Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Ossiarchs in no way stop a regular undead skeleton army. They are a skeleton construct army and the visual designs are totally different. GW even has regular skeletons on sale right now in both infantry and cavalry forms as part of the Legions of Nagash.

If GW wanted they could easily make a second skeleton themed army. Of course they might not go for an Egyptian theme, but even if they did Ossiarchs don't stop that. They've a more mongolian (if any) base to them.


As for a heavy cavalry based army, that's again totally possible.


The only reason we saw those armies vanish was due to poor sales which was, in part, due to bad management from GW of the Old World game for a prolonged period. In addition to that lets not forget the choice to remove them was made under different management when the focus and structure of AoS was vastly different than it is now.



Of course we've also no hint that GW will ever add such armies either; plus with the Old World game it might be just where they might release such themed armies instead. Anything is possible and nothing is off the cards.

Tomb Kings had new sculpts in 2010 and 2011 before AOS binned them in 2015. They were canned because of poor sales - I can believe that. Because their rules were utterly putrid, on par with Slaves to Lolness up until they finally got their book that took them to meh tier out of the lolz dumpster.

If an army has really really bad rules, it shouldn't surprise anyone that their models don't really sell very well.

 auticus wrote:
Tomb Kings had new sculpts in 2010 and 2011 before AOS binned them in 2015. They were canned because of poor sales - I can believe that. Because their rules were utterly putrid, on par with Slaves to Lolness up until they finally got their book that took them to meh tier out of the lolz dumpster.

If an army has really really bad rules, it shouldn't surprise anyone that their models don't really sell very well.

They where canned b.c of the Lawsuit not poor sales to themselves. They had something like 15 items in that lawsuit out of the 360 (If my memory is correct, its been a while). They did have less sales over all for GW, but nothing worst than any other WHFB army (same with vampires), in total, old fantasy only made up 4% of sales at the time of end of 7th, end times was there way to spike interest and it didn't work, along with the lawsuit with Chapterhouse, huge changes had to be made,

So in short, low sales with all of fantasy and IP problems.

Where are these sales figures (old fantasy making up 4% of all sales) posted? I have no doubt it was low, we had 25 people registered in our events in 2015, and only a couple of us ever bought anything from GW, the rest bought their stuff 3rd party or off ebay. Very very few people bought anything new for warhammer because the 3rd party market was so saturated with cheap models, not counting the new historical models you could get for cheap too.

I saw like one or two tomb kings players in five years because their rules were so bad though.

Overread wrote:Ossiarchs in no way stop a regular undead skeleton army. They are a skeleton construct army and the visual designs are totally different. GW even has regular skeletons on sale right now in both infantry and cavalry forms as part of the Legions of Nagash.

If GW wanted they could easily make a second skeleton themed army. Of course they might not go for an Egyptian theme, but even if they did Ossiarchs don't stop that. They've a more mongolian (if any) base to them.

Very true. There are 3 things that Tomb Kings did that stand out: archery, chariots, and constructs. The Ossiarchs only do the latter, and on a totally different aesthetic than the Tomb Kings.

The Bretonnians also wouldn't be that hard. Their lack of sales was as much due to the same reason that Dark Eldar and Sisters of Battle had low sales for such a long time, no progressive support at all. If nothing else, having them be the humans from the Realms of Life would make sense and be totally in character. But far too easy to use other model lines in their place unlike the latest releases of the Tomb Kings were.

auticus wrote:Tomb Kings had new sculpts in 2010 and 2011 before AOS binned them in 2015. They were canned because of poor sales - I can believe that. Because their rules were utterly putrid, on par with Slaves to Lolness up until they finally got their book that took them to meh tier out of the lolz dumpster.

Actually they were very well received when they launched, comparing very well against the Vampires left over from 7th Edition. I saw their new models all over the place. The problem is that the Vampires book came out soon after, doing to the Tomb Kings, again, that they did to the Tomb Kings with their 7th Edition book, running cheaper and more powerful in everything but shooting. That is what every Tomb Kings player was saying, both on forum and locally. It was a 6 month difference in releases, and only Ogre Kingdoms separated them in Army Book releases. It was a slap in the face. Are we really surprised that sales would be down for an army that was incredibly behind the time to begin with, and then was over-powered by their cousins almost before their they had a chance to get settled?

 auticus wrote:
Where are these sales figures (old fantasy making up 4% of all sales) posted? I have no doubt it was low, we had 25 people registered in our events in 2015, and only a couple of us ever bought anything from GW, the rest bought their stuff 3rd party or off ebay. Very very few people bought anything new for warhammer because the 3rd party market was so saturated with cheap models, not counting the new historical models you could get for cheap too.

I saw like one or two tomb kings players in five years because their rules were so bad though.

It was a invested/stock release back then, you should be able to find them still, every major GW news outlet was talking about it. Spiky, BOLS, Faeit, etc..

Another big problem with the sales unlike now, everyone only bought 1 box for a max out block, all major events allowed fillers.

Here are some google pics for those that didn't know about it. At least all the events i went to and forums i talked on. When you removed 10-20 guys at ones or full blocks, why spend an extra $400 on models that don't see play other than turn 1 or even just set up.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c7/d4/94/c7d4947ed5f909b73f28f9f1341ad22f.jpg
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/tgacommunity/monthly_2017_10/IMG_1790.JPG.bd4bf2772cd60827997dd378a86e7c5f.JPG
https://images.dakkadakka.com/s/i/gallery/img/2013/9/15/537972.jpg
https://www.glaven.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/TK_Skeles_WiP_6.jpg

I could see Bretonnians living on in an expanded Soulblight/Blood Knights book with a 'Dark Knight' aesthetic more than 'Knight in Shining Armour' but that would be it. Too much scope for people to buy historicals.

 Overread wrote:

If GW wanted they could easily make a second skeleton themed army.

No, you're talking about GW doing a THIRD skeleton army. We already have Deathrattle in Legions and Bonereapers. That's plenty of skeletons.

We have very few skeletons riding things though...

I think people who say that "but ossiarchs aren't TK, they don't have chariots" miss something. That something being GW deals more in themes and aesthetics than function. Both factions have the vaguely oriental, ancient-style theme to them as opposed to european gothic skellies of the VC/LoN. GW will not "bring back" TK because they got exploded, like Empire and Bretonnia and everything else. At best they could make new ancient-empire skeletons. Which they did, with Ossiarchs.

As for brets, the last people who cared for them were the Perry brothers from what I understand, and they're no longer with GW. So...no.

 Arbitrator wrote:
I could see Bretonnians living on in an expanded Soulblight/Blood Knights book with a 'Dark Knight' aesthetic more than 'Knight in Shining Armour' but that would be it. Too much scope for people to buy historicals.

I was hoping that new FEC miniatures would actually have a ghoulish slant on the knight aesthetic to go their deluded noble knights lore (scraps of armour, rusty broken swords, etc) -- seems like that will only extend as far as the fleur-de-lys on that one endless spell.

I think at the end of the day Tomb Kings are only coming back when they literally do as part of the Old World reboot.

 Stux wrote:

 Overread wrote:

If GW wanted they could easily make a second skeleton themed army.

No, you're talking about GW doing a THIRD skeleton army. We already have Deathrattle in Legions and Bonereapers. That's plenty of skeletons.

Nope second. Deathrattle isn't a full proper army of its own - its just part of the Legions of Nagash. Now I could well see GW breaking Bonerattle out from that, taking those skeletons as a base and building an army for them. Just like they did with Nighthaunt and Ossiarchs and will likely, at some point, do with the Vampires. The question will be if GW will make them a full army of their own or if they'll move skeletons as we have them now into part of the Vampire army.




As for the whole "we dropped them because of the IP" I'd hasten to remind people that the only thing GW has done to protect their IP is change names. The could easily have changed Tombkings to a series of their own unique names and that would protect them as much as ANYTHING else that GW currently or formerly makes. GW is big enough that even if they made the most super unique looking models in the world that no one had ever thought of; they'd still get 3rd parties copying the ideas. Raging Heroes would make high detail boobie focused versions; Creature Caster would make huge titan versions etc... Heck over the last year or two we've even see GW relent on their details of future products to the point where if 3rd parties wanted to push in they could. I think the attitude and "fear" at GW has reduced since the lawsuit to more sane levels.

Heck we've also seen GW shift away from their old tactics of aggressive litigation. Don't forget at one stage GW was even going after news websites that reported on leaks in their aggression to control their own information leaks. Today GW is more likely to discipline within their own company and then roll with the punches, as it were, and twist a leak into their own marketing.

I can't believe people are still pushing the idea that Tomb Kings were squatted for IP reasons when GW decided to keep Goth Skeletons, Holy Roman Empire, Every Edgelord Dark Elf You've Ever Seen, Ecoterrorist Elves With Bows, Elves Classic, Literally Just Dwarves, and Orcs But We Spelled It With A "K". Tomb Kings were more "original" than all of that because of their constructs! The closest thing to an original thought in WHFB was Skaven, and they were basically every gothcore sci fi trope repackaged together in giant man-rats!

Even Skaven aren't purely unique if you take into account the Rats of Nihm animated film.


I agree people keep jumping at the whole IP thing without even stopping to look at anything else. Especially considering that GW has released multiple common styled models since. Melusai and Khinerai are basically medusa and succubus/harpy models in all but name. Models and concepts that have been around for years and years.


It's like those who keep saying that GW hates horses and pointing at armies like stormcast who, honestly, if they wren't riding magical enhanced horses would crush most horses under sheer weight of armour let alone be impractical for battle.

Thats why I feel the tomb kings going away have little to do with IP and everything to do with they weren't selling very well (if at all) and it was a business choice to squat them.

And I feel they weren't selling very well because their rules were historically some of the worst rules in the history of the warhammer franchise. They were god awful, and only the slaves of lolness (2015-2019) compete with how god awful they were.

Had they had good rules, the new models were pretty awesome and I think they'd have sold just fine. Give them bad rules AND on top of that a competing undead army (vampire counts) that was better than them in every conceivable way ...

Lets not also forget that AoS at launch wasn't a wargame, it was a boutique model line.

So dropping bad selling models was part of the structure of a boutique line. GW wasn't writing rules to make them better, it was purely a "if X isn't selling drop it and release Y". Remember the launch rules were joke rules and points were gone into the realm of "just do whatever you want".

GW was going into AoS at that stage with an attitude that they'd make models and people would buy them because they were cool and would use them how they want. They were basically copy-catting Reaper Miniatures. Shifting from being a game into a model supply company only.


It, of course, backfired on GW and they spent a few years running around changing things and even changing their management system and focus. I suspect if they'd launched AoS with the mindset they have now toward 2.0 we'd have had a vastly different result. We'd have likely had points and rules at launch like the 40K index; we'd not have seen multiple armies fragmented; we'd have likely seen revised rules for most. We might have seen more wild re-imaginings of units. Eg the Wood Elf models might have made a shift toward being more like the Kirnothi rather than just tree aelves etc....

Yeah, the 2015 launch of AOS was a disaster.

I point these things out because people like to say "whfb just didn't sell. No one played it. No one liked it. AOS sells a ton, thats proof that people wanted to buy fantasy but hated whfb" when there were a lot of factors in why people weren't buying whfb models.

One of which were lines that had awful rules.

Another was the fact that the third party market like ebay was absolutely glutted with cheap models and people were using historicals as well which were tons cheaper. We had a great many people PLAYING whfb... but hardly anyone BUYING retail whfb.

I think you're exactly right about sales being the reason. I honestly think the original plan was to slowly remove all Old World armies from the game, and they started with two that had low stock and low sales figures. After Kirby stepped down (probably due at least in part to the backlash from removing TK and Brets), the plan changed.

Its both for sure tho. There is a reason why a certain 3 armies got canned; Brets, vampire, TK's. BoC are just as non unique as many others, they are just satyrs, or Sylvenath, they are just Ents, but BoC in fantasy was one of the LEAST played armies and they stayed and even got some love.

Vampire Counts was one of the top played factions, they were in top 5 for most played (this was years ago when i was heavy into fantasy, IDK about Endtimes i didn't play during 8th/endtimes, i played 5th-7th). So, no its not just sales, otherwise Vampires would still be a coherent army.

 EnTyme wrote:
I think you're exactly right about sales being the reason. I honestly think the original plan was to slowly remove all Old World armies from the game, and they started with two that had low stock and low sales figures. After Kirby stepped down (probably due at least in part to the backlash from removing TK and Brets), the plan changed.

I don't think it was to retire old armies. I think the plan was to make "armies" a concept of the past. Instead GW would have only Four Grand Alliances; within which were niche forces. The only "army" might have been Stormcast (trying to copy-cat marines hard); the rest would likely have been mostly small armies. Even Skaven (popular as they are) would have been hived into multiple armies (we saw this just start with the pestilens book). The idea being that GW would be able to retire "armies" and add armies with a single sweep. Pestilens aren't selling as well as Skyre - drop Pestilens and increase Skyre releases. Or even release new skyre sub-army since you'd only need 5 or so kits for an "army". Your new Idoneth isn't selling like hotcakes on release - shelve them you don't need to release any more and put the investments into something else. Keep selling so long as they cover basic costs and drop them once they stop or if you've got multiple other lines selling better that you don't want storage and production taken up with Idoneth any more.

Remember you've done away with points and rules already so it doesn't matter, you're purely using armies as a visual theme to sell models. It's basically the Forgeworld model just with plastic and taken into the extreme with a much faster release cycle and likely faster cycling of models too.


It wasn't a wargame. It wasn't just that it wasn't Old World, it just straight up wasn't a wargame unless you house-ruled it to be so. Even then you'd have to contend with GW dropping and adding models at a whim of sales.

Of course sales and numbers wise it might appear ideal; you add what the market wants and get rid of anything the market doesn't want. A purely by the numbers and profits approach to the product line.






Don't get me wrong, some people did love that there was no unified system. They were more keen to throw down 30 dragons without limits; or they were able to finally release their own rules to the local club and get people playing. They could tweak and balance adn test and puzzle out their own game. Indeed such people loved AoS at launch. However they lacked any kind of real unity; many often made use of old world points to get initial structure and they also were, in the end, quite a minority compared to the market GW wanted to have and which was there and waiting and wanting a wargame.
Suffice to say I don't think AoS would be as big nor as fast growing as it is now if GW had stuck to their original plans. Heck even the fiction is outselling the Old World fiction from the BL.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Its both for sure tho. There is a reason why a certain 3 armies got canned; Brets, vampire, TK's. BoC are just as non unique as many others, they are just satyrs, or Sylvenath, they are just Ents, but BoC in fantasy was one of the LEAST played armies and they stayed and even got some love.

Vampire Counts was one of the top played factions, they were in top 5 for most played (this was years ago when i was heavy into fantasy, IDK about Endtimes i didn't play during 8th/endtimes, i played 5th-7th). So, no its not just sales, otherwise Vampires would still be a coherent army.

Vampire Counts weren't removed any more than Empire or High Elves were, which is to say they were just split up into different factions.

 auticus wrote:

Had they had good rules, the new models were pretty awesome and I think they'd have sold just fine.

Alternatively, the people who clamor for their return are a very small but loud group, and they never had that much of an appeal.
That, and apparently an army needs a champion at GW design team that'd push for it. If rumors are to be believed, the only reason we got CoS book is because one of the team pretty much just handed in a ready manuscript to be published, because the management had no interest in expanding on the legacy armies at this point. The same was certainly true of Brets back in WFB times. They were ushered in by the Perrys as their pet project, and when they left, no one felt like picking up the slack.

For comparison, BoC, which had garbage rules most of Fantasy's lifespan survived the culling and apparently sold not terribly for a garbage tier army.

I can count the number of times I encountered a beast of chaos army on one hand during the entirety of 8th edition whfb. I don't know where the sales data is coming from showing what factions did and did not sell, and I will gladly preface that this is just my experience, but Beasts of Chaos were another dud that sat on shelves and didn't go anywhere near me.

They were pretty popular in previous editions, as were tomb kings, at least in the competitive circles and grand tournaments. Just not 8th.

Far as I'm aware outside of comments from former employees (many of which are only red-shirt store level so biased by their local communities) we've never really had solid facts on sales data for armies outside of Space Marines - and only then because they make up a significant percentage of total sales on their own.

I don't think GW has ever published sales data broken down on a per-army level - its always been wrapped up to a per game/franchise/department level of profits and sales and such.



I do think that the "design led" aspect of GW and some internal politics do come into play with what we get and how much of what we get. But how much or how little that affects things is honestly very hard to tell from the outside.

Yeah i absolutely believe that a faction needs a champion inside of the ivory tower or it is doomed to really bad rules and then its removal from the game entirely.

You can keep right on believing that. Wood Elves had a fairly dedicated champion and we didn't get an updated book until the end of 8th, and AoS basically destroyed the faction afterwards.

That may also tie into sales. The same black hole vortex of doom that befell many factions. The cycle of bad rules means no players and no players means no sales so they must be bad and no one wants them so cut them.

Yeah, no. The cut was because half the damn range was in metal/resin and the half in plastic had a big chunk(Glade Guard and Glade Riders) that had the early attempts at cloth which were a big part of why Sisters took so long to actually happen.

I think Overread and Auticus have raised a lot of good points, and describe an extremely plausible circumstance for what happened.