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 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, but what did Beasts get after AoS launched? Same with Legions of Nagash? Were any of those things generic Greek Mythology? Or generic gothic undead?

If it's just carryover stuff from 8E, then the generic elements are almost certainly on the cutting block to be phased out in favor of things that are more GW AoS-specic

Beasts got an Endless Spells kit, a terrain feature and a book.

You're not seriously suggesting that Beasts are on the cutting block are you?

Aye if GW's plan is to retire all the old models and armies that go with them then they are really taking a very odd path. I think when AoS launched that was their plan, to be able to retire and release new "armies" fast. However as it stands now they've done more in the last year to support old armies than ever before.

Sure they will update sculpts and I'm sure that rank and file designs like skaven troops will get more dynamic poses when GW comes to update them, but they might not update those sculpts for years and years yet. Plus that's just natural updating of sculpts that we've had for decades already.

I'm asking whether GW invested into Beasts for AoS.

I know that books are meaningless in terms of whether something stays.

If GW tooled plastic, then that suggests some portion may stay. B

But if they're "generic", then, probably so. To me, the big question is whether GW makes new models.

The general concensus of most on this thread is the same as the conclusion I came to in 2016. If you want Old World armies buy them sooner rather than later.

Due to financial pressures at the time I had to cherry pick of available factions back then. I saw Tomb Kings and Bretonnians vanish quickly and noticed the pattern early. Items will disappear without warning, GW corporate has zero respect for customer loyality, so if you have invested a lot of money in half an army and find you cnanot get the second half, suddenly even, then sucks to be you.

At Salute that year i had a chat with two of the major internet retailers in the UK about stockage of Warhammer items, they said they ordered in as required until suddenly without warning to them items become no longer available. They can issue no warning as they could get none. I had to make decisions that year which armies to get, I had several planned. At the time I could have had Ogre Kingdoms, but the retailers told me they had no idea how long that would remain for, and their lines did indeed disappear.
I had to write off Ogre Kingdoms, but kept a weather eye on ebay as 2015 -2017 were the years of the army sell off bonanza. I bought my Ogres, Empire and Dwarfs that way, grey plastic as I prefer and at a good price.

At the start of 2019 I now have eleven armies, and started with my rush buy in 2016 with only two, High Elves and Bretonnians, both bought in the days of Warhammer. . I plan to stop here. Now AoS has helped greatly with some ranges. Daemons of Chaos was a snap to collect for, as were my Chaos mortals army. Seraphon are a complete reissue of the Lizardman army with nothing missing and nothing added, for some reason it was the range they changed the least, and it was as a result the single largest miniature range in the game for a long time, until the Sigmarine variant spam caught up. After a long lull I could now have a beastman army if I wanted it. Considered it and then backed away. But many ranges are fading away now, or are already gone. You can still get High and Dark elves, but I wouldn't count on getting them for long, both are clearly for the axe. Empire is getting harder to source also, but is still clinging on.

The current casualty on the block are the O&G. If it isn't one of the wierder greenskins it's going. GW website now lists the generic orc boxsets as all no longer available, Start Collecting Greenskinz link is a deadlink listed as purged. It was there last week.

So you have generic fantasy with no generic orcs, only Ironjawz, Bonesplitterz and Gloomspite Gitz. Now is a good time to tell us that you don't think that GW are axing the WHFB product lines.

It isn't just the old lines that are in danger, even items released for AoS are unstable. The repackaged Warscryer Citadel went offline two weeks ago, Dragonfate Dais disappeared a year back without warning. If you need any particular miniature for your army, and it goes, tough. Either do without, find a third party manufacturer, hope to get lucky on ebay or pay through your nose for it.

GW's policy is backfiring, it is offering an immense amount of fuel for third party manufacturers to take up the slack creating more rival competition rather than less.
Lines that are entirely squatted like Chaos Dwarfs are now facing better availability than ever via multiple third party manufacturers, some working in plastic. Tomb Kings are on the return, via manufacturers making not-Tomb kings based on manipulated digisculpts from Total War Warhammer.

In time one will be able to recreate all the races but GW will have little to nothing to do with it. The thing is they won't be able to do much either. The idea of generic orcs or forest living druidic elves is not exclusive IP of Games Workshop, and the most popular Warhammer races are the generic ones and by then third party manufacturers will have their own established customer bases.

 Orlanth wrote:
The general concensus of most on this thread is the same as the conclusion I came to in 2016. If you want Old World armies buy them sooner rather than later.

The idea of generic orcs or forest living druidic elves is not exclusive IP of Games Workshop, and the most popular Warhammer races are the generic ones and by then third party manufacturers will have their own established customer bases.

Exactly. Unprotected concepts that are hard to tool, even in plastic, are not GW's future.

Although, if I were to get any more Old World WFB stuff, it's going to be metal, so I'd be looking on eBay regardless.

If you specifically want Oldhammer then you know the costs involved. Nothing has changed, especially if you want vintage armies.

Bought my Lord of Change today, it was the capstone purchase on my eleventh army, though I am not stopping entirely, want to replace some units, maybe buy alternate characters etc. Anyway back to me Lord of change, I checked on ebay and various sites to get the best price and eventually settled on a website also selling the last Start Collecting Greenskinz that I could find, which to me was an insurance purchase, I am not sure by memory if I have enough orcs. It cost me £54 for the Lord of Change, for a nice large plastic model, high detail modern sculpt, and a fraction of the price an Oldhammer Lord of Change sells at.
Looking at the price of greater daemons on ebay taught me a lot about the costing of metal only vintage warhammer armies.

The old Lord of Change shown here:

if mint has a price variance of £25 to £200. With the former being rare listings from gamers who haven't got the memo.

I have speared some Oldhammer. certain items that were only available in old school sculpts, had a classic look or were replaced by substandard (from my opinion) models. Over the last two years I specifically sought out several models including Deiter Helsnicht, old school Skink archers with command, the Empire Pegasus (the real one, not a Bret pegasus knight conversion), and 5th edition Dark Elf dark pegasus. I had to be patient to get them all at decent prices and saw each at crazy money and passed them by several times before I had my chance.

It can be hard to collect Oldhammer, it requires either a full wallet or a lot of patience. So you have my sympathies.

You keep going on about how more unique models are more protected and I just don't see how. The only protection is the name. Otherwise the sculpt itself is copyright, but nothing stops anyone making an alternate sculpt of a heavily armoured human. Heck Stormcast are not evne that unique considering that Warmachine has been doing the hulking armour look for years.

I could see most of the Aelves being discontinued to make way for new Dark Aelves under Malerion and new Light Aelves under Tyrion/Teclis. With those factions being heavily implied in the recent fluff, especially Tyrion and Teclis, I could see older Aelf things being discontinued to make way for the total of 4 new AoS Aelf factions.

I also think Free Peoples are only still around because they're the only models that represent the common man currently, and when humans get a new faction at some stage, the free people's will possibly eventually disappear.

Except that Free Peoples feature a fair bit in the current lore. In fact they are the only people in the current lore which have full humans.

 Overread wrote:
You keep going on about how more unique models are more protected and I just don't see how.

It seems you are choosing not to understand that GW simply wants to ensure that the player cannot easily substitute non-GW miniatures for GW gaming. Nobody else is making Fyreslayers. Nobody else is making Fish Elves. That's the point.

And if a 3rd party did, they would be limited to supporting GW, rather than being able to easily cross-sell for other game systems, so it's not economical for Fantasy.

In the mean time, GW is gently boiling the frog, adding new things and taking away Old World things, until the transition is complete and the frog is competely cooked.

I disagree with the notion that GW is trying to avoid 3rd parties that way. There are SO many making alternate model lines for 40K already - Raging Heroes (to name but one) has alternate lines for Slaanesh, Daughers of Khaine, Sisters of Battle, Imperial guard and likely several others.

Sure no one is making them "NOW" for things GW either hasn't released or hasn't updated; but you can bet as AoS gains popularity the 3rd parties will start new alternate sculpts. Heck I'd wager there's alternate options for Stormcast already out there.

Simply put GW is the big game in the market; those companies that want to sell as alternate options will easily copy GW model designs and asthetics. Heck there was a pretty big KS only recently for a huge alternate Lizardmen style army.


So no I don't see how GW is protecting themselves; the only way they can with your idea is if GW released everything short term and updated sculpts to totally new designs or retired armies every few years. Sure that would shut down 3rd party sales in keeping up and it would also likely shatter GW's own market at the same itme (heck that was basically the launch of AoS and that did not do anywhere near as well as was hoped by GW nor by what it should have been given their market position)



I think you fail to realise - GW can cook the frog; and 3rd parties can also cook the same frog. nothing stops them.

You say that 3rd parties are going to make the gamble - what 3rd party post-AoS stuff is out there?

And given Raging Heroes, how much new GW support existsnfir Slaanesh and Sisters?

Nothing GW have for Aos protects them, almost al of there new lines could be replicated with minis available now.

Dwarf with an axe is not particularly hard to find. And even in numbers. Elves, easy enough. It’s the big minis that are harder to replicate, and probably have a good return anyway so are just good for GW to put out anyway.

What really protects you is simply having good models, if your vampire is too unique(tm) then people wanting a normal vampire has to go other places to get one.

It also goes to other ways, if you do not like the one GW model, then no point getting anything then. Rare I think, but I see it enough.
When it comes down to it, they should be focusing on getting stuff out that is good. And looking at why some things don’t sell as much.

And looking at things in the mini verse that are neche that opens up a market for something new.
There is plenty within culture that is begging for a great line of minis with some creativity.
Good wood elves are really hard to find, if they drop it completely I would not be buying fish elves. Just other company’s lines.

Spined elves I would probably jump on fast.

Just don’t see any specific AoS support as there is little in it that’s truly unique. Nothing really like a space marine, and dawn cast are oversupported by GW already.
But it would only take a company to make Big Knights and that’s covered.

Just thinking about it, the upcoming MMORPG Pantheon have a race called "Dark Myr", and they really do have a sea elf feel to them.

Then there are reports that WoW will be targeting the Naga (elves turned in to sea snakes) in their next Raid area opening.

Just saying that the "sea elf" concept isn't really that new (ironically considering that the original Warcraft: Orcs vs Humans was meant to be targeting the Warhammer Fantasy audience).

Yep, there is nothing really unique in what GW does. What they can copyright are names, and perhaps certain iconography. Also, sea elves are pure Aquaman comicbook stuff with them riding sharks and eels. Daughters of Khaine is also quite generic with medusae and naked elves. Fireslayers aren't even unique. Just barbarian dwarves. As someone mentioned the Stormcast also have similarities to certain Warmahorde soldiers. Skaven, nighthaunt, Crypt Eaters, these are all rather generic. Steampunk dwarves? More generic than you might think.

So what GW can do to retain sales is make beautiful models to play with and at that they are really good. I really enjoy working with, painting, and using Warhammer models and more or less no other miniature line has the same feel and quality I seek in Warhammer products. I do believe there will be a culling, but the biggest culling is with kits that wouldn't fit the quality of the current lines. Take for example the big handed old High Elf spearmen. Making a line around them using those molds would have just resulted in a very ugly line with the elves looking like caricatures of their fantasy inspiration. Witch Aelves, however, were a recent kit that was not only a beautiful kit that showed what GW could do, but also offered two kits in one.


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What GW have managed to do is create a world that stands on its own and differentiates itself more from other Tolkienesque lines. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the big plan in many ways.

I can't remember the name of the game but there's been a sea wargame kicking around kickstarter and then retail for a good number of years before Idoneth Deepkin came onto the scene. So even they are in no way protected nor unique.


I agree GW has taken steps away from the Tolkien world, In fact I think what they've basically done is looked at MMOs and modern RPG games and realised that whilst Tolkien is the backbone, the world has changed. GW has pushed AoS forward as their answer to this and likely to have a greater chance of attracting new wargamers to the market; realising many will be inspired from their computer games.


I don't think its out with the old so much as it is changing the old. Plus lets not forget without the rank and file limitation GW is far more free with design choices on the core infantry of most factions. Whilst I think they do have to pull back on giving us so many open cast whips and other super thin parts in plastic - I do think that they are giving us sculpts that they would have loved to have made years ago but couldn't.




As for Raging Heroes I'm very sure they'll continue - I'd wager they'll have their own Sigmarines before long (if they dont' already)

I would also point out that they just gave a Battleforce to one of their most generic lines: Slaves to Darkness and have been supporting that line with new sculpts(Dark Oath Warqueen) and Skirmish Kits(Godsworn Hunt).


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They also have two avenues into fantasy now. Middle Earth is their standard Tolkien fantasy(in this case literally) while AoS provides a venue for their more high fantasy concepts.

I never saw WFB as being particularly Tolkienesque. When I was a kid I was really into Tolkien and so the non-tolkien aspects of the setting like fireams and gunpowder really stood out to me. There is nothing like Chaos in Tolkien, and the outlook in the settings are very different.

I can see the point with Elves, Dwarves and Humans etc, but I don't think they are as much of a tolkien rip off as people make out. They rip off Moorcock and Anderson at least as much! If you think about it, GW originally made miniatures for Dungeons and Dragons, so that is what they are really ripping off.

Who do you think inspired Moorcock, Anderson, and Gygax?

 Da Boss wrote:
I never saw WFB as being particularly Tolkienesque. When I was a kid I was really into Tolkien and so the non-tolkien aspects of the setting like fireams and gunpowder really stood out to me. There is nothing like Chaos in Tolkien, and the outlook in the settings are very different.

I can see the point with Elves, Dwarves and Humans etc, but I don't think they are as much of a tolkien rip off as people make out. They rip off Moorcock and Anderson at least as much! If you think about it, GW originally made miniatures for Dungeons and Dragons, so that is what they are really ripping off.

Gunpowder..*cough* Helms Deep

Also it was lost in the film, but when the Orks laid siege against the White City they didn't just charge across the open ground. They dug in hard with trenches; it was basically a WW1 battlefield creation that they made right before the walls.

 EnTyme wrote:
Who do you think inspired Moorcock, Anderson, and Gygax?

Tolkien, partially, of course. He is a giant in the genre. But Moorcock is just as much a reaction to Tolkien, and Poul Anderson is more influenced by fairy tales in the way that Tolkien also was.

Also, on the gunpowder thing, of course I know about Helm's Deep, but nobody is using handguns in Middle Earth. It is a much more Dark Ages level of technology, even the best armed troops are wearing ringmail at best. The Old World was much more of a historical pastiche with the Holy Roman Empire as the baseline, and I think that is not really a "Tolkien rip off" any more than AoS is. AoS still has elves and dwarves and evil bad guys and blah blah blah, so you could argue just as easily that it is generic tolkien fantasy (I would not, btw, and I do not see why GW would feel the need to eliminate factions based on that).

Depends on the period of time you're reading. If you're talking about War of the Ring era, then pretty much yes. If we're going back in time a bit to Númenor at it's height, then we're at a technology level with them that made the orcs flee in terror when they invaded Mordor and dragged Sauron back with them. It has to be something bad if the orcs fear that more than Sauron.

I get a feeling the biggest purge is done by now and at the moment it's just wait and see what gets updated and how.

AoS shifted away from the more "mundane" into massive high fantasy, wich allowed Gw to flex it's design mussles. You can argue wether or not you believe the minis look good but they are highly designed and technically an achievement (stuf like the water cape from Idoneth etc..)

3d party "knock-offs" are always going to be a thing tough. They just can't be too blatant and since the chapterhouse case named characters GW doesn't have a model for.

 Da Boss wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
Who do you think inspired Moorcock, Anderson, and Gygax?

Tolkien, partially, of course. He is a giant in the genre. But Moorcock is just as much a reaction to Tolkien, and Poul Anderson is more influenced by fairy tales in the way that Tolkien also was.

Also, on the gunpowder thing, of course I know about Helm's Deep, but nobody is using handguns in Middle Earth. It is a much more Dark Ages level of technology, even the best armed troops are wearing ringmail at best. The Old World was much more of a historical pastiche with the Holy Roman Empire as the baseline, and I think that is not really a "Tolkien rip off" any more than AoS is. AoS still has elves and dwarves and evil bad guys and blah blah blah, so you could argue just as easily that it is generic tolkien fantasy (I would not, btw, and I do not see why GW would feel the need to eliminate factions based on that).

I'm just messing with you, DB. I have to giggle every time someone says "This isn't based on Tolkien, it was based on this other story whose author was inspired by Tolkien!". What people mean when they say the World that Was is Tolkien-esque is that the races use the same basic archetypes that Tolkien used in LotR. The Elves are haughty and isolationist, viewing all other races as beneath them. I mean, Athel Loren is just Mirkwood cranked up to eleven. The Dwarves are industrious and stubborn, hiding in their holds amassing a wealth that is unmatched in the rest of the world, but only opening their doors to the most trusted of outsiders. These are the same fantasy tropes we've been reading for over half a century now. Tolkien wasn't even the first to use these archetypes. They come from a combination of Scandinavian and Celtic folklore, but he popularized them, and just about every fantasy setting that's come around since Middle Earth seems to feature them at least to some degree.

Sure sure. I just find it irritating when people make out like Warhammer is nothing but a Tolkien rip off and some other fantasy property is so much better. Particularly with Age of Sigmar I don't think that holds much water.

 Da Boss wrote:
Sure sure. I just find it irritating when people make out like Warhammer is nothing but a Tolkien rip off

If you go back to the release of WFB 3E, it absolutely is nothing more than a Tolkien-based D&D rip-off, and it would be completely false to claim otherwise.

Ah yes, I remember well how I was talking specifically of WFB 3E.

 Da Boss wrote:
Ah yes, I remember well how I was talking specifically of WFB 3E.

Go double-check it for yourself.

I have to ask, what do you people want in your fantasy story?