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So AOS has been out for over THREE YEARS.

The factions are a mess.
The rules are boring and uninspired
Points make no sense
Locally (for me) its a dead game

Will GW do everything in its power to prop up this “zombie like” game? Is AOS too big to fail?

What do you think?

Pancakey wrote:
So AOS has been out for over THREE YEARS.

The factions are a mess.

Based on what and why?

The rules are boring and uninspired

Why? And please don't cite a certain user who cannot into objective play nor using artifacts nor command abilities like inspiring presence.

Points make no sense

And that's because...

Locally (for me) its a dead game

You're not (nor your town, city or metro area is) the center of the universe.

Will GW do everything in its power to prop up this “zombie like” game? Is AOS too big to fail?

What do you think?

That you shouldn't consider your opinion an objective fact, mayhaps?

Well its doing far better in those 3 years than fantasy was doing in its last 3 years or so of life. At least if we take a general look at the overall picture not just the local scenes.

So clearly GW and AoS are doing something right for a larger portion of people.

And yes it is too big to fail; its the second biggest model like GW makes with an insane investment in moulds and design work. So yes GW will do what they can to keep it alive; which is a good thing for gamers who enjoy it and the models.


I agree its got some rough edges, but a big part of that is dealing with the first year or so of its life when it was under different management and clearly had a very different focus to what it has now. The 2017 Generals Hand book was the start of it actually taking itself seriously as opposed to a joke set of rules and being a boutique model line (which is basically what it launched as).

Plus don't forget 40K was taking a big lions share of attention in rule production and releases over the last year and half so there was less room and time for AoS - even though AoS had several new factions and a lot of models released over that period of time.


My personal hope is that now 40K is pretty much nearly done with the majority of its major codex update; there should be room for AoS to get the major attention and get a lot of Battletomes and armies out there and cleaned up.

Lord Kragan wrote:

Pancakey wrote:
So AOS has been out for over THREE YEARS.

The factions are a mess.

Based on what and why?

The rules are boring and uninspired

Why? And please don't cite a certain user who cannot into objective play nor using artifacts nor command abilities like inspiring presence.

Points make no sense

And that's because...

Locally (for me) its a dead game

You're not (nor your town, city or metro area is) the center of the universe.

Will GW do everything in its power to prop up this “zombie like” game? Is AOS too big to fail?

What do you think?

That you shouldn't consider your opinion an objective fact, mayhaps?

40k is a mess, sustained because of a cultish loss aversion fallacy of players way over committed.

AoS is simple, fun, and far more balanced(least compared to 40k).

There, now I too have asserted opinion as fact.

Pancakey wrote:

Ah, so it's just a troll thread, kay. Sorry for overestimating you, I guess.

Is it too big to fail?

The simple truth is that people play whatever everyone else is playing. Quality of rules don't really matter. We want the quality of rules to matter but we have seen time and time again that they don't really to a lot of people so long as they can get in games and play with their toys.

So yes. GW is too big to fail in that you KNOW with 40k you will always find games to play and AOS is getting that way too.

There are a few higher quality rulesets out there that will never get the fan base simply because people don't want to invest in a game that they can't play or struggle to find opponents for no matter how awesome the rules are.

auticus wrote:
Is it too big to fail?

The simple truth is that people play whatever everyone else is playing. Quality of rules don't really matter. We want the quality of rules to matter but we have seen time and time again that they don't really to a lot of people so long as they can get in games and play with their toys.

Very true. This doesn't mean that GW isn't too big to fail. Size doesn't matter when it comes to failing or succeeding, it is adaptability. Size can lead to adaptability in business (ability to be diverse in your risks), but it can also be a hindrance (executives not listening to outside feedback and only to their yes-men).

A decade or so ago, WHFB would have been considered too big to fail, but it did, it got scrapped, and now we have AoS. GW took the risk with AoS to restimulate this market share for them, and it worked. Five years ago, 40K would have been considered too big to fail, but 7th became Warhammer: Formations and it started to fail. They took some of the lessons they learned in the risk of AoS applied them to 40K.

Because of how their rules are developed (fluff makes the rules, points are drunkenly dart-boarded), both systems run in to the very possibility of failing under their bloat again. How soon that will be remains to be seen. Honestly, I expect to see WarmaHordes Mk 4 turn in to a lighter game and X-Wing v3.0 being less upgrade-dependant before GW buries their games alive again, but we'll see what the future holds.

I don't find Age of Sigmar that big. It's still new. It hasn't even really "found it's ground" of what it really is. New things keep being added that really changes the game. By that I mean what was just "4 pages" has so much more now. More will even be more added, we just not sure what "direction" it will take.

After all, Fantasy Battles I would say was Big. It failed. With Age of Sigmar now even on the same footing yet as Fantasy was, it can fail as well. Saying it will not fail, I just don't understand. If AoS can't fail, then Fantasy shouldn't have failed either.

We can even say 40K has failed. Failed in the terms of while they were making profit it was getting smaller and smaller each year. Otherwise why the big changes with Games Workshop then? They threw out the baby with the bath water with Fantasy Battles and it didn't work with AoS. Only once the changes with GW did both AoS and 40K had growth again.

So once Age of Sigmar becomes on a level like Fantasy Battles it can surely fail.

Also look at Privateer Press. A company that supposedly has better rules. I say supposedly because of differing opinions. They had a bigger line than Age of Sigmar and it seems to have failed at the moment.

Another "big" product line. Lord of the Rings. Another GW game system that failed.

So it doesn't matter how big something is. It can fail. Why they fail? So many reasons as to why they can. But they can fail non the less.

Maybe the question is "Will GW dump Age of Sigmar now" or did they heavily invested too much to do another "dump the baby with the bath water" again and need to keep trecking through?

No game or company in this hobby are too big to fail, at any given bad year, any of them could collapse. They are not likely to, but they could.

Also look at Privateer Press. A company that supposedly has better rules. I say supposedly because of differing opinions. They had a bigger line than Age of Sigmar and it seems to have failed at the moment.

Funnily enough it started with some bad rules writing and some Kirbyesque levels of issue and just spiraled out.

 Overread wrote:
Well its doing far better in those 3 years than fantasy was doing in its last 3 years or so of life. At least if we take a general look at the overall picture not just the local scenes.

So clearly GW and AoS are doing something right for a larger portion of people.

And yes it is too big to fail; its the second biggest model like GW makes with an insane investment in moulds and design work. So yes GW will do what they can to keep it alive; which is a good thing for gamers who enjoy it and the models.

Well GW also wasn't releasing new models much in last 3 years so...Fantasy was still top 3 selling game when they decided to can the support.

And size isn't issue regarding falling. All it does is pull the support like they did with FB and sales will drop. No model releases, not much model sales either. Models sell majority of their life expectancy sales in first few months. Thus no new models released means model sales drop a ton. That's what killed FB sales.

tneva82 wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Well its doing far better in those 3 years than fantasy was doing in its last 3 years or so of life. At least if we take a general look at the overall picture not just the local scenes.

So clearly GW and AoS are doing something right for a larger portion of people.

And yes it is too big to fail; its the second biggest model like GW makes with an insane investment in moulds and design work. So yes GW will do what they can to keep it alive; which is a good thing for gamers who enjoy it and the models.

Well GW also wasn't releasing new models much in last 3 years so...Fantasy was still top 3 selling game when they decided to can the support.

And size isn't issue regarding falling. All it does is pull the support like they did with FB and sales will drop. No model releases, not much model sales either. Models sell majority of their life expectancy sales in first few months. Thus no new models released means model sales drop a ton. That's what killed FB sales.

I disagree.
WHFB reached a point where it needed a massive investment to start playing. Units were played in big blocks of 30/40 models and boxes often came with 10 guys selling for 30-40 Euros. For what translated in game to just a handful of points for a core unit, which you needed multiples of.
I can't imagine they pulled more than a couple of new players in since they released 8th.
Rules combined with RRP of kits killed WHFB; not canned support.

Pancakey wrote:
So AOS has been out for over THREE YEARS.

The factions are a mess.
The rules are boring and uninspired
Points make no sense
Locally (for me) its a dead game

Will GW do everything in its power to prop up this “zombie like” game? Is AOS too big to fail?

What do you think?

I've reported you, so you'll get the attention you want.

Fancy proving me wrong and providing some basis for your claims?

Pancakey wrote: