a while. AoS still holds cavalry back I feel by making them both smaller units at present and also not really giving them any stand out rules or operation outside of just being bigger infantry on lager bases.

 The Phazer wrote:
Screw new models, sell me old ones. I want metal Diaz Deamonettes and seekers on general release.

GW prices would actually be cheaper than ebay prices for them!

I would not expect much. Warhammer Fest will be dominated by the 40K new edition elements. That's the next big release this summer and will dominate major news and reveal events for a while

So yeah pair HH and Old World up because OW is likely only getting a smaller bit of news again. They aren't speeding up for a big release.

If they do a 2023 release then it 100% would be late year. Mid year is 40K dominated and GW are not crazy enough to try launching two mainline games at the same time. That said a main line edition is the kind of thing that dominates a good 1/4 to 1/2 of the year after the edition lands.

I'd expect trickle Tyranid and Marine models for at least 1/4 after the big release in the Summer; followed up with more in the 4th quarter as we enter the last part of the year. So anything Old World would have to be the latter part of the year.



Maybe they'll use the 40 years to announce it in full and then make it the 41st year the big year of release itself

It could also be argued that it was one of the worst. Because of the choice to put so many new sculpts on a single mould to keep the cost down; it also meant that after its release there wasn't as much support for those models going on individual sale.

Granted there were other factors at the time which resulted in less resources to Old World; but even when they did their big End-Times event; we still didn't see the Island of Blood models get individual moulds and releases.



So on the one hand it was great to get so much in one set and it was the backbone, for a time, of High Elf and Skaven forces. Very popular, great set.
But on the other it also held those forces back getting those models in general circulation and on their own.

To be fair you look at a lot of AoS "armies" and a good many are just 1 Old World faction fragmented and then steadily added too.

Heck Death Grand Alliance is basically all the old Vampire models just split into themes. Ghouls in one; ghosts expanded in another; vampires in a core. Even Ossiarchs have a few Vampire models.

 Just Tony wrote:

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
My issue is that it takes a HUGE number of purchases of that set to get multiple 20 man Swordmaster units. Eltharion's rules in 6th eliminated the 0-1 which was carried over to the later army books, and there wasn't a good way to get multiple units.

Ebay was awash with all of the units from Island Of Blood, for very good prices.

So yeah, there was a cheap, easy way to get plenty of Swordmaster units. I remember them being way cheaper than an equivalent unit that you would buy from GW (less than half price IIRC), which made up for the lack of options.

You and I have drastically different concepts for "very good prices"...

Depend when you were looking really. There was a golden time when it was pretty good prices on it. Today the prices are likely stupidly high since everything went out of production

Well not in the next 3 months - that's 40K new edition territory.

Right now I'd say we are looking at perhaps end of this year at BEST for Old World and more practically early next year

No starter set isn't an outright bad thing. Starter sets are typically 2 army deals not 1 army deals and they are right.

Most of us getting starter set are often looking to trade away half the set anyway. It's really only pure new people buying sets as a pair of friends and such. That's at least GW's "intent" with two army starters.


So no two army starter isn't a bad thing, esp if they perhaps did a single starter set per faction with a rulebook or battletome rolled in - army sets.

 His Master's Voice wrote:
It's not about how GW handles their secondary systems, it's whether WFB should be a secondary system.

GW thinks it should. I think they're gearing up to squander one of their most valuable properties a second time.

Hope I'm wrong.

Thing is AoS replaced Old World in its position as major fantasy model line.

GW bringing old world back isn't going to change that one bit. GW were up front that Old World was going to be like HH so having resin alongside plastic makes perfect senses, HH also has a lot of resin. It also makes sense that they might start smaller with it. GW has never run concurrent fantasy lines alongside each other from their own IP - the only time they've done it was with Lord of the Rings and Old World at the same time and you can argue that that did help contribute to reasons that resulted in Old World dwindling in popularity.


As for old kits coming back, people keep thinking that that means they are bringing the super old skeletons back and not that its the new stuff (eg skeletons riding snake constructs) which was pretty new at the time of it being removed. Tomb Kings weren't an army of just old models, they had a good chunk of new things that were lost along with them. So bringing those back is good news and also means GW can help bulk out the release.



In the end what actually happens is going to be for GW to show us and for the market to respond too. GW being more cautious about that is a smart move. It if fails or dwindles or if everyone just buys models to use in AoS then GW can adapt. If it takes off like crazy GW can adapt to that too. Better for them to test the waters than to dive in head first with a vast investment only to find that there was a lot of internet hot-air and not enough actual customers for the Old World e tc....

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 stahly wrote:
https://twitter.com/ED__E/status/1652702518743379972

Eddie Eccles clarifying while there won't be a starter set, that doesn't mean there won't be a launch box like Horus Heresy's Age of Darkness box set.

Just what's the difference between that and a starter set?

I think starter sets have dice and rules and rulers and stuff and "not starter sets" have a few of those things missing?

edit - wait I just went and looked the HH set has everything a starter set has. Literally everything including templates.


So perhaps it just lacks the "starter set" advertising letters?

Sathrut wrote:
In other TOW news:

https://twitter.com/Burgschneider/status/1652659339470020608?s=20
https://twitter.com/Burgschneider/status/1652659341986525186?s=20

A licensed range of costumes lines, for Warhammer fans and LARPers, initally centered on The Old World, Empire of Man and Bretonnia mentioned.

That's actually pretty darn neat news - esp considering how Larping is on a rise

Apple fox wrote:
Feels like management has no idea what to do with the project.

I think a lot of players would have been happy having the setting put back with “And we won’t blow it up, and continue from there.”

the problem is doing that means blowing up AoS

GW has wound up with two fantasy lines that share a timeline (albeit rather loosely) and a model line (very strongly) and a theme - fantasy.

It is tricky to balance because they are the same firm there's a chance that they end up with one seriously doing well and the other doing ok to not well at all.

GW has old customers who want Old World; GW has new and old customers who want AoS.



Ignoring lore and story, the models and games are what matters most to GW because those are were they make their money.
In the end both might live happily side by side. It might be Old World does ok for a time, but ends up everyone just using them for AoS models and GW just ends up adding them in; or perhaps there's a massive swing back and AoS all but dies off.

Only time will tell. One good thing is that, in theory, if one game blazes ahead nad the other dies, GW can just roll them back together again.

 His Master's Voice wrote:

 Overread wrote:
the problem is doing that means blowing up AoS

This isn't a time travel paradox, WFB being a functionally separate setting has no bearing on AoS.

Aye but I meant more in a product focus aspect rather than lore/story wise.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Apple fox wrote:

 Overread wrote:

Apple fox wrote:
Feels like management has no idea what to do with the project.

I think a lot of players would have been happy having the setting put back with “And we won’t blow it up, and continue from there.”

the problem is doing that means blowing up AoS

GW has wound up with two fantasy lines that share a timeline (albeit rather loosely) and a model line (very strongly) and a theme - fantasy.

It is tricky to balance because they are the same firm there's a chance that they end up with one seriously doing well and the other doing ok to not well at all.

GW has old customers who want Old World; GW has new and old customers who want AoS.



Ignoring lore and story, the models and games are what matters most to GW because those are were they make their money.
In the end both might live happily side by side. It might be Old World does ok for a time, but ends up everyone just using them for AoS models and GW just ends up adding them in; or perhaps there's a massive swing back and AoS all but dies off.

Only time will tell. One good thing is that, in theory, if one game blazes ahead nad the other dies, GW can just roll them back together again.

Alternative history is a popular sub genre for both fantasy and sci-fi, it’s not even hard concept to sell.

If they do set it earlier, then it already highly risks altered history anyway if they find it’s a success and they need to work stuff in.
But maybe that’s been squished now, better to clean it up and have a vision to work from than what it feels we are getting now.
Another mess that GW will hopefully fix.

It would probably help AoS if they where to alternative history from that point as well. Since that setting still feels like they trying to work out what the hell they doing with it.

The biggest help would be if GW used the same bases on both game lines and just had one game with freeform movement and another with movement trays.

GW could have sold a chunk of their metal equipment and kept only a portion of it for reduced production capacity.

Superglue is also good to use if you paint in parts as plastic glue melts the plastic and can create quite a mess

I have found that any needle point applicators for plastic glue get very easily blocked when the glue part cures in the needle.

Though I've also found the best way to clear it is to take the needle out and put it under a flame - eg a match or lighter. Just be sure to be holding the needle with tweezers or such (cause it will get hot) and to run the flame over the whole length and it will burn it out

My impression is GW think this is going to be a big game release and thus they've shifted from adding new factions with fewer models to adding old factions in greater numbers which they can bulk out because they've already got a lot of the moulds ready to go from before.

They are also likely getting a LOT of interest from people who have old armies (eg TK to name but one) who want to expand those forces and get them playing again.

Kislev were old and niche at their time; whilst Cathay is totally fresh. So GW might not feel as much pressure from marketing for them compared to the people likely screaming at them for TK to return or Brets or such.



So perhaps the plan has changed and we will see the old armies take the lead at the launch with newer forces coming a little later. I doubt GW threw all the Cathay and Kislev stuff out the window.

Plus we honestly don't know what the release windows are or what its going to roll out like.

MaxT wrote:
Probably an object lesson in why you don’t announce stuff so far ahead - when things inevitably change during development peeps cry foul

Eh some have been crying foul the entire time since the first announcement
Some just won't be pleased or read so far into the scant marketing that they come out the otherside with expectations wildly different from what's been shown.


In the end I'd wager MANY more are happy to see the armies returning that GW is advertising and are excited to get the rank and file game back along with a slew of classic models; many of which were very good in their time.

 Gert wrote:

James12345 wrote:
I wonder if she or Chris peach will do a video about its development. Chris seems to be doing a lot of "exposing gw" type videos, would be interesting to get an insider view on it

There is a difference between Chris Peach talking about his time as a retail monkey or why he decided to leave GW and "exposing" stuff. Talking about the development of a game system that is in active development isn't going to happen because NDAs are a very enforceable thing.

Not only that but like several of the ex-presenter staff chances are he's wanting to keep his options open. The whole patreon/youtube market can implode or you can make a few mistakes and your numbers tank and suddenly a regular steady income stream from an employer is more attractive once more etc.... Heck some "content creators" just burn out after a while because the demand to produce can be quite extreme. Esp when you have to keep up with all the various marketing and search engine algorithms.

Voss wrote:
Or, to be fair, institutional jargon that they use on a regular basis wins.

Everybody has their own, and its very easy to forget that other people don't use it. If its really bad, it doesn't translate between departments, let alone the outside world. (and the lest said about government acronyms the better)

I know in my own workplace, there's a huge divide between them upstairs, those of us that actually work, and terminology our patrons understand.

^^ This

Language and terminology internal to a firm can be very different when it comes to how the public interact with products. Most of the time its totally fine; but every so often you'll get a mistake where someone asks a simple question that gets answered the wrong way because the person answering has their company brain running instead of their consumer brain. Heck sometimes its just because they know a LOT of things that they are not allowed to tell you so they are doing their best to make sure they only release the info that you are supposed to know on that day. Which can result in someone being super cagey about even really simple things or tripping up because they are in full company mode and "no starter set" was drummed into them even if there is a set that's basically what 99.0% of customers would consider a starter set and which marketing will probably call a starter (or use similar language - eg entry set) when marketing it in a few weeks/months time.

GW's social media team don't even have to be at the GW HQ. They just need to manage the FB and be fed information as they are required to have it.

Even if they are at the HQ if they aren't in the design or other teams they might well not even hear about things. Remember AoS was kept very secret for a very long time and some key staff didn't know it was a thing almost until we knew.


Plus even if they do know something, if they are not allowed to talk about it they won't even hint at it. This isn't a small 3-10 man gaming team; its a large company operating as large companies do. Information is compartmentalised and the marketing is company style.



This is not totally a bad thing. Anyone who recalls Spartan Games would recall many times they'd openly show previews or concepts or hint at things coming which would sound like they were weeks/months off but would sometimes take years or never come. Teasing things too early has issues; its why GW rarely does it (Old World is perhaps the only example of them really doing a long term tease).

Long term forecasting is hard. Finances change; projects get unforeseen delays or problems; concepts that sounded good turn out to not work (maybe its an unfun idea or the mechanics of the model don't stand up to mass production in the chosen material). Maybe finances are hard and the superlarge resin model is too much an investment. Perhaps Steve who designed 50% of it leaves the company and no one left can pick up the leftover parts; or perhaps he leaves it in some folder on the computer that no one else recalls how to find etc...

There are lots of ways that long term forecasting can fail. Heck anyone who regularly backs Kickstarters knows to never expect delivery date to be real unless its pretty much a pre-order for something already designed, made and just needing a bulk order; and even then it can still backfire for a few weeks/month or two.

AoS had that during 2.0. One problem with it is that it greatly encourages you to take full unit blocks and makes them more and more efficient the bigger they get.

This isn't bad in itself because it allows big infantry blocks to be viable. The downside though is that it can push out middle-weight and elite unit blocks in favour of simply flooding the board with cheaper core infantry.

It's very difficult to balance units of fewer number into a system where taking all or nothing is basically encouraged and where big infantry blocks just get better and better the more points you put into them.


It closes down the viability of smaller elements on the table.



Of course in typical GW fashion they solved this by going a bit overboard against big infantry blocks in 3rd edition by both removing the discount for taking more models per unit and also by removing the ability to take more than 2 full units at 2K points through the reinforcement point system. Which in itself wasn't a bad idea, but I feel was a heavy hand across all armies when forces should vary. Elite Stormcast armies should have had fewer reinforcement points compared to armies like Skaven who should have had more for their chaff-like skaven.

But that's all drilling down into more complexity - the upshot is that units that get cheaper per model, as they get bigger, heavily encourages big units

 Vulcan wrote:

Cyel wrote:

Sarouan wrote:

Cyel wrote:
Well, the' classic' points system with its 'points per model' costs was inherently flawed in WFB. You paid wildly varying costs for models in the back ranks of units, that mostly did exactly the same thing in the game - provided a static CR bonus, regardless of their stats.

As outdated as GW designs still are in many areas, I think their designers are wiser than that now.

You didn't play 8th edition, did you.

You're right. It introduced random charge ranges and I had no desire to play such game so 7th is the last one I've had experience with.

Kinda curious.

Do you think every charge ever done in medieval history was done at exactly the same range every time, regardless of minor variations in terrain?

With wargames everyone has their own limit point on how much random is too much or what parts they want to be random. Sometimes a mechanic in isolation is totally fine, but when combined with others the collective experience can be a problem for some.

I don't think it helps that GW is always "shaking things up" between editions. Heck right now the 40K crowd are going nuts because it seems that GW has cut down upgrade parts drastically from what they've historically been for decades. Big changes like that don't mean that new version is any less fun nor tactical or challenging; its just different. For some they get used to it; some like it; some tolerate and for others its just a direction they didn't want the game to go in.


For some Strategy games are about devising a plan and putting it into motion against your opponent. They don't want random charge distances causing their plan to fail because it feels like the agency for choices in movement is being taken out of their hands. All their careful plan undone because of a dice roll.
For others they love it, it brings the chaos of the battlefield home for them and they like the additional concern that their unit could fail a certain charge because the dice roll bad.

I'm sad to see models leaving, but hopeful because I'm willing to bet many of those high elf models and wood elf ones being pulled are going to reappear in Old World

Interesting that none of the Dark Elf lot are being removed!

At least this culling has come with a nice chunky addition of new models too.

Malekith being absent from AoS is really odd too because he basically rules one whole realm. The Shadow Realm is mostly his, the Daughters of Khain (who feature a lot) are basically one tiny corner.

I keep getting a feeling that either GW keeps changing their mind; hitting a creative limit; worried that they should just bring back Dark Elves (the whole army IS in AoS barring about 2 hero models and the reaper bolt thrower)

GW is going to enter an odd time with AoS and Old World because in a sense they want to run them as two fully separate product lines, development studios and entities.

However because of the history between them and the realities of players they are going to be anything but. In fact the only thing that's going to be a minor problem is one being on round and the other on square bases and since a LOT of troops in Old World will be on movement trays anyway; people are going to use AoS in Old World and vis versa.

I wouldn't even be surprised if its done way more than 30K crossovers.

leopard wrote:
also makes sense from a painting perspective not to have the riders legs as part of the pegasus, so happy there

at least we are starting to finally see a few bits of evidence this does at least exist.

It's also interesting to see because a fair few monster mounts from GW have had the legs modelled to the model and the separation has been at the waist.