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So, I've been trying to understand "why?" The first "why" is easy: WHFB was a sinking ship so rebooting it makes economic sense. But I've been curious about the other "why." Why would the largest model/wargaming company choose these rules and this starter set? How is this a good strategic decision? We know they've effectively bet the farm on this strategy given the hype, the new statue and the rest. Yesterday I had a conversation (anecdotal) with my FLGS owner which shed some light albeit strange light on product strategy.

In a larger conversation about AoS, the question of entry-level/new player attractiveness came up. What company had the best entry into the market in the last years? And why wouldn't GW emulate their success? The answers were both easy and strange. GW need not look very far to see that X-Wing's growth has been meteoric. There are simple reasons for this: quality pre-painted miniatures, two-players out of the box, cheap initial buy-in, simple rules with more advanced rules after the tutorial games, etc. The point being that the model for great IP plus quality components plus cheap buy-in plus wide appeal is right in front of us all. It's a successful model.

My LFGS owner then shared an email from their distributor about AoS. In it the distributor directly compared X-Wing to AoS. The distributor wrote that they expect AoS to be as successful for stores as X-Wing. (Mind you this is the system AoS not a boxed set vs. boxed set comparison.) The distributor wrote that store owners were not expected to push the new boxed set as much as the AoS system itself. Simple demos and free rules should push new players to pick up a box of models they think are awesome, then their friend picks up a box of models they think are great. They build the models, add dice and throw down. The total cost being $80 or less. GW believes that this simple free rules system with one box of models per player purchase is a comparable strategy to the X-Wing starter set in terms of value and attractiveness to new players.

The strategy is not the AoS boxed set. It's the free rules, easy in-store demoability (4+ 4+), and small initial model count/investment. Those of us reading the email and having the conversation were completely confounded. Just thought I'd share.

Wow. So a game that is not self contained like X-Wing, doesn't have the same price buy in as X-Wing, and that still requires all models to be built and painted by the player before hand is going to somehow be as successful as X-Wing? Yeah sure. Maybe if they had a starter box that included everything you needed including 2 forces that were at least prebuilt and was in the $40-$50 range they MIGHT be able to compete and compare to that. Warhammer is also missing the broad spectrum recognition of the Star Wars brand as well. X-Wing also has actually BALANCE built into it with a solid points system that works, and they continue to add more balanced content to the game over time. Final Fantasy also advertises in more places than just their own house magazine as well and announces new additions to the game well in advance of their release.

X-wing works because the rules are simple, but not simplistic, it includes everything it needs, is balanced can be played immediately after opening the box and it is Star Wars. AoS is none of those things. It is simplistic, not simple, still cluttered with a bunch of stupid fiddly little rules for units everywhere, they cannot just buy a box with everything, if they did buy the box set they can't play it immediately after opening the box and there is zero balance. Oh and it isn't Star Wars. There is a Star Trek version of the game that isn't quite as popular as X-Wing and a D&D themed version of the game with flying dragons that I've not seen much of anyone playing. Add in that AoS, even with its free rules, still costs twice as much as starting with X-Wing. Sure both can get as big as you want or don't want them to, but that out of the gate price is most important for luring in new players.

The distributors are smoking crack on this one. Smh.

Yeah, the two systems are similar, but, from what I know, X-wing is of far higher quality and is even easier and cheaper to buy into. That is... for the people who know it exist.

See, the people who know multiple different wargames exist aren't really the people who GW aim to sell to. For most people, GW games are the only wargames available, as they're what's on the high street. It's only when most wargamers get more experienced with the game, after spending a lot of time and money on GW games, that they discover other alternatives.

Still, Little Timmy and the other people wandering into GWs on the high street still weren't picking up WHFB. I think a lot of that is to do with the high model count (models which you have to build and paint), rules that require some intelligence to follow and a lack of impressive centre-piece models. GW tried to address the latter with End Times but it didn't work, and so here we are, with AoS which, in theory, deals with all three. The lack of points also means that Little Timmy simply has to buy more stuff in order to win games, rather than invest time in learning and getting better. I don't think GW's move with AoS had that much to do with modelling it from X-wing's success, but rather trying to pitch it to Little Timmy and friends - it's just a lot of those changes make it more similar to X-wing as well, which is not surprising, as X-wing is, from what I hear, a quality game all-round.

However, I'm not convinced this will work for AoS since I think that kids these days just generally find guns and tanks far cooler than magic and bows and arrows. I think 40k's popularity, especially amongst younger gamers, doesn't have anything to do with model count or what shape the bases are but rather the fact it's like CoD.

The only advantage of AoS over X-Wing is that GW has dedicated production lines for the AoS range; they can fully support all three of their current projects - although LotR is certainly not on their favorite list right now, and may get scraped if they deem it not worth the effort.

X-Wing has had problems with its product line, as FFG has schedule their less lucrative products for production. Virtually all but the starter set and a handful of expansions were in stock since early of this year. The same goes for some of their less popular games. The fact is FFG is trying to support some dozens of card games, as well as 4 miniature focused games -- Star Wars Armada in particular, will eat up most of the FFG's miniature production capacity, as it's the only other miniature centric game (the other two are more reliant on cards, and are also slowly being pushed off the circulation).

GW can out-produce AoS over Star War X-Wing. But it has neither the accessibility, nor the playability of X-Wing.

And both Warhammer and 40K also lack the popular appeal as Star Wars. If GW hoped to use Video Games to rise their franchises to fame they would be sorely mistaken... I mean, Star Wars games are aplenty right now, and at least most of them are decent, unlike a lot of Warhammer and 40K games...

IMO, GW is trying to become like TAMIYA or Bandai, switching their products to pure collectables. Certainly saves them whatever it costs to support their alleged Game Design Department...