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Impasse reached.


I will prefer hard data over website membership. Why not just use BOLS activity as a marker? They were an AOS haven during the kickoff. Should be just the echo chamber you need. Except that is indeed an echo chamber now, damn near no activity.


See how junk data works? THAT was my point. Not to trash AOS.

Ick, BolS. You just had to make this dirty, didn't you?

I could have said Warseer, but they are not AOS biased enough to be considered.

Please, you've already said enough swear words already. No need to defile this thread further.

I know as far as 40k vs. AoS is concerned, over in the P&M section it seems the only way to get any comments is to be posting a project of the latest 40k stuff. Not many people seem to be working on AoS stuff. I think the AoS Projects thread here gets more traffic.

You know, it's because all the AOS people are too busy playing AOS to post anything anywhere. Least that's what I heard...

They're posting at the main forum, reddit and facebook all the time.

Sadly can't say the same for old fantasy and post-1.3 9th age areas who get mighty quiet at times...

(Seriously, the 9th age mods used that line to defend the inactivity amidst the fan-rage. )

There's also the TGA community website, which is a forum dedicated to AoS which is a bit more active.

That's what I meant by main forum.

 Just Tony wrote:
Impasse reached.


I will prefer hard data over website membership. Why not just use BOLS activity as a marker? They were an AOS haven during the kickoff. Should be just the echo chamber you need. Except that is indeed an echo chamber now, damn near no activity.


See how junk data works? THAT was my point. Not to trash AOS.

 Just Tony wrote:
I could have said Warseer, but they are not AOS biased enough to be considered.

Your argument is that dead forums shouldn't be used, which is something no one here said to do. BoLS nor Warseer were never "havens", please stop pushing that narrative.

No, BOLS was wholesale pushing AOS, to the point that the overly hostile mods and posters chased off pretty much anyone who said anything about AOS, especially if they strayed too far from the Oldhammer thread.

Warseer was mentioned as they never really took off as an overly AOS saturated forum, and the battles between the posters is what got their Old World subforum built, just like this site.


And also, the point is that ANY forum or site isn't necessarily indicative of the whole community, and can't be used as empirical data.

I never found BoLS to be AoS friendly, personally.

Had it been, I would've been posting there, as I've been an AoS fanboy the moment I saw Khorgos Kul in the leaked starter set photos.

BOLS is definitely not a friendly AOS site.

BOLS is not a friendly site. :p

Baron Klatz wrote:
BOLS is not a friendly site. :p

Now THAT I can agree with. However, they were even less friendly to retrogamers.

Hell, I'm trying my hand in joining and re-posting a P&M thread on The Grand Alliance forums, just in hopes that I can get some actual feedback. I'm hoping some reinforcement will help keep my nose to the grindstone, as my projects tend to slack off after the initial exitement. But I'm having a hard time getting any notice here on Dakka, I think it's just too 40k-centric, which is kinda being thrown into greater-than-usual overdrive with the release of 8th ed.

around here AoS is even deader than before,hell, I am considering just giving it up too. 8th had probably a lot to do with it, (not for me of course, I despise 8th) but this is not GW country anymore anyhow.

How did 8th hurt it if that's not GW country?

Anyway, go ahead and move on. No point to a hobby if you're not having fun.

We'll always be here to talk though if you've got a AoS itch.

 Just Tony wrote:
See above about Warmaster, I don't want to retype. And to address the smaller model count game: Warhammer Skirmish or Mordheim. Both games did exactly that. 250-500 point games which give you a chance to see how the stats function and the basic mechanics of the game as you build to the larger game, WFB. They didn't need AOS to do that, they already had it. They just didn't push it.

Warmaster was a specialist game with crappy support. So like all the other games with crappy support, it died. Not because WHFB had monsters too.

Warhammer Skirmish was, simply put, awful. Mordheim was good but lacked a lot, and I mean a LOT, of factions that people actually wanted to play. The AoS rules actually scale down to the individual model level better than WHFB ever did.

I was going to make a spiteful comment about AoS but not kicking that dead horse instead I will give insight from my 2 local stores.

Everyone who bought AoS after whfb liked it due to cooler looking marine type guys. Or the fact the models where new fresh and fancy.
Alot of them bought the new models painted 1 or 2 of the squad then left it.
Now that AoS is not the new hotness and 40k got new marines alot of them quit it dead.

Sigmar gave them alot of what they wanted new releases and new space marines. Now AoS is neither so they are quitting it. Alot of the people who jumped onto AoS where impulsive and just wanted new stuff.

If AoS doesn't end up dead I will be surprised, they got rid of all the old whfb fans now the new ones are quitting because its old.

WHFB had a update once every 4+ months, so when you bought a army you had those exact same models and book for years. So if you didnt play a super popular army you where brets or dark eldar, doomed to a life of 1990s models. It almost amazes me people where suprised when end times came out and people bought so much, it was the first real mass release and update for whfb since I started in 1998. Then they like recanted it lol

rmeister0 wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
See above about Warmaster, I don't want to retype. And to address the smaller model count game: Warhammer Skirmish or Mordheim. Both games did exactly that. 250-500 point games which give you a chance to see how the stats function and the basic mechanics of the game as you build to the larger game, WFB. They didn't need AOS to do that, they already had it. They just didn't push it.

Warmaster was a specialist game with crappy support. So like all the other games with crappy support, it died. Not because WHFB had monsters too.

Warhammer Skirmish was, simply put, awful. Mordheim was good but lacked a lot, and I mean a LOT, of factions that people actually wanted to play. The AoS rules actually scale down to the individual model level better than WHFB ever did.

Warmaster was dead on arrival. EVERY store I went to in a five county area could barely GIVE it away. Even when they clearance it out, it sat there forever. It didn't die because it wasn't supported, It died because it was awful and only a few diehards would play it. It went to Specialist Games so a few more dollars could be milked out of it without needing mainline support.

And your opinion of Warhammer Skirmish and Mordheim are noted, and I disagree with them wholeheartedly. Especially since damn near every faction/race was given Warband rules through Town Cryer. AOS isn't even REMOTELY the same game, so you can't say it gave people what they wanted in a Warhammer skirmish game.

OgreChubbs wrote:I was going to make a spiteful comment about AoS but not kicking that dead horse instead I will give insight from my 2 local stores.

Everyone who bought AoS after whfb liked it due to cooler looking marine type guys. Or the fact the models where new fresh and fancy.
Alot of them bought the new models painted 1 or 2 of the squad then left it.
Now that AoS is not the new hotness and 40k got new marines alot of them quit it dead.

Sigmar gave them alot of what they wanted new releases and new space marines. Now AoS is neither so they are quitting it. Alot of the people who jumped onto AoS where impulsive and just wanted new stuff.

If AoS doesn't end up dead I will be surprised, they got rid of all the old whfb fans now the new ones are quitting because its old.

WHFB had a update once every 4+ months, so when you bought a army you had those exact same models and book for years. So if you didnt play a super popular army you where brets or dark eldar, doomed to a life of 1990s models.

This is my experience as well. I had one store employee try to hard sell me AOS, saying how popular it was, but couldn't give me a straight answer about game nights for it.

 Just Tony wrote:


Warmaster was dead on arrival. EVERY store I went to in a five county area could barely GIVE it away. Even when they clearance it out, it sat there forever. It didn't die because it wasn't supported, It died because it was awful and only a few diehards would play it. It went to Specialist Games so a few more dollars could be milked out of it without needing mainline support.

I'd disagree, but maybe it was a US / UK thing. It was well received and played in my area; it was different strategically. I'd definitely disagree it was awful! If it really did die then they wouldn't have supported it with other armies all the way down to Kislev and Araby, separate Warmaster magazine and a forgeworld line (and that's before you think about Warmaster Ancients/historicals and Battle of Five Armies). I think this might be a local/country experience. Warmaster was culled at the same time as the other specialist games, if it had done that badly it's support would have dried up a lot earlier.

I found all of our super competitive hardcore tournament guys abandoned AOS day one. I note that any stores that are primarily tournament driven have had zero AOS presence and likely will never have an AOS presence.

Our GW store has a small group of us that play and do campaigns. About on par with what we had in whfb.

The difference is that its only us doing that, with a couple of new diehard tournament players that travel to the AOS tournaments, and the primary tournament players are no longer part of that community.

To a lot of people that are tournament oriented, the game might as well be dead. However, 9th age and KOW and Rune Wars are also largely dead and ignored here as well, with the main tournament games being xwing and 40k.

As to warmaster - that game died here as well without ever having had a chance. That was largely because there was no tournament support for it, as the bulk of my city back in the late 90s were primarly tournament guys and they played tournament games. Warmaster not having any large GT support did not interest them, and campaign play was non existent here back then in the public eye.

Baron Klatz wrote:
How did 8th hurt it if that's not GW country?

Anyway, go ahead and move on. No point to a hobby if you're not having fun.

We'll always be here to talk though if you've got a AoS itch.

Its not so much about not having fun, its about no community or people who play, I have heard all about "this facebook group and that" but when its time to toss dice, nothing but crickets. 4 guys are not enough to keep it going. By not GW country I mean that other games are the top dogs here, its not supported by most gamestores and those that do, they do 40k mostly,peeps loves their marines, there is a GW but its the usual broomcloset masquerading as a game store.

Ah, I see. Thanks for clearing that up.

On another note, can't believe Warmaster was such a flop. It looked so awesome too. :(

If AoS doesn't end up dead I will be surprised, they got rid of all the old whfb fans now the new ones are quitting because its old. 

Boy I hope you mean that anecdotally because those statements don't stack up well to other AoS communities be they online or local.

There's alot of old hands and wfb fans that transferred to AoS (one example being myself) and there's alot of players interested in just fantasy and stay with it instead of moving over to 40k because they want swords and sorcery, not tanks and bolters.

Again, AOS completely took over my area and even after the release of 40k it's still get a major presence. I don't know how well it's doing overall but I'd judge it to be a success in this part of the world.

Just 40K is being played regularly in my local GW store. Apart from the inevitable intro game, AoS is pretty dead. Even Blood Bowl sees more action since I have introduced it to some folk in the store.
The upcoming cthulhu elves and future releases have to be awesome or otherwise AoS goes the way of the dodo like all the other GW specialist games. But I guess diehard AoS fans will claim that it´s player base just play at home like the LOTR guys.

 Strg Alt wrote:
Just 40K is being played regularly in my local GW store. Apart from the inevitable intro game, AoS is pretty dead. Even Blood Bowl sees more action since I have introduced it to some folk in the store.
The upcoming cthulhu elves and future releases have to be awesome or otherwise AoS goes the way of the dodo like all the other GW specialist games. But I guess diehard AoS fans will claim that it´s player base just play at home like the LOTR guys.

Here in the US we've got a lot of bit GT level tournaments on the dockets. Locally we have a 3-game tournament once a month that has 16-20 guys show up of about 40 that it rotates around. I think some might dive a bit into 40k but I think the real thing that's slowed stuff down lately is the up in the air status due to the GHB II which is what most are waiting for before building their yearly tournament army

Gotta love all the AoS online places still having constant activity and streams of newbies and old hands joining but it's the local anecdotal evidence the anti-AoS crowd uses.

Where i am in the U.S AOS is all but dead. My group who had all just bought new armies or vastly increased them thinking that we would get some sort of a 9th age/ skirmish mix (almost like what they did with power level and points in the recent 40k release) gave it up almost overnight. We all played the 9th age for a bit but once it set in that the world we enjoyed was dead and never coming back people just stopped playing. Theres a big KOW presence in my area but it hurts a little bit every time i look at my all goblin army collecting dust and i just can't bear to bring it out again.

But onto my main point about 40k stealing sales its kind of a weird question. On one hand nobody but a couple of people (like the same 6 people were playing AOS anyway so there wasn't really anything to steal. At the same time my entire group and tons of people i haven't seen sense i was a kid are back for 40k. Its a mad rush to buy models every time a store gets shipments and the 40k sections are empty with a few random boxes in that entire section of the local stores. I don't see AOS getting much support in the future when they could update a 40k army that will make them more then the entire AOS line.

Honestly i poped in here just to see if AOS had gained any real traction from when i left it shortly after release but honestly it sounds a lot like it did after release. Some places seem to have small pockets of people that play but most people don't see anyone playing it.

Hopefully AOS works out because i would never wish someones favorite game dying on them (that happened to me with WHFB and i know how much it sucks). Maybe if you guys are lucky 40ks crazy popularity could draw some fresh people into AOS.