flamingkillamajig wrote:
I myself hate
AoS. I think it's the worst thing
GW's ever done to fantasy players. The killing of model lines is indicative that it's not popular or not as much as they want it to be. Personally I'm just waiting for
GW to kill off
AoS as well and alienate yet another portion of their fan-base. I totally wouldn't be surprised if it happened at this point.
Is it? I think while you are partially correct, you’re not seeing the full picture. The killing of model lines doesn’t necessarily indicate that they’re suddenly ‘not popular’. If anything it indicates is not popular, but also that it hasn’t been popular for a long time, potentially that the line had been ‘mined out’ and was to all intents and purposes ‘exhausted’ as a resource a long time ago, and frankly, something had to be pushed aside for the new stuff as well as to cut down on waste and bloat (all that plastic takes up space, and plastic that ain’t moving is dead money). It happens for a reason – in this case, those lines were not selling, and being fair, hadn’t been selling for a long, long time. If
AOS hadn’t happened, I’m personally still certain some of those lines would have gotten the axe anyway- it wouldn’t be
GWs first time clearing out their lines – remember how they destroyed all their metal castings and moulds a few years back? Being ruthless about it, I always felt one of the more legitimate criticisms of WFB was how bloated it had all become-there were too many factions to maintain and support effectively. Undead being split from ‘generic’ undead to vampires and tomb kings, for example, or ‘the forces of chaos’ being split into beastmen, warriors of chaos and daemons. The splits forced very ‘artificial’ factions, and in a lot of ways, I always felt they could have had a handful of more generic books that could have covered all of these approaches, rather than everything and its monkey being its own faction with a codex. It means less things to produce, less things to stock, less things to maintain, easier schedule to update and release for and less bloat overall. I’m not surprised that
GW is culling the weaker members of the herd here. They have other concerns, and stock that isn’t moving is dead stock and a wasted investment. Supporting it is essentially a dead end, and
GW probably felt the returns of maintaining those factions and that stock wasn’t worth the effort. These culls are never nice, granted (I still am bitter about my old metal kasrkin being squatted in favour of that horrendous militarum tempestus idiocy), but its sometimes a necessary cruelty.
flamingkillamajig wrote:
AoS has also done next to nothing to promote most of the factions of the game. They've made what like the sigmarines and chaos and then slightly fixed up dwarfs. Most of the armies haven't been touched and most of what I've seen shows people aren't buying most of the models. I have seen undead being bought (only one person buys them) and then sigmarines and chaos models. That's it really. I wouldn't be surprised if they killed off all the old warhammer fantasy armies.
But remember, from
GWs POV, people hadn’t been buying those models anyway… Right now, the focus is on the new shinies, and
AOS is entirely about the new boys and girls. Whilst more could have been done to let people know what their old factions were doing, there really is only so much you can do at the end of the day- there is a reason most of the armies haven’t been touched (yet!) – simple logistics and resources.
gw doesn’t have infinite resources, or staff, and there is only so much you can look at and focus on doing at any one time. Hence only two factions at release and a very measured approach towards releasing ‘new’ stuff –
gw wants to have control over their product at the end of the day and to not waste resources producing lots of things that will not move. and regardless, people would have complained.
Assuming
AOS lives, I think a lot of the current ranges will be eventually phased out as well, in favour of a newer line of models and newer interpretations and evolutions of those factions that fit the new IP’s vision, rather than leftovers from the old. Being honest, I see a lot of the initial launch of
AOS as being governed by a ‘hands off’ and ‘minimum investment’ approach. I can imagine months of arguments at
GW over whether to go all in, risk a huge investment and launch with a dozen factions (all of which have to be developed, moulded, designed, cast, mass-produced, written-for etc etc and that is a lot of work!), or be more conservative and launch with a handful, with new releases slowly being added, whilst all the older ranges are kept on in the meantime as placeholders –it’s a win for
GW as they can then get by with a ‘low-maintenance’ policy – which requires a bare-minimum of support, they don’t have to spend anything, or else very little maintaining what are essentially ‘limbo’ factions, and keep them ticking-over whilst simultaneously squeezing out any last few sales they can from what they probably regard as ‘exhausted mined-out model lines’ and get as much out of them as they can before the waves of measured new releases are added and replace them. Its
GW being really shrewd and more than a little bit ruthless and clinical, and keeping their eye firmly on the bottom line here. I think it’s a very cautious, and conservative approach for them to take, and I think it’s understandable and not entirely without merit from their POV.
" I'm sorry, but after 7200 's that has to be the most annoying sign-off ever." 
