Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
It depends entirely on how you look at it. In a military sense? I will agree that the troop numbers in a standard game of 40k would not qualify as a skirmish. However we are not talking about actual battles that actually are happening. It's a game and the way wargames are categorized as based on how they play, not the numbers of models on the board. In that sense 40k is a Skirmish game.

So yes If I am being a bit harsh in my criticism then I apologize. However through all my years of playing wargames I have never heard of 40k being called anything other then a skirmish game. And it has always been called a skirmish game based on how it played not the number of models on the field.

I imagine that is ultimately where the disconnect in terminology comes from.

Well, I did "unfairly" quote just you, but the "problem" was both sides not defining terms and so just talking around each other.

We are, as a community, pretty loose on terms. I don't just mean this forum, but in wargaming. In hobby. Think about how many ways you can interpret a notion of "scale." You might read scale and think, of, the proportion of the models. 28mm scale. But someone else reads "scale" and thinks, oh, the size of the forces in the game. A skirmish scale game of 10 models per side.

No one is wrong there. Just the word does not have a definitive, clear, objective meaning unless you pretty much spell it out. Again, I wasn't intent on "singling" you out, just a severe limitation of the nature of quoting here that made it seem that way, so I apologize if it came across that way.

 kodos wrote:

... if Dakka is considered a US forum.

It's not.

40k is a skirmish game but GW have forced it into a larger scale without changing the machanics of their skirmish system.

Too much detail for the level being played. While also reducing stuff like morale, cover and movement to speed play up when morale, cover and movement are vital ingredients so any wargame played at any size level.

But hell isn't it great to know what kind of knife your sargent is armed with?

 Grot 6 wrote:
If anything, the news of the upcoming "Fantasy" retread shows GW's weakness, rather then their strengths.

As is said, Warmahordes has picked up the GW Overpriced/ Over tabled" bug in the last three years. They are honestly a skirmish oriented game, and the shoehorn fits all doesn't work for them. The Kirby Days was when we saw the initiation of AOS, and we see it getting tanked as it continues to try new things with the concept. Yes, They are not as popular as the Fantasy used to be, but they have a edge in that GW threw in all their egg into this basket, and clearly found that it was not working. With their Chapterhouse lawsuit, GW was taken down a peg, and had to clearly make up lost revenue, so they jumped in head first with the skirmish games, Rogue Trader, Kill Team, Necromunda, etc... So exactly, THIS is where fantasy would come to the table at, and then grow from there....

Mantic is more nitch, and playing off of GW's detractions, rather then building on their own. If it came right down to it, Mantic would lose their shorts if it weren't for Kickstarter, and being able to singlehandedly sell direct to players, THIS is one area where GW is too kool for school.

All of this begs the question- WHY DID IT TAKE THEM SO LONG TO COME FULL CIRCLE?

The echo chamber of be positive all the time or we ban you communities like tga surround gw with warm cheer about aos. When communication fan channels only let you fap to positivity 24/7 you are going to miss the other side of the coin.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kodos wrote:

 Elbows wrote:

You can continue to believe what you want to believe - but you've no better information or evidence that you think Mantic is doing well, than I have evidence they are not. I see zero Mantic presence in the local gaming community, none in the other city I frequent either. Not a single gaming friend I know owns or likes Mantic miniatures. And they're not all GW players either. I see little to no positive Mantic presence on the variety of gaming forums or facebook groups I attend. If you firmly believe Mantic is moving and shaking and killing the market...that's fine?

So I guess Age of Sigmar is dead too?
Never seen any positive comment on the rules, non here around play that game or buy the models and the forums or social media groups I attend just avoid that game and everything that comes with it.

It seems to be a US-only thing that people are even talking about it, if Dakka is considered a US forum.

Same for Kill Team and Blood Bowl, I mean I have seen more local Battletech than Blood Bowl games, so following that Battletech is the more popular game?

Aos is situational. Dead some places, booming in others. Its for sure the most popular fantasy game in the us from my travels for whatever thats worth, with a huge push to monetize tournaments and milk the community via patreons, “coaching”, and pay wall blogs and youtube streams.

To roll this back around to the original topic, frankly how GW handled 7th edition is basically part of why Fantasy ultimately died. 7th edition on it's own wasn't the problem but the trio of Dark Elves, Vampires and Daemon army books basically breaking the game hand a large hand in it.

GW's refusal to Errata those ridiculously broken armies led the the design decisions in 8th edition. Instead of just fixing the army books, or doing a ravening Hordes for 8th like they did with the transition between 5th and 6th, they tried to fix the game with the core rules. That led to the nerfing of psychology and changes to movement that led to veteran players bowing out. Dropping sales to below the GW paint range.

Regardless what you think of AoS, it's 30% of GW sales so it succeeded in what it was meant to do, sell models.

 Elbows wrote:

 kodos wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
It's pretty simple...people still aren't buying many Mantic miniatures. Go look at the "Mantic" section of this forum...there's pages and pages of armies for KoW which are not Mantic miniatures, etc. They failed to revise their sculpts/model line where they could have stolen the full miniature market from GW - instead they only cornered the market on rank-and-flank rules. That may be enough for them. Instead, Oathmark, Northstar, and Forgeworld have jumped on the "good" plastic fantasy lines instead. Mantic still can't sculpt their way out of a wet bag.

because you don't see a lot of Mantic models present in a Forum, you think they don't sell well.

and how should Mantic have stolen the miniature market from GW?
By making as expensive models as GW for a GW game that is not going well (8th edition) or for game no one really know what models would be needed (AoS)?
of course, if Mantic would have known 3 years in advance, they would have possibly got better and cheaper Minis on the table, not knowing if there is even a market for them or not

Yes, the revised their line with the death of Warhammer, but surprise, without a GW Mass Battle game demanding a high number of models to play, there was nor real market to sell R&F model lines.

And using models made for R&F for a Skirmish game does not work well in the same way is using models made for Skirmish games in R&F.

PS: I have never seen Oathmark, Northstar or Forgeworld to be used for Warhammer Fantasy at all, while there were a lot of Mantic models used for Core Units.
Nowadays I see a lot of T9A armies with Mantic models as they are the only ones left with models lines supporting the R&F market.

PPS: and by saying Mantic still can't sculpt, I guess you are some years behind and/or never looked at the stuff from Mantic in the recent years.

You can continue to believe what you want to believe - but you've no better information or evidence that you think Mantic is doing well, than I have evidence they are not. I see zero Mantic presence in the local gaming community, none in the other city I frequent either. Not a single gaming friend I know owns or likes Mantic miniatures. And they're not all GW players either. I see little to no positive Mantic presence on the variety of gaming forums or facebook groups I attend. If you firmly believe Mantic is moving and shaking and killing the market...that's fine?

I have followed Mantic plenty lately and I still am yet to be wowed by any of their sculpts. Their general aesthetic is still pretty poor and the quality of the Mantic products I've been hands-on with have been garbage. I suppose this is the internet though so you can attempt to tell me that my opinion is wrong or some such. Carry on with your enthusiasm for Mantic - no one is stopping you.

Except Mantic, like all UK-based companies, file company accounts which can be viewed by the public, and whilst it doesn't include the P&L (which simply indicates they have less than £10m turnover under Small Companies exemptions), state of play can be inferred from year on year balance sheet comparisons.

So yes, factually, you're wrong.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
To roll this back around to the original topic, frankly how GW handled 7th edition is basically part of why Fantasy ultimately died. 7th edition on it's own wasn't the problem but the trio of Dark Elves, Vampires and Daemon army books basically breaking the game hand a large hand in it.

Honestly? It was starting at the tail end of 6th. You could see the Army Book Creep making the later books overpowered and poorly balanced, but it wasn't at a tipping point yet, until one thing happened...

Pete Haines.

Of all the 6th Ed books, and even as much as how I hated the fact that Chaos got to have its cake and eat every one else's bakeries too, Dwarfs 6.5 was the most imbalanced thing to come out of 6th. So much so it stood up reasonably well to 7th Ed. books. If you really want to know how bad it was screwed, I did a thread about it over at classichammer.

At any rate, this book established two things: 1 - that the basic compositional structure of armies were about to be tossed out the window wholesale, and 2 - It would start an arms race of Special Rules which would result in the creation of the Big Bad Three. Once limits were being ignored and rules made explicitly to break limits laid down by the rulebook, all it took was Gav Thorpe and Matt Ward to see it and say "OP? Hold my beer..." From there it was the High Elves with Speed of Asuryan, which was dismissed by several people in my gaming communities because "they were S3 T3, how bad is that rule really?". Precedent. It set a design precedent which carried over all the way to 8th, which was also one of Ward's projects. It all boiled down to the lack of restraint on Haines' part as he wrote the books for his two favorite armies: Dwarfs 6.5 and the now infamous Chaos Marines Codex 3.5 on the other side of the wall.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
GW's refusal to Errata those ridiculously broken armies led the the design decisions in 8th edition. Instead of just fixing the army books, or doing a ravening Hordes for 8th like they did with the transition between 5th and 6th, they tried to fix the game with the core rules. That led to the nerfing of psychology and changes to movement that led to veteran players bowing out. Dropping sales to below the GW paint range.

Ward writing books EXPLICITLY to take advantage of rules loopholes in 7th and then writing 8th to correct those Army books rather than fix the books themselves, THEN the 8th books doubling down on the lethality along with basically adjusting fire off the new rules blew the playability up, honestly.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
Regardless what you think of AoS, it's 30% of GW sales so it succeeded in what it was meant to do, sell models.

This part confuses me. Who was dismissing AOS at all?

I'm just going to say it.

Warhammer Fantasy wasn't selling. Barely anyone was playing it. It was a dead game.

You know the only people who've argued that and told me I'm wrong? Diehard WFB fans. And some people who are just butthurt because things changed.

I know people who love WFB, I did. But I spent years of my life with a box of models for Warhammer Fantasy Battles hoping to find someone that played. I didn't like 40k at first, and the only reason I got into it at all was because from 1994-2002... maybe once a month I could find someone playing fantasy and play a game.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
I'm just going to say it.

Warhammer Fantasy wasn't selling. Barely anyone was playing it. It was a dead game.

Tell that to the people who received their Nagash in a blank box because they had to make a production re-run on the first week.

Or to the people who couldn't get their hands on the hardcover ET books because they got the sales predictions so wrong they eventually went GW shop only (and screwed with many a FLGS) or to tournament circuits like ETC who had their higher attendance ever during the ET.

8th had it's problems but it was definitely fixable. ET proved their customer base was willing to spend big if it got some love.

jouso wrote:
Tell that to the people who received their Nagash in a blank box because they had to make a production re-run on the first week.

Or to the people who couldn't get their hands on the hardcover ET books because they got the sales predictions so wrong they eventually went GW shop only (and screwed with many a FLGS) or to tournament circuits like ETC who had their higher attendance ever during the ET.

8th had it's problems but it was definitely fixable. ET proved their customer base was willing to spend big if it got some love.

Alternative take: End Times sold because it was "End Times" and it was going to be a monumental event/series of products that wouldn't be available again afterward, and people rushed to buy it.

By this logic, Shadow War Armageddon was an awesome game because it sold out immediately.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

jouso wrote:
Tell that to the people who received their Nagash in a blank box because they had to make a production re-run on the first week.

Or to the people who couldn't get their hands on the hardcover ET books because they got the sales predictions so wrong they eventually went GW shop only (and screwed with many a FLGS) or to tournament circuits like ETC who had their higher attendance ever during the ET.

8th had it's problems but it was definitely fixable. ET proved their customer base was willing to spend big if it got some love.

Alternative take: End Times sold because it was "End Times" and it was going to be a monumental event/series of products that wouldn't be available again afterward, and people rushed to buy it.

By this logic, Shadow War Armageddon was an awesome game because it sold out immediately.

ET was more than a campaign. It changed core rules like allies and army composition and introduced summoning as army-wide mechanic.

It became a de facto 8.1 which shook up casual and tournament play.

jouso wrote:
ET was more than a campaign. It changed core rules like allies and army composition and introduced summoning as army-wide mechanic.

It became a de facto 8.1 which shook up casual and tournament play.

Still never saw it. I remember it being discussed, but not a soul was playing Warhammer Fantasy.

Granted, it doesn't help that there's more gaming in the FLGS than the GW stores (most people stateside hate playing at GW, they're too pushy with the merch and their tables are usually 4'x4' in a LOT of places).

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

jouso wrote:
ET was more than a campaign. It changed core rules like allies and army composition and introduced summoning as army-wide mechanic.

It became a de facto 8.1 which shook up casual and tournament play.

Still never saw it. I remember it being discussed, but not a soul was playing Warhammer Fantasy.

Granted, it doesn't help that there's more gaming in the FLGS than the GW stores (most people stateside hate playing at GW, they're too pushy with the merch and their tables are usually 4'x4' in a LOT of places).

Over here people mostly play in clubs rather than stores.

The releases (Nagash, morghast, the skaven ridicously OP Gunner rats) were immensely popular. Magic cards sold out, tournament attendance went up.

Of course if you lived in an area with little fantasy activity to start with you wouldn't see it.

jouso wrote:


Tell that to the people who received their Nagash in a blank box because they had to make a production re-run on the first week.

Or to the people who couldn't get their hands on the hardcover ET books because they got the sales predictions so wrong they eventually went GW shop only (and screwed with many a FLGS) or to tournament circuits like ETC who had their higher attendance ever during the ET.

8th had it's problems but it was definitely fixable. ET proved their customer base was willing to spend big if it got some love.

Yes people bought the Nagash book because they thought it was part of a push toward moving the story forward and part of a bunch of big changes leading into a 9th edition. They bought the Glottkin book for the same reason. As soon as December rolled around the the rumors on Warseer started...round based...floating planes of magic. No one bought Thanquol and the Archaon book. I know because I can go to my FLGS right now and both of those books are still on the discount shelf.

 Grot 6 wrote:
I

Mantic is more nitch, and playing off of GW's detractions, rather then building on their own. If it came right down to it, Mantic would lose their shorts if it weren't for Kickstarter, and being able to singlehandedly sell direct to players, THIS is one area where GW is too kool for school.

While I agree Mantic is more niche then GW, there are some inaccuracies here. Mantics "classic" range of fantasy miniatures (Undead, Orcs, Elves, Dwarfs) were all released without kickstarter, in fact, Mantic started in 2008 but had their first KS in 2012, so they were already an established company when they had their first KS. Secondly, the latest edition of Kings of War was released directly without kickstarter, so this idea that mantic is reliant on kickstarter is just wrong.

Also, I also disagree with the idea that mantic is just aping GW without building their own. Mantic are clearly in the early process of building their own fantasy/sci-fi worlds, just have a look at the latest version of Kings of War/Deadzone/Warpath. To quote Mantic directly “We don't blow up worlds. We build them...”

Not gonna lie, though- the lore was better.

jouso wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
I'm just going to say it.

Warhammer Fantasy wasn't selling. Barely anyone was playing it. It was a dead game.

Tell that to the people who received their Nagash in a blank box because they had to make a production re-run on the first week.

Or to the people who couldn't get their hands on the hardcover ET books because they got the sales predictions so wrong they eventually went GW shop only (and screwed with many a FLGS) or to tournament circuits like ETC who had their higher attendance ever during the ET.

8th had it's problems but it was definitely fixable. ET proved their customer base was willing to spend big if it got some love.

In terms of WHFB getting some love, my memory of 8th Ed releases seems different to those saying the game was neglected.

Lots of army books released. Most with new units or model updates - sometimes both.

We got Storm of Magic as well, and associated beasties alongside.

So to say it was neglected just isn't my recollection nor experience, even pre-End Times (which, actually, kicked off with Blood of Sigmar, actually Seriously, that was when Mannfred succeeded in casting all of Sylvania into permanent darkness, setting things up for Nagash's return).

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


In terms of WHFB getting some love, my memory of 8th Ed releases seems different to those saying the game was neglected.

Lots of army books released. Most with new units or model updates - sometimes both.

We got Storm of Magic as well, and associated beasties alongside.

So to say it was neglected just isn't my recollection nor experience, even pre-End Times (which, actually, kicked off with Blood of Sigmar, actually Seriously, that was when Mannfred succeeded in casting all of Sylvania into permanent darkness, setting things up for Nagash's return).

Yup, Fantasy was not neglected at all in the early part of 8th. Plenty of supplements and new ways to play. It's just that no one, you know, played them. All anyone want to do was a pitched battle game. That was the be all end all of WHFB. Hell even when 8th gave 6 different scenarios to play people still whined about playing "the watchtower" since their totally elite ROLFSTOMP army they had would lose because they only ever built their army to play 1 way, pitched battle.

While I myself am still salty at GW for nuking WHFB I swear it's hard to blame GW when they really REALLY tried to save Fantasy. We all just reacted to it like that Poochie episode of the Simpsons.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

jouso wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
I'm just going to say it.

Warhammer Fantasy wasn't selling. Barely anyone was playing it. It was a dead game.

Tell that to the people who received their Nagash in a blank box because they had to make a production re-run on the first week.

Or to the people who couldn't get their hands on the hardcover ET books because they got the sales predictions so wrong they eventually went GW shop only (and screwed with many a FLGS) or to tournament circuits like ETC who had their higher attendance ever during the ET.

8th had it's problems but it was definitely fixable. ET proved their customer base was willing to spend big if it got some love.

In terms of WHFB getting some love, my memory of 8th Ed releases seems different to those saying the game was neglected.

Lots of army books released. Most with new units or model updates - sometimes both.

We got Storm of Magic as well, and associated beasties alongside.

So to say it was neglected just isn't my recollection nor experience, even pre-End Times (which, actually, kicked off with Blood of Sigmar, actually Seriously, that was when Mannfred succeeded in casting all of Sylvania into permanent darkness, setting things up for Nagash's return).

GW definitely did release quite a lot of stuff over the course of 8th so it's not true to say they neglected WHFB during that time. However, I would question whether they released the right stuff at the right time. For example, the model updates that happened during 8th were great...except the prices were often obscene and they'd left them so late everyone had already either bought the older metal versions of new plastic units or sourced models from other companies. I played Dark Elves and it took GW decades to release new Dark Riders and we had to endure the 6th edition Executioners (great models, horrible design because the sword blades were glued on individually) for over 10 years too. GW eventually released plastic Executioners. The models were OK - a bit divisive, but generally pretty good I thought - the prices were obscene. £35 for 10 is too steep for the numbers required to field a decent unit, especially when everyone but brand new players already had an alternative.

The new supplements before the End Times were similar. I don't think anyone was asking for the type of thing GW produced, and nobody was very impressed by them. Storm of Magic was an unbalanced, poorly thought out joke of a supplement, for example. OTOH, the ET books were very successful because they provided new armies, new models and shook up the meta and provided genuinely new content. Many of the kits sold out. There was an appetite there, I just don't think GW at the time was well run enough to capitalise on it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

jouso wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
I'm just going to say it.

Warhammer Fantasy wasn't selling. Barely anyone was playing it. It was a dead game.

Tell that to the people who received their Nagash in a blank box because they had to make a production re-run on the first week.

Or to the people who couldn't get their hands on the hardcover ET books because they got the sales predictions so wrong they eventually went GW shop only (and screwed with many a FLGS) or to tournament circuits like ETC who had their higher attendance ever during the ET.

8th had it's problems but it was definitely fixable. ET proved their customer base was willing to spend big if it got some love.

In terms of WHFB getting some love, my memory of 8th Ed releases seems different to those saying the game was neglected.

Early 8th was ok but don't you remember the FAQ blackout of late 8th? Jumping the price shark with witch elves?

That blackout started in 2013, why? Because GW has a 2 year production cycle. What was GW doing in that 2 years? Age of Sigmar. That's why there was nothing coming out.

I think most people don't really remember that the conversation going on at GW in regards to Fantasy was either a total revamp of their fantasy game (Which lead to Age of Sigmar) or no fantasy at all.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
That blackout started in 2013, why? Because GW has a 2 year production cycle. What was GW doing in that 2 years? Age of Sigmar. That's why there was nothing coming out.

I think most people don't really remember that the conversation going on at GW in regards to Fantasy was either a total revamp of their fantasy game (Which lead to Age of Sigmar) or no fantasy at all.

Everyone knows that.

Everyone also knows that start collecting and reasonably priced boxes (something they apparently could only figure out during the AoS launch) would have kept the people in with much less drama.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
That blackout started in 2013, why? Because GW has a 2 year production cycle. What was GW doing in that 2 years? Age of Sigmar. That's why there was nothing coming out.

2 year? I thought I remembered in one of the interviews with Jess Goodwin, the production/planning cycle was like 5 years.

I don't think most people have any evidence of the sort?

dyndraig wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:
I

Mantic is more nitch, and playing off of GW's detractions, rather then building on their own. If it came right down to it, Mantic would lose their shorts if it weren't for Kickstarter, and being able to singlehandedly sell direct to players, THIS is one area where GW is too kool for school.

While I agree Mantic is more niche then GW, there are some inaccuracies here. Mantics "classic" range of fantasy miniatures (Undead, Orcs, Elves, Dwarfs) were all released without kickstarter, in fact, Mantic started in 2008 but had their first KS in 2012, so they were already an established company when they had their first KS. Secondly, the latest edition of Kings of War was released directly without kickstarter, so this idea that mantic is reliant on kickstarter is just wrong.

Also, I also disagree with the idea that mantic is just aping GW without building their own. Mantic are clearly in the early process of building their own fantasy/sci-fi worlds, just have a look at the latest version of Kings of War/Deadzone/Warpath. To quote Mantic directly “We don't blow up worlds. We build them...”

Mantic's Fantasy game already had to compete with stuff like FFG's Runewars , CMON's Game of Thrones Game, etc.., not to mention the still kicking 9th Age Community.

Not to mention, GW gave Mantic (and everyone else in that particular pocket-market) a 3+ years heads-up!!! If that isn't considerate, I don't know what is.

If Mantic (or whoever) cannot find a spot for themselves in the R&F gaming field with that much of a notice, they probably don't deserve to be there anyhow (hello Runewars).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
That blackout started in 2013, why? Because GW has a 2 year production cycle. What was GW doing in that 2 years? Age of Sigmar. That's why there was nothing coming out.

2 year? I thought I remembered in one of the interviews with Jess Goodwin, the production/planning cycle was like 5 years.

The GW "blackout" started much earlier when GW took on the LoTR stuff, especially once New Line (?) started working The Hobbit and GW got all-super-secret insights into the new designs to make corresponding games/miniatures, along with the threat of being sued badly should stuff leak (or even did leak at some point?).

The paranoid no-leak culture born from contractual license agreements just somehow creeped into the entire company.

 Just Tony wrote:

Of all the 6th Ed books, and even as much as how I hated the fact that Chaos got to have its cake and eat every one else's bakeries too, Dwarfs 6.5 was the most imbalanced thing to come out of 6th. So much so it stood up reasonably well to 7th Ed. books. If you really want to know how bad it was screwed, I did a thread about it over at classichammer.

. . . .

This part confuses me. Who was dismissing AOS at all?

The Dwarves were the army that put me off of fantasy. . . As I mentioned before, I played *A* game to learn the rules, and my buddy was an excellent teacher. . . Buuuuut, when my Ogre bulls got boxcars on the charge, with their special banner, with their special tyrant/boss dude, with the butcher successfully casting spells to buff them, and they still LOSE combat to a bunch of stunies?? F that. That is some serious BS right there, and some seriously poor game design.



As for the dismissing AOS thing, the shop I was at at the launch of AOS, you had 2 very distinct groups. The first group was the "fething sweet!!! I can FINALLY use all these fantasy minis Ive collected!!", the other group was the "how can you have a proper game with only 2 pages of rules? why did they blow up the world *I* liked?? Boo hoo, I hate GW for killing the thing I wasn't spending any money on"

Sunny Side Up wrote:

Mantic's Fantasy game already had to compete with stuff like FFG's Runewars , CMON's Game of Thrones Game, etc.., not to mention the still kicking 9th Age Community.

Not to mention, GW gave Mantic (and everyone else in that particular pocket-market) a 3+ years heads-up!!! If that isn't considerate, I don't know what is.

If Mantic (or whoever) cannot find a spot for themselves in the R&F gaming field with that much of a notice, they probably don't deserve to be there anyhow (hello Runewars).

Well that goes back to my original point that Rank and Flank, despite a vocal community, is a minority niche in the wargaming hobby. Smaller skirmish games are just straight more popular.

I certainly like Kings of war quite a bit. KoW is an excellent tournament game, it plays fast and has multiple scenarios that are fun to play. Although it has limited growth potential due to the competition in wargaming right now. A Song of Ice and Fire is also a fun game and plays much different then other ones like it. It also has the added bonus of being easier to get into as if I go out and buy a box of Stark Swordswords...thats it, that's the unit. I don't have to buy additional boxes to complete a usable unit in game.

As for 9th Age, well it's the balanced Fantasy everyone's been clamoring for. Unfortunately for me it seems the game is much more popular in Europe than North America so there are not any tournaments here so I can't play it as much as I would like.

Slipspace wrote:

GW definitely did release quite a lot of stuff over the course of 8th so it's not true to say they neglected WHFB during that time. However, I would question whether they released the right stuff at the right time. For example, the model updates that happened during 8th were great...except the prices were often obscene and they'd left them so late everyone had already either bought the older metal versions of new plastic units or sourced models from other companies. I played Dark Elves and it took GW decades to release new Dark Riders and we had to endure the 6th edition Executioners (great models, horrible design because the sword blades were glued on individually) for over 10 years too. GW eventually released plastic Executioners. The models were OK - a bit divisive, but generally pretty good I thought - the prices were obscene. £35 for 10 is too steep for the numbers required to field a decent unit, especially when everyone but brand new players already had an alternative.

The new supplements before the End Times were similar. I don't think anyone was asking for the type of thing GW produced, and nobody was very impressed by them. Storm of Magic was an unbalanced, poorly thought out joke of a supplement, for example. OTOH, the ET books were very successful because they provided new armies, new models and shook up the meta and provided genuinely new content. Many of the kits sold out. There was an appetite there, I just don't think GW at the time was well run enough to capitalise on it.

I think its important to remember that Kirby was quoted (I think in at least more than one end of year/financial update document) that GW didn't do or need consumer surveys and that "GW knew what the customer wanted". This wasn't just him but the breed of management and approach that GW was taking at the time. Ergo they were attempting to please consumers by telling consumers what they wanted rather than listening too and reacting to consumer feedback - or even at least showing the pretence of such. So when managements plans started failing they started taking more drastic actions because they were thinking in a closed team environment. You can easily see how they wound up going "well no one likes the new rules stuff and they endlessly complain about the rules; but they love the models. Lets ditch the rules and focus just on models." From there you can easily see how the Grand Alliance structure and even the notion of "put whatever you want down" would fast become aspects added to the table and the creation of the launch state of AoS begins.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:

Mantic's Fantasy game already had to compete with stuff like FFG's Runewars , CMON's Game of Thrones Game, etc.., not to mention the still kicking 9th Age Community.

Not to mention, GW gave Mantic (and everyone else in that particular pocket-market) a 3+ years heads-up!!! If that isn't considerate, I don't know what is.

If Mantic (or whoever) cannot find a spot for themselves in the R&F gaming field with that much of a notice, they probably don't deserve to be there anyhow (hello Runewars).

Well that goes back to my original point that Rank and Flank, despite a vocal community, is a minority niche in the wargaming hobby. Smaller skirmish games are just straight more popular..

In store presence? Perhaps but in terms of actual games being played KoW/9th age and even the odd oldhammer event easily outnumber infinity/bolt action/malifaux/warmahordes etc. (i.e. every skirmish game not called warhammer 40k)

I'm speaking about Spain and Poland which are the countries I mostly game on.

dyndraig wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:
I

Mantic is more nitch, and playing off of GW's detractions, rather then building on their own. If it came right down to it, Mantic would lose their shorts if it weren't for Kickstarter, and being able to singlehandedly sell direct to players, THIS is one area where GW is too kool for school.

While I agree Mantic is more niche then GW, there are some inaccuracies here. Mantics "classic" range of fantasy miniatures (Undead, Orcs, Elves, Dwarfs) were all released without kickstarter, in fact, Mantic started in 2008 but had their first KS in 2012, so they were already an established company when they had their first KS. Secondly, the latest edition of Kings of War was released directly without kickstarter, so this idea that mantic is reliant on kickstarter is just wrong.

Also, I also disagree with the idea that mantic is just aping GW without building their own. Mantic are clearly in the early process of building their own fantasy/sci-fi worlds, just have a look at the latest version of Kings of War/Deadzone/Warpath. To quote Mantic directly “We don't blow up worlds. We build them...”

Mantic makes their money and survives from their Kickstarters alone. In every shop in every place I have been, Mantic has zero consumer space, nor are people playing their games regularly. They were on a slow burn prior to KS 1, and as a participant, I saw Mantic grow within that time. Before that, Mantic was a small house companies of GW ex-employees with an axe to grind. And secondly, that they even need to acknowledge GW in response form shows you as to how weak their hand really is. They make a couple of good games. They are good, but not great. Walking Dead, Hellboy, and the Scifi knockoff are fine, but they do not have the staying power, and are taking the roads that Mongoose, Wyrd, and Warmahordes took before them. The ones that were overreaching, self defeating, and end up costing you in sales because you want to try to expand too fast.