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 catbarf wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
I miss how WHFB was low fantasy compared to AoS, and grounded in the real world.

This line always amuses me when someone talks about dead fantasy.

I'm afraid I have no idea what you're trying to say.

WHFB isn't low fantasy.

He said "compared to AoS" which it very much is, so not sure that's what Gideon meant.

Yeah, WHFB isn't really low fantasy, but its not really High Fantasy either.
I guess medium fantasy? It was closer to high fantasy by 8th ed though, especially if you play High Elves.
Even Empire approached high fantasy near the end, with the introduction of that magic laser chariot and demigryph knights.

Still not to the extent of AoS though, as there was still a heavy emphasis on ordinary, rank and file soldiers, and it was made clear that the more fantastical units were quite rare.
Well, in the lore, anyway. Handguns and cannons weren't even that common, being a relatively recent invention, and Nuln was the only city where they were being produced en masse, iirc.

auticus wrote:I don't think there is anything to lead us to believe that GW will ever do a warmaster type game unless its a one shot box game. Warmaster and what it entails would go over the head of a vast majority of the AOS playerbase and is probably the polar opposite of anything that they'd be interested in.

Warmaster tried to ape Epic's success. Epic was as successful as it was in part because it actually brought a level of the lore to the table that you didn't really see. Now we have Titans and Superheavies and all that, but before, Epic was the only way to be able to play with those pieces.

Now look at Warmaster. All the same units, nothing new really brought in, and the army sizes were puzzlingly equivocal. So you basically played what you were already playing at a way smaller scale with a different ruleset. It just didn't pull you in like Epic did.

 Darian Aarush wrote:

What do you miss? And how have you adjusted to AoS?

ALL of it. Especially the rules.

The only thing AoS has brought to the table are some really cool looking models. But we could've had those anyways.

Nothing, everything I loved about 8th edition has translated well into Ninth Age, a far better game than 8th ever was while keeping the spirit and play style.

If I missed anything it was the feeling that places and every day people mattered. Drycha was just an angry tree lady, not particularly gifted or powerful, but playing Drycha changed drastically how Wood elves played. The Huntsmaster, Alith Anar, The Twilight Sisters, small stories. I liked these a whole lot better than what comes out now where every character is some tactical genius gifted by the gods.

We must remember very different fluff then, I recall special characters being super special awesome back then.

I miss witch hunters and warrior priests :(

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
We must remember very different fluff then, I recall special characters being super special awesome back then.

It depends on what army you were playing, I think.
Lizardmen special characters tended to be fairly unremarkable, but I think Bretonnia and Elves got some crazy characters?
I don't have every book, mind you, so I don't know the details.

Totally without rancor, the thing I miss the most is there being a place on Dakka for people to post about WHFB if that's what they want to do. It makes me sad to see people stumble onto AoS discussion boards with no other recourse, only to be continually frustrated and upset by GW's decisions.

There is a warhammer section of Dakka below this one.

 auticus wrote:
There is a warhammer section of Dakka below this one.

I didn't even notice! Had to look twice. Wow, now I'm just baffled by that behavior.

I miss all the books being written by people who had roughly the same understanding of how the game was supposed to work. Every Sigmar army book I read feels like it was written with no understanding of what any other army book is capable of.

Nothing honestly

Nothing really. I played 40k back in the day when Fantasy was a thing, and Fantasy just didn't appeal to me. I liked the fluff and setting, but the game just seemed boring to me. I love AoS, both the lore and the game. Many in this thread says that it isn't grounded, or too hard to imagine.. It really isn't, just takes that you actually read the lore through and through. Old fantasy lore was really handed to you, and easy to understand. AoS to me, is more complex. I do wish however, that they didn't discontinue armies like TK and Brettonia, just a shame.

I miss armies feeling like armies rather than random collections of miniatures most of all I think. I miss the feeling that gave the game.

And I miss Bretonia, they were a cool faction!

I see a lot of people saying I have to read the background material entirely before passing judgement. The problem is I tried to read some of the material and found it to be god awful, so I stopped.

 Ratius wrote:
The Lore / background.
The origin story of the Skaven is still one of the great pieces ever written by GW.

True, but you did remind me of the "Skaven are an urban myth!*" thing that got bought in later, which was far dafter than anything AoS has ever introduced.


* Never mind those hundreds of rat-man corpses lying around after that last battle, or the accounts from hundreds of our soldiers about fighting rat-men, or the fact that our scholars unquestioningly accept the presence of goat-men, bull-men and intelligent lizard people who live on the other side of the world.....

 Elemental wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
The Lore / background.
The origin story of the Skaven is still one of the great pieces ever written by GW.

True, but you did remind me of the "Skaven are an urban myth!*" thing that got bought in later, which was far dafter than anything AoS has ever introduced.


* Never mind those hundreds of rat-man corpses lying around after that last battle, or the accounts from hundreds of our soldiers about fighting rat-men, or the fact that our scholars unquestioningly accept the presence of goat-men, bull-men and intelligent lizard people who live on the other side of the world.....

Wasn't that because its a political thing? I mean, can you imagine the wide spread panic that would engulf the Empire if word got out that there could be colonies of rat-people living underneath you? The Scholars probably know that there are Skaven, they just aren't allowed to reveal that information to the public.
As odd as it may sound, it wouldn't be that hard to cover up Skaven battles. Just say they are a type of beastman. Your average Imperial soldier isn't going to know the difference, and if he gets too inquisitive...well, that's what Witch Hunters are for.
Are Lizardmen even that common knowledge? And if they are, would it really matter? I mean, Lizardmen live on another continent, and beast men are only really a problem if you live out in the woods, iirc.
That's probably the angle GW was going for. For what its worth, Bretonnians did not deny the existence of Skaven and actively crusade against them.

I believe that the idea behind that was that the official line from the Empire was that Skaven were nothing more than rat-type beastmen, with no organised society or technology beyond what a brayherd would have. The suppression was of the fact that Skaven were as intelligent and organised (in their way) as human society, with a high level of technology.

 Da Boss wrote:
I believe that the idea behind that was that the official line from the Empire was that Skaven were nothing more than rat-type beastmen, with no organised society or technology beyond what a brayherd would have. The suppression was of the fact that Skaven were as intelligent and organised (in their way) as human society, with a high level of technology.

Yeah, that sounds about right. As I said, if the Empire's common folk knew that there was a intelligent species of rat-people living underneath them, there would be chaos.

Every year the grey seers would cast a vast ritual that helped to shroud their presence and feed into the mentality that 'Skaven don't exist' while they had assassins take care of problem elements.

Also vast swathes of people in the real world disbelieve things that literally happen right in front of them. How many climate change deniers are there? And that's without a cabal of sorcerers casting a spell to help conceal their presence.

Off the top of my head:

- The structure of armies.

- Square bases & movement trays.

- No possibility of a player taking 2 turns in a row.

- Factions that felt like proper factions, not just a bunch of models linked by the most tenuous of connections.

- Models were allowed to be powerful without also needing to be the size of a small building.

- Meaningful options for character customisation.

- Spell lores that weren't completely interchangeable.

Despite not playing Warhammer Fantasy (I know my hobby discipline and I would NEVER be able to paint 40 guys to sit in a brick), I was a huge fan of the setting, having read numerous novels, played the old RPG, and enjoying WHQ and Mordheim, etc.

For me, it was simply the setting/lore/low fantasy. Once that went away, any interest I had disappeared. Whether AoS is a good game or not is a moot point to me; it's unattractive and the models are no longer interesting to me.

Now luckily I can still play the original WHQ and I still play Mordheim on occasion...but going forward? There's nothing that will be bring me into the GW fantasy fold. I even like the new Warcry miniatures but the gameplay almost put me to sleep watching a few game reports. I have picked up a couple of the Shadespire boxes for using the miniatures in my dungeon crawl, so that's maybe the extent of it (skeletons and barbarians).

Actually, the largest part of what I loved about WHFB was the stories that were much more intimate than those in AoS. The Gotrek and Felix novels, or the Luthos Huss novel, or the pretty sweet series about the Bounty Hunter, or Vampire Genevieve. Those were stories that the Old World fostered, that don't really exist in the new Planescape/Ragnorok/Clash of the Titans mashup that the Mortal Realms are.

And along with those stories, player's armies had the capability of being more characterful than just hordes being smashed into each other (not saying that personalization can't be had in AoS, it's just harder)

Having hero and lord versions of a given hero option. Like there was a runesmith and a runelord, or a chaos sorcerer and a sorcerer lord.

Honestly I think the thing I miss most about WHFB over AoS has nothing to do with the games themselves but the community.

WH40k and WHFB used to sit side by side on shelves at my FLGS. There were just as many tournaments for FB as there were for 40k in the local area. Pick up games were just as easy to find for 40k as they were for FB. And TTG/Wargaming communities have only grown, not diminished in the last 10 years or so here.

I didn't care much for the lore or the models of FB and have found myself actually in love with AoS but there is not a lot of support for the game in my area. GW Fantasy doesn't stock the shelves anymore. Tournaments are near impossible to find. Pick up games are rare. Warcry is new and exciting and Blood Bowl is still around but it seems like most people (justifiably) jumped ship after AoS 1.0 and I honestly think 2.0 has shaped up into quite an interesting and unique beast.

The splintering of the Fantasy community to the eight winds is rather disheartening imo. I understand the place of heartache and frustration with such a big change and destruction of so much history.

The problem is, I enjoy the new setting, the new models, the new-er rules and I don't see a way those can be reconciled with old FB. The only solution I could think of would be for GW to continue to support both games, continuing from the launch of AoS. And even then, it would still be a divided community. Just with more casual vs hardcore rather than new vs old.

Just rambling here I guess.

You know, I don't think that it would be as divided as you think. I think simply having a dedicated Legends/Legacy edition might foster some good will between GW and the grognards that left when AOS came out. It might be enough to get some to consider AOS, but I think that would also take completely eliminating legacy armies from AOS.

You absolutely cannot reconcile whfb with aos. They are two very different things catering to two very different personalities and interests.

If youre an aos fan the last thing you want is gw trying for both.

 Just Tony wrote:
I think simply having a dedicated Legends/Legacy edition might foster some good will between GW and the grognards that left when AOS came out. It might be enough to get some to consider AOS, but I think that would also take completely eliminating legacy armies from AOS.

The company said a while ago that next year, there will be a full Legacy treatment for all non-supported stuff (similar to that Dark Elves PDF published sometime back). This will include points! Quite interesting. I hope they keep their word and don't just forget about it.
I do notice quite some animosity on behalf of certain AoS fans whenever the words Old World or Warhammer Fantasy are uttered (hello TGA), but I really don't get this need to create irreconcilable camps. You can like and play aos, whfb or both without it being a contradiction or incompatible with the other.
Plus, GW has gotten so big that it never supported more models/rules/hobby supplies/games/licensing.... so even if it did decide in a future to bring back the old stuff in someway or the other, it wouldn't be in detriment of anything (guessing but I suppose GW knows how to run and market their different brands).

auticus wrote:You absolutely cannot reconcile whfb with aos. They are two very different things catering to two very different personalities and interests.

If youre an aos fan the last thing you want is gw trying for both.

I agree, for the most part. However, it's no different than players who were playing WFB and 40K at the same time. Given the rounds and all the mass shooting casualty shenanigans, I'd say it's an even MORE apropos comparison. Some people double dipped. Not all, but some. In my mind a Legacy WFB system would facilitate that and possibly bring back some people who ragequit GW completely. I'm also pathetically optimistic at most times, so what do I know?

As long as it's basically a "fixed" version of 6th and not 8th, for me personally.

VBS wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
I think simply having a dedicated Legends/Legacy edition might foster some good will between GW and the grognards that left when AOS came out. It might be enough to get some to consider AOS, but I think that would also take completely eliminating legacy armies from AOS.

The company said a while ago that next year, there will be a full Legacy treatment for all non-supported stuff (similar to that Dark Elves PDF published sometime back). This will include points! Quite interesting. I hope they keep their word and don't just forget about it.
I do notice quite some animosity on behalf of certain AoS fans whenever the words Old World or Warhammer Fantasy are uttered (hello TGA), but I really don't get this need to create irreconcilable camps. You can like and play aos, whfb or both without it being a contradiction or incompatible with the other.
Plus, GW has gotten so big that it never supported more models/rules/hobby supplies/games/licensing.... so even if it did decide in a future to bring back the old stuff in someway or the other, it wouldn't be in detriment of anything (guessing but I suppose GW knows how to run and market their different brands).

Now are these Legacy lists just AOS points lists or is it a regimental combat game? There's a drastic difference, as quite a few people who quit did so because of the drastically different game mechanic.