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 Silent Puffin? wrote:

Mymearan wrote:
Isn't 8th being the best edition the majority opinion? That's what I see most frequently at any rate.

Yet WHFB has nearly faded into obscurity to the extent that GW has apparently been forced to near enough blow up the whole world in an attempt to revive its fortunes. Some people evidently think its the best edition but WHFB's abysmal sales tell a different tale.

WHFB's "abysmal sales" and the tale it tells is usually a tale of "Why would people bother getting into the game if all they hear is criticism from their local community?".

It's been interesting to see how big Fantasy has gotten in my neck of the woods after people have actually gotten to see games played and to see people having fun while playing the game.

 Medium of Death wrote:
Anybody going to update the OP?

The thread's pretty useless as it's two months old at this point.

I'm not sure what you're looking to have added to the OP, most of the stuff that has come out in the last two months has been reiterations or variations of what was said a while back. The End Times fluff appears to be leading up to the beginning of 9th and consistent as well. I suppose I could add that quote from the Archaon book the front and jazz up the title, but if there's something else you're looking for specifically let me know.

Ozymandias wrote:We're getting a little off-topic, but I have to back Grey Templar. I've been playing since 4th edition and from a purely rules and army book perspective, 8th edition far outshines any earlier edition. I'm not going to go into the specifics because basically these arguments boil down to personal choice and "That's, just like, your opinion, man."

Mymearan wrote:Isn't 8th being the best edition the majority opinion? That's what I see most frequently at any rate.

I too have to back Grey Templar and these guys. I've never seen as much WHFB interest as I have with 8th and I've been playing since 5th ed. In all 3 states I've lived in since 8th hit, two of which I lived in before 8th, the stores each went from 3-5 players in 6th/7th to 20+ in 8th. There was a lot of bluster on the internet and in the beginning of 8th, but from what I've seen and heard from many people and stores, once people actually got a handle on it and the 8th ed books started hitting, there was a much more favorable reaction and growth of communities.

Hell, WHFB tournaments in Louisiana never needed 90 slots before 8th, but they sure fill 'em now.

Mymearan wrote:
Isn't 8th being the best edition the majority opinion? That's what I see most frequently at any rate.

8th as the most commonly played in stores (and likely the only edition played competitively) doesn't make it the best or preferred edition. It just makes it the one that you see.

It's a "beggars can't be choosers" situation.

I might prefer pistachio ice cream as "the best", but if my only choice is chocolate ice cream versus not eating, I'll take chocolate.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

Mymearan wrote:
Isn't 8th being the best edition the majority opinion? That's what I see most frequently at any rate.

Yet WHFB has nearly faded into obscurity to the extent that GW has apparently been forced to near enough blow up the whole world in an attempt to revive its fortunes. Some people evidently think its the best edition but WHFB's abysmal sales tell a different tale.

That doesn't mean that the rules aren't good though, sales can drop for any number of reasons.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Mymearan wrote:
Isn't 8th being the best edition the majority opinion? That's what I see most frequently at any rate.

8th as the most commonly played in stores (and likely the only edition played competitively) doesn't make it the best or preferred edition. It just makes it the one that you see.

It's a "beggars can't be choosers" situation.

I might prefer pistachio ice cream as "the best", but if my only choice is chocolate ice cream versus not eating, I'll take chocolate.

We don't have stores where you can play, I was actually referring to what I see online.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
The Old World as we know it is dead. We'll see if it is slain completely in the future.

A distinction without a difference. If the Old World "as we knew it" is dead, it's dead, even if they bring out some new monstrosity hastily draped in the flayed remnants of its skin.

I disagree. With the way it ends, we could see stuff coming back, the story still moving forward, but it still changing. Just because we're losing the familiar doesn't mean that it's going to turn into a Warmachine clone or something.

A particularly vocal contingent claimed that better product, better rules, etc. would bring WFB back to its glory days. That hasn't really happened.

Online has the memory of a squirrel on coke, always chasing the latest shiny thing. Talking about the current thing doesn't mean it's the best, just the newest and most recent.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
A particularly vocal contingent claimed that better product, better rules, etc. would bring WFB back to its glory days. That hasn't really happened.

Online has the memory of a squirrel on coke, always chasing the latest shiny thing. Talking about the current thing doesn't mean it's the best, just the newest and most recent.

On the flip side, "new" doesn't automatically mean "bad" and nostalgia can seriously taint objectivity.

Indeed, it doesn't.

I, for one, welcome 9th Edition as a place to start over. My Dogs of War should fit into the new regime with very little issues.

I'm expecting the appearance of this new character to sort everything out...


But, you know, with more skulls.

Marvel Super Heroes?

What witchcraft is that?!?

 Azreal13 wrote:
I'm expecting the appearance of this new character to sort everything out...


But, you know, with more skulls.

I think you mean made of skulls, and dripping bleeding blood that bleeds.

Grey Templar sums it up nicely. 8th edition is a solid rules set and is a ton of fun to play. I started in 6th Ed. but have played 40k since Rogue Trader and have always watched from the sidelines...

My observations and anecdotal thoughts on the cause for the demise of Fantasy...

1) Price hikes and cost of entry. New model box releases having fewer models than previous versions, yet costing quite a bit more.

2) The slow and steady withdrawl of organized play and 'outrider' support for leagues and tournaments. Not to mention dropping multiple Games Days in the US down to just one....where it's now more of a 'Buy an overpriced ticket to get crammed into a warehouse with a bunch of other fanboys so you can queue up and buy stuff from ForgeWorld and the like.'

3) Changing the meta to favor large (50+) blocks of infantry. This, coupled with the steady rise in price per model (see #1 above), made the cost of entry even more ridiculous.

4) I would say the external balance between armies (see Daemons, etc) in late 7th edition caused many people to walk away and not look back. I know I quit playing for a long time until the launch of 8th ed.

5) And...this is a big one that GW still fails to see as a problem, and most fanboys discount almost entirely...There are lots of other interesting games to play out there now. GW isnt the untouchable giant they were in the late 90s-early 2000s. Warmachine/Hordes, Malifaux, even Mantic games are offering cheaper alternatives that can be as fun - or even more fun - than the '2nd mortgage on my house' investment that Warhammer Fantasy has become.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Spoiler:

 Azreal13 wrote:
I'm expecting the appearance of this new character to sort everything out...


But, you know, with more skulls.

I think you mean made of skulls, and dripping bleeding blood that bleeds.

Yes. That.

 Fango wrote:
My observations and anecdotal thoughts on the cause for the demise of Fantasy...

[SNIP!]

Similar to Fango, I started playing in 6E, but am more of a 40k player (started in 2E). I generally agree:
1. Cost of entry is high if you're not playing starter boxes - add-on boxes are quite expensive.
2. Shift from included campaigns (Border Princes) and scenarios to ever-larger tournament-style battles to be run by the tournament scene narrowed appeal.
3. Push for hordes is awful, too expensive.
4. 7E balance was off; I was thinking to join 'em and even bought the DoC Army Book, but ultimately decided against spending more on playing something I didn't really want to play.
5. The new hotness (Kickstarter, for me) has obliterated my GW spend to basically nothing. The KS product I'm (finally) supposed to receive this year (Zombicide 3 wave 2, Super Dungeon Explore : Forgotten King, Journey : Wrath of Demons, and Kingdom Death : Monster) is going to give tremendous replay. And it's not like I don't already have both Warmachine and Malifaux at home.

Thing is, if GW actually does what they say, my (Grimdark) Dogs of War should fit perfectly. I might even be inspired to finish some of the "dark" WiP stuff (Dragon, not-Giant, not-Ogres, not-Pegasus, etc.) that I had put aside. Hmm...

Wonderwolf wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

No I equate someone gloating and casting disparaging remarks on the concerns others have regarding their time and monetary investment as similarly egregious. As you correctly point put, at least with the case of home or vehicle loss you have the potential for recompense through insurance. My point was/is, the hee-hawing and so forth could be kept to a minimum if someone is anything other than a troll.

Well, but buying toys isn't an investment, it's consumption, and the expectation of viewing it as "investment" is leading to a grossly false sense of entitlement, which is very evidently demonstrated by a fallacious comparison with houses or similar assets.

You're right, I'm not entitled to enjoy something that I bought from GW. What was I thinking? All that time and the literally thousands of dollars (enough to buy a car for example) are just me showing my over-inflated sense of entitlement. I should bow down and worship at the feet of GW and thank them for the opportunity to give them money for a product that I'll no longer be able to use.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ozymandias wrote:
We're getting a little off-topic, but I have to back Grey Templar. I've been playing since 4th edition and from a purely rules and army book perspective, 8th edition far outshines any earlier edition. I'm not going to go into the specifics because basically these arguments boil down to personal choice and "That's, just like, your opinion, man."

I've enjoyed 8th. The magic phase could get a little ridiculous but all in all it was a fun ruleset and I've been playing since 3rd or 4th, somewhere in there.

As much as the internet wants to argue otherwise, no company owes them anything just because they bought something (warranty contracts and return policies excluded). You bought a product that interested you at that time. It doesn't mean that purchase is some kind of automatic contract to never change things in the future.

Fantasy was a walking corpse. I'm just hoping whatever comes out of this after the dust settles is a leaner, better game that doesn't keep new players at arm's length.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
1. Cost of entry is high if you're not playing starter boxes - add-on boxes are quite expensive.

And GW went the extra step of halving the model count of the boxes while increasing the price. Many Orc players were tickled pink when that happened.

2. Shift from included campaigns (Border Princes) and scenarios to ever-larger tournament-style battles to be run by the tournament scene narrowed appeal.

Actually, my experience is that GW run tournaments helped keep WHFB alive longer that it otherwise would have been.

3. Push for hordes is awful, too expensive.

Horde and Steadfast were good rules for the game but while veteran players could absorb the costs of buying more troops, most newer players couldn't. Vets couldn't buy new armies, however, and people new to the hobby went to 40k because the price of entry to WHFB was way to high by then.

5. The new hotness (Kickstarter, for me) has obliterated my GW spend to basically nothing.

Lots of vets wound up changing their spending habits like this.

And it's not like I don't already have both Warmachine and Malifaux at home.

GW basically gave away market share even if they won't ever admit it (even to themselves).

As for this new edition, I'm taking a wait and see attitude.

 Breotan wrote:
As for this new edition, I'm taking a wait and see attitude.

Same. I have some Beastmen and some Chaos Warriors but I haven't been interested in trying to spend enough to play at the level you need to be at for 8th to work smoothly. So maybe the new edition will bring me some reason to dig stuff out to play, or I'll look at using them for 40k conversions or something.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
As much as the internet wants to argue otherwise, no company owes them anything just because they bought something (warranty contracts and return policies excluded). You bought a product that interested you at that time. It doesn't mean that purchase is some kind of automatic contract to never change things in the future.

Fantasy was a walking corpse. I'm just hoping whatever comes out of this after the dust settles is a leaner, better game that doesn't keep new players at arm's length.

Except it isn't going to be is it?

It's going to be a further descent into "put your 'collection' on the table and make rar and twang noises while chucking some dice around, forging a narrative."

Given GW's recent behaviour, what is more likely - a genuine attempt to reinvent the game into something exciting for the vets and attractive to new players, or doubling down on the Unbound nonsense from 40K because they think removing barriers to playing models somehow makes people spend more cash to buy all the things?

Here's some free Kings Of War rules, I don't play either game, but I feel compelled to at least let people know that there can be life for their armies as they know them after the new edition..

http://www.manticgames.com/SiteData/Root/File/KINGS%20OF%20WAR/KoW-MRB-Rules-Web.pdf

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
A particularly vocal contingent claimed that better product, better rules, etc. would bring WFB back to its glory days. That hasn't really happened.

Online has the memory of a squirrel on coke, always chasing the latest shiny thing. Talking about the current thing doesn't mean it's the best, just the newest and most recent.

You can't really blame the vocal contingent for gw not releasing better rules, though.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
As much as the internet wants to argue otherwise, no company owes them anything just because they bought something (warranty contracts and return policies excluded). You bought a product that interested you at that time. It doesn't mean that purchase is some kind of automatic contract to never change things in the future.

Fantasy was a walking corpse. I'm just hoping whatever comes out of this after the dust settles is a leaner, better game that doesn't keep new players at arm's length.

It works both ways though, the customers don't owe the company anything, either. If the company keeps putting out stuff best removed with a shovel, it's their responsibility when the customers start walking away.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Except it isn't going to be is it?

We have no proof either way and I refuse to reject a game I haven't even seen yet.

 Azreal13 wrote:
It's going to be a further descent into "put your 'collection' on the table and make rar and twang noises while chucking some dice around, forging a narrative."

That's your cynicism talking, not actual evidence of what 9th will actually roll out as.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Given GW's recent behaviour, what is more likely - a genuine attempt to reinvent the game into something exciting for the vets and attractive to new players, or doubling down on the Unbound nonsense from 40K because they think removing barriers to playing models somehow makes people spend more cash to buy all the things?

Unbound is a major boon to new players and vets who want thematic armies they can't do normally (like Deathwatch, at least until the rules get released). So yeah, it could be a thing, but we have no evidence of that (it'd also make Fantasy work on lower points levels without needing to drop the restrictions we normally see).

As for the "no restriction" stuff we did see for Archaon, I'm curious to know more about those pages because I have a hunch that they're limited to the End Times campaign setting, or they're for a WFB Apoc method of playing. Or both.

Nobody running narrative games needs permission to play with Force Org charts, it just legitimised WAAC attitude players desire to throw all the broken stuff on the table at once.

But I'm not really surprised that despite rumours suggesting they were going down this route, and actual photographic evidence that they're heading that way, that it's me being cynical.

Couldn't possibly be you being naive could it?

 Torga_DW wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
As much as the internet wants to argue otherwise, no company owes them anything just because they bought something (warranty contracts and return policies excluded). You bought a product that interested you at that time. It doesn't mean that purchase is some kind of automatic contract to never change things in the future.

Fantasy was a walking corpse. I'm just hoping whatever comes out of this after the dust settles is a leaner, better game that doesn't keep new players at arm's length.

It works both ways though, the customers don't owe the company anything, either. If the company keeps putting out stuff best removed with a shovel, it's their responsibility when the customers start walking away.

I actually agree. And people have been walking away, and that's why GW is changing it's approach to WFB. The thing is that I just get tired of seeing arguments that basically boil down to "I don't like it so they shouldn't do it" before they've even seen the actual full product and ignoring the people who do like it.

GW can't please everyone, especially in a thing like this, and I don't think they should try to. I'd much rather see them work to produce a quality product (so you know, something good that can be gotten into without dropping $600+ on a starter army) and it draw in the people that are interested by it than pander to a fan base. The best stuff I've seen has always come out that way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Nobody running narrative games needs permission to play with Force Org charts, it just legitimised WAAC attitude players desire to throw all the broken stuff on the table at once.

Considering 6th edition had a "homebrew is legal" section it's not like Unbound made it any worse.

And most of the WAAC combos I've heard of fit into standard FOCs an allies.

 Azreal13 wrote:
But I'm not really surprised that despite rumours suggesting they were going down this route, and actual photographic evidence that they're heading that way, that it's me being cynical.

There have been no rumors of 9th having Unbound AFAIK. Ditto for leaks of 9th edition. And we're not even sure of the full rules for skipping FOC in regards to the End Times books because people can't be bothered to show the whole page.

So your "evidence" is suspect.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Couldn't possibly be you being naive could it?

I'm not jumping to conclusions is all. I want to see the final product before I make claims. Is that too hard to understand?

 ClockworkZion wrote:
As for the "no restriction" stuff we did see for Archaon, I'm curious to know more about those pages because I have a hunch that they're limited to the End Times campaign setting, or they're for a WFB Apoc method of playing. Or both.

From the way it is worded it seems pretty across the board to me.

This section updates the rules for for how to pick an army for games of Warhammer, overriding any previous rules. All armies now use these rules for choosing an army.

 Eldarain wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
As for the "no restriction" stuff we did see for Archaon, I'm curious to know more about those pages because I have a hunch that they're limited to the End Times campaign setting, or they're for a WFB Apoc method of playing. Or both.

From the way it is worded it seems pretty across the board to me.

This section updates the rules for for how to pick an army for games of Warhammer, overriding any previous rules. All armies now use these rules for choosing an army.

Again, full context means everything. Forgive me for wanting to know the full scope of things before I choose sides on anything.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
As for the "no restriction" stuff we did see for Archaon, I'm curious to know more about those pages because I have a hunch that they're limited to the End Times campaign setting, or they're for a WFB Apoc method of playing. Or both.

From the way it is worded it seems pretty across the board to me.

This section updates the rules for for how to pick an army for games of Warhammer, overriding any previous rules. All armies now use these rules for choosing an army.

Again, full context means everything. Forgive me for wanting to know the full scope of things before I choose sides on anything.

I understand the policy and agree with it, but I don't see how that can be taken in any other way than what is written, that all armies now use those rules and any rule set written for army construction is now invalid.
After all, it simply states, "games of Warhammer".
Not Warhammer: End Times, not Warhammer: Sort-of-Apocalypse, just Warhammer.

And I see the easy conclusion as well but I don't make a habit of exceptions and prefer just knowing all the facts before I draw lines in the sand.

I agree with wanting to know all the facts first, but at this point gw also has a long and pretty consistent track record, enough that speculation can be done with a decent enough degree of accuracy.

 Torga_DW wrote:
I agree with wanting to know all the facts first, but at this point gw also has a long and pretty consistent track record, enough that speculation can be done with a decent enough degree of accuracy.

I'd agree if the speculation was ever more than "everything is going to suck forever".