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It all sounds very plausible to me. Here's why:

1. Vets don't buy things. They buy enough to keep current in the hobby. Sometimes they don't even do that.
2. The prices make it difficult for new players to buy things.
3. Fantasy is bloated. There are too many armies with too many codes.
4. At what point does maintaining the status quo with WHFB become an albatross? Lots of anecdotal evidence that it just does not sell.

So, product bloat, high prices, and flagging sales? Change All the Things. Change the scale of battle: no more massed blocks of troops. Change the factions: compress and homogenize, add flavor later in the form of single special models/units and DLC. Change the fluff: break the high fantasy mold, change the faction names, protect the IP.

It all makes perfect sense.

Ugh, I don't like how this sounds at all. Applying lots of salt, but I still don't like how it sounds. Fantasy may have a stupid high entry price, but even as much as I love my Dark Eldar, Fantasy is way more fun and relaxing to me than 40k will ever be. I guess I'm in the camp of "if this happens, I'll stick with 8th edition".

 the_Armyman wrote:
It all sounds very plausible to me. Here's why:

1. Vets don't buy things. They buy enough to keep current in the hobby. Sometimes they don't even do that.
2. The prices make it difficult for new players to buy things.
3. Fantasy is bloated. There are too many armies with too many codes.
4. At what point does maintaining the status quo with WHFB become an albatross? Lots of anecdotal evidence that it just does not sell.

So, product bloat, high prices, and flagging sales? Change All the Things. Change the scale of battle: no more massed blocks of troops. Change the factions: compress and homogenize, add flavor later in the form of single special models/units and DLC. Change the fluff: break the high fantasy mold, change the faction names, protect the IP.

It all makes perfect sense.

QFT

I actually like all these rumored changes and would happily play a skirmish style warhammer fantasy game set in a post chaos Apocalypse.

Vets are actually a better source of income given GW's previous model of doing business.

If your model is to sell a new ruleset, and a few new models, for the game and each army every 5 or so years, veteran players are your most stable source of income.

If a player owns only a single army, they'll be buying at a minimum a new rulebook and a new "codex" every 5ish years. Thats an almost guaranteed $150. You don't need to sell the hobby to this person, he's already hooked. You need to keep him coming back, and he will come back.

Then there are new model releases to consider. If each army has one new unit, one new big centerpiece kit, and a new character come out with each new army book, thats another steady chunk of change. $100 for a new unit. $50-75 for a big kit. And $25 for a character.

If you focus on appeasing existing players, thats a practically guaranteed $350-400 per player per army per release cycle.

Veteran players are also highly likely to own multiple armies. If every player has one of his armies being updated every other year or so, he's throwing a fair chunk of money at you in perpetuity. Thats how you make money. You don't make money with single purchases made by little kids who will forget about their space marines in a month.

Privateer Press has the best system. They can add new models individually and veterans are the ones who provide the steady income. GW could have that same system even if they changed the rules as long as they put effort into the rules so they were competitive and kept veterans buying small amounts of new stuff as the meta shifts.

That does seem to be the system they are trying to implement with 40k, although it's too early to tell. The Tyranid 2nd wave releases through Leviathan hint at that very model.

The fact is that WHFB is a very intimidating game for newcomers. So you've decided on The Empire? Congratulations! Now paint 40 halberdiers....for starters!
That would make the wave release model pretty hard to implement.

The only thing I'm having a hard time with is he merging of the human races to form Super Knight.
But I would buy the snot out of an awesome crazy fantasy foot knight kit so, there's that.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Vets are actually a better source of income given GW's previous model of doing business.

If your model is to sell a new ruleset, and a few new models, for the game and each army every 5 or so years, veteran players are your most stable source of income.

I'm one of those veteran players, so don't take what I say as meaning that we should be ignored. But, I don't buy much. My friends don't buy much. The guys who run out and buy the codex and every new boxed set GW puts out during their 3-5 year army update are not typical. They're the guy GW wants, but there's not enough of those types of customers to support Fantasy, not by a longshot.

If a player owns only a single army, they'll be buying at a minimum a new rulebook and a new "codex" every 5ish years. Thats an almost guaranteed $150. You don't need to sell the hobby to this person, he's already hooked. You need to keep him coming back, and he will come back.

*snip*

If you focus on appeasing existing players, thats a practically guaranteed $350-400 per player per army per release cycle.

Vets will buy a new kit if there's a good reason. Taking a character I already have in metal and packaging him in a $30 plastic clampack is not a good reason. Making a new core plastic kit is nice, but my two 20-strong block of Dwarf Warriors would cost me $100 to replace (and the old ones work the same as the new ones). Making an ugly kit for a completely new codex/army book entry just makes me want to convert something I already own using counts-as. GW rarely hits that sweet spot of creating something new, beautiful, and effective in game.

Veteran players are also highly likely to own multiple armies. If every player has one of his armies being updated every other year or so, he's throwing a fair chunk of money at you in perpetuity. Thats how you make money. You don't make money with single purchases made by little kids who will forget about their space marines in a month.

GW used to do both. Now they do neither. Crushing the current Fantasy paradigm could possibly be a recipe for making both Vets and little kids dig deep in their pockets.

I've long been a proponent of an "Angels and Paladins" army done right - the Bant army from Magic: the Gathering's Alara setting is my go-to example. I very much doubt GW is planning on doing an "Angels and Paladins" army done right.

The rumour sounds horrible for any of you still playing the game, and it still doesn't say anything about fixing the things that keep people out of the game!

Armyman: it could just as easily be a recipe for making both walk away.

It's exactly the problem GW has had for a while now; all they can see is the raw margins. They don't account for word of mouth, they don't account for network effect(related but not the same), they can't bring themselves to see the aftermarket as a symbiotic partner rather than a leech - they live in total isolation, still believing this is the early 90's when their customers were completely ignorant of the few alternatives that existed, but they don't and we aren't.

Warhammer Fantasy doesn't sell because it costs too much to collect a full army from scratch, because there's no real entry-level product that feeds into it any more, and because it's already dropped below the point where it's so ubiquitous that it's the "default" option(network effect). The rational thing to do would be to solve those issues by investing in the product(new skirmish entry game/revive Mordheim), make the pricepoint of the models more attractive by adding value(there's no reason that, for eg, Greatswords couldn't be a 20-man box for the same price - the moulds will have paid for themselves long ago, so doubling the sprues in the box would only increase GW's costs by the cost of the materials and the extra time to produce them), and actively trying to rebuild the community.

Throwing away pretty much the only things still keeping people playing the game(large battles, faction aesthetics, background material) and hoping that an entirely new product with a new business model, new rules, new factions etc etc will, despite setup costs, at the very least break even with existing Fantasy sales is...well, I don't think there's a word for how reckless that is.

 the_Armyman wrote:
It all sounds very plausible to me. Here's why:

1. Vets don't buy things. They buy enough to keep current in the hobby. Sometimes they don't even do that.
2. The prices make it difficult for new players to buy things.
3. Fantasy is bloated. There are too many armies with too many codes.
4. At what point does maintaining the status quo with WHFB become an albatross? Lots of anecdotal evidence that it just does not sell.

So, product bloat, high prices, and flagging sales? Change All the Things. Change the scale of battle: no more massed blocks of troops. Change the factions: compress and homogenize, add flavor later in the form of single special models/units and DLC. Change the fluff: break the high fantasy mold, change the faction names, protect the IP.

It all makes perfect sense.

Especially when you consider gw's view that their customers are primarily collectors, whose hobby is making purchases from games workshop. On paper it sounds so perfect.

What the game needs are serious game designers. To me, all this will do is create a "different" badly written and balanced game for people to throw money at. If they want to change things up they should look at the strategy that 6th/7th edition had (IE it wasn't just about big blocks of dudes).. Granted the magic system is ALWAYS a problem but they could also fix that if they were competent at their jobs.

KoW is where I'll go when I want an actual game.

This is a bit scary.

I could see myself playing this though, provided the following:

Tight uncluttered rules.

They don't invalidate all your old models. If I still can use let's say half of the following. I could live with it if I can't use my old TK skeletons and horsemen. But if my sphinxes and Tomb Guards are no longer useable?

No fething rebasing.

The background isn't too stupid.

No Warhammer: The Gathering collectible nonsense.

WHFB could really do with a serious rules rewrite and done right it could probably be good for the game. This being GW though, I fear the worst. And finally; killing the Old World? That hurts man, that really hurts.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Sounds a bit mad. I can see GW scrapping Fantasy as it's too generic and sales appear to be weaker than for 40K. Due to the huge costs of Fantasy, there are lots of people playing it with Mantic or Perry miniatures which GW also dislike.

I can certainly see Fantasy being scrapped and a new game introduced on circular bases which is much closer to 40k in style. They would also reimagine all the armies so that they become more distinct/unique and less generic, also expect everything being renamed, all to reinforce the all important IP.

It could just be rubbish though, it sounds a very drastic move and GW are quite risk averse.

Mad is what GW does though. All of the changes sound like the sort of things they would do; get rid of generic elements from something they feel is more protectible (like superhuman good guys instead of just humans).

That said, if this turns out to be a smallish skirmish game based on the LOTR rules I can see me getting in on it. I've got no interest in getting into a bloated mass battle game like fantasy, but a 30-mini a side force would be ideal. Especially since I'll be able to get those mini's elsewhere

To quote Bruce Wayne:

People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy

which I think speaks volumes when you look at WHFB.

The term throwing the baby away with the bath water come to mind.



GW have moved the timeline on slightly with the EoT stuff but I just don't see such a conservative company doing any drastic changes to a game that is still a comparatively big seller.

They are never going to drop complete lines/reduce factions. They are a miniature company, maintaining wood elves or bretonians really isn't any hardship and have proven in the past that they are quite happy to leave existing forces without revision for extended periods of time.

The most I think we can expect is the revised fluff (world in flames) and paring back of the rules a little to stream line but not much as people seem to have shown they want to by card packs for magic etc.

Yet they released 7th ed for 40k only 2 years after 6th ed. made unbound and added apoc formations that just gave you free bonuses to a set of units.

The released WD weekly and removed it from news agents and replaced it with a monthly photo book.

Sounds like some very radical idea for a conservative company.

 the_Armyman wrote:
It all sounds very plausible to me. Here's why:

1. Vets don't buy things. They buy enough to keep current in the hobby. Sometimes they don't even do that.
2. The prices make it difficult for new players to buy things.
3. Fantasy is bloated. There are too many armies with too many codes.
4. At what point does maintaining the status quo with WHFB become an albatross? Lots of anecdotal evidence that it just does not sell.

I would suggest that #1 is caused by #2.

I would also suggest that it's not actually a problem that veterans don't buy much*. As long as they play YOUR game and not someone else's, it provides more incentive to potential new players to start YOUR game. In my town Warhammer has died out and most of the players have sold their armies and bought WarmaHordes instead. If a new guy wants to start miniature gaming in this town, which game do you think he's going to choose? As long as there was a group of people playing FB here, there's a potential for growth. Now there is very little of that.

It's the cost of an army that's the main problem and the number of active players in the local community that's the main advantage. To me it seems they are at best flipping this on it's head - smaller armies that are cheaper to start up, but no existing player base.

That's why it's unlikely to be an improvement.

If they had been more clever, they would have introduced new armies while not invalidating old ones. They wouldn't have to keep making the models for them indefinitely, but they could easily keep the digital army books updated and compatible with the new rules.

Who exactly wants to start a game where their miniature collection might suddenly become invalidated without warning? Surely that would be a HUGE deterrent to potential new gamers.



* heck, the financial reports suggests that NOBODY buys much.

 Kirasu wrote:
What the game needs are serious game designers. To me, all this will do is create a "different" badly written and balanced game for people to throw money at. If they want to change things up they should look at the strategy that 6th/7th edition had (IE it wasn't just about big blocks of dudes).. Granted the magic system is ALWAYS a problem but they could also fix that if they were competent at their jobs.

KoW is where I'll go when I want an actual game.

This.

I've sold every army that I ever had for 40k and WHFB except for my beloved Dark Elves that were shelved while I secretly waited for GW to realise that they killed Fantasy with the travesty that is 8th edition and would return to the more tactical oriented editions of days gone by... My hope as slowly diminished as I watched all the failures that have been made since with all of this End of Times nonsense and now, if these rumours are true, I better hurry up and sell my Dark Elves before GW scraps up the entire line!

Phantom - You are probably better keeping your elves and waiting for one of the myriad whfb rulsets which will be released by fans.

The good news here is that if they junk a lot of their existing setting it makes it a little bit harder for them to go after said fans for doing something with it.

The problem with those rumours is that they do not touch on the "future of WHFB". What they describe is an entirely new product, packaged under the old brand.

What a truly GWesque idea.

It's not just running the risk of alienating existing customers. The real problem is that it will cost them a fortune to market the new thing as something that people that aren't currently invested in WFB might want to play. And they'll be doing it under a brand that has, over the years, gathered a reputation for being expensive and poorly maintained. It's like trying to sell natural fibre house insulation instead of asbestos, but still calling it asbestos.

The game might be better, the miniatures of higher quality, but in the short term the new product will incur nothing but costs on GW.

I think with finecast GW proved they'll try anything for a buck, no matter what the long term effects.

This should be much harder to believe than it is. I can't say I'd have predicted it (scaling back WHFB, sure) but I won't be shocked if it all turns out to be true. I will be if it's not a Finecast-style disaster. Finehammer Fantasy.

If they do a reboot to the point where it's effectively a new game/model range they'll lose the big advantages they have over the competition. They'll be the ones trying to catch up, and I get the impression that even if GW's creative team had fantastic ideas they wouldn't be allowed to implement them. Meanwhile this move would create more resentment and mistrust than anything GW's done before. If they're willing to pull this on an entire game's armies I'm not gonna count on anything in 40K having a stable future (other than vanilla Marines).

And this being GW they'd slap on a price hike just to add insult to injury.

I am tentatively interesteed here. I've always preferred Skirmish sets to blocks of troops in a Fantasy setting, which is why I've stuck with LotR for so long and only dabbled in WFB. Lower model count also makes it easier to get into and is far more interesting to collect as you don't need three dozen of the same guy.

On the subject of WFB itself going away, of course it won't. I assume by the time we get to the final End Times books everything will have been dealt with and condensed into 5-6 Army Lists, and thus remain useable. If, in fact, this new 'edition' is a new game entirely, then technically nothing will supercede that and you can just keep playing 8th:ET. Even if this new game is marketed as '9th edition', I am 100% certain that every gaming group in the world that plays WFB in its current form will continue to do so. I never understood why people feel the need to stop playing rules, models or anything just because GW decided to bring out a new version.

 Paradigm wrote:
I never understood why people feel the need to stop playing rules, models or anything just because GW decided to bring out a new version.

Snap. Have an exalt!

Recently I played a game of 3rd edition and proxied skaven miniatures as old skaven. It worked!

 angelofvengeance wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
I never understood why people feel the need to stop playing rules, models or anything just because GW decided to bring out a new version.

Snap. Have an exalt!

Because I have enough trouble finding games for systems that are supported, let alone rulesets that aren't.

 Paradigm wrote:
Even if this new game is marketed as '9th edition', I am 100% certain that every gaming group in the world that plays WFB in its current form will continue to do so. I never understood why people feel the need to stop playing rules, models or anything just because GW decided to bring out a new version.

I doubt it. It's not like the current version is marketed as "8th Edition" either, nor was the previous marketed as "7th".

I use to play 3rd edition, then I moved to 5th and bought all the army books. That's where I stopped with Fantasy. If you come around my place you'll be playing 5th...

Could be interesting if it's good enough i might buy into something especially if its skirmishy level

Wonderwolf wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
Even if this new game is marketed as '9th edition', I am 100% certain that every gaming group in the world that plays WFB in its current form will continue to do so. I never understood why people feel the need to stop playing rules, models or anything just because GW decided to bring out a new version.

I doubt it. It's not like the current version is marketed as "8th Edition" either, nor was the previous marketed as "7th".

So you're saying that if this new book comes out, and it's to all intents and purposes a different game, you'll still stop playing Warhammer Fantasy with its pretty-much-complete line of models and books? And all the minis you've bought that you're not going to be able to use in the new system are just going in the bin?

If this is an entirely different rule system and model line, I can't see how it invailidates any WFB collection anyone has already got, especially with the ET stuff streamlining all that as well.

If this leads to them having a fantasy skirmish game, then I'm all for it.

If they expect us to buy hundreds of their new models at their current prices for a new mass battles game... then forget it. I'll use my current armies in KoW if I want to do that.

I'll be a little sad about losing the classic WHFB setting, but if the rumored new game/models are good, than I'll get over it quickly.