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Take this for what it is worth...

We have been hearing that GW has been applying pressure on independent retailers to take more Fantasy Battle minis and encourage more customers to get into it. This has been done with a carrot for free WHFB goodies (which retailers love, for obvious reasons) if sales are good.

A cynical person might take that and the other rumours, and say GW is clearing the decks (warehouses) of existing models...

Let's take these rumors and play with them:

Fluff:

The end times causes a fracture of reality and splits reality into two separate timelines/universes/realities/bubbles/whatnot

Rules:

8th/ET continues with little support, after all these years, it's a pretty balanced edition I had hope that 9th would be viewed as more 8.5 with minor changes. ET seems to have done that already, just by changing the lord % and Khaine Magic options(player base in MW USA seems to accept the former but not the latter)

But 9th splits into the other reality while leaving the 8th/ET on it's own. Similar game with slightly different rules or maybe even the same. It wouldn't take much tweaking to change the format to a skirmish format.

Models:
More new models for 9th than 8th, however clam pack characters and pretty interchangeable. Rules included for all. This allows armies for both to be updated occasionally, instead of every 5 years or last century or when ever brets were done, digital editions can be updated instantly.

Goal: Develop a player base with 9th, when 10th comes it's more of an edition of 8th than 9th.

 MWHistorian wrote:

Spin it as you prefer, some people play warhammer because they actually like warhammer, from the armies to the lore. *gasp*

Armies and lore are different from the rules. What he's suggesting is using an adaptable generic ruleset that allows you to field whatever army you like. That way you can continue to use your models and still have a supported ruleset.

Thank you, sir. Took the words right out of my mouth. Have an(other) exalt.

Two addendums: For GW fans, the word 'supported' might have a slightly different definition than the one you're used to. It doesn't mean 'heaping new must-have models onto armies to scalp more money but dressing it up as 'character'' so much as it does 'making sure the game is well-written and elegant in the first place, and using any new editions to focus on fixing any problems that arise instead of adding new ones'

Also, if you can get over the shock of no casualty removal (oh the horror) and lack of half a dozen special roadbum... I mean rules for each individual model in a mass battle game, I'm convinced most of of you might prefer other rulesets. Happened to me when I moved from 40K to Epic.

 Vermis wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

Spin it as you prefer, some people play warhammer because they actually like warhammer, from the armies to the lore. *gasp*

Armies and lore are different from the rules. What he's suggesting is using an adaptable generic ruleset that allows you to field whatever army you like. That way you can continue to use your models and still have a supported ruleset.

Thank you, sir. Took the words right out of my mouth. Have an(other) exalt.

Two addendums: For GW fans, the word 'supported' might have a slightly different definition than the one you're used to. It doesn't mean 'heaping new must-have models onto armies to scalp more money but dressing it up as 'character'' so much as it does 'making sure the game is well-written and elegant in the first place, and using any new editions to focus on fixing any problems that arise instead of adding new ones'

Also, if you can get over the shock of no casualty removal (oh the horror) and lack of half a dozen special roadbum... I mean rules for each individual model in a mass battle game, I'm convinced most of of you might prefer other rulesets. Happened to me when I moved from 40K to Epic.

I've thoroughly enjoyed the handful of games of KoW I played. I've never understood the mindset whereby everything must have a billion special rules or the whole thing is bland. Silly.

Damn people, think. GW may temporarily put armies or units in limbo, but think of this a bit logically. Why invalidate/squat when you can instead monetize? Can't sell a $4 pamphlet-sized White Dwarf? Put new and improved, Dogs of War-style unit rules in it every other week for old units that got left behind and watch WD copies disappear (maybe even raise the cover price by a buck)! Got too many boxes of monsters or special characters sitting in the warhouse or on the shelves in your retail stores? Drop a digital-only dataslate for a few quid and watch that stock disappear from your balance sheet.

Writing rules is cheap. Digital downloads don't require trucks or warehouses. Keep the masses sated, bring in the coin. Mission Accomplished!

 Vermis wrote:

Warboss Gubbinz wrote:Just because a new edition arrives doesn't mean you have to pack your old one away and move to the latest and greatest. We've been treating GW models like new Cars or expensive computer hardware, enthusiasts in those hobbies switch to the latest and greatest because of enhanced features and function. There is some of that with GW product, shiny new model syndrome is an internal term at GW for a reason, gotta have a rules book to sell to coincide with that model.

If 9th is a whole different game that just derives from the fluff then treat it as such, continue to play 8th or 6th/7th. (To me it sounds like they are moving to a more warmahordes style of play?)

We could stand on a rooftop and scream this at the top of our lungs, but I wonder how many actually bother to listen? People recoil from old editions like they were rattlesnakes, and the overarching reason seems to be 'lack of support'. And since GW don't really fix or complete anything between editions, as far as I can tell - including by many folks coming out and saying it - 'support' seems to mean 'releasing new things to buy'. It's then with a little lurch of horror (just a little lurch) I realise just how twisted the gaming culture of GW is, that what you say is right, and that means Alan Merrett was right: GW fans abandon old editions because otherwise they can't keep up their hobby of buying GW products.

Warboss Gubbinz wrote:Thats a fair assessment, one of the reasons 40k and fantasy are/were so popular is you could take your army to any store that carried it and find a pickup game. It's still true for 40k but i don't think fantasy will have that luxury if the changes are as dramatic as they say. We may see folks folding into gaming groups more than pickup games which doesn't speak well for the line.

"Welcome to gaming outside the GW compound. Please deposit your feeding spoons in the receptacles provided. Following routine deprogramming you will have many training courses at your disposal including: basic networking in the internet age, 5+ year-old books are not poison, and multibased elements 101."

When the end comes and your world is shattered into a billion tiny bubbles - be they dimensional tesseracts or gaming groups - like Gubbinz says you don't really have the luxury of lounging around as you did, and having things drop into your lap. You need to modify your way of thinking and doing things, or drop out completely.

Get off your high horse. Not everybody has the luxury of a gaming group that they know will stick to an old edition of that's the consensus. Some people rely on pick up games, and if a new edition comes out, pick up games in an old edition because almost non occurring. When was the last time you had a pick up game of 7th? Or Mordheim? Or epic, BFG, Necromunda...

You can say over and over 'a new edition doesn't invalidate an old edition' but for some people, it pretty much does.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 lobbywatson wrote:

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
This is all a bunch of baseless crap, as is most of the stuff from warseer.

Couldn't agree more. Having a good reputation as a rumor monger(darnok and harry) doesn't mean you're right about everything. This reeks of when my 6 year old tells me a made up story. So over the top no one should believe it.

So, what exactly is the point of the rumour tracker if not to gauge the veracity of said rumours. Hm?

So they are both 100% in the rumor tracker? Yeah didn't think so. So by deduction that means EVERYTHING they said may not be correct or am I missing something?

Does anyone know the historical survivability of game systems that undergo wholesale rules gutting? I am trying to think of success stories and the only one that marginally comes up would be the change from 2nd to 3rd in 40K.

These rumored changes being tossed around seem more akin to thinking that in order to save the village, you have to burn the village. The problem with that is that GW has definite history of not being able to build villages. Sure, they can make some gorgeous houses and storefronts, but to combine all that into a working and thriving village...they don't have the mentality for that.

I also fail to see how a wholesale system change will drive in new customers. If your new system will nuke existing players armies, or just portions of their armies, you are going to drive away some portion of your existing player base. Many vets are rightfully going to be pissed that GW will say "that $$$ you spent to play the game yesterday is not transferable to the game we are asking you to spend $$$ on to learn to play today."

They are going to have to bring in new players. GW doesn't advertise. GW doesn't have a group of enthusiastic volunteer gamers to travel to FLGS to demo. GW doesn't have any ability to convince FLGS owners they should take a risk on a new system when they likely have dozens of SKUs and hundreds of dollars in product that have just been invalidated.

Making a new Fantasy succeed is actually going to be harder for GW than if the same system was put out by a brand new startup company. A new startup doesn't have the years of bad baggage floating around with it.

Does this mean brettonians are going bye bye?

That's what makes this rumor so crazy. Are they seriously thinking that they can invalidate huge swathes of people's armies and that they'll just cheerfully say how it's good because it means they get to buy more "jewel like objects of magic and wonder" to replace them?

I really think they're kind of screwed. If they don't change enough, it's still stagnant. If they change it up a lot like these rumors indicate, it could breathe new life into it but they're going to piss off a lot of people in the process.

Question is if pissing off a lot of your customers in the short term is worth having a potentially better game in the long run? It could be that they're thinking longterm for the first time in basically forever and realize that they're going to lose a good chunk of people, but it's for the best because the game has to change.

Even by GW standards I find it incredibly hard to believe that they think people will be okay with radical changes just because they are "GW hobbyists" and will buy anything GW produces just because GW produces it. They can't be that delusional or think their customers are that stupid.

Funny how it goes.

Rumor: GW is going to release a codex with only two units in it!
Community: Total BS, can't be.
Knights are released.
Community: Oh.

Rumor: The FOC will be removed from 40k, you can put on the table pretty much whatever you like.
Community: Total BS, can't be!
7th Ed is released.
Community: Oh.

Rumor: WHFB will be changed in a fashion that allows GW to almost completely axe any upkeep cost, eliminate the used-models-market and remove the need for background, and well-defined, planned codices.
Community: Total BS, can't be!!1111!oneeleveneinseinundeinzig!
...6 months remaining...

Armyman: Nah. Sounds like too much sense.

 docdoom77 wrote:

I've thoroughly enjoyed the handful of games of KoW I played. I've never understood the mindset whereby everything must have a billion special rules or the whole thing is bland. Silly.

I've said it before: GW seems to have tricked people - or they've tricked themselves - into thinking that most of the fluff resides in the rules, rather than in the minis or, y'know, the fluff. Whereas other games put it in it's proper place, for the most part, and (more than) make up for lack of special unit and character rules by having superior general, tactical, smooth as a baby's bum rules and mechanics.
Like the thing I mentioned, when I started Epic: Armageddon I was faintly horrified that I couldn't equip SM captains with half a dozen types of pistol or power fists or extra saves or what have you, and tac squads only had one heavy weapon stat available to them and yadda yadda yadda. When I actually played, I realised that all that crap didn't matter when you were 'commanding' an army (an SM company+ as a matter of course) and were invited to pull off initiative retention, airstrikes, flanking maneuvers, crossfires, supporting actions, etc. etc. Compared to playing most of the game beforehand, tooling up your list, micromanaging individuals, for a line-up-and-shoot with autotriggered speshul roolz. ("Hurray! If my Wolf Lord is on the table at all, half my army gets wolfblood wolfzerker wolfrage of wolfiness wolf. I so clever...")

I'm getting a hankering for Epic right now. Anyway. That little revelation from GW itself prepared me when I looked outside and saw that most mass battle or company-level games worked along these lines. So it was a pleasant surprise rather than a nasty shock. I dunno what it was like for you guys jumping straight from GW into Mantic's KoW (if that was the case) but since you're here extolling it's virtues, I guess whatever trauma from that shift wasn't too difficult to get over either.

Also, the word wolf has no meaning to me any more, right now. Wolf wolf wolf. It's starting to sound like an obscure type of artisanal bread. One sourdough wolf, please...

I feel sorry for veteran players who could be affected by this...

BUT

I can see where GW are coming from.

From all accounts, Fantasy is dying on its feet. Continuing a failed trend and giving us version 8.1 is unlikely to arrest this decline.

Streamlining is a sensible plan to me. Fantasy, in my view, has enough dead wood as it is. To be honest, I'd rather see 6 well supported factions, with regular updates and models, than the constant bloat of having to wait 6 years for a new wood elf book.

Also, it could be that this new version allows GW to produce a tight, well balanced set of rules.

It's crazy how new releases and edition updates from GW are met with dread and worry.

That's not how it's supposed to work.

 Eldarain wrote:
It's crazy how new releases and edition updates from GW are met with dread and worry.

That's not how it's supposed to work.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's all unfounded and shady rumors. If GW announced right now there were major changes coming to WHFB in the next six months, and they're going to explain the reasons and give previews in White Dwarf (hey it's a reason to buy it!) and offer a free document online to help you transition, it would be met maybe with slightly more regard. A smart company would be interacting with its customers very frequently right now, answering questions about what the changes mean, how it will affect armies (e.g. "What happens to my Lizardmen?" "Well, they won't be a full army anymore, but we'll have rules to let you keep playing with what you have so you won't be left out"), and giving some insight to their thought process behind why they're doing it and why it's beneficial.

Instead, they likely don't plan on saying anything about it until it's on the cusp of release, and then it's "Surprise! There's a new edition of Warhammer Fantasy coming, and it's going to change up EVERYTHING! Aren't you excited at the new stuff you get to buy?"

That's the biggest thing. People have to rely on rumors that may or may not be true because the company wants to keep this veil of secrecy around everything until the last minute and then surprise people with it.

TBH I would be pretty pissy if the rumours prove largely true, as I just bought £350 qorth of Dark elves gaetting back into fantasy with Khaine only to find in 6 months, my dark elves cease to exist in their current forum and 40% of my models are now largely paperweights.

This doesn't create return custom, especially after an xmas where younger folk will maybe have gotten stuff for xmas, and the £200 of stuff is now old and needing replaced, I can see a lot of new fantasy players killed in the infancy.

However I am also reading these rumours with a lot of salt. A few folk I have spoken to agree with my thoughts that the rumoured skirmish game that was 'deffo coming out at games day 2014" s mixing in a bit with 9th edition rumours and its getting a bit skewed, round based and skirmish sized games being whats catching my eye there.

however if my army is hooped, ill ebay at massive loss and buy more bolt action instead.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
It's crazy how new releases and edition updates from GW are met with dread and worry.

That's not how it's supposed to work.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's all unfounded and shady rumors. If GW announced right now there were major changes coming to WHFB in the next six months, and they're going to explain the reasons and give previews in White Dwarf (hey it's a reason to buy it!) and offer a free document online to help you transition, it would be met maybe with slightly more regard. A smart company would be interacting with its customers very frequently right now, answering questions about what the changes mean, how it will affect armies (e.g. "What happens to my Lizardmen?" "Well, they won't be a full army anymore, but we'll have rules to let you keep playing with what you have so you won't be left out"), and giving some insight to their thought process behind why they're doing it and why it's beneficial.

Instead, they likely don't plan on saying anything about it until it's on the cusp of release, and then it's "Surprise! There's a new edition of Warhammer Fantasy coming, and it's going to change up EVERYTHING! Aren't you excited at the new stuff you get to buy?"

That's the biggest thing. People have to rely on rumors that may or may not be true because the company wants to keep this veil of secrecy around everything until the last minute and then surprise people with it.

This is exactly what pisses me off about GW. Look at Corvus Belli, we knew about 3rd Edition of Infinity at least 6 months early, and got previews through that time, and knew that it was generally just small tweaks to rules, not a huge shift. The lack of communication and transparancy is bad enough when it's an army book release or a new edition, but this seems much much bigger than that and yet we haven't heard anything official. And probably won't for 5 months and 3 weeks, until we see shaky white dwarf photos saturated in flash and blur.

 ImAGeek wrote:

Vermis wrote:
When the end comes and your world is shattered into a billion tiny bubbles - be they dimensional tesseracts or gaming groups - like Gubbinz says you don't really have the luxury of lounging around as you did, and having things drop into your lap. You need to modify your way of thinking and doing things, or drop out completely.

Get off your high horse. Not everybody has the luxury of a gaming group that they know will stick to an old edition of that's the consensus. Some people rely on pick up games, and if a new edition comes out, pick up games in an old edition because almost non occurring. When was the last time you had a pick up game of 7th? Or Mordheim? Or epic, BFG, Necromunda...

You can say over and over 'a new edition doesn't invalidate an old edition' but for some people, it pretty much does.

When the end comes and your gaming world is shattered into a billion tiny bubbles, you won't really have the luxury of lashing out at people and telling them to get off their high horse. You'll need to modify your way of thinking and doing things, or drop out completely.

If it turns out to be the latter case, then I'm sorry, but it's not my fault and raging at me won't change the fact.

Also, which 7th? I dropped out of 40K in fifth and WHFB in 6th. I've never played Mordheim, and didn't care too much for Necromunda. But I've been told there's a group nearby seeing a resurgence in Epic, and in any case there's another group nearby that's willing to have a bash at anything, if you have the minis.

See, my situation was that I was a 'vet' at the local GW, until us vets were pushed out as part of company policy, and specialist games were banned in the store around the same time. For a then-GW fan who - as mentioned - had just been wowed by Epic, it was some gut punch; I'd also say it was a pretty explicit invalidation, and not just of specific armies or games we had. We vets then had to form our own groups and introduce ourselves into others, in order to play at all, let alone play the games we liked; and in the process were exposed to other great groups, games and opportunities that took the sting off if our first preferences weren't immediately catered for. Some of them even became our new first preferences.

It was either that, or drop out completely.

 ImAGeek wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
It's crazy how new releases and edition updates from GW are met with dread and worry.

That's not how it's supposed to work.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's all unfounded and shady rumors. If GW announced right now there were major changes coming to WHFB in the next six months, and they're going to explain the reasons and give previews in White Dwarf (hey it's a reason to buy it!) and offer a free document online to help you transition, it would be met maybe with slightly more regard. A smart company would be interacting with its customers very frequently right now, answering questions about what the changes mean, how it will affect armies (e.g. "What happens to my Lizardmen?" "Well, they won't be a full army anymore, but we'll have rules to let you keep playing with what you have so you won't be left out"), and giving some insight to their thought process behind why they're doing it and why it's beneficial.

Instead, they likely don't plan on saying anything about it until it's on the cusp of release, and then it's "Surprise! There's a new edition of Warhammer Fantasy coming, and it's going to change up EVERYTHING! Aren't you excited at the new stuff you get to buy?"

That's the biggest thing. People have to rely on rumors that may or may not be true because the company wants to keep this veil of secrecy around everything until the last minute and then surprise people with it.

This is exactly what pisses me off about GW. Look at Corvus Belli, we knew about 3rd Edition of Infinity at least 6 months early, and got previews through that time, and knew that it was generally just small tweaks to rules, not a huge shift. The lack of communication and transparancy is bad enough when it's an army book release or a new edition, but this seems much much bigger than that and yet we haven't heard anything official. And probably won't for 5 months and 3 weeks, until we see shaky white dwarf photos saturated in flash and blur.

Exactly. The correct way to have sweeping changes is to give constant information and (gasp!) feedback and at least pretend that you care about your customers making a smooth transition and not dropping you like a hot potato out of fear. The incorrect way is to pretend everything is fine so people will keep buying stuff that you know is going to be obsolete, and then one week make the sweeping announcement when you've already decided what you're doing and expect everyone to just fall in line and accept it.

The way they handle delivering any sort of information at all borders on outright disrespect for the customer.

 Vermis wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:

Vermis wrote:
When the end comes and your world is shattered into a billion tiny bubbles - be they dimensional tesseracts or gaming groups - like Gubbinz says you don't really have the luxury of lounging around as you did, and having things drop into your lap. You need to modify your way of thinking and doing things, or drop out completely.

Get off your high horse. Not everybody has the luxury of a gaming group that they know will stick to an old edition of that's the consensus. Some people rely on pick up games, and if a new edition comes out, pick up games in an old edition because almost non occurring. When was the last time you had a pick up game of 7th? Or Mordheim? Or epic, BFG, Necromunda...

You can say over and over 'a new edition doesn't invalidate an old edition' but for some people, it pretty much does.

When the end comes and your gaming world is shattered into a billion tiny bubbles, you won't really have the luxury of lashing out at people and telling them to get off their high horse. You'll need to modify your way of thinking and doing things, or drop out completely.

If it turns out to be the latter case, then I'm sorry, but it's not my fault and raging at me won't change the fact.

Also, which 7th? I dropped out of 40K in fifth and WHFB in 6th. I've never played Mordheim, and didn't care too much for Necromunda. But I've been told there's a group nearby seeing a resurgence in Epic, and in any case there's another group nearby that's willing to have a bash at anything, if you have the minis.

See, my situation was that I was a 'vet' at the local GW, until us vets were pushed out as part of company policy, and specialist games were banned in the store around the same time. We had to form our own groups and introduce ourselves into others, in order to play at all, let alone play the games we liked; and in the process were exposed to other great groups, games and opportunities that took the sting off if our first preferences weren't immediately catered for. Some of them even became our new first preferences.

It was either that, or drop out completely.

I get what you're saying and you do pose valid points but the tone of your post was very very condescending and rhats why I 'raged' at you. But I probably will drop out completely. What GW don't understand it seems is there's a lot more competition these days, a lot of it superior. There's other, better, safer companies I can give my money to.

If WFB turns into a smaller scale game with round bases, no more musicians and cool new models, there's every chance I'll buy some. At the moment there is zero chance of me buying any WFB even though I quite like Skaven, Ogres and Lizardmen because I'd have nobody to play against and an army is a massive investment of money and time.

I recently bought some Death Company - as someone with a Tyranid army - because I like their fluff. They feel unique and I have enough Space Marine bits knocking about to outfit them how I like. You can't really say that for anything in WFB as most of the units therein are as without depth as Termagants. No one buy Termagants because they're fun to build or have awesome cool fluff.

I think this, if true, would be a good move by GW in principle. Whether or not they do the right thing with their blank canvas is another matter.

 ImAGeek wrote:

 Vermis wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:

Vermis wrote:
When the end comes and your world is shattered into a billion tiny bubbles - be they dimensional tesseracts or gaming groups - like Gubbinz says you don't really have the luxury of lounging around as you did, and having things drop into your lap. You need to modify your way of thinking and doing things, or drop out completely.

Get off your high horse. Not everybody has the luxury of a gaming group that they know will stick to an old edition of that's the consensus. Some people rely on pick up games, and if a new edition comes out, pick up games in an old edition because almost non occurring. When was the last time you had a pick up game of 7th? Or Mordheim? Or epic, BFG, Necromunda...

You can say over and over 'a new edition doesn't invalidate an old edition' but for some people, it pretty much does.

When the end comes and your gaming world is shattered into a billion tiny bubbles, you won't really have the luxury of lashing out at people and telling them to get off their high horse. You'll need to modify your way of thinking and doing things, or drop out completely.

If it turns out to be the latter case, then I'm sorry, but it's not my fault and raging at me won't change the fact.

Also, which 7th? I dropped out of 40K in fifth and WHFB in 6th. I've never played Mordheim, and didn't care too much for Necromunda. But I've been told there's a group nearby seeing a resurgence in Epic, and in any case there's another group nearby that's willing to have a bash at anything, if you have the minis.

See, my situation was that I was a 'vet' at the local GW, until us vets were pushed out as part of company policy, and specialist games were banned in the store around the same time. We had to form our own groups and introduce ourselves into others, in order to play at all, let alone play the games we liked; and in the process were exposed to other great groups, games and opportunities that took the sting off if our first preferences weren't immediately catered for. Some of them even became our new first preferences.

It was either that, or drop out completely.

I get what you're saying and you do pose valid points but the tone of your post was very very condescending and rhats why I 'raged' at you. But I probably will drop out completely. What GW don't understand it seems is there's a lot more competition these days, a lot of it superior. There's other, better, safer companies I can give my money to.

But those companies (pick 1+):

A) Don't have the same aesthetic in the miniatures
B) Are "skirmish" games not large-scale games
C) Aren't grimdark fantasy/sci-fi with Empire/Elves/Vampire Counts/Fantasy Space Marines/etc.
D) Don't have as much fluff/background
E) "Look like crap" due to item A above

WayneTheGame wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:

 Vermis wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:

Vermis wrote:
When the end comes and your world is shattered into a billion tiny bubbles - be they dimensional tesseracts or gaming groups - like Gubbinz says you don't really have the luxury of lounging around as you did, and having things drop into your lap. You need to modify your way of thinking and doing things, or drop out completely.

Get off your high horse. Not everybody has the luxury of a gaming group that they know will stick to an old edition of that's the consensus. Some people rely on pick up games, and if a new edition comes out, pick up games in an old edition because almost non occurring. When was the last time you had a pick up game of 7th? Or Mordheim? Or epic, BFG, Necromunda...

You can say over and over 'a new edition doesn't invalidate an old edition' but for some people, it pretty much does.

When the end comes and your gaming world is shattered into a billion tiny bubbles, you won't really have the luxury of lashing out at people and telling them to get off their high horse. You'll need to modify your way of thinking and doing things, or drop out completely.

If it turns out to be the latter case, then I'm sorry, but it's not my fault and raging at me won't change the fact.

Also, which 7th? I dropped out of 40K in fifth and WHFB in 6th. I've never played Mordheim, and didn't care too much for Necromunda. But I've been told there's a group nearby seeing a resurgence in Epic, and in any case there's another group nearby that's willing to have a bash at anything, if you have the minis.

See, my situation was that I was a 'vet' at the local GW, until us vets were pushed out as part of company policy, and specialist games were banned in the store around the same time. We had to form our own groups and introduce ourselves into others, in order to play at all, let alone play the games we liked; and in the process were exposed to other great groups, games and opportunities that took the sting off if our first preferences weren't immediately catered for. Some of them even became our new first preferences.

It was either that, or drop out completely.

I get what you're saying and you do pose valid points but the tone of your post was very very condescending and rhats why I 'raged' at you. But I probably will drop out completely. What GW don't understand it seems is there's a lot more competition these days, a lot of it superior. There's other, better, safer companies I can give my money to.

But those companies (pick 1+):

A) Don't have the same aesthetic in the miniatures
B) Are "skirmish" games not large-scale games
C) Aren't grimdark fantasy/sci-fi with Empire/Elves/Vampire Counts/Fantasy Space Marines/etc.
D) Don't have as much fluff/background
E) "Look like crap" due to item A above

No, I agree. I don't want to drop Fantasy, because of those reasons. But if GW force my hand then other companies will get more of my money, simple as that. I'd drop GW completely but I'm heavily invested in 30k now so I can't really.

They dont expect people who have full armies to buy much more anyway, is my guess.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
It's crazy how new releases and edition updates from GW are met with dread and worry.

That's not how it's supposed to work.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's all unfounded and shady rumors. If GW announced right now there were major changes coming to WHFB in the next six months, and they're going to explain the reasons and give previews in White Dwarf (hey it's a reason to buy it!) and offer a free document online to help you transition, it would be met maybe with slightly more regard. A smart company would be interacting with its customers very frequently right now, answering questions about what the changes mean, how it will affect armies (e.g. "What happens to my Lizardmen?" "Well, they won't be a full army anymore, but we'll have rules to let you keep playing with what you have so you won't be left out"), and giving some insight to their thought process behind why they're doing it and why it's beneficial.

Instead, they likely don't plan on saying anything about it until it's on the cusp of release, and then it's "Surprise! There's a new edition of Warhammer Fantasy coming, and it's going to change up EVERYTHING! Aren't you excited at the new stuff you get to buy?"

That's the biggest thing. People have to rely on rumors that may or may not be true because the company wants to keep this veil of secrecy around everything until the last minute and then surprise people with it.

This is exactly what pisses me off about GW. Look at Corvus Belli, we knew about 3rd Edition of Infinity at least 6 months early, and got previews through that time, and knew that it was generally just small tweaks to rules, not a huge shift. The lack of communication and transparancy is bad enough when it's an army book release or a new edition, but this seems much much bigger than that and yet we haven't heard anything official. And probably won't for 5 months and 3 weeks, until we see shaky white dwarf photos saturated in flash and blur.

Exactly. The correct way to have sweeping changes is to give constant information and (gasp!) feedback and at least pretend that you care about your customers making a smooth transition and not dropping you like a hot potato out of fear. The incorrect way is to pretend everything is fine so people will keep buying stuff that you know is going to be obsolete, and then one week make the sweeping announcement when you've already decided what you're doing and expect everyone to just fall in line and accept it.

The way they handle delivering any sort of information at all borders on outright disrespect for the customer.

I think GW could do a better job with promotion, but let's approach this with a tiny bit of intelligence. GW would be shooting itself in the foot by making announcements about sweeping changes and thereby causing their already weak WFB sales to drop to ZERO for the next six months. There is a time at which announcements are appropriate, but we aren't there yet.

Infinity is a completely different case, and those differences should be obvious.

Sorry Wayne, don't know if serious. It's hard to tell.

ImAGeek: I know I can be a snot at times (a lot of times) and often regret it too, but the more I compare GW to other companies and games, the more I'm convinced that it's a toxic, pants-on-head-crazy business/customer relationship and gaming culture. And all the worse because so many fans accept it as the norm. I know it's very convenient - it was convenient for me - but sooner or later GW is going to do some big thing, or a bunch of little things, that'll negate that and make their games untenable for someone. And lately it seems GW have been ramping up on those 'things'.
So I get too vocal about GW, but because I feel GW gamers need to be shown some kind of lifeboat (or at least given a little warning) before they jump (or are pushed) overboard... if you'll pardon the melodramatic overtones. "Don't like the way those rules have gone? Here's a dandy little set that might do you! Your gors and trolls and demigryphs slot right in here. Smaller chance of unbalancing upheavals and invalidations, too." Gaming outside GW stores or games... often takes a bit more work, maybe even a few less sessions, and sadly some gamers' situations don't allow it; but for those who manage it, I feel in some ways it's more stable, and just richer.

Saldiven wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Normally, I'd poo poo this type of huge change but D&D did pretty much the same thing with their most popular setting (forgotten realms) with the advent of 4th edition. Granted, WOTC didn't have to worry about invalidating folks' armies of minis but that type of huge shake up with a new edition for a popular and long running product line has precedent within the industry.

Well, to be fair, not only for 4th edition. The Forgotten Realms have been shaken up pretty badly more or less with every new D&D edition.

Very true. I remember the fall-out from the Pool of Radiance series of novels and how that impacted the entire game world.

I thought that was the horrid Avatar Trilogy, not Pool. Pool was off the very good gold box SSI game.

 Vermis wrote:
Sorry Wayne, don't know if serious. It's hard to tell.

ImAGeek: I know I can be a snot at times (a lot of times) and often regret it too, but the more I compare GW to other companies and games, the more I'm convinced that it's a toxic, pants-on-head-crazy business/customer relationship and gaming culture. And all the worse because so many fans accept it as the norm. I know it's very convenient - it was convenient for me - but sooner or later GW is going to do some big thing, or a bunch of little things, that'll negate that and make their games untenable for someone. And lately it seems GW have been ramping up on those 'things'.
So I get too vocal about GW, but because I feel GW gamers need to be shown some kind of lifeboat before they jump (or are pushed) overboard... if you'll pardon the melodramatic overtones. "Don't like the way those rules have gone? Here's a dandy little set that might do you! Your gors and trolls and demigryphs slot right in here. Small chance of unbalancing upheavals and invalidations, too." Gaming outside GW stores or games... often takes a bit more work, maybe even a few less sessions, and sadly some gamers' situations don't allow it; but for those who manage it, I feel in some ways it's more stable, and just richer.

I'm being serious; I think GW's style of "surprise, here's this new stuff now" is pretty awful, and they should be announcing things now and answering questions and getting feedback.

 Kosake wrote:
Funny how it goes.

Rumor: GW is going to release a codex with only two units in it!
Community: Total BS, can't be.
Knights are released.
Community: Oh.

Rumor: The FOC will be removed from 40k, you can put on the table pretty much whatever you like.
Community: Total BS, can't be!
7th Ed is released.
Community: Oh.

Rumor: WHFB will be changed in a fashion that allows GW to almost completely axe any upkeep cost, eliminate the used-models-market and remove the need for background, and well-defined, planned codices.
Community: Total BS, can't be!!1111!oneeleveneinseinundeinzig!
...6 months remaining...

You should add in the hundred of rumors that WEREN'T true.
7th ed
Consolidate into.combat, ignore cover changing, sidebars, percentages etc...
Sisters hardcover codex
The chaos legions book rumor
Fantasy
Brets getting a new book every other month for the last year

Ah, sorry, I meant your ABC list. I've seen those presented seriously too often, in the past.