Early 9th edition WHFB rumours

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**Red_Zeke**

xxvaderxx wrote:
Am I the only one that...

Slightly snarky answer: As a general rule, the answer to a question that starts like this is almost always no.

Slightly helpful answer: I agree!

I've only played since 6th, but barring perhaps the very beginning of 6th edition, I find 8th to have more balance between books than other editions I've played. Some players take issue with how that balance is achieved, and I certainly understand and respect the reasons why some players don't care for eighth, but on balance, I like it.

**-Loki-**

Steadfast pretty much just needs a way to be disrupted, like being flank charged. That would also help put Cavalry back in the game, since they'd be a key part of multicharging a block to get rid of Steadfast and deliver high casualties.

**Breotan**

Vintersorg wrote:
What? Bretonnians in 2015? Weren't they suppposed to be released this summer?

Even 2015 is optimistic. Bretonnians are the red-headed step children of the WHFB universe, complete with buck teeth and banjos.

**Charles Rampant**

silent25 wrote:
If we want to talk realism, mounted troops NEVER charged the front of a ranked unit. They would be met by and impaled on a wall of spears. That is, if their horses would let them. The whole idea was to hit the troops in the flank and cause confusion and disrupt. They risked their mounts being cut out from under them when they would go in the front.

I'm pretty sure that cavalry did often charge the front of infantry regiments. They just didn't automatically win; you're looking at a lot of repeated charges to break the infantry line. Otherwise the Persians could never have defeated Roman field armies by using heavy cavalry charges, which they did reasonably often. And Hastings is another example of cavalry charging infantry in the front and uphill - granted the infantry held firm, but the cavalry won the battle when the infantry (eventually) broke ranks. However, Warhammer just isn't set up to have repeated charges by cavalry regiments against infantry blocks. So I doubt that we'll see anything like this.

I'm not sure why people think that chargers should be so powerful. It is only really Warhammer where chargers have such priority; if you think about it reasonably, if you see someone charging you then you'll either charge them back (like jousting knights) or you'll fix to receive the charge (pikes, etc). I'm perfectly happy with the current way that charging works, even as an undead player, because the fact that one unit has moved, and the other hasn't, doesn't seem to me a reason to assume that the second unit was less prepared for the fight.

**RiTides**

Red_Zeke wrote:
xxvaderxx wrote:
Am I the only one that...

Slightly snarky answer: As a general rule, the answer to a question that starts like this is almost always no.

Slightly helpful answer: I agree!

I've only played since 6th, but barring perhaps the very beginning of 6th edition, I find 8th to have more balance between books than other editions I've played. Some players take issue with how that balance is achieved, and I certainly understand and respect the reasons why some players don't care for eighth, but on balance, I like it.

8th may be balanced, but as you say the way that balance is achieved took a lot of the fun out of the game for me, unfortunately.

Also, I believe we just had a page of cavalry wishlisting

but no more rumors...

**Kroothawk**

Ludaman wrote:The biggest change GW has to make has to do with their current business model for warhammer fantasy. 15 armies, 15 types of players, with at most a possibility of having 3 or 4 of those armies getting a release each year. Leaving the other 11 or 12 out of 15 players sitting on their money instead of spending it on GW.

This leaves GW in a position where the only way to keep revenue consistent is to constantly add new players to the game, or convince current players to start a new army.

40k has always done well with this system, probably because 5 out of 15 of the armies for 40k are some form of space marines, so anytime they release any kind of space marine unit, it can cater to up to a 3rd of their player base.

With fantasy every army is very unique, doesn't share models with other armies (exception for mounts and monsters), and popularity is spread out fairly evenly between all 15. (At least compared to the 80/20 pie that is space marines vs. Everyone else in 40k).

If I were GW and wanted to build popularity and sales in Fantasy, I would do 1 of 2 things: Either create a ravening hordes style book containing all armies, and release new units alongside new rules or re-releases of current units for each army during the course of every year (ala privavteer press). Or change the way building an army works to be simply Good vs. Evil, allow special rules and bonuses to those who choose to play a mono-race army, but basically allow everyone to take advantage of pretty much every release (pretty much the way most CCGs work).

Either way would almost guarantee increased sales, however the second option might drive off a huge percentage of current fans

Honestly though, I feel like GWs track record points to just another slight rules tweaking and massive price hike on everything

Gobskrag 'Eadbasha wrote:I could get on board with that if they grouped some armies together in volumes, like HE, DE, and WE in one volume, WoC, DoC, and beastmen in another etc... That way it would update multiple armies at once and still have a good amount of content for them. But yeah, I think more solid allies rules would help.

Harry wrote:Between you .... you are somewhere close.

**Charles Rampant**

I think that you stunned everyone into silence, Kroothawk. The idea of 'Good' and 'Evil' sides really doesn't appeal to me, or at least not in the format suggested there. Moving to army waves, rather than army books, would be good though - Infinity, Warmachine and others have proved that this is a good model, and even Rick Priestly has come out and said that he didn't much like the codex format after a while.

Of course, you'd have to ask how they could transit from the current model to that one - it'd seem to entail an absolutely massive core book with just the current stats and rules. Or potentially you're looking at not all the current models having rules in the first book. And I wonder if people would like needing to buy multiple books as much as just needing their own army book and a rulebook..

**ExNoctemNacimur**

I quite like the idea of grouping armies.

So Elves in one, Chaos dudes in another, Humans and Dwarves in another, and the funny others in another.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or maybe you do it in kind of rival books:
High Elves vs Dark Elves
Wood Elves vs Beastemen (GW are going to love this book)
Dwarves vs Orcs and Goblins
Humans vs Warriors of Chaos
Lizardmen vs Daemons of Chaos
Etc.
And you could include some cool new special characters and scenarios and campaign rules

**overtyrant**

Something needs to be done as imo the age old army book format does not work.

**Mr Morden**

ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
I quite like the idea of grouping armies.

So Elves in one, Chaos dudes in another, Humans and Dwarves in another, and the funny others in another.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or maybe you do it in kind of rival books:
High Elves vs Dark Elves
Wood Elves vs Beastemen (GW are going to love this book)
Dwarves vs Orcs and Goblins
Humans vs Warriors of Chaos
Lizardmen vs Daemons of Chaos
Etc.
And you could include some cool new special characters and scenarios and campaign rules

I think thats a really good idea myself - but I have most armies - doubtless some will complain that they only want the army they actually play?

**Aerethan**

ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
I quite like the idea of grouping armies.

So Elves in one, Chaos dudes in another, Humans and Dwarves in another, and the funny others in another.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or maybe you do it in kind of rival books:
High Elves vs Dark Elves
Wood Elves vs Beastemen (GW are going to love this book)
Dwarves vs Orcs and Goblins
Humans vs Warriors of Chaos
Lizardmen vs Daemons of Chaos
Etc.
And you could include some cool new special characters and scenarios and campaign rules

This is actually a pretty good idea. EVen if each dual army book ran $50, it would mean reducing the cycle time for new books by 50% and increasing the number of releases by 100%.

A good point was made about customers who only play X and Y armies. So in a year when GW doesn't release models or rules for those 2 armies, that customer is buying nearly nothing. Not every customer wants in on every new army release. The Daemons release has zero appeal to me, so quarter 1 GW sales for me are zero for WFB.

High Elves are due this year, so I'll spend a bit there on some new models and the book. Later this year is Lizardmen, and again I'll have zero purchases from that release as they are not an army I'm collecting currently.

Now if Lizardmen dual released with Dark Elves(as an example), then that release wave would see me buying stuff as it includes an army I collect. So with that, GW had 2 release waves in 12 months that got money from me, instead of 1 release now and 1 release 14 months from now, then nothing until another army I want comes up.

I'd like to do Bretonnians, and if GW released them this year I'd buy them, but GW won't because they feel Brets aren't popular enough. The problem is that by the time Brets do get done, my desire for them might have waned and GW might lose out on those sales because the products I wanted were not available when I still had interest in them.

**Red_Zeke**

Yeah, that would be a pretty dramatic change from the way things are. I'm tentatively hopeful that it'd work well. Right now it *is* pretty ridiculous to wait so long for some armies to get updated.

One cool thing about the current system is that an entire line can get an overhaul like the Dark Eldar- which though I don't play 40K, I thought was pretty dang cool. Of course the cost of that was waiting for an eternity for an update.

And as a poor example, the Tomb Kings, who waited super long as well ended up without updates to some of their most egregious sculpts (in their core selections no less!)

**Sigvatr**

Just stay away from my O&G please.They already are a combined army book!

I would not buy a book that also has e.g. Dwarfs because I am not interested in that army to the smallest degree. I just play WHFB for Goblins and I only want Goblins in my army book. Bad enough we got to share our precious book with Orcs!

...that is, if you are not as smart as me and make your own Goblin codex

**Charles Rampant**

Dual army books could well work. There are some obvious pairings, as already noted - although I suspect that they might prefer similar armies in one book:

Humans - Bretonnia + Empire
Undead - VC & TK
Elves
Monstrous (Lizardmen, Ogres)
Chaos (yay, big book)
Dwarves (though this is difficult, as I doubt they'd steal CD from Forgeworld)

But might we not see that GW struggles to release all the models in waves for this? They seem to be aiming for releasing all of a book's models in one go, rather than having multiple waves. If they go to having two (or, for Elves, 3?) armies in one book, how many models would that imply per release?

They also went away from the big books style suggested here a while back. I remember chaos being split; will we now see it being recombined?

**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

With all the bitching of the possibility of Black Templars (or any other marine chapter) being rolled back into Space Marines I suspect GW would avoid merging any of the fantasy book

just in case it impacted their higher selling 40K line (mergers in WHFB would suggest the possibility of mergers elsewhere to many)

**Kroothawk**

Concerning the possible grouping:
In the past 6 month, we have seen all possible Chaos releases except Beastmen: Fantasy Daemons, 40k Daemons, Fantasy Warriors of Chaos, CSM. Plus a second WoC and Daemons wave.
In the 18 months from May 2013, we will see High Elves, Dark Elves, Wood Elves and even Eldar (Adam Troke been involved in all Fanatsy Elf playtesting).
After that Fantasy and 40k Orks within a year.
So there actually IS a grouping visible.

**RiTides**

I think allies of some kind is a no-brainer that it will be in. For one thing, GW tends to make a similar release between 40k and fantasy (i.e. random charge distances in fantasy, then in 40k) so the fact that 40k got allies points to this.

Also, since it just makes sense from a marketing / money standpoint. It's true that the slow-drip of releases from Privateer Press gets me spending on them more consistently than the splash releases from GW, which either cause me to start a new army, or don't and end up being a complete miss.

So, I'm also cautiously optimistic about this...

**Red_Zeke**

I'd agree, definitely see Allies as a likely development. It seems kinda weird in 40k (like these Tau & Daemon lists or whatever*), and I'm sure some weird combos would crop up in Fantasy too, but tournaments can manage as they choose, and it certainly gives some cool hobby options.

RZ

*I don't know if that's a thing, or not... just see some weird ally combos floating around on the net.

P.S. Sweet, sweet new avatar RiTides

**RiTides**

Thanks

And as for hobby options, if the Fantasy team tournament at AdeptiCon last year is any indication, people could do some wicked stuff with allies in WHFB!

Like this:

Or this

**Red_Zeke**

Yes, the possibilities to convert Mournfang are near limitless!

Just kidding, those are super awesome. The Daemon unit's pretty freakadelic in particular.

**RiTides**

Red_Zeke wrote:
Yes, the possibilities to convert Mournfang are near limitless!

Yeah, unfortunately you're right about that

**ExNoctemNacimur**

Wow, people actually like an idea that I suggested! Don't worry folks, it's a once-in-a-lifetime happening when you see I, ExNoctemNacimur, suggest something worthwhile.

**LazzurusMan**

The idea of good vs evil sounds horrible. All it would take is for someone to ONLY use the best bits of good or evil to make an army, and suddenly every game is the same

**Mr Morden**

That hugely depends on how viable and balanced indivudal armies are - if they are roughly even - it won't be an issue and just result in more varied looking armies on the table top and more sales for GW.

**Alpharius**

Allies "work" better in WFB than they ever would in 40K.

Allies in 40K creates the ridiculous situation of a Farseer/Rune Priest in every army - or even better, the Necrons teaming up with CSMs!

Thematically, it 'fits' better in WFB, and it will make the beancounters happy - so I suppose that's as close to a guarantee it is happening as you'll get!

Of course, Chaos used to be able to do this... before they took it away, it a move so counter to fluff it could only have come from... the beancounters!?!?!

**RiTides**

ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
Wow, people actually like an idea that I suggested! Don't worry folks, it's a once-in-a-lifetime happening when you see I, ExNoctemNacimur, suggest something worthwhile.

The name is a bit of a mouthful

but yes, allies / grouping of armies / etc would be great for the game, I think most agree (in theory, it's always possible GW will muck it up

).

**silent25**

Charles Rampant wrote:

I'm pretty sure that cavalry did often charge the front of infantry regiments. They just didn't automatically win; you're looking at a lot of repeated charges to break the infantry line. Otherwise the Persians could never have defeated Roman field armies by using heavy cavalry charges, which they did reasonably often. And Hastings is another example of cavalry charging infantry in the front and uphill - granted the infantry held firm, but the cavalry won the battle when the infantry (eventually) broke ranks. However, Warhammer just isn't set up to have repeated charges by cavalry regiments against infantry blocks. So I doubt that we'll see anything like this.

Except Hastings was where the cavalry charged after the English had already been weakened by archer fire and infantry combat. Cavalry was final blow, not the first. They were not the killer shock troops that destroyed everything in front of them.
Also with Hastings, William initially sent the cavalry in too soon resulting in horrible losses against a still strong and ranked infantry. He fortunately fell back on using his archers and own ranked infantry units to soften the English before trying again.

As for the Romans, still leaning about their history. Still at Hannibal and there cavalry were definitely a flanking force.

As for the repeated charges, in 3rd, there was a rule for units being pushed back. It was unfortunately seen as cumbersome.

@ExNoctemNacimur

That is a great idea

It is more ala Forgeworld books and could easily include rules for campaigns and extra scenarios. The only breakdown I see is at a certain point you will get some weird match ups. Your listings leave Skaven, Vampire Counts, Tomb Kings, and Ogres. Skaven and VC can work and have the Vanhel's and Nagash storylines to pull from. Ogres and TK? That would be the wonky one. There was a story in the TK book about the Red Pharaoh fighting Ogres, but it would still seem like the odd man out.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Alpharius wrote:
Allies "work" better in WFB than they ever would in 40K.

You didn't play in 4/5th ed did you <_<;

The Dwarf rent a stealth copter was a popular one.

**AllSeeingSkink**

ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
I quite like the idea of grouping armies.

So Elves in one, Chaos dudes in another, Humans and Dwarves in another, and the funny others in another.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or maybe you do it in kind of rival books:
High Elves vs Dark Elves
Wood Elves vs Beastemen (GW are going to love this book)
Dwarves vs Orcs and Goblins
Humans vs Warriors of Chaos
Lizardmen vs Daemons of Chaos
Etc.
And you could include some cool new special characters and scenarios and campaign rules

Nah, I don't like that system. I'd be fine with a "forces of good/evil/ambiguous" except without an allies system. Or better yet, instead of releasing the next crappy version of the rules, spend the time creating a single tome of all armies that can be errata-ed as time goes on. Or books by region, so "armies of the old world", "armies of the north", "armies of distant lands".

Or keep the current system of army books and just release them in batches instead of massively spread out. I would also like them to make them cheaper, black and white, soft cover, and primarily rules so that you could theoretically own ALL the rules for Warhammer without spending $800, but that's a pipe dream.

**Micky**

I could see them doing with a slightly different model, and doing something like....

Waves of releases, every couple of months, each with a few pages of fluff and story attached, based around a singular event. And lets say you have 4-6 of those each year at like $40-50/each (cuz its GW after all), and each is accompanied by a release of models, new units, and maybe a scenario.

Then, after a few years of this, they start releasing 'compilation' books which function similarly to the army books we have now. So lets say we're talking Lizardmen. This book would be a compilation and repackaging of all those previous waves of releases, including the chain of events, the scenarios they were involved in, all the models and units, and the definitive army list, along with whatever tweaked (erratta'd) rules got reworded over those few years.

So people who collect all the 'wave' books will have all the units and scenarios and models and rules, but people who missed some can grab the big compilation books.

Meanwhile, the 'waves' of new stuff continues.

**-Loki-**

I'd love a combined Undead book again.

And bring back Nagash with it!