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I played 9th age for the first time yesterday. It was also the first time my group tried it out. We have mostly been playing WHFB 8 (with interludes of Mordheim, Gorkamorka and Warzone) before, probably mostly because Warhammer was our first love. It has also been a practical choice. Everyone in the group knows 8th edition pretty well, and with many in the group being busy proffesionally or having small children (or both!), making it the easy choice. The 9th age was pretty good. It more or less plays as an improved version of WHFB, with all of it's problems and charms. Personally I have been lobbying for us to switch to KoW, which we will try out the next time. Some of us are more interested in KoW, others might prefer the 9th age. We will probably end up playing both.

(disclaimer: Before reading further, please note that it is perfectly fine to enjoy Age of Sigmar. The following is just an expression of my gaming groups relation to Age of sigmar, and should not be taken for the ultimate truth that it is.)

What is more interesting is that all of us more or less came to the conclusion that Age of Sigmar probably is one of the best things that has happened to fantasy gaming, despite that all of us thinks the AoS setting is stupid, the miniatures are boring (and stupid) and the game unintersting (and stupid). Age of Sigmar made it a lot easier for us to shift away from Warhammer 8th edition and disconnect the rules from the setting. Since we already were playing with whatever miniatures we thought were cool and suitable to the army and the old world, the switch was already under way. AoS just gave the final push. Even the more GW loyal in our group said that they felt liberated in a sense, the only thing most of us will do it to buy is to try and buy all the warhammer kits we like and don't have before GW discontinues them.

The thing is that it seems to me that this is indicative of a larger trend in miniatures gaming. Reading blogs, forums and facebook groups there seems to be a trend that more and more people are moving towards a freer attitude where you play with the models and rules you like (which of course is nothing new really) and are less stuck in the one company, one ruleset, one miniature line, one paint line attitude (again, nothing new really). This shift has been going on for a while of course aided by the internet and GW's handling of it's games, but it seems to me that AoS has been somewhat of a catalyst, opening up the eyes of even some of the diehard WHFB loyalists.

What do you think? Is there a paradigm shift in miniaures miniatures gaming on the way? Write 500 words and hand in by monday.

I don't think it's a general trend. Games with good miniatures and good rules are still going along without this "shift". AoS is an exception, I think, for two reasons:

1) AoS was so indisputably terrible that there was no choice. You can't play fantasy games with (current and supported) GW rules anymore, so if you like GW's fantasy miniatures you have to provide alternative rules of some kind. And I think this "it's the least-terrible option" factor is much stronger than any general desire to separate rules and models.

2) WHFB/AoS are mostly generic fantasy stuff, so it's very easy to use the models with different rules. But good luck doing the same thing with your 40k or X-Wing models. You might be able to use a fan-made version of the official rules, but it's very hard to convince a large community to agree on which fan-made version to use. And as long as the official rules are at least reasonably playable people will default to using them in the absence of strong consensus that a particular fan-made version is the right one.

I don't think I'd call it a shift (or name it after myself, for that matter! ), more something that as you point out, is really nothing new. I imagine it's a point most gamers will reach independently at some stage, going from loyal GWers, buying codexes and rulebooks and minis as they come out because they are told they have to. Then comes the realisation that there are model-producers other than GW, which make stuff you can use in GW games. and are often either better or cheaper (or very occasionally, both). Then, they realise these minis have a game attached, and give that a look. Then, as they look for more minis and games, they come across companies making one without the other, where you have to divorce rules, minis, settings and everything else. From that point, you realise that GW really are the outlier in trying to insist that you use all their stuff and only their stuff, and also that unless you're playing in their events or stores, there's nothing they can do to make you.

Of course, not everyone will make it to the end of that process. Some will see the 3rd party stuff in the first place and just dismiss it because it's not got the GW stamp on it. Some are simply content with what they are already playing, so feel no need to switch.

AoS may have made more people wake up to the fact, but I don't think the phenomena itself is anything new or radical, and even now, there are people that don't like AoS, but refused to keep playing 8th (despite having all the necessary materials, books and willing opponents) because it wasn't 'supported' (whatever that's supposed to mean. Personally, I'd be relishing the fact I no longer needed to replace perfectly functioning expensive rulesets every couple of years purely because GW told me to).

So I think the case is probably that your gaming group, being presumably quite like-minded and open to new ideas, has broken from the GW model as a group, but the fact they're a group in the first place is why they have all done it at the same time.

I do believe there is a paradigm shift with miniatures gaming but, it's nothing to do with Age of Sigmar. If anything, I see Age of Sigmar as a desperate attempt by GW to try to counter this shift.

There's 2 things that come to mind.

1) Kickstarter. Dropfleet Commander gained over £629,000. That's not far off $1,000,000 depending on which way the exchange rate is blowing. And that's only midsized compared to what people like Cool Mini or Not are doing. That's not to mention Conan or Ghostbusters.

Which brings me neatly to (2)

2) Licensing. For a long time, Fantasy Flight Games could literally not physically make enough models to actually sell for X-Wing. I see articles out there now talking about X-Wing/Armada/Imperial Assault in the past few days from places that would probably never have touched wargaming with a barge pole.

Sure, not every license is star wars. But so many major businesses out there now are seeing wargaming as a legitimate thing to get involved with for their merchandising that it's not the same world any more compared to 5 years ago.

And GW, I imagine with the failure of the Hobbit, they'll be scared off from licensing for a long while. In which case, it is genuinely going to be a question of. Are the AoS and 40k universes big enough, in the popular consciousness enough, that GW can keep going and be viable as a company? Especially when facing off against Star Wars, Star Trek, Batman, Marvel...

I think... Maybe. But not the size they are now. Vermintide was a big boost for GW awareness. Warhammer Total War might be as well (but that still has the problem of 'I wanna play Empire... Wait, they exploded?')

Not really, as Compel pointed out things are changing for a number of reasons but GW bloodymindedness not to look outside their own (sizable) part of the hobby market has left them flailing,

AoS seems like an attempt to replace lost customers, without any understanding of why they lost the previous customers

-

 jorny wrote:
Age of Sigmar made it a lot easier for us to shift away from Warhammer 8th edition and disconnect the rules from the setting. Since we already were playing with whatever miniatures we thought were cool and suitable to the army and the old world, the switch was already under way. AoS just gave the final push. Even the more GW loyal in our group said that they felt liberated in a sense

(Emphasis mine)

I've been saying it for ages, before AoS was a glint (or a £) in Kirby's eye.

the only thing most of us will do it to buy is to try and buy all the warhammer kits we like and don't have before GW discontinues them.

I hear that.

The thing is that it seems to me that this is indicative of a larger trend in miniatures gaming. Reading blogs, forums and facebook groups there seems to be a trend that more and more people are moving towards a freer attitude where you play with the models and rules you like (which of course is nothing new really) and are less stuck in the one company, one ruleset, one miniature line, one paint line attitude (again, nothing new really). This shift has been going on for a while of course aided by the internet and GW's handling of it's games, but it seems to me that AoS has been somewhat of a catalyst, opening up the eyes of even some of the diehard WHFB loyalists.

Not sure. I know of gamers and forums who take that kind of freewheeling attitude, but I still see a lot who go for the whole tightly-knit rules-minis-background package. Warmachine, Infinity, Malifaux, Dropzone Commander etc. etc. KoW is in a relatively unique situation, being a kinda-sorta (and arguably more mature) alternative to Warhammer, to go with Mantic's kinda-sorta alternatives to GW's minis. It was definitely in the right place, with enough publicity, when WFB was scuttled. Writing unofficial lists for suddenly unsupported Warhammer armies couldn't have hurt, either!
But I wonder, for an example, what proportion of Warmachine players would be willing to stick their warjacks in KoW as ogres, golems or whatnot. (Or wizard-led constructs in Mayhem, or reduced-model/greater warbeast units in Dragon Rampant, or...)

I do think we are seeing (and have been for some time) a quite major shift in tabletop miniatures games. Age of Sigmar is definitely not the cause and is in my opinion more of a reaction. However that is not to say that AoS hasn't had a large impact. You only need to look at the rise in popularity of games like Kings of War to see the impact AoS has had on the fantasy wargame market.

Over the past few years there has been a definite trend away from the old fashioned rules style that have GW traditionally used in favour of simpler and often faster playing rules. Obviously there are exceptions to this but based on my own observations they are becoming less common. New rulesets don't tend use look up tables or huge numbers of special rules or exceptions to differentiate factions or units within a faction. Instead any tests will often use a generic dice roll like Bolt Action or a dice roll taken directly from a unit's statistics like Kings of War, both will often modifiers where applicable and there will be a small pool of special rules and maybe a couple of unique rules per faction. To see an example of a standard test taken to it's logical extremes take a look at a game like Tomorrow's War. In the vast majority of cases a test requires a 4+ to pass but the quality of the unit changes the dice used. A regular soldier might use a D6 or D8 but an elite soldier will probably use a D10 or even a D12 but no matter what dice is used you'll be wanting to see a 4+ as the result. This is in my opinion an excellent system as it retains the simplicity of a standard test and allows for variations in unit quality (TW does have some very major problems that limit my interest but the core system is fantastic IMO). Though it does increase dice costs for a game substantially.

In my opinion GW are not so stupid or arrogant as to be completely unaware of their competition and in my opinion AoS is testament to that. In many ways it follows the more modern approach so many other games use. However (again this is my opinion) they mucked it up, I think most people can agree that both WHFB and 40k were/are getting far too fat and bloated for their own good and need(ed) a complete rebuilding from the ground up. To my mind that is what GW tried with AoS, but they went too far with the removal of the points system. This change causes massive problems for both tournament and casual gamers. Yes a points system will never be perfect and intentionally unbalanced scenarios are usually more realistic (and a huge amount of fun if well designed) but for making games easy to set up they are fantastically useful. I'm willing to bet that most people on this forum have had a conversations along these lines before:

Gamer 1: "Fancy a game?"

Gamer 2: "Sure how many points?"

etc etc

By abandoning the points system GW have massively slowed down the process of getting a game started which is definitely not a good thing. Miniature games already take a long time to set up without spending a significant amount of time debating with your opponent just what you're going to play with.

Another issue I have with the game is the pointless continuation of roll to hit, roll to wound and roll to save for combat. It would be a lot easier to play the game with the removal of one or the other of the latter two and it is even possible to reduce combat to a single opposed roll (ok this will probably result in a very short game but it does work and can be fun). Too much dice rolling can really slow a game down to the point where it becomes quite dull, I'm sure anyone who's been on the receiving end of an opponent shooting with several blobbed up Imperial Guard platoons will know what I mean there. Why GW kept that system I don't know, the design brief for AoS seems from my point of view to have been "Simplify and make more like 40k" and the retention of that particular approach makes little sense to me.

That's enough about AoS I find that game depressing, so much wasted potential.

Compel raised two very good points, Kickstarter is having a huge impact as it's allowing small companies (and several larger ones, CMoN, Mantic etc) to launch games, or sometimes just miniature ranges that previously would probably not have seen the light of day. Sure for every success there seems to be a horror story of people simply losing money on something that never got produced (looking at you Tony Reidy) but overall in my opinion Kickstarter has had a positive impact. More choice for the consumer is always a good thing and the increase in competition has in my opinion also resulted in an increase in the quality of miniatures. Licensed games that are actually worth playing are also a great trend to see developing. X-Wing (and it's various off shoots) and similar licensed properties are seemingly selling very well and in my opinion are a great way of introducing new comers to the hobby as they provide a familiar reference point for something that is otherwise completely new to many people. As a bit of anecdotal evidence I was able to convince my dad to give me a game of Star Trek Attack Wing simply because he enjoys Star Trek, previously he'd never shown any interest in miniature gaming. Sure he's not played another game since then but he still gave it a go which has got to be a positive.

I'm sure I could keep going and talk about things like the current trend of blending board and miniature games but I really can't be bothered.One thing I will say though is that I'd like to see the current trend away from huge complex games to smaller simpler games continue.

If any of you want to see some examples of simple but interesting rulesets I suggest going through the range of rules in Osprey Publishing's Wargames range, they cover a wide variety of topics from Arthurian era historicals, through steampunk and fantasy, right the way up to modern/near future special forces. I've picked up a few of their books (Black Ops, Fighting Sail and Ronin) and every one of them is a game I want to play at some point, it's just a case of getting my hands on suitable miniatures. Of course they also happen to publish the books for the likes of Bolt Action, Force on Force and Frostgrave which really doesn't hurt their reputation in my opinion.

TL/DR:

Yes there is a shift but AoS is more likely a reaction to it not the cause.

Peregrine wrote:
2) WHFB/AoS are mostly generic fantasy stuff, so it's very easy to use the models with different rules. But good luck doing the same thing with your 40k... models.

Mmm... space soldiers (heavily armoured, cannon fodder, otherworldly advanced, rampaging brutes, or otherwise), along with other tropes like space bugs and droids, can be fairly generic too, and there are rules possibilities out there.

Paradigm wrote:even now, there are people that don't like AoS, but refused to keep playing 8th (despite having all the necessary materials, books and willing opponents) because it wasn't 'supported' (whatever that's supposed to mean. Personally, I'd be relishing the fact I no longer needed to replace perfectly functioning expensive rulesets every couple of years purely because GW told me to).

True dat! It's nice to have the official, aesthetically-correct models to go with the game, but there's a distance between that preference, to point-blank refusing to play if it's not possible. (Especially, as you say, if you've already got the models, and they're still available to buy!) I wonder how much is down to that, and how much down to the expectation of - the reliance on - rules churn. Not to say it doesn't occur in other games, but it seems to be especially pronounced in GW games.

 Peregrine wrote:
I don't think it's a general trend. Games with good miniatures and good rules are still going along without this "shift". AoS is an exception, I think, for two reasons:

1) AoS was so indisputably terrible that there was no choice. You can't play fantasy games with (current and supported) GW rules anymore, so if you like GW's fantasy miniatures you have to provide alternative rules of some kind. And I think this "it's the least-terrible option" factor is much stronger than any general desire to separate rules and models.

2) WHFB/AoS are mostly generic fantasy stuff, so it's very easy to use the models with different rules. But good luck doing the same thing with your 40k or X-Wing models. You might be able to use a fan-made version of the official rules, but it's very hard to convince a large community to agree on which fan-made version to use. And as long as the official rules are at least reasonably playable people will default to using them in the absence of strong consensus that a particular fan-made version is the right one.

Actually there are quite a few indie rulesets that you can use 40k figures with. You just have to be comfortable that a non-40k ruleset is neither going to give exactly the same feel with it's mechanics with minute differences between a bolter and a shoota, nor is it going to hold your hand like KoW is doing with WHFB converts.

Just to name a few, I have looked at using my 40k figures with In the Emperor's Name, Rogue Planet, and hell, even Second Edition 40k, which has a "Battle Bible" online with all the rules and the mechanics from every single codex inside one document.

And unlike others, 2nd editon will allow you to use nearly every single 40k army save for Tau, Dark Eldar, and most of the Necrons (but at the same time having rules for Genestealer Cults, Sisters of Battle, and Squats.)
True dat! It's nice to have the official, aesthetically-correct models to go with the game, but there's a distance between that preference, to point-blank refusing to play if it's not possible. (Especially, as you say, if you've already got the models, and they're still available to buy!) I wonder how much is down to that, and how much down to the expectation of - the reliance on - rules churn. Not to say it doesn't occur in other games, but it seems to be especially pronounced in GW games.

It is so creeply how GW has indoctrinated the rules-churn. I shake my head all the time when people claim that unsupported games are unplayable. They are exactly as playable as when they were in print! If you had fun with them back then, you can have the same fun with them now, as long as you have everything you need to play, which you obviously should if you played them in the first place.

People claim they are dead because noone plays them anymore so they can't find a group, but I have that same problem with everything currently available, lol.

On the subject of so-called 'rules churn', I think the key difference between GW's approach and most others is that if you take the likes of Mantic, Corvus Belli, Wyrd ect, the reason those companies release new rules is either to add something new to the game, or a genuine attempt to improve aspects of the rules to make a more enjoyable, smooth and accessible rules system. This is why you get things like Infinity N3 or KoW 2nd Edition, because the companies behind them are making a concerted effort to fix, improve and expand the game (and in those cases, are happy to give them out for free; lo and behold, people still buy the rulebooks for the fluff/art/just to have a hard copy, not because they 'have to' but because they want to!)

GW, on the other hand, have simply realised that they are in a position to 'force' (for want of a better word) their customers into routinely paying for something every X months even if they bought no models in that time. When they release a new codex or army book or edition of the game rules, you can tell it's not an effort to 'improve' the game (usually, for every improvement you can find something that got worse; I don't mean in terms of power necessarily but in ease of use/smoothness/effectiveness) but so that they can rely on everyone who plays that army/game buying a new, expensive book that is 90% the same each time. Take for example the introduction of the Multi-Formation Detachments in 40k. Yes, they add something to the game, but more than that they mean there's something 'missing' from the slightly older (1-2 years old) books, so they can sell you a new one. You can bet that once everyone has one of those, something else will be introduced to perpetuate the cycle.

There is definitely an element of 'indoctrination' there; you can see that just from people who point-blank refuse to play against an 'outdated' codex, even when a week before when the new one wasn't out they'd have been perfectly fine to do so. The rules work from a functional standpoint, and are compatible with the game, I for one see no reason why (for example) anyone would have a problem with someone using the 5th edition Blood Angels codex and FAQ rather than the 7th edition one. It goes double for game rules; if you're playing X edition, you have the rules/minis/equipment for that, and when X+1 edition comes out, there's really no 'need' to buy it if what you already have works, especially if you actively prefer the older edition. Just communicate with the people you were already playing with, agree to just keep doing what you're doing and there's no problem, surely!

 Paradigm wrote:
I for one see no reason why (for example) anyone would have a problem with someone using the 5th edition Blood Angels codex and FAQ rather than the 7th edition one.

It's because it's easier to draw the line at "current rules only" than to try to special-case rule every old rule and try to figure out which people asking to use old rules just want to keep playing their army without buying a new codex that may or may not even let them keep playing as-is and which people are WAAC TFGs trying to get more powerful rules. It might be fine with someone using a codex literally a week after the new one, but as it gets older you get two problems:

1) Rules do actually become incompatible. New models don't get rules, USRs change names, etc. Some of them can be fixed, but then in addition to requesting old rules you also have to get people to agree on how to make those old rules work with the current core rules. Imagine trying to use a 2nd edition army in 7th, you'd have to re-write half the rules!

2) Overpowered things never leave the game. Do you really want people to go back and pull out obscure things from previous editions because they're more powerful? Or should we say ok, the game designers nerfed this for a reason, you don't get to use it anymore?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Actually there are quite a few indie rulesets that you can use 40k figures with. You just have to be comfortable that a non-40k ruleset is neither going to give exactly the same feel with it's mechanics with minute differences between a bolter and a shoota, nor is it going to hold your hand like KoW is doing with WHFB converts.

Just to name a few, I have looked at using my 40k figures with In the Emperor's Name, Rogue Planet, and hell, even Second Edition 40k, which has a "Battle Bible" online with all the rules and the mechanics from every single codex inside one document.

Sure, but those are all fan-made rules with little or no widespread community support. Like it or not people want to play a game they can buy off the shelf, not sit around debating which of the dozens of fan-made 40k variants they should play this week.

If GW players are prompted by AoS moving away from GW, that can only be a good thing (except for GW of course! Ha ha!!)

There has always been a hobby apart from Teh HHHobby. It includes a massive variety of rules and genres, with highly professional off-the-shelf rules, free rules, experimental rules, make it up yourself rules, and even GW rules.

 Peregrine wrote:

Sure, but those are all fan-made rules

No, they're not.

From the trio, only In The Emperor's Name could be called that, and it was such a good set of 'fan-made' rules that it was adapted into the 'professional-made' rules called In Her Majesty's Name.

This is what I was talking about earlier, only with rules rather than minis. Wanting the genuine, official product is one thing, but there's a point when it just starts to look like wilful contrariness.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

There has always been a hobby apart from Teh HHHobby. It includes a massive variety of rules and genres, with highly professional off-the-shelf rules, free rules, experimental rules, make it up yourself rules, and even GW rules.

This, QFT, +1, and so on. And it didn't all arise from a few miffed ex-GW fans.

I don't get the "eeeeew fan-made rules" thing either. GW rules are made by pros, and the result is a bunch of gak anyway.

Over the last year or so I've really gotten away from the larger scale games for small, skirmish rules.

One game I can't recommend enough is SAGA (and the Crescent and the Cross set). It's so easy to get set up and play, no real "killer" army lists or "god-like" characters.

Small forces, quick games but you still have to use skill and tactics to win.

 Korinov wrote:
I don't get the "eeeeew fan-made rules" thing either. GW rules are made by pros, and the result is a bunch of gak anyway.

As with rules-churn, it's a mindset that decades of GW gaming has carefully cultivated. I know because I once felt it, before GW started pushing me away in the mid- to late-2000's, and I realized that other than a small handful of popular titles, most 15mm gaming had primarily been played with rules that are not attached to any one set of figures, and in recent years players really have started to bring 28mm gaming into the same type of format with things like Frostgrave, Song of Blades and Heroes, etc.

From the trio, only In The Emperor's Name could be called that, and it was such a good set of 'fan-made' rules that it was adapted into the 'professional-made' rules called In Her Majesty's Name.

Sold by the same company as Frostgrave. And And my latter example is GW's actual 2nd edition rules, in a mechanics-only format. It's all of mainstream 2nd edition in one PDF, from the Psychic phase to Wargear cards, to Genestealer Cult Patriarchs and Squats with Graviton guns.

This entire thread is about being freer with which rulesets and minis you use in conjunction, rather than "one miniatures company to rule them all".

 AegisGrimm wrote:
As with rules-churn, it's a mindset that decades of GW gaming has carefully cultivated. I know because I once felt it, before GW started pushing me away in the mid- to late-2000's, and I realized that other than a small handful of popular titles, most 15mm gaming had primarily been played with rules that are not attached to any one set of figures, and in recent years players really have started to bring 28mm gaming into the same type of format with things like Frostgrave, Song of Blades and Heroes, etc.

On the other hand, you can attribute 40k's longevity in part to rules churn. Personally, I've gotten fond of rules churn -- or a constantly changing meta -- ever since MtG grabbed my attention in the 90s. It prevents the game from becoming stagnant, and encourages trying new models, and kills off combinations that have become too well known, common, repetitive, or easy.

On the downside, it is harder on the pocketbook. A changing meta is not good for people who want to make a one time investment, and then count on the relevance of those models essentially forever -- or people who don't really like the modelling aspect, and therefore don't want to be constantly modelling something. On the other hand, if you stick around long enough, stuff is cyclical, and what's good that becomes bad eventually becomes good again I'm sure somewhere in the next 20 years, terminators will become useful again, and then my 100+ painted terminators will become useful

It's easy pick 2e, 5e, 7e (or any edition) as my favorite period of 40k -- but what it comes down to is that if they had stuck with the same thing for 10 years, I would have gotten bored, quit, and done something else.

The rules churn works for people who enjoy constantly building stuff anyhow, and in the case of 40k, works really well for people who aspire to have chapter-sized armies. It also works better for people who see a game as a living ecosystem with great longevity (like, something to participate in over decades), rather than something that you play, eventually get bored with, and then move on from.

Pfft. Tell that to the armies that have to wait through multiple Space Marine codexes (and editions) before they even get updated. But rules churn is a bit off topic for this thread anyway.

More on-topic, I find it a real breath of fresh air to think outside the box and abandon rules+minis from one company only. Currently I am really thinking hard about playing home games with the spouse/buddies of King of War with 15mm figures.

 Talys wrote:
On the other hand, you can attribute 40k's longevity in part to rules churn... It prevents the game from becoming stagnant, and encourages trying new models, and kills off combinations that have become too well known, common, repetitive, or easy.

Yeah, I've heard something like that before. What you're saying is that they do it because the game quickly becomes stagnant, to make you buy new stuff, and because the game revolves around predictable listbuilding.

The rules churn works for people who enjoy constantly building stuff anyhow, and in the case of 40k, works really well for people who aspire to have chapter-sized armies.

So the game is for collectors rather than gamers, then.

The best way to keep a game from going stagnant is not to release new editions of the core rules every 4 years and sprinkle in random updates for random armies at random intervals.

It is to be adding a new unit for four or so factions one month, then another new unit for three or four factions the next month, and integrate those units into the current rules rather than redo the entire army. That and make sure that if you are going to update your core rules every single model in your entire line gets their rules updated to be in line with the core rules.

I'd say that the paradigm shift already happened, and it was towards online living rules, GW was left in the dust with it's army books/codexes, and AoS was their way of trying to stay relevant on that front.

 Vermis wrote:

 Talys wrote:
On the other hand, you can attribute 40k's longevity in part to rules churn... It prevents the game from becoming stagnant, and encourages trying new models, and kills off combinations that have become too well known, common, repetitive, or easy.

Yeah, I've heard something like that before. What you're saying is that they do it because the game quickly becomes stagnant, to make you buy new stuff, and because the game revolves around predictable listbuilding.

The rules churn works for people who enjoy constantly building stuff anyhow, and in the case of 40k, works really well for people who aspire to have chapter-sized armies.

So the game is for collectors rather than gamers, then.

Wargamers tend to be collectors by nature.

Lots of companies make money from the same method GW uses. - If you folks think that GW's 'bad' have a look at Wizkids, particularly with Heroclix. Take all the random power levels, updates and changes of GW, then add in Magic The Gathering style blind buys...

Honestly, I think it does work... For a while. It's a short termist thing (so, normal for a worldwide company...) and will certainly feather a few nests managementwise.

But. And here's the thing, I honestly think it's all self defeating. It's a diminishing returns attitude in my view. And not the thing to have in a world where the wargaming market is actually growing.

@Las & Vermis - yeah, I was going to say, being a gamer, collector, and modelling hobbyist isn't mutually exclusive. GW's vision of the hobby is an ecosystem for people who are highly involved in all 3.

It's not necessary to enjoy the hobby, obviously, as there are people who just paint models, people who play with grey plastic, and so on. But if you're one of the people who intersect with GW's vision, you'll most likely enjoy their games.

Likewise, PP has a stomg focus on a pickup and tournament friendly game and if that's your thing, there's a good chance that you'll be happy in their world -- not to say you can't build an army (collection go draw upon for games) of a thousand Cyngar models, though I've never seen one.

Incidentally, when I mentioned that I like meta change, I wasn't limiting it to GW. I have enjoyed MtG, Diablo 3, and Hearthstone (easily more than 5,000 hours each in all 3), for example, games that very routinely require that you nearly reboot your character/list/army. I just don't see it as a negative, possibly because the only games I get into, I end up playing almost obsessively -- to the point of mastering and exhausting possibilities -- so mixing things up is a way to keep me interested for another few thousand hours. For me, what's amazing about 40k, frankly, is that I'm more enthusiastic about it now than 10,000 hours ago, and I'm more exited about building another space marine with a bolter than I was a couple hundred space marines ago. In contrast, in every other game, I have gotten bored, eventually abandoning it after a few reboots (though Magic had a good run, for sure).

GW has been pushing several notions simultaneously; first that rules shouldn't be taken so seriously, that racial and factional divides in the rules aren't that important and thus mixing and matching miniatures is perfectly fine. The big unintended consequence of that, if the rules don't matter and factions that matter then GW is effectively only selling us a setting separate and removed from those other things and miniatures where the specifics of what they represent aren't that important.

If you don't like the setting or you can't represent the part of it you want its worthless... and with GW already conceding on the quality of the rules its all about the miniatures. They claim their a miniature company first, so it'd make sense they take this approach even if flawed. By playing down the importance of what your collection represents they've inadvertently played down the need to represent a Warhammer army with GW miniatures.

 Paradigm wrote:
On the subject of so-called 'rules churn', I think the key difference between GW's approach and most others is that if you take the likes of Mantic, Corvus Belli, Wyrd ect, the reason those companies release new rules is either to add something new to the game, or a genuine attempt to improve aspects of the rules to make a more enjoyable, smooth and accessible rules system. This is why you get things like Infinity N3 or KoW 2nd Edition, because the companies behind them are making a concerted effort to fix, improve and expand the game (and in those cases, are happy to give them out for free; lo and behold, people still buy the rulebooks for the fluff/art/just to have a hard copy, not because they 'have to' but because they want to!) !

To be fair, 40k 4E & 5E did excellent jobs of cleaning up their predecessors. Same with WFB 7E.

The problem is that both 40k 6E and WFB 8E basically gakked the bed.

From the fora, you can see the shift. Various non-GW games are gaining prominence and the Fantasy section particularly is shrinking back.

Not sure about 40K - I'm out of the loop and don't feel like getting back in when the game is such a mess. It's a shame because I loved my Orks and I really enjoyed the universe for a very long time, but I think 7th ed killed it for me. I like to have some feeling of a fair match, and I rely entirely on Pick Up Games (I know, some people claim players like me don't exist) and Tournaments, and the ruleset sucks for that. Depending on how many players like me are out there and whether they are balanced by people who think new 40K is great, I dunno. They're certainly still releasing cool kits - the mechanicus stuff is awesome.

 aka_mythos wrote:
GW has been pushing several notions simultaneously; first that rules shouldn't be taken so seriously, that racial and factional divides in the rules aren't that important and thus mixing and matching miniatures is perfectly fine. The big unintended consequence of that, if the rules don't matter and factions that matter then GW is effectively only selling us a setting separate and removed from those other things and miniatures where the specifics of what they represent aren't that important.

In the Fantasy setting, the unbound philosophy actually got me to buy models and play AoS occasionally. It's not like I model for advantage; it's just that there is no single faction in the entire setting which drives me to paint up a collection. With the current AoS rules and culture, it's perfectly acceptable to draw models from Isle of Blood, Wood Elves, High Elves, and Stormcast based on what I feel like painting and how the models look together, rather than having to plan an army list andante those models -- which, for me, I don't think will ever happen in a fantasy setting.

And if I want to add a cool, nonalliance model that I just feel like painting, like a necrosphynx or a mortarch, that's ok too -- just explained away with some made-up fluff.

 jorny wrote:
What do you think? Is there a paradigm shift in miniaures miniatures gaming on the way? Write 500 words and hand in by monday.

I think it's an aberration against a larger trend.

Over the last 30 years, rules and models have been increasingly tied together. Successful games integrate fluff, models, and rules into one package. (historical share common fluff). But look at historicals, the last bastion of model freedom: Flames of War is a huge success with a large minis range, Bolt Action is making noise, and games like Saga have their own ranges readily available, something that was nearly unthinkable 15 years ago.

Outside of Kings of War, which frankly stumbled ass first into an opportunity created by GW throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and Frostrave, which is marketed by a company that pays the bills with books and supplements, that modeling freedom isn't quite there yet.

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