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Did GW ever do a statement about why Tomb Kings got the axe?  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
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Made in us
Knight of the Inner Circle






 Overread wrote:
And that's a pattern we've seen over and over with GW. Remember when Dark Elves were hardly selling due to having missed out at least one whole edition of rules (and thus at one stage being two editions behind). Hardly anyone used them as they were already a delicate and higher skill to use army; then with two editions of out of date rules they were so far behind that they were broken and not fun.

Given updated rules they leapt back into popularity.


I think that whole attitude is broken at GW now, they've smashed it with 8th edition 40K and I think they are on their way to smashing it for AoS, AoS is just taking longer because it was honestly in quite a mess to start with.


I agree the only direction AoS has is up.. I was amazed all the financial / sales reports that said it was doing great when it came out.
As for Dark Elves not selling.. I remember when the Witch Elves first came out they were something like $90 USD
and one of the best units in the game. So if you wanted a strong army be ready to throw down some major cash.

There is improvement every day with GW now.. and I am very surprised with this.. Even allowing social media employees to respond
to their customers asking questions. That would been unheard of just a few years ago..

Do I think killing off an army like Tomb kings without really saying anything was a little dirty; but it did allow us to finally get sea elves.

 
   
Made in us
Second Story Man





Astonished of Heck

Just Tony wrote:
 Charistoph wrote:
 Just Tony wrote:
An unbreakable army that causes Fear has a weakness?

Yeah, I'm a fan of the rule. Undead had enough perks that a massive minus like that wasn't that much of a detriment.

A lot depends on the age, but yeah, that was the point. I did forget the Fear factor in that earlier estimation. Part of the issue is that the more you progress in edition, both in rules and in army books, Fear became less effective than when the mummies were made in to their own army, yet, only the Tomb Kings were given such a massive weakness when compared to their Vampire cousins who were able to minimize the issue. More units were made Unbreakable or gained Fearless either natively, another rule, or other artifice as the armies progressed from 6th's launch.

And then there were the Daemons...

Yeah, now you're starting to reference 7th Ed, and those army books are LEGENDARY in their imbalance.

Also, how could VC nullify crumble? It still applied to them and there were no modifiers.


Point still stands, though: given what Undead armies were capable of, their crumble rule was not only fair and balanced, but justified. Daemons should have had a similar rule, honestly.

I've been referencing 6th through 8th the entire time, though I've tried to make sure I make reference to which I was commenting on, but I guess I wasn't direct enough.

Daemons did have something similar, but it was based on Leadership, and the Undead Troop LD was crap while Daemons was top tier. Not to mention, Undead troops tended to be weak and unskilled while Daemons were top tier.

Vampire Units with the Vampire rule from 7th on did not Crumble, and there were actually several of them like the Blood Knights. In 6th for both Undead, the only saving grace was to have a high Ld model, which was usually a Character, to mitigate the damage.

auticus wrote:
What the player base considered it and considers it is immaterial to how it is considered when it is produced.

I disagree solely on the context of what we are discussing. That being "that rule is so awful it never should have been".

Because 20 years ago few had a problem with that rule.

Today... people would and do hate the idea. Largely because today the game is played as a competitive sporting event, and a weakness of that magnitude, regardless of how narratively it makes sense, would be seen as a weak competiitive option, and thus shunned and avoided.

Which moulds the thought process of game designers.

Twenty years ago the rules team has it in there because they feel its narrative and fun and the playerbase is largely ok wiith iit.

Today it would never see the light of day... because the designers are also for the most part all tournament players and understand that todays player base is largely about tournaments and that rule has no place.

For the record I played undead and vampire counts extremely competitive in the 90s and early 2000s. I attended all the GTs I could go to in a year with them (the equivalent of hitting Adepticon, LVO, the Masters etc yearly) and even with the undead crumble rule, I did extraordinarily well, even banking 5th place (out of 80 players) and several top 10 placings. So to this day I personally don't think the undead crumble rule is bad or that big a deal. Especially with all the other strengths that that army had at the time.

Which doesn't explain why it was continued in the TK's 8th Edition Army Book when Vampires already had an easier time of countering it, and the next Vampires book was even easier. Tomb Kings literally did not change on this front between 6th Ed and 8th, Vampires did.

And no, GW has never considered their game to be a competitive one. They may have recognized the competitiveness of the purchasers, which led to the power marches of 7th and 8th Edition (which still left some armies in the dust), but to be a professional style tournament game has never been the goal of the Warhammer games' development cycles. Those are two separate concepts.

Are you a Wolf, a Sheep, or a Hound?
Megavolt wrote:They called me crazy…they called me insane…THEY CALLED ME LOONEY!! and boy, were they right.
 
   
Made in us
Clousseau




Ok. Well - based on what I"m reading on the twitter and the facebook page, GW's rules designs heavily include what they think would fail in the tournament world.

Their first attempt at a public litmus for narrative gaming, that being AOS pre GHB, failed utterly. To include narrative rules and silly things like having a beard giving you a bonus.

Regardless of whether or not they are designing a magic the gathering with models or not, they do take into consideration what the competitive crowd will do with their rule iin terms of rejection or acceptance and they are taking that into heavy regard with the rules they produce right now.

   
Made in us
Second Story Man





Astonished of Heck

auticus wrote:
Regardless of whether or not they are designing a magic the gathering with models or not, they do take into consideration what the competitive crowd will do with their rule iin terms of rejection or acceptance and they are taking that into heavy regard with the rules they produce right now.

There is a big difference in concept when planning things out, though. There is a difference between trying to create a street car you can race with and a race car you drive on the streets. In GW's case, power is something that sells models, not competitiveness, and that has long been their target. What can be claimed on the internet needs to show results at home, and until we're seeing every army with a Tome and with regular updates not trying to one up the last tome, all they are is words.

Not to mention, most of that has happened within the last couple of years, long after 8th Edition was planned to dust, much less before the 8th Edition Tomb Kings Army Book was produced.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/11/19 19:53:55


Are you a Wolf, a Sheep, or a Hound?
Megavolt wrote:They called me crazy…they called me insane…THEY CALLED ME LOONEY!! and boy, were they right.
 
   
Made in us
Clousseau




I think we're basically saying the same thing.

My original statement was in regard to the undead crumble rule, which was a part of the game for most of its history. Especially during the 6th edition days when Alessio was on the team, they did pay attention to the tournament crowd back then and discussed why they included rules and excluded others, and paid attention to what their target audience wanted.

The target audience of 1998 is different from the target audience of 2003, which is different from the target audience of 2010 which is different from the target audience of 2018.

I do agree that from 7th and 8th it appeared that GW didn't care what you wanted, they shoved it down our throat anyway.

I think THAT is why you had things like 7th edition demons (lol) and stinkers like 8th edition TK rules. Those stinker rules in 8th edition led TK to not be played much and of course not sell much.

Which led to them getting axed as they didn't move models.
   
Made in us
Second Story Man





Astonished of Heck

auticus wrote:
I think we're basically saying the same thing.

My original statement was in regard to the undead crumble rule, which was a part of the game for most of its history. Especially during the 6th edition days when Alessio was on the team, they did pay attention to the tournament crowd back then and discussed why they included rules and excluded others, and paid attention to what their target audience wanted.

The target audience of 1998 is different from the target audience of 2003, which is different from the target audience of 2010 which is different from the target audience of 2018.

I do agree that from 7th and 8th it appeared that GW didn't care what you wanted, they shoved it down our throat anyway.

I think THAT is why you had things like 7th edition demons (lol) and stinkers like 8th edition TK rules. Those stinker rules in 8th edition led TK to not be played much and of course not sell much.

Which led to them getting axed as they didn't move models.

The biggest problem is when you have a distinct dichotomy in design scheme. Tomb Kings were mostly brought up to Vampires in 8th, except for their Crumble rule which didn't change at all for them, but had improved for Vampires a generation before, and improved for Vampires again a few books after the Tomb Kings was released, which also improved everything else about the book to grow beyond what they were before. Keep in mind, Tomb Kings were not a high level of power with their 8th book, but they were a distinct improvement and brought them up to a level of decent competitiveness and power when compared to other MID line armies of the time. Quite a different story from the Vampires and the Daemons of the same time frame.

It is a dichotomy like that which indicates a distinct level of apathy regarding actual competitiveness, or a complete ignorance of the difference between competitiveness and power.

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Megavolt wrote:They called me crazy…they called me insane…THEY CALLED ME LOONEY!! and boy, were they right.
 
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut





Virginia

It's weird because I never wanted to actually play Tomb Kings despite my love of Egyptian-style lore but I wanted them to exist as an army for other to play with.

I thought TK weren't popular, especially in 7th, because they were kinda a one trick pony: flank with chariots and do the casket thing. They didn't really have much going for them other than being a faster undead army than VC with more flavor and crappier models. When VC got new skeletons and TK didn't I was worried about their future.

I really hope they make a comeback and that players like them, I really fail to understand why GW wanted to add two more dwarf armies that are rarely played in my area and not TK who could've some really unique style.

I hope Lizardmen aren't axed because they're my favorite fantasy army along with big, heavily armored orcs.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/11/22 20:39:30


 
   
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The best State-Texas

 Fajita Fan wrote:
It's weird because I never wanted to actually play Tomb Kings despite my love of Egyptian-style lore but I wanted them to exist as an army for other to play with.

I thought TK weren't popular, especially in 7th, because they were kinda a one trick pony: flank with chariots and do the casket thing. They didn't really have much going for them other than being a faster undead army than VC with more flavor and crappier models. When VC got new skeletons and TK didn't I was worried about their future.

I really hope they make a comeback and that players like them, I really fail to understand why GW wanted to add two more dwarf armies that are rarely played in my area and not TK who could've some really unique style.

I hope Lizardmen aren't axed because they're my favorite fantasy army along with big, heavily armored orcs.


I would not worry about any army that has a massive plastic range.

I honestly expect at some point that we will get a Tomb Kings style AoS army. They've got at least two dual plastic kits to utilize. It would likely be similar to something like DoK. Maybe something with some mass constructs. Unless they've just trashed the molds, but I doubt that.


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Bergen

I would like a faction within undead that compete with nagash or oppose him.

Settra and minor kingdoms is the perfect solution for this. Fluffy as heck.

   
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Executing Exarch




It wouldn't be hard to get Settra back into the game. I could easily see Tzeentch keeping his spirit around after End Times just for the "screw over Nagash" rationale, if nothing else. Sure, Settra wouldn't serve Tzeentch (SETTRA DOES NOT SERVE!l). But he'd be a potential problem for Nagash, who Settra hates more than anyone else. And I can also see Nagash inadvertently providing Settra's spirit with a new (mummified) body. After all, Nagash is the master of "my plan to secure world domination ALMOST succeeded, but then ended up backfiring in the most disastrous fashion imaginable". And the Skaven weren't responsible for all of those instances. Nagash accidentally providing Settra with a new body and powerbase would probably be one of the least disastrous outcomes that Nagash has had to date.
   
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Virginia

I know that a lot of people want a very hard distinction between 40k and Fantasy but I'd be totally in favor of TK making a return with hieroglyphs and references to Tzneetch and a certain one-eyed giant mage. Never explicitly say "Magnus" but just sorta hint at it.
   
Made in us
Second Story Man





Astonished of Heck

 Fajita Fan wrote:
I know that a lot of people want a very hard distinction between 40k and Fantasy but I'd be totally in favor of TK making a return with hieroglyphs and references to Tzneetch and a certain one-eyed giant mage. Never explicitly say "Magnus" but just sorta hint at it.

Undead for Tzeentch?

It has possibilities. There has been many notations about how connected the 40K and Sigmar universes are, if only by crossing through the Warp in a certain way at least. Between the daemons, Chaos Gods, and the Old Ones, there is a lot of background mixed between them.

Personally, I would like to see the Tomb Kings being the Undead from certain plains, like Fire and such. We already see the differentiation in the Dwarfs, so why not the Undead as well?

As a little side note, this discussion has kind of prompted me to start doing a Warmachine conversion of the Tomb Kings. I'm not very far, yet. I've only got the dissemination mostly down and worked on Khalida's and Settra's stats. I've started posting them on the Khemri and LormaHordes forums, and if interest is shown here, I may post it down board.

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Megavolt wrote:They called me crazy…they called me insane…THEY CALLED ME LOONEY!! and boy, were they right.
 
   
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So like, If tomb Kings where considered unable to be copyrighted and therefore dropped, how come normal skeletons are still around?

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 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So like, If tomb Kings where considered unable to be copyrighted and therefore dropped, how come normal skeletons are still around?

Nothing for people to steal from them. A basic skeleton itself is a pretty bare boned concept.

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Virginia

pm713 wrote:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So like, If tomb Kings where considered unable to be copyrighted and therefore dropped, how come normal skeletons are still around?

Nothing for people to steal from them. A basic skeleton itself is a pretty bare boned concept.

I see what you did there...
   
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On the Internet

 Fajita Fan wrote:
pm713 wrote:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So like, If tomb Kings where considered unable to be copyrighted and therefore dropped, how come normal skeletons are still around?

Nothing for people to steal from them. A basic skeleton itself is a pretty bare boned concept.

I see what you did there...

I saw it, chuckled and approve completely.
   
 
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