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If I'm not wholly convinced of the methodology behind them, those are still some interesting figures, and the comparisons with other games reinforce the figures released by US distributors Diamond, who recently reported that Warmachine recently overtook Warhammer Fantasy as the second most popular wargame sold through hobby stores (behind 40k, naturally).

GW's persistently-falling sales volumes look all the more embarassing in light of Diamond's reports that the hobby games sector (i.e. wargames, boardgames, CCGs and RPGs) is booming, having grown 20% in 2011, and being projected to do the same this year.

Food for thought, anyway.

 English Assassin wrote:
If I'm not wholly convinced of the methodology behind them, those are still some interesting figures, and the comparisons with other games reinforce the figures released by US distributors Diamond, who recently reported that Warmachine recently overtook Warhammer Fantasy as the second most popular wargame sold through hobby stores (behind 40k, naturally).

GW's persistently-falling sales volumes look all the more embarassing in light of Diamond's reports that the hobby games sector (i.e. wargames, boardgames, CCGs and RPGs) is booming, having grown 20% in 2011, and being projected to do the same this year.

Food for thought, anyway.

Agreed. Data mining is something that Games Workshop can not hide. If you find enough information from various sources that coincides in what your looking for you can make a calculated assessment when you are investing money (and time) into something. That is what I do.

Daston wrote:
From what I have seen locally is fantasy attracts older players. These guys n girls are likley going to have their own house with their own beers and would rather game at home.

Both my wife and I started fantasy at the start of the year and enjoy it. I hadn't played it for a long time, last starter set I had was elves vs orcs where each side had cardboard cutouts for monsters and warmachines

I agree with this. Having played both for a long time, Fantasy is and has always been a better "game" with better models. It's more random, more fun and MANY less of TFG's playing it. To me, as an older gamer (30's) I don't want to play against power gamers. I game to have fun, I don't want to buy 3 doom scythes and 4 night scythes and 40 warriors who auto glance on 6 and just rolling dice and making someone upset.

I think the real reason for WH's decline isn't the rules, it's the fact that GW cares more about recruiting new people into the hobby who'll spend $1000 in their first year building armies vs. old vets who spend $200 a year in maintaining their hobby. Because they want to recruit new young people, they focus on the game that has the most explosions, the most violence and the one that is easier to learn because tactics aren't that important in 40k. It's mostly about list writing. That's 40k.

I personally prefer a cool game of fantasy with my friends then playing 40k.....it's more tactical, more fun...and MUCH MUCH quicker of a game.

Almostreal is dead on in his/her post.


I began playing alongside the RPG back in the Hogshead days.

The game was more indepth then D and D was, and had a grittier feel to it. I ended my excursion into fantasy after around the late 3d/ early 4th edition. The game had a good conversion to the tabletop, the character of the background was extablished, and the D100 tables were hilarious to the point of awsome.

The game has stability, but some of the changes of the later editions didn't do it justice. Then the fact that GW decided to monkeyspank some armies over others, didn't do anything then develop a FOM mentality that eroded the general flavor of the game.

Vampires, I am looking at you.

almostreal wrote:

I personally prefer a cool game of fantasy with my friends then playing 40k.....it's more tactical, more fun...and MUCH MUCH quicker of a game.

It was but 8th removed most of the tactical elements in favour of huge units, magic and lots of dice rolls. Fantasy was all about maneouver and thats what I enjoyed about it, not any more.

If I want to play a tactical wargame I won't be playing fantasy (nor 40k for that matter).

Problem with these discussions is that they are mostly anecdotal.
The data mining is pretty cool but we don't really know how relevant it is.
The only people who can tell us the answer is GW, and they're not going to!

What people don't ever seem to take into account are the many, many different types of gamers/collectors there are. People play Warhammer for different reasons- and the different players are involved socially in different ways too.

For my own anecdotal evidence: since Warhammer 8th has been released I've been gaming in 2 GW stores in different locations and 2 gaming clubs.
Gaming in the GWs it's obvious that Warhammer has had a damn good two years- loads of people playing and buying new stuff.
At the gaming clubs/independants, there are older guys who have an army or 2 and never change it ever, so never buy new things; and there are tournament players who rarely buy things because they already have the army that works and is most efficient for competetive play. With both these types, the trend has been to hate on 8th and not play Warhammer anymore. My experience is that these are also the ones that come on forums and proclaim it loudly...
In the end though it rarely matters as they don't buy anything anyway so they don't affect the figures- which are the most important thing.

I'll add another vote to the "It's often played by older people" group. At my local GW there are a few younger people who play both Fantasy and 40K (one has just started Vampires, another has Wood Elves and Beastmen) but the majority of players are older.

I went to an even called the Siege of Sussex. It was basically a 40k/Fantasy tournament at Warhammer World between the GW stores along the south coast of England. Looking around there were more older veterans playing Fantasy than younger people.

40K has always been the stronger game where I am, just turn up with an army and you'll get a game.

Hell I started wargaming by playing 40K, but ended up growing dissatisfied with GW.

Picked up Warmachine instead since the steampunk element is what drew me in and I'm maintaining to get regular games in at perhaps once a week.

Looked at WHFB and even picked up one of the rulebook and couple of army books (Empire, Skaven and Wood Elves), though it never came of anything and then new edition(s) came out. Still interested in trying Fantasy but its likely I'll go with Kings of War rather than WHFB.

Considering that GW still stocks LotR I think WHFB is safe for a good long while.

Fantasy has been massively popular at my local gaming club since it's rerelease. In the past few months most people have left it.

I suppose there's only so many times a persons ogre army can be 'withered' away before they pack it in.

They mostly seem to have moved to SAGA and Kings of War

I prefer the models of FB, but will find a 40k game much quicker in my area. Yet I'm more bent to play WM b/c I don'thave to forfeit as much time for a game.

Most likely because 8th is pure dogfeces.

It ruined the entire game for me and thus I sold my WHFB army and invested the cash in more necrons.

I don't want to play Premium Yahtzee GW, thanks.

Fantasy looks awesome. The models are outstanding and the armies are a lot more diverse and original looking than in 40k.

When I see people play 8th edition bough, I lose heart. It seems very random and I have seen he wrong person win too many times.

Dang, this thread sure is attracting the disenfranchised fantasy players. The feeling about 8th I've gotten from the various official polls run on here is that 8th is actually quite well-loved. In this poll > http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/jforum.page?module=posts&action=list&topic_id=308777&viewResults=true , in which 3104 votes were cast, 49% of people "don't play WhFB", 25% "loved" 8th, 12% "liked" 8th, 9% were "meh" about 8th, aand 4% were considering quitting.

It seems that that 4% has happily congregated in this thread. Not that those of us who like 8th mind-it contains the griping.

8th isn't dying in my FLGS. However, because it is so expensive to build an army, it isn't growing. Which is is bummer, because it is a really solid game.

_Tim?

I definitely enjoy it. I think there's been something of a local drop off after 8th, but it appears to be slowly building back up. I think we saw a lot of death star uber units in the first 6 months, but that's begun to fall out of favor.

I find there's a pretty good chunk of maneuver and tactics and don't totally understand the folks who call it a dice off (or Yahtzee). There's generally some pretty good ways to reduce your liability to the uber-spells... and as a pleasant coincidence, that often means moving away from the mega-units that take such a heavy pasting from such spells. And to those who say that there isn't any skill involved- I'm not sure how you explain why the tournament players who were consistently good in 7th edition are still consistently good in 8th.

I recognize that there's plenty of folks who didn't like the changes from 7th to 8th, but I've found 8th to be a more welcoming game that's done a fair job of leveling the huge disparity between the books. At least with my dwarfs I get to do more than roll armor saves and break tests in 8th.

I can't speak to the "Fantasy is dying" argument on a national or global level, but I do think that many players are too quick to draw conclusions from a handful of anecdotes.

I stopped playing Fantasy at the end of 7th, not long after Daemons of Chaos came out. Id already been disillusioned with it, and once that book came out (and numerous local players switched to DoC) I felt like balance had been thrown to the wind. I sold my Bretonnians and mothballed my Dark Elves. Storm of Magic intrigued me, but Hurricane Irene hit and my Dark Elves were literally washed away. I'd like to get back into it, but I really don't have the time to paint up an army. If Warriors of Chaos get something cool this fall, or if Bretonnians ever get redone, I might reconsider.

 Flashman wrote:
suddenly every army had to have big arse monsters.

*Points to a certain rule called 'Steadfast'*

Anyway, Fantasy is, and, sadly, will probably always will be, less popular than 40K. 40K's more competitive, which attracts more competitive players. Guns are cooler than swords, so it attracts little kids. And we all know that GW like little kids. Hence, GW puts out more 40K stuff than Fantasy stuff, which attracts more players. Finally, we get the chicken and the egg. All this creates more players, meaning that for most people, a game of 40K is easier to find than a game of WHFB, which attracts more people to 40K, and you can see the chicken and the egg effect.

Anyway, as has been summed up, 40K will have seen a recent rise in, usage, shall we say, so it's not all bad for Fantasy, this rise is to be expected. There's new rules, so people are playing to get to grips with them and people are flogging stuff that has been nerfed and trying to get hold of stuff that has been made godly. Plus, there's a new Starter Set, so it goes without saying that this will create a lot of 40K trades. And, finally, there's the Horus Heresy stuff on the Horus-izon (get what I did there?) and it being such a pivotal chapter in 40K history, people are very excited.

So, really, everything's as expected. Yes, WHFB isn't as popular as 40K in general, but it was always like that. Yes, WHFB has fallen slightly out of the gamer's eye, but that was to be expected with all the new 40K-ness around. 8th Edition WHFB is widely agreed to be one of the best editions we've seen, and the WHFB metagame is nicely balanced at the moment, so there's no reason why its playerbase will be dropping!

 Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote:
Dang, this thread sure is attracting the disenfranchised fantasy players. The feeling about 8th I've gotten from the various official polls run on here is that 8th is actually quite well-loved. In this poll > http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/jforum.page?module=posts&action=list&topic_id=308777&viewResults=true , in which 3104 votes were cast, 49% of people "don't play WhFB", 25% "loved" 8th, 12% "liked" 8th, 9% were "meh" about 8th, aand 4% were considering quitting.

It seems that that 4% has happily congregated in this thread. Not that those of us who like 8th mind-it contains the griping.

8th isn't dying in my FLGS. However, because it is so expensive to build an army, it isn't growing. Which is is bummer, because it is a really solid game.

_Tim?

Your poll is unable to represent the proper view as those people who already quit on 8th will hardly bother with the forums about it and thus can't vote at all.

8th just killed any tactics. As a former WoC player, all you did was shove your troops forward and battle your enemy in "Who gets his 6th spell off the fastest?" It was boring as hell and even victories didn't feel good at all. And don't go "Why didn't you just try an all Marauder Horsemen list?" on me - I don't want a game that forces me to cripple myself in order to get a fun game.

Not to mention the loss of monsters. I loved those! It was cool to have a battle with huge monstrous creatures walking around 'n stuff. And 8th? gaks on their head. And what did we got? Fool-proof warmachines and Yahtzee magic. feth that.

WHFB 7th was awesome and a lot of fun, but 8th killed it.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote:
Dang, this thread sure is attracting the disenfranchised fantasy players. The feeling about 8th I've gotten from the various official polls run on here is that 8th is actually quite well-loved. In this poll > http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/jforum.page?module=posts&action=list&topic_id=308777&viewResults=true , in which 3104 votes were cast, 49% of people "don't play WhFB", 25% "loved" 8th, 12% "liked" 8th, 9% were "meh" about 8th, aand 4% were considering quitting.

It seems that that 4% has happily congregated in this thread. Not that those of us who like 8th mind-it contains the griping.

8th isn't dying in my FLGS. However, because it is so expensive to build an army, it isn't growing. Which is is bummer, because it is a really solid game.

_Tim?

Your poll is unable to represent the proper view as those people who already quit on 8th will hardly bother with the forums about it and thus can't vote at all.

8th just killed any tactics. As a former WoC player, all you did was shove your troops forward and battle your enemy in "Who gets his 6th spell off the fastest?" It was boring as hell and even victories didn't feel good at all. And don't go "Why didn't you just try an all Marauder Horsemen list?" on me - I don't want a game that forces me to cripple myself in order to get a fun game.

Not to mention the loss of monsters. I loved those! It was cool to have a battle with huge monstrous creatures walking around 'n stuff. And 8th? gaks on their head. And what did we got? Fool-proof warmachines and Yahtzee magic. feth that.

WHFB 7th was awesome and a lot of fun, but 8th killed it.

Honestly, I had these misconceptions about 8th at first, but eventually, if you actually continue playing, you realise how good it is.

You mention how it was all about "Who got their 6th Spell off first". No. Just no. I've played games where I've got Dwellers or Okkam's off three, or maybe even more, times, but have still lost because my opponent was better than me. Similarly, I've won many games where I've had scores of models fall to Purple Sun or whatever. You say you were a WoC player, and you just shoved your troops forward. Well, that sounds like a bad way to play if you ask me. Sounds like you had only a few units of many models and relied on them kicking the crap out of everyone in combat. Well, such an army is just asking to get pasted by '6th' Spells.

And this brings me nicely onto how 8th Edition balances out. At first glance, large units of models (i.e. deathstars) seem to be king, with the Step Up, Horde and Steadfast rules giving them a massive advantage. However, running such units comes at a risk: there's a high risk of losing half those models to a '6th' spell. Deathstars are why such spells exist. Dwellers might kill half your unit, but if your unit comprises of 20 models, it's not so bad. And you go on about how tactics have been removed. Well, you've kinda contradicted yourself there, since the Magic Phase is one of the most tactical phases around. You're not going to be able to stop all your opponent's spells so you've got to make sacrifices and save your dice for spells that will really hurt. On the other hand, when it's your phase, you know your opponent will be trying to do this, so you have to outsmart him. Get him to use his dice on a spell he thinks will be pivotal, but really, you've still got an ace up your sleeve. On top of that, you have to prepare for every eventuality in the Magic Phase. You can't rely on half your army being buffed by Magic, because you might roll snake-eyes for the Winds of Magic. Similarly, you can't rely on weathering your opponents phase because he might roll a double 6 and get every spell in his arsenal off. Yes, Magic is a massive threat and a big part of the game, but it's not as game-breaking as you make out.

Now onto Monsters. And, here, I partly agree with you. I've always said that the only way to make 8th perfect would be to say that Monsters count as having a certain number of ranks for determining steadfast, perhaps with it being dependant on the number of models that the Monster has eaten. Here though, you can at least see that GW has tried to do something to rectify the problem with Thunderstomp. Sadly, it doesn't quite work out. That said though, there's still the good ol' hammer and anvil tactic, combining a Monster with a large unit of infantry to kill a bunch of your enemy and mitigate their Steadfast as well. It doesn't always work out, but nothing ever does anyway. There's the issue of Warmachines, yes, but it's not as bad as people make out. Most armies have good Warmachine hunters that can be used to make sure your enemies never get a shot off, and many monsters have the Fly Special Rule, meaning they can hide until all Warmachines have been taken out and then enter the fray. Those that don't have Fly often have Swiftstride, again, helping them get into combat quickly. And even if a Monster does get hit by a Warmachine, it's not actually that bad. Because of a Monster's high compliment of wounds, your opponent will have to roll high on his D6 to one-shot the Monster. Furthermore, there's a lot of Monsters out there with 7 or more Wounds and a lot of Warmachines that inflict less than D6 hits.

In regards to my area, 8th ed of WHFB has basically died. We see maybe 1 game a month between the same two guys for my area. We have even stopped really bothering to hold the tourneys here as no one attends it anymore.

8th from general opinion is that it is now over complicated and boring to tears.

I just find that 8th is boring to play. Combat blocks, even if there is a bit of manouvering involved, are still combat blocks that sit there and fight for the majority of the game. I find that even playing 6th 40k is boring. It clearly favors shooting. Kinda doesn't help that my second game ever of it was against a Dark Eldar player that had more shooting than I care to think of. It turned into roll dice and see how many wounds, if any, the lads take.

Hi folks.
Generalisation alert!

40k has been 'child focused' for a while now.And as GW plc are in the buisness of selling toy soldiers to children, 40k gets the lions share of the resources.

WHFB, focusing a bit more on tactics than 40k.Tended to attract older gamers that naturaly progess to tactical loading over heavy strategic focus.

So to remidy the 'lack of new blood' in WHFB, they put in the factor that made 40k popular with younger players!
Which 'killed the game ' for those gamers who prefer a higher tactical focus than 40k esk games.

But it obvuiosly attracted some new blood.
And older gamers have now found KoW, AoA and other 28mm fantasy games that are more tactical than 8th ed WHFB, and definatley more suited to them than 40k.

New gamers are attracted by asthetics , (cool looking models and background.)
Veteran gamers stick around because of the solid rules and great gamplay.

This is probably why GW plc is STILL loosing sales volumes...

Honestly, I don't see how people come across this major gripe that "Big Units have killed manoeuvering, and other such tactical moves".

To be honest, it's closer to the opposite. Yes, if your army comprises of two large deathstarts, you won't be doing much manoeuvering, but you're not forced to take large units. There's a toss up between taking deathstars and resigning yourself to be almost certainly outmanoeuvered, or vice versa. There's tactical choices before the game even begins. On top of that, you have to react to what you come up against, since you're pretty much equally likely to come up against deathstars as you are a more MSU approach. I didn't play any where near as much in 7th, but from what I gather, almost every army you saw was more MSU style, meaning you could be pretty sure you'd be up against that, which reduces the tactical descisions you'll have to make.

There's also the many tactics you can employ to deal with deathstars, most notably redirecting. It works fantastically and proves that clever tactics can overcome these large units that everyone loses sleep over.

both the games are simple, fantasy always was the more in depth and now its not, they sucked the individuality out of the game, and I go to great lengths to make an army that is unique, but problem there is they always get destroyed because that's not what the game is about
before there was more wiggle room, no so anymore
I didn't care for 7th either because of how unbalanced the game had become
magic is so random and I rarely get a spell off (about once every 2-3 games)
i love the models, but the game has become just bad to me, unfun and I don't enjoy it anymore
i gave fantasy a chance, i wanted to like it
the new ed of 40k i didn't bother with, i read that and shook my head (that and 40k is half space marines, an army i really dislike)
at least fantasy doesn't have half its army as one type of guys

 The Shadow wrote:
Honestly, I don't see how people come across this major gripe that "Big Units have killed manoeuvering, and other such tactical moves".

The rules that allowed WHFB to be a game of movement have either been removed or rendered all but useless. March blocking, redirecting and flank charges are now a shadow of their former selves.

I ran big blocks in 7 (I played Night Goblins) so I don't count large units as a hinderance, even if it was a cynical ploy on the part of GW.

8th ed kicks ass if you ask me, and its hardly dying in NZ if you ask me. Most tournaments see at the very least 25+ people which I think is fairly healthy.

With the reason influx of 6th ed 40k (which IMO is just horrible and the new rules makes my eyes bleed) no wonder the numbers might be down in some places.

I don't believe Fantasy is dying. Sure 40k has new rules now, so a drop in sales and interest is expected, but even in 8th edition, WHFB is still a better gaming system than 40k. I will agree with some of the posters that it is quite more expensive to raise a proper Fantasy army than a 40k one. That is why I see many people having 2-3 40k armies but only 1 Fantasy. I also don't like some of the changes in 8th (not everyone has to have huge monsters GW, give us a break) but overall it is still my main game. WHAAAGH!

By the way I have to admit I haven't played any 40k games in 6th edition yet, so I cannot do a comparison, but they did take a whole bunch of rules from Fantasy and adapted them for 40k (Overwatch, Challenges etc)

Palindrome wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
Honestly, I don't see how people come across this major gripe that "Big Units have killed manoeuvering, and other such tactical moves".

The rules that allowed WHFB to be a game of movement have either been removed or rendered all but useless. March blocking, redirecting and flank charges are now a shadow of their former selves.

I ran big blocks in 7 (I played Night Goblins) so I don't count large units as a hinderance, even if it was a cynical ploy on the part of GW.

Seems like you still need to figure out how amazingly superior "quick-reform" and "after-combat-reforms" actually are.

Some armies like Lizardmen, Darkelves or Chaosdwarves can field whole armies of SUPER mobile units, monsters, flying characters and whatsnot.

8th allows more quick and flexible movements than ANY other warhammer fantasy edition before.

Thats your own units though, you can't have any real effect on enemy units.

I am playing WHFB now, I was not a couple years back; it's obviously doing better now.

 Sigvatr wrote:

WHFB 7th was awesome and a lot of fun, but 8th killed it.

I have to totally disagree with that part of your quote. I've played WHFB since 3rd edition. I quit playing in 6th edition. I dabbled in 7th and found it to be boring, flat, uninteresting and just plain not fun.

While 8th edition isn't perfect, it certainly did address many things that I disliked about WHFB ever since I started playing it about 1986.

In my personal experience with local players who have quit because of 8th edition, the majority of them don't like how their style of play from 7th edition is not compatible with 8th edition, and they're not interested in trying to learn a different style of play. For example, the last such person I talked with complained about how some of the #6 spells can kill an entire unit. He had been a DE player who liked to run a huge, buffed up 20+ unit of Cold One Knights with associated heroes attached. He apparently wasn't interested in not being able to rule the table with his deathstar unit anymore.