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Rob Alderman (current GW product development manager for Middle Earth and Blood Bowl) has now been appointed as product development manager for The Old World too (posted on facebook)

sadly he's not let slip any details, but it may well indicate they're (GW) getting towards the point where they are planning what to make (as opposed to kicking game development and art assets around)

Sasorijap wrote:

Apparently the main reason GW is bringing back Fantasy is to hurt Kings of War and Conquest. Their thinking is "if it hurts their sales good if it doesn't oh well we made a few extra quid".

That is 100% the reason. It keeps people from playing other competitor games. Do you really think GW is going to support it like AoS or 40k? It is under Specialist Games which is a FW division of games (not the two main GW studios).

Why would they bring back a game that was outsold by paint hahahaha. It was dead. I was routinely the only player playing it in my local city for tournaments. The people who are excited it's coming back didn't even play 7th or 8th ed, they were just pissy it changed. The two things gamers hate are change and not change.

Your argument is that the game people didn't play will make people not play other games?

I guess they sure will be too busy not playing The Old World to play Kings of War. GW wins again!

Evidence WFB was outsold by paint?

But no; they’re doing it because not everyone in the studio wanted to literally blow up the old world. Indeed, hardly anyone actually wanted that and the list of people that wanted the goofy talk to your imaginary horse rules was even shorter. They just happened to be the CEO at the time.

popisdead wrote:

Sasorijap wrote:

Apparently the main reason GW is bringing back Fantasy is to hurt Kings of War and Conquest. Their thinking is "if it hurts their sales good if it doesn't oh well we made a few extra quid".

That is 100% the reason. It keeps people from playing other competitor games. Do you really think GW is going to support it like AoS or 40k? It is under Specialist Games which is a FW division of games (not the two main GW studios).

Why would they bring back a game that was outsold by paint hahahaha. It was dead. I was routinely the only player playing it in my local city for tournaments. The people who are excited it's coming back didn't even play 7th or 8th ed, they were just pissy it changed. The two things gamers hate are change and not change.

This is just an absurd take. Paint isn't some niche thing that they only sell small amounts of, it outselling WHFB is quite meaningful as it no doubt outsells many of their products. Like, it's a potentially appeals to all of their customers regardless of which game they play, and even people outside GWs games, of course it sells.

It being "under specialist games" doesn't mean it can't be a decently sized thing on its own, or later expanded if it does well. And regardless of that, it's a return to a beloved setting that people want more of, that's enough to get interest.

Saying they're only doing it to spite another much smaller competitor just comes across as ignoring that games like Vermintide and Total War Warhammer generated popularity for a setting that no longer exists, that they abruptly destroyed rather than try and fix the problem even after they'd just done more with it than they had in years, and that was a decision made under previous management that they may now realize with their new leadership, was a bit of a poor move as there is still interest.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I believe Mantic's HQ is located about 15 minutes drive from Warhammer World, and Warlord Games HQ is only a few minutes walk away, I'm surprised they don't TP each other's buildings after a few too many drinks.

Why would they? They're all friends. Though the drinking part is probably right, as GW/Mantic/Warlord/etc - all the Nottingham companies - hang out and play games. The internet has perpetuated this myth that these companies all hate each other; then the next day there's pics of Alessio Cavatore, Jervis Johnson, John Stallard, Rick Priestley all playing a game hosted at the Perry's house.

What I said was mostly a joke, though "TPing" a place is a pretty tame act, it's not like I said "burned down" or something like that, lol, I'd be surprised if there wasn't some rivalry between the companies.

That said, if you watch interviews with a lot of the old guys who have now left GW, some of them definitely feel like they may hold some ill feelings towards GW, so I'm not entirely sure it's all "internet myth". That's not a commentary on individual relationships though, you can dislike a company while still getting along with certain people that make up that company.

Seriously. If my experience is anything to go by, the games industry is small, and people are friends and former co-workers with people in various companies. Obviously there's competition between companies, but the biggest ones are competing with other entertainment brands like Marvel, Disney, etc., not with little tabletop games companies.

If The Old World takes off, I imagine that it will occupy a similar space to Horus Heresy, has recently established itself as GW's fourth tentpole game.

I still don't get how this will work.

Warhammer Fantasy Battles had, what? At least 10 major factions, TOW will introduce at least 2 more, each needs a minimum of 5 kits just to get started...

Maybe if they just support Cathay and Kislev at the start with legacy rules for the rest and occasional made to order...

Yeah I still don't see this going well.

Same as with HH

The time frame is set during the Empire civil war, so we see a core box with humans that can be build as 1 or 2 factions, while FW will release resin upgrades to modify them for specific states (1 shield upgrade, 1 head/helm upgrade

likely we see unit bases with 25/28mm round slots to use the AoS models and 2-3 additional kits for core factions

there will be a rule book and a 2-3 faction books for the army lists and either campaign books with new units or army books added over time

which is enough to get the nostalgia crowed jump full into it

Is that guessing or has someone said that's the plan?

I remember them showing off Kislev and Cathay concept art for TOW (which was also used in the video game)

Possibility that they would fall back on the “season” model? I.E. start with a “season of chaos” that has Daemons and Cathay then move on to a compatible season of storms that is Kislev vs. Marauders/chaos warriors a year later. Continue with one old vs. one new faction every year. That way they only need one set of new sprues cut (and to dig out all the old square base moulds) and just rebox stuff they’re already using for AoS otherwise. That could go on for a while…

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Is that guessing or has someone said that's the plan?

guessing based on what was said (and there is not a lot information in the first place, as showing concept art does not mean a lot as what was shown was related to new factions in TWW, which does not mean those are the first factions in TOW)

but as I previously wrote, I don't think GW had a plan in the first place and still not decided what exactly it will be (as the release slot will be 2025, with a big maybe for 2024 if AoS last longer than expected

 Mr_Rose wrote:
Possibility that they would fall back on the “season” model? I.E. start with a “season of chaos” that has Daemons and Cathay then move on to a compatible season of storms that is Kislev vs. Marauders/chaos warriors a year later. Continue with one old vs. one new faction every year. That way they only need one set of new sprues cut (and to dig out all the old square base moulds) and just rebox stuff they’re already using for AoS otherwise. That could go on for a while…

I'd be dead and mummified by the time GW even considers releasing Season of Sands with Araby versus Tomb Kings.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I still don't get how this will work.

Warhammer Fantasy Battles had, what? At least 10 major factions, TOW will introduce at least 2 more, each needs a minimum of 5 kits just to get started...

Maybe if they just support Cathay and Kislev at the start with legacy rules for the rest and occasional made to order...

Yeah I still don't see this going well.

If you think on content being added on long term planning, so that they always have something to sell, instead of supporting everything at once at launch - exactly like Horus Heresy, in the end - it makes sense...from their point of view.

From a gamer's point of view (especially those waiting the time their faction's miniatures are available), it won't go well at all.

That's sadly the point of the TOW project, IMHO. It's just another product name in their Specialist Game catalogue.

See how much time we have to wait for all the Blood Bowl teams to be there ? Well, that's how I see TOW will end being.

Except a BB team can be done on a single spure. I figure a Fantasy army in 28mm needs at least 5 kits to be viable.

2 infantry, 1 cavalry, 1 monster/war machine, 1 leader. And that's a bare minimum.

Some factions are still on sale and can go right away. But rebuilding the Elves, the Dwarves and other factions that are all but gone is a major project.

popisdead wrote:

Sasorijap wrote:

Apparently the main reason GW is bringing back Fantasy is to hurt Kings of War and Conquest. Their thinking is "if it hurts their sales good if it doesn't oh well we made a few extra quid".

That is 100% the reason. It keeps people from playing other competitor games. Do you really think GW is going to support it like AoS or 40k? It is under Specialist Games which is a FW division of games (not the two main GW studios).

Why would they bring back a game that was outsold by paint hahahaha. It was dead. I was routinely the only player playing it in my local city for tournaments. The people who are excited it's coming back didn't even play 7th or 8th ed, they were just pissy it changed. The two things gamers hate are change and not change.

Dead as in top-3 miniature game seller. 40k, star wars, fb

The biggest issue is that those ranges have a variety of old and new designs and never got a comprehensive update like, say, Dark Elves. High Elves are close. They got a lot of stuff in 8th ed, though Sea Guard are monopose starter set models. Spearmen and I think Bolt Throwers, and probably something else I forgot, would be in dire need of new sculpts. In the case of Sea Guard, GW has the CAD files. They'd just have to make a new mold, mostly because of the command section as they used to sell five normal infantrymen separately.

If GW wanted to reactivate more recent sculpts like that, they could save themselves a lot of time and get a fair amount of the old factions back on sale by redoing their older sculpts. It's the only viable way I could see us get all the old factions back at least in a somewhat shortish time frame, by GW's standards anyway.

Starting from scratch with some Imperial civil war may satisfy GW's desire to sell us all new stuff, but I'm not sure how much interest there is in dudes with puffy sleeves punching other dudes with puffy sleeves. Unlike Horus Heresy, old Fantasy had a good spread on interest in different factions. It simply didn't have the Marine factor that would allow GW to focus on the largest group of customers and worry about scraps for the rest later.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Except a BB team can be done on a single spure. I figure a Fantasy army in 28mm needs at least 5 kits to be viable.

2 infantry, 1 cavalry, 1 monster/war machine, 1 leader. And that's a bare minimum.

Some factions are still on sale and can go right away. But rebuilding the Elves, the Dwarves and other factions that are all but gone is a major project.

Honestly for most wargames that bare minimum is enough to make the army functional. However if you look at armies in AoS right now which are almost at that level - Flesheaters, Fyreslayers, Ossiarchs - then the interest in them is light unless they are so broken they win games on auto mode (and even then the interest is often more online drama).

Instead you look at armies like Genestealer Cults and Lumineth - both of which got big sales and popularity boosts with a solid second wave of models.

Now you can cut things down - a vanguard/welcome pack that can be done on one or two sprue that has multiple groups can form a cheaper to get started core both investment and customer wise. You can also design duel and triple kits - of course these vary a lot. Sometimes a simple weapon and head swap is ok but not really making much different; sometimes its like the Gargant kit and the variations are quite significant.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Except a BB team can be done on a single spure. I figure a Fantasy army in 28mm needs at least 5 kits to be viable.

2 infantry, 1 cavalry, 1 monster/war machine, 1 leader. And that's a bare minimum.

Some factions are still on sale and can go right away. But rebuilding the Elves, the Dwarves and other factions that are all but gone is a major project.

I do totally agree (for Blood Bowl,I'd also add the team terrain, cards, dices and the Spike! magazine). So it'd take even more time in the end...which means more content to fill the gaps in the production planning for years. I guess from GW's point of view, it's very good...

tneva82 wrote:
Dead as in top-3 miniature game seller. 40k, star wars, fb

I'm guessing you're talking about the ICv2 top seller lists, since we have nothing else to go on. Last time WHFB was even a blip on that chart was 2013, two years before it was canned. By the time of its death it was behind Warmachine and Hordes individually, as well as all the X-wing knockoffs.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I still don't get how this will work.

Warhammer Fantasy Battles had, what? At least 10 major factions, TOW will introduce at least 2 more, each needs a minimum of 5 kits just to get started...

Maybe if they just support Cathay and Kislev at the start with legacy rules for the rest and occasional made to order...

Yeah I still don't see this going well.

I half expect them to shoehorn new AoS models onto square bases.

I guess a big question is "what will a regiment look like?" In WHFB it was typically a 4 to 6" wide regiment of 5 to 6 models and 4 or 5 ranks deep. They could go the ASOIF route and have regiments with a similar footprint but are only 12 models, at that point AoS models could work fine for most armies. Though I think they said something about old models being compatible, which made me think they'd try and work with the original 20 and 25mm square bases, in which case most AoS models are too chunky to work.

The big question really isn't how it will compete with 3rd parties outside of GW; its how it will compete directly with AoS within GW.

That's the real sticky area. Are we going to end up with GW messing both games around to give them their own identity. Will they try and push AoS from a wargame to a skirmish game so that Old World becomes the wargame with larger infantry blocks whilst in AoS you can only take smaller units?

Are they just going to do it with bases or are they going to start making AoS infantry impossible to physically rank up close together? Are they going to make one tighter rules and the other full "beer and pretzels silly/daft/wild" on the rules?

One big risk is that marines are the enigma. Horus Heresy works but it works because Marines are a supreme selling machine with decades of marketing and fans with an unbroken period of 30 years releases. Old World has had a 5-10 year break and never had a marine army.

Or perhaps GW won't care. One massive bonus is if Old World fails the nature of AoS means that they can just roll the models from one game into AoS and leave it at that. It's technically a little harder lore wise to do the reverse, but heck they could go that way too if AoS got left in the dust.

That also depends on how the game is played.

Ranked infantry blocks? Not so much variety needed overall, because they’re inherently limited in movement and the game mechanics.

If we breakdown WHFB? There weren’t that many unit types overall.

You had….Skirmishers, Ranged Infantry, Combat Infantry, Cavalry, Chariots, Big Infantry (Ogres etc) Monsters and Artillery - plus of course characters.

Now each of those types of course had sub types (heavy infantry, horde infantry, ranged infantry, medium infantry) and of course unit or racial rules added further variety.

And an armies access to those also varied. But breaking it down that’s the main options.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Dead as in top-3 miniature game seller. 40k, star wars, fb

I'm guessing you're talking about the ICv2 top seller lists, since we have nothing else to go on. Last time WHFB was even a blip on that chart was 2013, two years before it was canned.

ICv2 was never a good indicator because of the bias in the polling method (they didn't poll GW stores or online store), and from memory it only considered the US (maybe I'm misremembering?) and we know WHFB was never as popular in the US as it was elsewhere in the world.

Space Marines massively bias any comparison. I remember the comment that WHFB was outsold by Space Marines alone, but Space Marines outsold the rest of 40k combined also, hell, GW just had great success with their Space Marine vs Space Marine game in which most 40k factions don't exist and the ones that do don't have rules anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That also depends on how the game is played.

Ranked infantry blocks? Not so much variety needed overall, because they’re inherently limited in movement and the game mechanics.

If we breakdown WHFB? There weren’t that many unit types overall.

You had….Skirmishers, Ranged Infantry, Combat Infantry, Cavalry, Chariots, Big Infantry (Ogres etc) Monsters and Artillery - plus of course characters.

Now each of those types of course had sub types (heavy infantry, horde infantry, ranged infantry, medium infantry) and of course unit or racial rules added further variety.

And an armies access to those also varied. But breaking it down that’s the main options.

You listed 9 categories, so that's quite a lot.

Lets face it, WHFB got very bloated in its range and it needed a cull (even though I didn't want them to cull the whole bloody game!), but even ignoring that bloat to make a WHFB army the bare minimum would (I think) be 2 infantry kits, a cav, a character, something special and something rare.

ICv2 was US retail only and Warhammer Fantasy never got big in the US in the first place
and while 40k was ahead in the US at the same time Fantasy was in Europe (no retail numbers but you can compare the numbers of players on events)

 Geifer wrote:

Starting from scratch with some Imperial civil war may satisfy GW's desire to sell us all new stuff, but I'm not sure how much interest there is in dudes with puffy sleeves punching other dudes with puffy sleeves. Unlike Horus Heresy, old Fantasy had a good spread on interest in different factions. It simply didn't have the Marine factor that would allow GW to focus on the largest group of customers and worry about scraps for the rest later.

there is enough interest in "omg they bring it back" to make it a success and as most people who are going to play it still have their armies or just 3D print it, it does not really matter that there is not more to start

1 update per year in models, with new 2 player sets is enough to keep things going

like what to we have now, a map and a promise and people are all-in

It's super easy to be all in when the cost is 0

well, it is super easy to be all-in and stop playing anything else and wait for years based on a promise

and for those people, an official rule book and the promise for support is enough

 kodos wrote:
ICv2 was US retail only and Warhammer Fantasy never got big in the US in the first place
and while 40k was ahead in the US at the same time Fantasy was in Europe (no retail numbers but you can compare the numbers of players on events)

 Geifer wrote:

Starting from scratch with some Imperial civil war may satisfy GW's desire to sell us all new stuff, but I'm not sure how much interest there is in dudes with puffy sleeves punching other dudes with puffy sleeves. Unlike Horus Heresy, old Fantasy had a good spread on interest in different factions. It simply didn't have the Marine factor that would allow GW to focus on the largest group of customers and worry about scraps for the rest later.

there is enough interest in "omg they bring it back" to make it a success and as most people who are going to play it still have their armies or just 3D print it, it does not really matter that there is not more to start

1 update per year in models, with new 2 player sets is enough to keep things going

like what to we have now, a map and a promise and people are all-in

Are they? All that's been seen is two maps, which have been bitched about. And some concept art which was REALLY bitched about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kodos wrote:
well, it is super easy to be all-in and stop playing anything else and wait for years based on a promise

and for those people, an official rule book and the promise for support is enough

Have you seen anyone who has actually done this though? Thrown everything to the side and is now sitting around twiddling their thumbs for five plus years while they wait?

going via the old Warhammer channels, people are already saving up money and stop playing other games while bringing their old armies into shape to be ready day 1

going via the old Warhammer channels, people are already saving up money and stop playing other games while bringing their old armies into shape to be ready day 1

going via the old Warhammer channels, people are already saving up money and stop playing other games while bringing their old armies into shape to be ready day 1