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 Vaktathi wrote:
WHFB gets less attention, but it's also harder to get into, with a higher average points total (2250-2500pts vs 1500-2000pts) and cheaper average model pts cost. In 40k most armies have a basic trooper that's 12-18pts in cost, in Fantasy it's about half that, requiring a lot more models.

While the core infantry really push the price up for most armies, anything not a core infantry is otherwise rather pricey in points, and generally not too much more expensive than the core infantry. Once you have that core, expanding the rest of your army is rather easy. Pick an elite regiment and buy a few boxes, pick a couple of monsters/warmachines and buy them (or, depending on the army, another elite regiment or two), and sprinkle in characters.

Characters can really eat those points up. For example, my Vampire Counts lord costs roughly 500pts. For a single model. That's 1/4 of a 2000pt army in one model. While Vampires are an extreme example, it's not hard to buy a dragon/other monster mounted lord and have it eat up 1/4 of a 3000pt list.

 Vaktathi wrote:
On top of that, it's more fiddly to play, keeping everything in box formations and wheeling them about and all is annoying.

 Vaktathi wrote:
There's also more alternatives, while WHFB's setting is very cool, there's a ton of classic "sword and sorcery" settings out there to compete with. While 40k is still very "sword and sorcery", it's got a completely unique take on it with the semi-steam-punky scifi veneer it wears.

While there are definitely other fantasy games out there, there's not as many in the large battle category as you're making out. Smaller scale fantasy has some more options, but fantasy games themselves are fairly under represented in this hobby. Everyone wants sci fi.

I actually find 40k more fiddly to play. Moving every damned dude individually, yeesh. A WHFB movement phase only takes me a few minutes... that's how long it takes to move JUST my Hormagaunts before I even get to the Termagants 40k has large portions of time where you sit back and watch your opponent do stuff, WHFB I find that less so.

8th edition kind of killed Fantasy for me though, I haven't played it for a while now. Is the reason everyone says you need a big army because of 8th edition? Because previously you could have a decent game with just a few small units, I think it scaled down to 1k points quite well, by 1k points you really had to start thinking about how many models you put in each unit, because if you went with big units and your opponent went MSU, you'd be struggling. Most the games I played were probably 750 to 1000pts, often just taking minimum unit sizes and only taking banners in units that you had faith weren't going to run away at the first sight of combat.

But yeah, obviously GW focuses on 40k more... probably because 40k caters more to the ADHD crowd who gets distracted by the newest shiny object Also I think a large portion of the established WHFB fanbase left with 8th edition.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Moving every damned dude individually,

People do that? Like move everything individually, measuring for each model?

Wow. I don't think anyone in my group has ever done that. We measure the first model, then 'best guess' the rest. We had one player who had so many Tyranids to move, he's measure 6" from the front of the unit, then move the back half of the unit up to that line, leaving the front half of the unit as the back half.

Makumba wrote:
Space Marines alone are suppose to generate more then 50% of all their sells. No wonder they focus more on w40k.

I gotta ask, how significant is this really? I've always wondered how big having 4 (5 formerly) codices being SM, 1 (csm) easily being able to take from them and, although shaky, GK getting from this as well. Add to that rhinos and the sorts being shared by Inquisition, GK, SM, CSM, other SM, and SoB for that matter.

 -Loki- wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Moving every damned dude individually,

People do that? Like move everything individually, measuring for each model?

Wow. I don't think anyone in my group has ever done that. We measure the first model, then 'best guess' the rest. We had one player who had so many Tyranids to move, he's measure 6" from the front of the unit, then move the back half of the unit up to that line, leaving the front half of the unit as the back half.

No don't measure each one individually. It still involves picking up each model individually and moving it, frakked if I'm carelessly shoving my models across the table. A Fantasy movement phase takes a fraction of the time. There are tricks to faster moving in 40k as you say, but moving an entire army in WHFB is just a case of measure move measure move repeat 6 to 10 times, done.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Moving every damned dude individually,

People do that? Like move everything individually, measuring for each model?

Wow. I don't think anyone in my group has ever done that. We measure the first model, then 'best guess' the rest. We had one player who had so many Tyranids to move, he's measure 6" from the front of the unit, then move the back half of the unit up to that line, leaving the front half of the unit as the back half.

No don't measure each one individually. It still involves picking up each model individually and moving it, frakked if I'm carelessly shoving my models across the table. A Fantasy movement phase takes a fraction of the time. There are tricks to faster moving in 40k as you say, but moving an entire army in WHFB is just a case of measure move measure move repeat 6 to 10 times, done.

Aha, seems I misunderstood.

Yeah, moving in Fantasy is just so much simpler because of trays. Moving a regiment of 50 skeletons is just like moving 1 model in 40k, with a little complexity added for wheeling/turning. What takes time in Fantasys movement phase is thinking about how you want to move, not actually moving the models, which is a better situation. Movement in 40k takes much longer and is less tactical at the same time.

All the talk over the last few months is that warhammer fantasy has really been struggling sales wise which is a real shame.

It's good to see Games Workshop are still piling out releases for it though if it is that far behind 40k. For me the designs they have been doing for the more recent Warhammer armies have completely outshone the 40k releases.

The main reason I see Fantasy struggling with sales is simply the army size and cost barrier of entry. While a block of 50 skeletons looks fantastic, it also costs ~$200au/~$100us. Add to that for a 3000pt list, you'll need 3 of those regiments if you want skeletons as your core, you're at ~$600au/~$300us for just the core of a Vampire Counts list. That's before you get to the fun stuff. Also 150 models to paint.

This was less of a problem one edition ago when they had, instead of a percentage value for lord/hero/core/special/rare, they had a unit limit. Instead of 25%-50% core, it started at 2 units of core and scaled up with game size. You could have 2-3 minimum sized skeleton units as your core.

They went to the percentage system because it created more impressive large armies and forced people to buy lots and lots and lots of core units, but they're just too expensive and you wind up with far too many models. If they went back to a unit requirement system rather than percentage system, they'd probably see interest in the system go back up as the game becomes affordable again.

It seems to me GW have shot themselves in the foot with 8th edition encouraging larger units. Previously you could get by fine with small units and play smaller games, it seems (to me at least, could be wrong, I haven't played much 8th) that the rules have changed sufficiently to discourage small units on all but the most elite of units.

I see people say 8th edition requires large blocks of infantry a lot. Why are they so mandatory compared to multiple smaller units now?

I ask simply because I am looking to get into WFB soon myself.

GW should really split fantasy with two rules sets - one for smaller games to get people in the door and one for larger armies. They've basically done this with 40K to good effect between normal and apoc games - plus 40K also works generally well at the 500 and 400 points levels for starter games.

If they could do the same with fantasy that would get a few more people through the door and starting fantasy.

I don't think they want to drop the overall impression of fantasy being large armies; in my view that is the market segment GW are focusing upon. If you really want small scale you go with one of hte many skirmish games on the market; if you want large scale you've basically got GW Fantasy or Kings of War (and I'll be honest whilst KoW has some nice stuff the design direction of their models isn't as good as GW's with fantasy - in my view - course this has changed over the years - old GW dragons were nothing special to my eyes).


Also don't forget if a shop isn't selling stock and ships it back to the GW HQ(lorries for delivery have to go both ways anyway so send it back once you get your fresh stock delivered) that means the GW HQ can then likely sell that unit via the online store or ship it to a store that is selling that range of models better. As a result it saves them the cost of producing that unit again.

Now one miniature box won't make a difference here; but when you've a nation wide network of stores the number of boxes not selling that you can then get selling is far greater and likely represents a sizeable chunk of savings.



And yep GW really needs to drop Lord of the Rings - or at least downscale it. That line did them really well but then they were simply not prepared for the sudden turn-off of movie going fans and sales that happened (They were never geared up nor structured nor even experienced like the multitude of toy companies which are used to the fast peek and fall of movie tie-in sales).

As for specialist games they were a dead duck when GW moved away from metal for the majority of its casting. At that point they simply couldn't soak the cost of changing all those metal moulds to finecast casting and then again to reworking those models for their full shift to plastic. It is a massive cost for them and its understandable that they simply could not soak such a huge amount of further investment needed for such a change.

Best we can hope is that GW gets its feet back under it and they can look toward supporting more new game lines - maybe doing more like Dreadfleet, single box games with miniatures maybe with a few expansions; or some adventure style games where they only need a handful of speical models (lkely ones that could be taken from Fantasy or 40K as well so its not even increasing the range that much).


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 turgon868 wrote:
I see people say 8th edition requires large blocks of infantry a lot. Why are they so mandatory compared to multiple smaller units now?

I ask simply because I am looking to get into WFB soon myself.

Large blocks or smaller blocks will still cost around the same to put on the table in £ in models. So that part is tied to point costs and game limits. As for why larger blocks are popular its mostly because you've got to get into combat. Before that you've spells and archers and war machines all tacking a chunk out of you. So if your army isn't very fast you've got to have numbers to soak that damage and not rout.

If your army has a focus on faster units you can go with more smaller blocks because you'll rush at them, one or two might go down but you'll be getting into combat that much sooner so you might skip a whole turn of being shot at compared to a slower advancing army.

 turgon868 wrote:
I see people say 8th edition requires large blocks of infantry a lot. Why are they so mandatory compared to multiple smaller units now?

I ask simply because I am looking to get into WFB soon myself.

Large blocks have two advantages. Horde formation and Steadfast.

Horde formation is where you have your unit ranked 10 wide and (IIRC) at least 2 deep. This allows an extra rank of models to fight.

Steadfast makes it a lot harder for the unit to break and run. This is granted for having more ranks than your opponent.

So both of those rules encourage huge blocks of infantry. Either wide and not very deep to maximise outgoing attacks, or narrow and super deep (often called the schoolbus formation) to maximise their steadfast bonus.

Multiple small units cannot capitalise on either, and are usually known as 'speedbumps' or 'redirectors'. Speedbumps because they're small and super cheap and can be positioned so the enemy has to charge them, thus taking valuable turns away from the enemy unit being effective. This is usually done with cheap, easy to kill units to tie up a super expensive unit. Redirectors are fast, small units that can easily 'wheel', or turn. When an enemy charges, they are turned so their front rank is at the same angle as the opponents front rank to determine who gets to attack. These units are also small and likely to die in one turn. When the opponent overruns, they move at the new direction they are in after being redirected by the smaller unit. In your next turn, it's much easier to get a flank attack due to this.

Small units have their uses, but your main battle line is going to be large blocks of infantry, usually formed to take advantage of Horde formations or Steadfast.

-Loki- wrote:The main reason I see Fantasy struggling with sales is simply the army size and cost barrier of entry. While a block of 50 skeletons looks fantastic, it also costs ~$200au/~$100us. Add to that for a 3000pt list, you'll need 3 of those regiments if you want skeletons as your core, you're at ~$600au/~$300us for just the core of a Vampire Counts list.

Right.

One of the things that's nice about 40k is that while it can scale up to huge battles, it can also scale down to skirmish games just as easily.

It's one of the benefits of keeping units more fluid than packing them into blocks. A 750 point 40k game could be moving around 4 small units of infantry and a couple of small vehicles. You'd be moving some 30 pieces. Meanwhile, in WHFB a tiny game could possibly be moving just a single block of stuff with characters around. You're basically moving 1 piece. Or a small number.

Movement trays may let WHFB scale up with faster game play, thanks to movement trays, but the same thing that allows bigger battles also limits your ability to play smaller ones.

Plus, all those elite 40k armies. There are a few in WHFB, but there are several armies in 40k that can make a 750 point list out of ~11 models.

The concept of movement trays is kinda annoying. I understand it, but you could readily put a single of the unit type on a tray with some dice to track the number of guys and still play.

I'd like it better if it was a game of smaller numbers of models to represent the "larger" conflict. I ditched Skaven for Bretonnia just so I could come back to the realm of reasonable for models. And I still plan to have 60 some "troop" models for my core requirements.

 Ailaros wrote:

-Loki- wrote:The main reason I see Fantasy struggling with sales is simply the army size and cost barrier of entry. While a block of 50 skeletons looks fantastic, it also costs ~$200au/~$100us. Add to that for a 3000pt list, you'll need 3 of those regiments if you want skeletons as your core, you're at ~$600au/~$300us for just the core of a Vampire Counts list.

Right.

One of the things that's nice about 40k is that while it can scale up to huge battles, it can also scale down to skirmish games just as easily.

It's one of the benefits of keeping units more fluid than packing them into blocks. A 750 point 40k game could be moving around 4 small units of infantry and a couple of small vehicles. You'd be moving some 30 pieces. Meanwhile, in WHFB a tiny game could possibly be moving just a single block of stuff with characters around. You're basically moving 1 piece. Or a small number.

Movement trays may let WHFB scale up with faster game play, thanks to movement trays, but the same thing that allows bigger battles also limits your ability to play smaller ones.

Plus, all those elite 40k armies. There are a few in WHFB, but there are several armies in 40k that can make a 750 point list out of ~11 models.

You can do it well with blocks and smaller games. They did it in 7th edition. You were only required to take a certain amount of units, not a percentage of your army. At lower points levels this scaled down, at higher levels it scaled up. Basically like the current 40k FoC but scaled with game size. If you wanted, you could have that same Vampire Counts army with 2 small 20 model blocks of Skeletons, and load out on large untis of Grave Guard and the like.

Moving to percentages is what made the price barrier ridiculous, not blocks and ranks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheKbob wrote:
The concept of movement trays is kinda annoying. I understand it, but you could readily put a single of the unit type on a tray with some dice to track the number of guys and still play.

It would make it annoying trying to figure out ranks and line of sight for any ranged units/spells, but you absolutely could. Just like you could print out paper tokens and print the word 'Hormagaunt' on them for a Hormagaunt horde.

People already have a way around the mass of models you need - unit fillers. Say, a Chariot base with a little display piece on it that fills up 6 bases worth of models. The basic unspoken rule with them is leave two ranks at least of individual models so you can form up ranks if the filler is among the casualties.

 TheKbob wrote:
The concept of movement trays is kinda annoying. I understand it, but you could readily put a single of the unit type on a tray with some dice to track the number of guys and still play.

I'd like it better if it was a game of smaller numbers of models to represent the "larger" conflict. I ditched Skaven for Bretonnia just so I could come back to the realm of reasonable for models. And I still plan to have 60 some "troop" models for my core requirements.

Fantasy is already doing that. Go read some old battle stories and you'll find that we are many thousands of models short - even Warmaster scale was thousands of models short of what many real old rank and file armies would go to war with.

On the table its going with what is a sane large number to represent things; 1 model on a base with a few bits of paper behind it telling you its rank and file numbers is - well its not "AS" exciting as seeing the ranks and files on the table. Just like you could also do a fully paper army a single representative model isn't that much fun.

There are times when its practical - Spartan Games has begun using it for their troop count/health in dystopian wars rather than having tiny unit counters - but otherwise its something most games try to avoid.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yeah, people get way overly excited about Space Marines and think they can do everything. In reality, infantry are the least lethal and least harm inflicting force on the battlefield, it's artillery, crew served weapons, armor, and aircraft that inflict the vast majority of casualties. Modern day tanks put anything in the 40k universe to shame, and a Space Marine wouldn't stand much of a chance against modern day artillery or attack aircraft or anything of the like. Even Terminator armor, unless being equivalent to a meter of steel (which is unlikely), wouldn't withstand modern anti-tank projectiles. Hell, by Forgeworld's numbers, the classic WW2 Panzerfaust would be capable of penetrating a Land Raider or Predator.

Ever hear of Strike Legion? It's like 40k on crack.

And by "on crack" I mean you can do orbital bombardment with pistols, grenades can blow up planets, anti-matter is used to stun people, and a warship can ram a planet and win.

Oh and the evil Imperium is lead by the evil psychic immortal God Empress of Mankind.

 -Loki- wrote:

 turgon868 wrote:
I see people say 8th edition requires large blocks of infantry a lot. Why are they so mandatory compared to multiple smaller units now?

I ask simply because I am looking to get into WFB soon myself.

Large blocks have two advantages. Horde formation and Steadfast.

Horde formation is where you have your unit ranked 10 wide and (IIRC) at least 2 deep. This allows an extra rank of models to fight.

Steadfast makes it a lot harder for the unit to break and run. This is granted for having more ranks than your opponent.

So both of those rules encourage huge blocks of infantry. Either wide and not very deep to maximise outgoing attacks, or narrow and super deep (often called the schoolbus formation) to maximise their steadfast bonus.

Multiple small units cannot capitalise on either, and are usually known as 'speedbumps' or 'redirectors'. Speedbumps because they're small and super cheap and can be positioned so the enemy has to charge them, thus taking valuable turns away from the enemy unit being effective. This is usually done with cheap, easy to kill units to tie up a super expensive unit. Redirectors are fast, small units that can easily 'wheel', or turn. When an enemy charges, they are turned so their front rank is at the same angle as the opponents front rank to determine who gets to attack. These units are also small and likely to die in one turn. When the opponent overruns, they move at the new direction they are in after being redirected by the smaller unit. In your next turn, it's much easier to get a flank attack due to this.

Small units have their uses, but your main battle line is going to be large blocks of infantry, usually formed to take advantage of Horde formations or Steadfast.

Yeah again I haven't played much WHFB since 8th, but it seems to me that the 8th rules encourages large units such that people no longer want to play small games.

I used to regularly play 1000pt games, and they worked fine, typical unit sizes of 10-15 models, maybe more if it's a horde army, 1 or 2 cheap characters, a few small regiments and maybe a monster or some such. It seems to me that the way WHFB works now because of steadfast people don't even consider small units as anything other that speedbumps.