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So to be short, whats stopping people from using WHFB models for AoS (and vice versa)?
I know that its a different ruleset and everything but its the same universe with (almost) the same lore.
Ive heard people claim that their WHFB collection "is now worthless" and allegedly one mentally unstable individual set fire to his entire army.

I dont play WHFB (or any other game for that matter) regularly, but I have played about 20 or so games of WHFB (though it was using 4th to 6th edition rules) and I am curious about this.


PS: I do think its a "bit" silly move from GW, so dont declare charges on me just yet.

 Daemonhammer wrote:

I know that its a different ruleset and everything but its the same universe with (almost) the same lore.

It's not, really. The only similarity is a few characters and concepts using the same name.

Nothing's stopping people from using their old models to play Age of Sigmar - in fact, there's rules for that, although a number of them require you to talk to your model, pretend to ride a horse, and so forth - just as nothing's stopping them from using them to keep playing WHFB. Or Kings of War. Or one of a number of other games. Mantic appears to be actively encouraging that, actually, which is nice.

Mostly, people are upset about having the rug pulled out from under them so brutally. I think the dust is starting to settle, though...and it's not really looking great for GW.

Nothing. They even provided rules for all the old models, and the books stress that you could play battles from the past with them.

The bland new setting that hasn't told us squat about what our old armies are up to (or if they even exist anymore) other than cheering on the Sigmarines.

 Daemonhammer wrote:
So to be short, whats stopping people from using WHFB models for AoS (and vice versa)?

There are no WFB stats or rules for AoS models in WFB rules - you'd have to play them "count as" something.

GW went through a fair amount of effort to provide stats for the vast bulk of WFB models under AoS rules. If you don't want to deal with the silliness, don't field the models with the silly rules.

 jonolikespie wrote:
The bland new setting that hasn't told us squat about what our old armies are up to (or if they even exist anymore) other than cheering on the Sigmarines.

Clearly you haven't read the campaign books because if you had it would have told you the backstory.

Oh, they do tell you? Neat! What see the goblins up to? Anything to rival Grom or Skarsnik's antics? Or the orcs, for that matter. All I've heard are a couple of snippets about their god(s) and a giant Waaagh! in the past, nothing about how they're dealing with the whole 'Chaos rules everything' thing. What about ogres, what are they like in this setting? Are they still hungry? And the lizardmen, does it explain why they're good guy daemons now?

I'd gotten the impression that the campaign books were mostly just "and then these Stormcast went here and hit this Chaos guy really HARD", with a few more storm-related words for good measure. Do they have background on a faction I care about?

 Spinner wrote:
Oh, they do tell you? Neat! What see the goblins up to? Anything to rival Grom or Skarsnik's antics? Or the orcs, for that matter. All I've heard are a couple of snippets about their god(s) and a giant Waaagh! in the past, nothing about how they're dealing with the whole 'Chaos rules everything' thing. What about ogres, what are they like in this setting? Are they still hungry? And the lizardmen, does it explain why they're good guy daemons now?

I'd gotten the impression that the campaign books were mostly just "and then these Stormcast went here and hit this Chaos guy really HARD", with a few more storm-related words for good measure. Do they have background on a faction I care about?

You are mostly correct in what you've heard. It's pretty much a lot of big broad strokes, without the details of the Old World. Not a hell of a lot beyond mentions of the old races. Bit of stuff for the wood elves, i guess because they decided to rebox those first with round bases, so they get a nod.

 Daemonhammer wrote:
So to be short, whats stopping people from using WHFB models for AoS (and vice versa)?
I know that its a different ruleset and everything but its the same universe with (almost) the same lore.
Ive heard people claim that their WHFB collection "is now worthless" and allegedly one mentally unstable individual set fire to his entire army.

I dont play WHFB (or any other game for that matter) regularly, but I have played about 20 or so games of WHFB (though it was using 4th to 6th edition rules) and I am curious about this.


PS: I do think its a "bit" silly move from GW, so dont declare charges on me just yet.

What's stopping me is that I don't want to. I think its a very poorly designed game (complexity in the wrong places, simplicity in the wrong places), with a lackluster storyline and undesirable style.

Additionally, AOS plays nothing like WFB and it doesn't scratch the same mental itch for me. I wanted big blocks of infantry fighting in a clash resembling true formation based warfare with fantasy elements. Not a rugby scrum.

 argonak wrote:
Not a rugby scrum.

As a rugby player, I can tell you the game looks nothing like a rugby scrum


As others have mentioned, there are rules for pretty much everything that existed in WHFB. I'm still painting up square based units, but some newer units that I've purchased are going on round or oval bases.


I get that the game isn't everyone's cup of tea. Then again, neither is 40k, or Warmahordes, or DBA, or KoW, or DnD, or Madden, Metal Gear Solid, GTA and on and on...

Personally, the game fills the exact niche that I need TT games for: getting away from school, academic thought and serious decisions about... anything beyond what type of beer to drink.

One thing I will say is that, even if GW crumbles completely, I don't think that anyone's collection will be completely useless. There will always be other options.

 Daemonhammer wrote:
So to be short, whats stopping people from using WHFB models for AoS (and vice versa)?

For me, it's the fact that it's a completely different type of game.


The appeal of WHFB was as a blocks-of-troops-moving-about-in-formation, small army scale game. I already have plenty of skirmish games, and turning WHFB into yet another one just removes one of the key things that actually made it appealing.

At least AoS is more of a pure skirmish game, whereas WFB was a hybrid of block and skirmish.

There are warscrolls out for the pre-AoS models (at least for Vampire Counts which I'll be getting into soon).

SG

 toasteroven wrote:
One thing I will say is that, even if GW crumbles completely, I don't think that anyone's collection will be completely useless. There will always be other options.

I have been hearing that for over 10 years... Not going to happen, at worst GW will just crumble into a smaller company... And people should not be getting into a miniatures hobby if they are worried their toys will be useless..

 bitethythumb wrote:

 toasteroven wrote:
One thing I will say is that, even if GW crumbles completely, I don't think that anyone's collection will be completely useless. There will always be other options.

I have been hearing that for over 10 years... Not going to happen, at worst GW will just crumble into a smaller company... And people should not be getting into a miniatures hobby if they are worried their toys will be useless..

He said "even if" as in, the very worst scenario for the model company you are using (close down) there will ALWAYS be options for those models. Since we play games with tokens there can never be no use for a model unless you willingly refuse to use that model or something.

 insaniak wrote:

 Daemonhammer wrote:
So to be short, whats stopping people from using WHFB models for AoS (and vice versa)?

For me, it's the fact that it's a completely different type of game.


The appeal of WHFB was as a blocks-of-troops-moving-about-in-formation, small army scale game. I already have plenty of skirmish games, and turning WHFB into yet another one just removes one of the key things that actually made it appealing.

It's weird because, on my end, the big blocks of troops were what kept my out of Warhammer Fantasy. Now that its a skirmish game, I guess I'm that archetypical 40k player who's been pulled in because I think I can play a game like the one I already do, just with new miniatures. And, in turn, I've fallen in love with the product line.

Somehow, I'd never noticed things like the Celestial Hurricanum before, or the fact that the Dwarf Miner's come with wheel barrows and bombs and that sweet pony cart that just begs for use in a themed mining scenario. So, now here I am, I'm drooling over Steam Tanks and Spider riders and all of this product that, to me, is practically like getting one massive "New Release" at once.

But, even as I suddenly want loads of what has been very slow moving product for GW for years, I have to approach it thinking "Well... will there even be an "Empire" in this game in five years time?" or "Should I base these dwarfs to look like they're walking on grass... or should the base be metal because they live in the realm of metal? Why would there even be miners in the realm of metal, if silver flows like rivers down floating rocks in space?"

And, that's the curse of AoS for me - I've gone from not caring at all about the miniatures to loving them, but without a stable world to place them in I'm forced to imagine them in their original time and setting until GW chooses to revisit them, possibly radically changing them or dropping them when they do.

Oggthrok wrote:
It's weird because, on my end, the big blocks of troops were what kept my out of Warhammer Fantasy. Now that its a skirmish game, I guess I'm that archetypical 40k player who's been pulled in because I think I can play a game like the one I already do, just with new miniatures.

But you could already do that before AoS came along, with any one of the metric gaktonne of fantasy skirmish games that have flooded the market over the last few years.

... possibly radically changing them or dropping them when they do.

I think that's more or less a given, at this point. The name changes are enough to show that GW doesn't want a generic fantasy game any more, because they can't maintain tight enough legal control over that sort of property... The rules for using current factions are purely a milksop for current players, and as armies are redone I would expect them to be altered way beyond any resemblance to their current incarnations.

What about people who just shout "my army is now worthless!" in general? Why do they do it?

 Swastakowey wrote:

 bitethythumb wrote:

 toasteroven wrote:
One thing I will say is that, even if GW crumbles completely, I don't think that anyone's collection will be completely useless. There will always be other options.

I have been hearing that for over 10 years... Not going to happen, at worst GW will just crumble into a smaller company... And people should not be getting into a miniatures hobby if they are worried their toys will be useless..

He said "even if" as in, the very worst scenario for the model company you are using (close down) there will ALWAYS be options for those models. Since we play games with tokens there can never be no use for a model unless you willingly refuse to use that model or something.

Right, exactly.

 Daemonhammer wrote:
What about people who just shout "my army is now worthless!" in general? Why do they do it?

In some cases, it's simply bitching about a new edition/new game... In others... I dunno, maybe they're too lazy to read the whopping 4 pages of rules?? Maybe they, after spending so much money on their 300+ model count armies, that they no longer have money for printer ink/toner so they can print the warscrolls? Perhaps it's simply the stereotype that gamers are whiners.


Honestly, I have no idea, but that last one could be quite true to a large degree.

Fantasy caught my eye long ago but n ever took off as I was already heavily invested in 40k. With the change to AoS, myself and the wife have been snatching up armies on the cheap from these "My collection is useless!" folks. We have a great time squaring her high elves off againts my legions of death and whittling away the hours of a Sunday afternoon.

Getting your hands on the battleplans and rules for the individual realms adds a whole 'nother layer to the fun of it.
We run the comp idea the GW themselves sent out if any and its been nothing but smooth sailing (and me getting my butt whooped).

As for lore and background of all oldworld races, I think in time we'll see what everyone is up to as black library put out more novels and GW more campaign books. It makes sense (to me atleast) that GW are gonna flesh out their new poster boys first then start giving everyone else face lifts and more background as they expand the setting.

Untill then the realms are like empty sketchbooks waiting to he filled! My VC are a mostly skeleton army dubbed "The frozen legion of Chillbone wastes" painting them up in whites and muted blues with snow flocking and pale bluish skin for fleshy units. It a great deal of fun!

 bitethythumb wrote:

 toasteroven wrote:
One thing I will say is that, even if GW crumbles completely, I don't think that anyone's collection will be completely useless. There will always be other options.

I have been hearing that for over 10 years... Not going to happen, at worst GW will just crumble into a smaller company... And people should not be getting into a miniatures hobby if they are worried their toys will be useless..

Well, GW is a publicly traded company. If management screws it up enough that their stock value drops below their asset value, some corporate raider will come in and put them on the chopping block for a quick profit. Its not an uncommon occurrence in business.

Fantasy was dead, gw was losing cash on it and many store's fantasy stuff collected dust. Gw knew they wanted to keep the line (plastic molds are $$$). Gw also saw that the gaming community is growing more towards smaller skirmish games (probably due to lifestyle changes, an older community, and a bad world economy... well and rising gw prices). Gw mixed 40k style with skirmish rules in their fantasy world to keep it alive and fresh. This makes sense as fantasy was a loss and 40k is gw's bread and butter.

One thing that upset people was the end times cash grab... people spent $$ on hardcover rule books and le books only to have them become obsolete (which is why most le books take a while to sell out now).

Others are just bitter because gw killed their fantasy game that they lived and breathed for many years. This was unavoidable though as fantasy had been dying for years (pretty much since 6th).

Around here fantasy product is actually selling now as many 40k players enjoy having a lighter skirmish game to play as well... oh and the 40k players were 90+% of their business... so gw is doing fine fiscally compared to what they were doing before. Anyone who tells you otherwise is butthurt as financials don't lie.

The game is fun, the setting makes sense, and the community is growing every day.

 455_PWR wrote:
Fantasy was dead, gw was losing cash on it and many store's fantasy stuff collected dust. Gw knew they wanted to keep the line (plastic molds are $$$). Gw also saw that the gaming community is growing more towards smaller skirmish games (probably due to lifestyle changes, an older community, and a bad world economy... well and rising gw prices). Gw mixed 40k style with skirmish rules in their fantasy world to keep it alive and fresh. This makes sense as fantasy was a loss and 40k is gw's bread and butter.

You know I can't help but read that and think of this from the News and Rumours thread:

 mikhaila wrote:
Dear Lord, not more Sigmar!

My AOS sales in my store have dropped to zero. People were somewhat excited about new sculpts for existing races, but not an endless tide of sigmar. I'm down to ordering 1 of a new release, and sometimes that sits. I used to order 8-16 of all WFB releases and 30 armie books. How the mighty have fallen.

I so miss that 40k game they used to make. That little sucker was hot, you'd get 6 kits and a new codex in 3 weeks and they pumped them out fast. Wonder if GW will ever remember they made a game that sells?

And

 mikhaila wrote:
Part of what is going on is simply not enough "news and rumors". With enough to talk about, we don't spin through page after page of discussion with nothing really being said.


This is actually part of my frustration. GW doesn't put out information ahead of time at all. But usually we have some rumors, even false ones, about upcoming releases. I'm hearing a lot of crickets with AOS. This worries me. And understand, my worries are about what to do to replace a couple thousand dollars a month in sales, what to do with 20 thousand dollars of models on the wall, and what I should be buying that people are excited about.

This release is just odd. We should know something about an upcoming release schedule of other races. There should be some hints or pictures of greens, or something that isn't Sigmarites. It feels like nothing is in the pipeline, and they are stretching it out.

In other words, a lack of commitment to AOS, and maybe it really was just a short term exploit to see if they can jumpstart the WFB range of models. I don't think they planned for success.

Hope I'm wrong, and in the next year we see at least 2-3 of the fantasy races get new models. Pray that this is so.

As much as people SAY that Fantasy was dead, it was not in fact making literally 0 sales. It's not like they had NO other option, they could have actually tried to FIX fantasy.

 insaniak wrote:
The rules for using current factions are purely a milksop for current players, and as armies are redone I would expect them to be altered way beyond any resemblance to their current incarnations.

To be fair, nothing that's been reboxed has been changed (in terms of models or rules) other than number of models per box. They've even re-released finecast stuff like the Branchwraith. The only changes between the "Sylvaneth" version and "Wood Elves" version of model rules are what they're called.

I suspect that unless AoS is a raging success, GW is going to keep as many sprues identical as possible to save on costs, and what we'll see is new generic unnamed heroes replace the named ones, a la lord celestant, lord castellant, knight venator, etc. It's largely what's happening in the 40k universe, too, though we (happily) get the occasional named model.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
At least AoS is more of a pure skirmish game, whereas WFB was a hybrid of block and skirmish.

That's true. WHFB has representation of individual models with attacks and wounds. That is normally the criterion for a skirmish game.

AoS still has this but the formations have been replaced by the 40K coherency rule. It means your rank and file units move can around in loose gaggles. You can form them into blocks if you want, but it doesn't have any effect on the game except to get more attacks into range in the H2H phase.

If people still want to play a formation based fantasy game, Kings of War seems to have some traction. I should think it is possible to use their rules and rely on the 30+ years of GW generated Old Worlde fluff in novels and army books for making scenarios and so on.

That was one man's store, there are many other flgs who have been successful with aos (and many who are not having success with it). A lot of success or failure is based on how the stores and prior fantasy players either supported or bucked aos. Many players bad mouthed the rules and never even played the game.

If a store owner hated the change and badmouthed the new system, some new to gaming folks prolly wouldnt spend their cash on it.

Exactly right. Word of mouth and social factors are important for uptake of a game. That is why GW made a mistake by pissing off so many customers.

 insaniak wrote:

But you could already do that before AoS came along, with any one of the metric gaktonne of fantasy skirmish games that have flooded the market over the last few years.

Very true - I hear there's loads of options these days, and Frostgrave in particular sounds interesting. But, for the most part those skirmish games have either not shown up in my FLGS, or have rapidly moved from New Release to Bargain Bin.

I live in a small town, and the store tends to stock things they know will sell. And that means Warhammer 40k, X-wing, and lots of board games. The trouble is, when you stock 40k, I get the impression GW forces you to take Warhammer Fantasy and what ever third party game they've got going on, like The Hobbit. (If that third game becomes 30k, I think FLGS across the country will be able to afford adding a new wing to the store, compared to the demand for The Hobbit...) So, there's always been a wall of Fantasy that represents the absolute minimum they can get away with carrying. I've heard the owner lament before, when GW forced him to carry two Glotkins as an example, that he knew they'd still be sitting there a year later. (and, they are...)

So, for someone like me who just kind of looked at Fantasy and thought "Well, that might make good bitz for my Ork army...", that unloved wall of Fantasy miniatures is now an interesting thing, and product is shifting. I think it makes a huge difference when a player can think "Well, I like these minotaurs, so I'll paint them up and add them to my Khorne Bloodbound" instead of "Well, I like these minotaurs, but I'd need three or four boxes of these Gors, and specialty troops, and maybe these Ungors... I don't know, I'd better stick to my existing army."

 insaniak wrote:

I think that's more or less a given, at this point. The name changes are enough to show that GW doesn't want a generic fantasy game any more, because they can't maintain tight enough legal control over that sort of property... The rules for using current factions are purely a milksop for current players, and as armies are redone I would expect them to be altered way beyond any resemblance to their current incarnations.

That's certainly what I've expected to happen, so we definitely agree on that. But, as things play out, I'm starting to wonder if we're right.

I mean, outside of the churn of Khorne Bloodbound and Stormcast Eternal releases over the summer, we haven't heard even the first word about what would be a "new" army to go into Age of Sigmar. Instead, they're repacking old kits with round bases, and spinning off reasons why you would buy loads of box X and call it a new army.

There's part of me that's accepting that the Age of Sigmar may simply be a two-army release, and that when Stormcast and Bloodbound finally have an expensive multipart kit for every blessed single pose item found in the starter set, all we'll see following on are repacks and strained explanations for why every new world we visit is populated with exactly the same races we already knew.