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Exactly look at how x-wing took off its simple to start but has huge depth and a tight rule set.

If issues arise faq's and erretas are quick in coming.

GW used to take years to do that and now they don't bother at all.

Clear concisely written rules help everyone casual and tournament player alike.

hobojebus wrote:
Exactly look at how x-wing took off its simple to start but has huge depth and a tight rule set.

If issues arise faq's and erretas are quick in coming.

GW used to take years to do that and now they don't bother at all.

Clear concisely written rules help everyone casual and tournament player alike.

X-Wing a little null and void here as it came off the back of the SW license.
Not disputing it's a good ruleset, but you only have to look at how poorly Attack WIng is doing by comparison to see that IP can have a massive effect on a game, even when the rules are effectively identical.

I think the rules being identical is partly why it never took off. If you've already got X-Wing, why get into attack wing?

But yeah, Star Wars is about the biggest IP out there, which won't have hurt it any.

Would AoS have been the biggest fantasy wargame IP out there if there had been no WHFB?

What about the LoTR game? If that already existed, would WHFB or AoS have got going?

My point was that IP has a massive effect on popularity, regardless of the objective value of the game; X-wing was being touted as successful because how well the game was handled/designed, when the relatively sad state of Attack wing is proof otherwise.

RoperPG wrote:
My point was that IP has a massive effect on popularity, regardless of the objective value of the game; X-wing was being touted as successful because how well the game was handled/designed, when the relatively sad state of Attack wing is proof otherwise.

This affects AoS in the exact same matter, as KK so kindly pointed out. AoS is piggybacking all the way on WHFB's IP - it IS called Age of Sigmar. You can't really disregard X-Wing for piggybacking a succesful IP when AoS did the exact same.

It has been asked time and time again if, detaching AoS from the Warhammer IP (that is to say the FB IP it grew from), the game would have had the he success it has had.

WHFB succeeded without piggybacking on an established IP, so perhaps AoS could.

It could be said that AoS has suffered as much as gained from piggybacking on WHFB, since so many players have spurned it as they would spurn a rabid dog because of GW canning the whole WHFB IP they had come to love. Swings and roundabouts.

How many people actually are atttracted to AoS by its IP rather than its rules?

As I pointed out before, though, AoS isn't the kind of game that GW wanted to launch in the early 1980s.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
My point was that IP has a massive effect on popularity, regardless of the objective value of the game; X-wing was being touted as successful because how well the game was handled/designed, when the relatively sad state of Attack wing is proof otherwise.

This affects AoS in the exact same matter, as KK so kindly pointed out. AoS is piggybacking all the way on WHFB's IP - it IS called Age of Sigmar. You can't really disregard X-Wing for piggybacking a succesful IP when AoS did the exact same.

It has been asked time and time again if, detaching AoS from the Warhammer IP (that is to say the FB IP it grew from), the game would have had the he success it has had.

I haven't denied any of that.
My point was that X-wing was being implied as a game that would have been successful *without* an IP to float it, when relevant to the discussion it is the only game available where you can actually see the effect of IP on success - so it's evidence that whatever impact AoS has had, it's likely a part of that was down to the WFB IP.
The various graphs showing Google search terms is also proof of that.
I wasn't saying AoS would have been fine without an IP, I was making the point that X-wing is in exactly the same boat.

RoperPG wrote:
My point was that IP has a massive effect on popularity, regardless of the objective value of the game; X-wing was being touted as successful because how well the game was handled/designed, when the relatively sad state of Attack wing is proof otherwise.

I don't think X-Wing would be so popular if it wasn't such a good game. The IP only brings it along so far.

RoperPG wrote:
I was making the point that X-wing is in exactly the same boat.

I misunderstood then . Apologies.

Herzlos wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
My point was that IP has a massive effect on popularity, regardless of the objective value of the game; X-wing was being touted as successful because how well the game was handled/designed, when the relatively sad state of Attack wing is proof otherwise.

I don't think X-Wing would be so popular if it wasn't such a good game. The IP only brings it along so far.

Yes, but the IP still has *an* effect. Whether it's the sole factor between X-Wing and Attack wing selling differently isn't a guarantee either - as someone pointed out above, Attack Wing may have suffered because people had already bought X-Wing.
Either way, I think X-Wing is a fantastic engine - and that has to be a part of why it's done so well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
I was making the point that X-wing is in exactly the same boat.

I misunderstood then . Apologies.

Not a problem, thank you for saying so.

From experience I'd say the Star Wars got people to try the game, and the game being awesome got people to buy it and as many expansions as they could carry.

If it was generic spaceships we'd have ignored it, and if the game was crap we'd never have bought in (and I wouldn't have a Tantive IV in my display cabinet).

Conversely for AoS; the Warhammer name got everyone to check it out, and something about the rules made most of them run away screaming.

We'll see how well X-Wing does after Asmodee goes the the GW route of strangling internet retailers. You guys have to keep in mind, AoS has advantages (marketable IP) but also disadvantages (marketed by GW).

The IP helped but so did decent marketing of the game and making it widely available. I knew about X-Wing before it even came out, compare that to Aeronautica Imperialis (which IMO was a really good game) and I didn't even know AI existed until it had already been out for several years and even once I knew it existed I could only buy it direct from FW.

If AoS didn't have WHFB backing it up, we probably wouldn't even have an AoS board on this forum. I'm sure AoS is doing better than it would have if it didn't come off the back of WHFB, for all the people that hate AoS if it weren't for WHFB most people wouldn't even know and/or cared of AoS's existence.

Attack wing is failing because wizkidz is pushing out expansions at a much faster rate and not play testing.

Pretty much the same as gw.

In the beginning it was as solid as x-wing but because wizkidz suck hard they've ruined balance same as heroclix.

People migrate away from AW to x-wing because ffg works damn hard to keep it balanced and does not allow the meta to stagnate.

IP May draw people in but being a great game keeps them playing.

Herzlos wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
My point was that IP has a massive effect on popularity, regardless of the objective value of the game; X-wing was being touted as successful because how well the game was handled/designed, when the relatively sad state of Attack wing is proof otherwise.

I don't think X-Wing would be so popular if it wasn't such a good game. The IP only brings it along so far.

Star Wars had a minitures game before. The Star Wars brand alone wasn't enough to make that game a success.

Id say piggybacking off of WHFB hurt AoS far more than it helped.

 jonolikespie wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
My point was that IP has a massive effect on popularity, regardless of the objective value of the game; X-wing was being touted as successful because how well the game was handled/designed, when the relatively sad state of Attack wing is proof otherwise.

I don't think X-Wing would be so popular if it wasn't such a good game. The IP only brings it along so far.

Star Wars had a minitures game before. The Star Wars brand alone wasn't enough to make that game a success.

This does raise an interesting point though.
For me and my immediate group of regular opponents, we were pretty much sold on AoS from day one. It would be a lie to say the IP had nothing to do with our interest at that point.
However, in the wider local group, I've seen a number of responses;
In a couple of cases, individuals decided that AoS was the 'out' they'd been looking for, and have retired from wargaming completely.
Others continued with 8th - so the rules/IP of AoS weren't for them initially.
However, most of these have now abandoned 8th in favour of AoS with comp. To me that suggests the IP kept them in the holding pattern until they found a ruleset they were happy with.
(NONE of this group migrated to non-GW systems, although 2-3 have moved on to 9th age)
The interesting case was one of a guy who effectively 'rage quit' when AoS was released - he had a beautiful Dark Elf army, and sold it.
Skip forward a few months, he's back with an O&G army - all new purchases - and is playing AoS every week, and pretty much vanilla from what I can tell.
What I can't tell is what pulled him back - the IP AND rules weren't enough to hold him originally, but given how he plays now it seems to me that the rules are what brought him back.

This is all local observation though, but the mention of X-Wing's "come for the IP, stay for the rules" situation made me think of it in those terms.

GW (and AoS) will still carry a lot of momentum/critical mass, so in some places I can see it being widely played because it's widely played. Obviously that changes from scene to scene - in the biggest gaming club here, you're pretty much guaranteed a game on any night if you bring 40K/Malifaux along.

Table wrote:
Id say piggybacking off of WHFB hurt AoS far more than it helped.

I think it was AoS pulling an Oedipus on WHFB that hurt here more than anything. It basically pulled out the rug from underneath the ones who were playing Fantasy regularly. WHFB already took a hit from 8th Edition in the area, but it was coming back up, so this didn't help at all. If GW hadn't just completely abandoned even the concept of continuing the ranked battles system, it wouldn't have hurt things so much here.

Add the free form army building left many feeling open for abuse, and the lack of feeling of depth in the rules turned a lot of people here off. If they wanted simple rules, they wouldn't have been playing Fantasy in the first place.

I haven't bought in yet because, 1) I never did finalize on a Fantasy race to start, 2) very few people are playing Fantasy in any form at my LGS, 3) model stock in Fantasy is dwindling putting faith in future purchases in doubt.

It also doesn't help that most of the armies I am interested in do not seem to be addressed so far and will be left behind (Beastmen, Tomb Kings, Bretonnians).

What would have happened if GW had released the AoS specific rules/armies AND kept fantasy- those who love AoS would have played AoS, and those who hate it would have kept playing fantasy (and keep buying models, from GW's point of view) ?

 The_Grey_Knight wrote:
What would have happened if GW had released the AoS specific rules/armies AND kept fantasy- those who love AoS would have played AoS, and those who hate it would have kept playing fantasy (and keep buying models, from GW's point of view) ?

GW would effectively have been in competition with itself by doing that.
There's no sense in developing and releasing for two separate fantasy systems; if they had done this, people would still expect WFB 9th to turn up, they'd still expect new army books, new minis... meanwhile, any developments in AoS that introduce new factions/minis would require severe mangling to fit in with WFB, or they'd have to stay separate.

GW do have two separate and competing fantasy systems, because of LoTR, and this has been the situation for the past 15 years.

Do you think sales of AoS fall if 40K was Age of Emporered? The two games already are fairly similar on their core mechanics.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
WHFB succeeded without piggybacking on an established IP, so perhaps AoS could.

I don't think this is strictly true - with its 'generic fantasy' label, it has plethora of similarities to other established IPs like Lord of the rings and so on, that it would have been quite easy to 'piggyback' on the appreciations of these very similar and very established IPs.

That's true in fluff terms but there wasn't a large established community of players with access to lots of armies and figures.

How would AoS and WHFB compete with each other? Isn't that kind of thinking what led GW to axing Mordheim and necromunda, because they thought they were hurting 40k and WHFB sales?
We all know how that turned up in the long run...

Yeah I don't really see AoS competing with WHFB. AoS competes more with 40k than it would have with WHFB.

I tend to think AoS following WHFB has led to whatever popularity it has now, if it didn't follow WHFB and use WHFB models I think many people would not have given it a 2nd look.

But then because they axed WHFB to make AoS, at the same time there's a lot of people who might have given AoS a try (given they already own the models) but they didn't because they now despise GW for axing WHFB in the first place.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Yeah I don't really see AoS competing with WHFB. AoS competes more with 40k than it would have with WHFB.

I tend to think AoS following WHFB has led to whatever popularity it has now, if it didn't follow WHFB and use WHFB models I think many people would not have given it a 2nd look.

But then because they axed WHFB to make AoS, at the same time there's a lot of people who might have given AoS a try (given they already own the models) but they didn't because they now despise GW for axing WHFB in the first place.

Don't agree that they wouldn't have competed if they'd kept both around. GW obviously felt that not enough people were buying fantasy but if they'd kept it around many of the game clubs would have just continued on with it (now you can say that many are now or have moved on to different things but many also are playing AoS). GW must have been aware of this and decided that they felt that more would take it up than would leave. They clearly felt that it would hurt AoS to have the two run alongside one another.

We'll see whether it was a wise move or not but I suspect that WHFB was on its way out, AoS or no.

But AoS uses the same models as WHFB and free rules. They would compliment each other, they wouldn't compete. If someone buys a box of Orcs for AoS or a box of Orcs for WHFB it doesn't really matter, having 2 systems the models can be used in simply increases the reason to buy them. AoS and 40k compete more because they are similar rules but different models. It's more likely someone will pick up AoS or 40k instead of the other rather than in addition to the other.

I imagine WHFB was dropped because...

1. GW naively thought they could play the pied piper and have everyone follow along with AoS instead of just dropping GW's fantasy completely.

2. They want to shrink the WHFB range and shift to a business model of even less models in a box for even higher prices and even GW realised that customers don't want to assemble a regiment of 40 models when they cost around $10 each.

3. They figured WHFB sales were so small that no one cared about WHFB any more so killing it wouldn't have any affect either positive or negative.

4. (maybe) they want to completely change the WHFB range and so killing the game was the best way to do it. I tend to think that's not the case otherwise they wouldn't have ported Lizardmen straight across.

 Sqorgar wrote:

Though I didn't play it, weren't the original WHFB rules a lot closer in spirit to AoS than what WHFB eventually became? They were initially based on Dungeons and Dragons, and I don't think the game had army lists until the third edition or so. I thought the whole point of AoS was to take miniature gaming back from the current competitive mindset towards the more narrative and cooperative mindset of the 80s and 90s.

AoS reminds me of the original WHFB rules from the 80's. My recollection of the 90's were that the rules from the 90's were more competitive (to the point where all special characters were usually banned from play).