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I got into WFB right as the Terrorgheist was released and got out about two months later. I really enjoyed the game. What turned me off was the need for huge blocks of things that aren't amazingly customisable Space Marines. The hobby aspect to WFB is, for me, a chore.

To me, Fantasy really only works well if you play certain armies, like my Night Goblins got a good boost, the giant spider is cool and not really out of place (it's a giant spider...)
There are things I wish for that are strange and will probably never happen (though Harlequins came back so I hope Slayers do too...)
I enjoy 8th ed more then I did 7th ed. 8th is annoyingly harmless, I don't hate it and I get pick up games every so often.
Curious about 9th, but also weary about it.

Did I see a forum for Kings of War?

Or any other game that could be a replacement for WHFB?

I am still amazed that people actually play the game.

I never made it even to Third Edition.

I used to like to just watch games, when players had pretty armies.

But given the abuse dishes out here, I am surprised that I don't see more discussion of other games.

Why is that?

MB

BeAfraid wrote:
Did I see a forum for Kings of War?

Or any other game that could be a replacement for WHFB?

I am still amazed that people actually play the game.

I never made it even to Third Edition.

I used to like to just watch games, when players had pretty armies.

But given the abuse dishes out here, I am surprised that I don't see more discussion of other games.

Why is that?

MB

Here you go:

http://manticforum.com/forum

It took me exactly 10 seconds to google it... And I thought that my google-fu was weak!

BeAfraid wrote:

But given the abuse dishes out here, I am surprised that I don't see more discussion of other games.

Why is that?

MB

Because it's a GW forum, and when you mention other games, people whinge.

Okay, that was hyperbole. There are Warmahordes and Mantic boards further down the forum, but when you have an entire company's repertoire (or even the guts of a genre, like historicals) shoved into one board while two individual GW games get 6-7 boards each... you can see how it's kinda skewed.

And heck, out of the GW-centric forums I've seen, this is the one most open to alternative games.

 Vermis wrote:

TheAuldGrump wrote:
Ever increasing randomness - random chance favors the novice, since there is always the chance that careful strategy falls apart when your Knights Panther 'charge' six inches....

TheKbob wrote:Edit: "Random" is the worst game mechanic possible and is the least fun.

I hear that. Every wargame has some element of chance, but I much prefer wargames that make you apply whatever skills you have to skew that chance in your favour. If I lose I'd rather it was because of my own idiocy, which might be improved, rather than the game's idiocy, which might be a bit more difficult to fix.

While I absolutely agree that lately GW has taken the randomness too far, I think that the random factor can be great, when it comes into play because of player choice.

Randomness should not be put into anything and everything, but having a few units, or even an army that uses randomness can be a wonderfully entertaining thing when done with a little subtlety. The old Orks are a good example. There's a lord choice for empire that's another. Leitdorf, I think his name is, the crazy one. The thing is, a player has to choose to use the crazy bastard, and gains a risk/reward situation based on chance. But alternatively, he can choose to have a reliable army by using any other leader.

Having entire chunks of your army be hideously unreliable is a terrible design. Having a chart along the lines of on a 2-5 this baseline profile is used, on a one something bad happens, on a six something great happens, can be wonderful for something like an Ork force, whose weapons and such are... dodgy. But having every single choice be something completely different is absurd.

Deadawake1347 wrote:

 Vermis wrote:

TheAuldGrump wrote:
Ever increasing randomness - random chance favors the novice, since there is always the chance that careful strategy falls apart when your Knights Panther 'charge' six inches....

TheKbob wrote:Edit: "Random" is the worst game mechanic possible and is the least fun.

I hear that. Every wargame has some element of chance, but I much prefer wargames that make you apply whatever skills you have to skew that chance in your favour. If I lose I'd rather it was because of my own idiocy, which might be improved, rather than the game's idiocy, which might be a bit more difficult to fix.

While I absolutely agree that lately GW has taken the randomness too far, I think that the random factor can be great, when it comes into play because of player choice.

Randomness should not be put into anything and everything, but having a few units, or even an army that uses randomness can be a wonderfully entertaining thing when done with a little subtlety. The old Orks are a good example. There's a lord choice for empire that's another. Leitdorf, I think his name is, the crazy one. The thing is, a player has to choose to use the crazy bastard, and gains a risk/reward situation based on chance. But alternatively, he can choose to have a reliable army by using any other leader.

Having entire chunks of your army be hideously unreliable is a terrible design. Having a chart along the lines of on a 2-5 this baseline profile is used, on a one something bad happens, on a six something great happens, can be wonderful for something like an Ork force, whose weapons and such are... dodgy. But having every single choice be something completely different is absurd.

Agreed- a Mad Mech or Warlock Engineer theme build being insane random is good. Your disciplined generals capabilities? Not good.

PhantomViper wrote:

BeAfraid wrote:
Did I see a forum for Kings of War?

Or any other game that could be a replacement for WHFB?

I am still amazed that people actually play the game.

I never made it even to Third Edition.

I used to like to just watch games, when players had pretty armies.

But given the abuse dishes out here, I am surprised that I don't see more discussion of other games.

Why is that?

MB

Here you go:

http://manticforum.com/forum

It took me exactly 10 seconds to google it... And I thought that my google-fu was weak!

Thanks...

And I didn't try to Google it, as I was posting from my iPad, which is having "issues" (if I leave a page for any reason it will re-load the page, killing my post).

But now I know! And knowing is half the battle (Go Joe!)

MB

I believe everyone here has been talking about symptoms rather than the real underlying problem.

The real problem is GW's current three game model.

GW used to update WFB and 40k as well a lots of other games (including board games!)- some successful, some not. As the company moved to only supporting three games (40k, WFB, and LoTR) a couple of things happened.

First, there was no other GW games for players to go to. The expectation used be that vets would collect multiple GW games. And since a lot of these games were skirmish or board games, this wasn't unreasonable. Without the number of in house alternatives, and in order to keep profitable, model counts required for games had to go up. New models for armies had to be added, and, when none were pre-existent in the fluff, created from whole cloth. Models packaged per box were reduced. Armies were "split" requiring players to make additional purchases to keep up to date.

All of these problems were exacerbated by the fact that there was no longer an "intro" game (like HeroQuest) to the GW world, decreasing the influx of new players. A smaller player base meant that there had to be a drive for each remaining player to spend more.

Second, since there was only three games, GW could not afford to take a risk on any of them. So rules changes had to be made incrementally (as they still are). Each edition suffered bloat from having to retain rules from prior editions. I think the GW dev team could have made the bold needed changes to WFB, but GW couldn't take such a risk to 1/3 of their product line. Alessio, Rick, and Jervis would all go on made great games for other companies (KoW, Black Powder, Bolt Action, Hail Caesar) but their time at GW seemed to be restricted to making tweaks rather than the big needed changes.

Somewhat paradoxically, after years of taking no risk on needed game updates, GW is now in the position of having to make even greater changes in order to keep WFB afloat.

Third, the rules deteriorated further as: a) GW changed from a company that made (lots of) games, to a company that focuses on producing models, and; b) the dev team lost the ability to use smaller games to R&D new ideas.

I don't agree with that theHandofGork, the issue is that the philosophy of the company has
changed, it is not about supporting the games or making a balanced game, everything is
sacrificed just to sell models (or anything) to make their profit margins.

Disclaimer: I don't mean this to be an attack on the guys that like 8th Edition. If you love 8th Edition, good for you! I'm legitimately happy that you have a game that you enjoy.

Thaaaat said: 8th Edition is what killed Warhammer Fantasy. 7th Edition had a pretty strong following, not 40k's level of following, but it was popular and played regularly. By deciding to turn everything on its head with 8th, instead of fixing what was wrong with 7th, Games Workshop seems to have alienated a huge section of its WHFB fanbase. Before 8th dropped, the FLGS had 5 to 8 games going during weekly Warhammer night. Within a month of 8th edition hitting, that number dropped to 1 or 2. The people that hung up their square bases weren't power gamers, either. They were your usual FLGS crowd, a mix of hobbyists lore-fans, and core gamers. The game went from having diversity, to being hordehammer. Maneuvering didn't mean as much, magic become even more powerful, and the game seemed to be a lot more bland than it had been.

To be fair, the people that stuck with 8th Edition did grow to enjoy it. People re-discovered maneuvering through use of chaff units, but it still isn't nearly as important as it was in 7th. The problem is that while a handful of players stuck with 8th, the majority of those that left at its inception have never returned, and have no interest in returning. Warhammer Fantasy 8th Edition was a good example of a company throwing the baby out with the bath water, and in this case the baby was adopted by someone else (WarmaHordes, Malifaux, X-Wing...), and isn't coming back.

Again, if you love 8th, that's great. Unfortunately, what happened in my region has been observed by other players that I've talked to from around the US. For whatever reason, the dramatic changes in 8th were the straw that broke the camel's back. Now, instead of fixing the game to go with their excellent Fantasy setting, GW is rumored to be dropping that setting. It's kind of sad, really.

I don't think the WHFB factions were redundant at all.

Even the most similar factions had plenty of flavor that made them distinct. Wood Elves had a focus on shooting, skirmishing, and interacting with forests. High Elves were magic and elite line infantry focused. And Dark Elves were evil High Elves.

Chaos had a lot of distinction. Warriors are the faction of tough elite troops with good armor saves. Beastmen had fairly hard hitting but squishy troops. And Daemons are Daemons.


This is opposed to 40k's 50 shades of Space Marines plus supporting cast.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I don't think the WHFB factions were redundant at all.

Even the most similar factions had plenty of flavor that made them distinct. Wood Elves had a focus on shooting, skirmishing, and interacting with forests. High Elves were magic and elite line infantry focused. And Dark Elves were evil High Elves.
......

Not too sure you're helping your case there.

Price - £140 for a horde of core. (you need hordes otherwise GTFO)

That horde is then killed by a wizard casting an uber spell

8th ed destroyed it. 6/7th could have been salvagable.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I don't think the WHFB factions were redundant at all.

Even the most similar factions had plenty of flavor that made them distinct. Wood Elves had a focus on shooting, skirmishing, and interacting with forests. High Elves were magic and elite line infantry focused. And Dark Elves were evil High Elves.

Chaos had a lot of distinction. Warriors are the faction of tough elite troops with good armor saves. Beastmen had fairly hard hitting but squishy troops. And Daemons are Daemons.


This is opposed to 40k's 50 shades of Space Marines plus supporting cast.

It depends on how you look at it.

I bought tons of WFB minis but only for 40k conversions (or lately, shelf warming) I never really played it.

One reason is that all the armies were some combination of infantry/cavelry/artillery/monsters, which to me did not say high fantasy, it said historical armies with a fantasy venier. Even the Ogre Kingdom was still hoards of goblins with some bigger, fatter infantry behind them.

Now if there were whole armies of giants, or dragons, or whatever that would be different but the distinctions among the fantsy armies seemed subtle and not really that major.

Fluff-wise is there that great a difference between the green guys who want to kill and eat you, the brown guys who want to kill and eat you, the other, shorter, brown guys who want to kill and eat you and the big fat guys who want to kill and eat you? Yeah once you're into the game orcs are not the same as beastmen, who are different from skaven, who are different from Ogres but from the outside?

For a store owner things were even worse because - unlike 40k's Space Marine proliferation, where 6, or 7 or 8 armies shared vehicles and other kits - each fantasy army had several unique infantry, monster, cavalry and artilley kits.

A store owner could not just focus on how many dragons or giants he might sell, he had to drill down and anticipate how many High Elf Dragons vs Dark Elf Dragons, vs Vampire Count Dragons he will sell.

Now I think 40k is heading for trouble because of the proliferation of unique special snowflake kits. Now DA, SW and BA have their own terminator, tac squads and vehicles which a store has to stock and sell and if someone is looking for a Storm Raven but you only have Storm Wolfs then you lost a sale. But that's another story.


GW could have done more to keep inventories lean. The plastic giant kit for example was meant to be used by Empire, Chaos, Orcs etc. But then they quickly added a unique Beastman giant and other unique beasties. They could ahve done a single plastic dragon for the 3 elf factions, and made an undead dragon for both Vamps and Tomb Kings.

Don't get me wrong, the models we got were great, and very very tempting, but the proliferation made stokcing and marketing WHFB a major headache.

The only real problem as far as I can see it is the absolutely ridiculously massively huge cost for starting WHFB, which is even a lot greater than for starting 40k, which is already rather expensive. As it is now, no sensible kid can afford to get into it, unless he is filthy rich. At the moment, a very basic 1000pts Empire list:
-1 captain
-1 wizard
-40 halberdiers
-10 handgunners
-8 knights
-1 cannon
-5 outriders
costs a staggering £149.50 ($248 or €188), and that does not include rulebook, armybook and other required stuff. Also keep in mind that the Empire is one of the cheaper factions, most other factions need a lot more models to get the same points value. This is a price no kid is able or willing to pay to get into something new, not to mention what his parents are going to say about it. That is almost the price of a new console! And the worst thing is that even if you have a 1000pts army, it would not get you very far as most games are played at much higher point levels. It should therefore not be very surprising that Warhammer barely attracts any new players.
Either prices will have to come down or the game will have to be changed to be better playable with only a handful of miniatures. If nothing happens, I am afraid our hobby is slowly going to die out as old players leave and are not replaced by new ones. It also loses GW even more sales because people start using alternative and much, much cheaper models.
GW needs to lower either prices or model count, otherwise WHFB is as good as dead.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I don't think the WHFB factions were redundant at all.

Even the most similar factions had plenty of flavor that made them distinct. Wood Elves had a focus on shooting, skirmishing, and interacting with forests. High Elves were magic and elite line infantry focused. And Dark Elves were evil High Elves.

Chaos had a lot of distinction. Warriors are the faction of tough elite troops with good armor saves. Beastmen had fairly hard hitting but squishy troops. And Daemons are Daemons.


This is opposed to 40k's 50 shades of Space Marines plus supporting cast.

It depends on how you look at it.

I bought tons of WFB minis but only for 40k conversions (or lately, shelf warming) I never really played it.

One reason is that all the armies were some combination of infantry/cavelry/artillery/monsters, which to me did not say high fantasy, it said historical armies with a fantasy venier. Even the Ogre Kingdom was still hoards of goblins with some bigger, fatter infantry behind them.

No self respecting Ogre player uses Gnoblars in units larger than 10, and only to screen leadbeltchers. Gnoblars are so bad its not even funny. They're too slow to screen the ogre army and too weak to actually hold in combat. They're zombies without being unbreakable basically, which means they can't do anything a unit like them usually is supposed to do.

One reason is that all the armies were some combination of infantry/cavelry/artillery/monsters, which to me did not say high fantasy, it said historical armies with a fantasy venier. Even the Ogre Kingdom was still hoards of goblins with some bigger, fatter infantry behind them.

Now if there were whole armies of giants, or dragons, or whatever that would be different but the distinctions among the fantsy armies seemed subtle and not really that major...

Now I think 40k is heading for trouble because of the proliferation of unique special snowflake kits

Umm...?

(On your first point, though: what would make an army of giants much different to even bigger infantry? And what makes 40K armies more than variants of elite heavy infantry, elite light infantry, soviet-style horde infantry, and so on?)

If nothing happens, I am afraid our hobby is slowly going to die out

Oh, don't worry. The hobby will probably be fine. The WFB wargame within the hobby might take a bit of a hit, though.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


For a store owner things were even worse because - unlike 40k's Space Marine proliferation, where 6, or 7 or 8 armies shared vehicles and other kits - each fantasy army had several unique infantry, monster, cavalry and artilley kits.

I'm not sure how that is any better on the 40k side with the spamming of marginally different space marine units that do the same thing. As a theoretical store owner, I'd rather stock just a "space marine tactical squad" than have to stock a space marine tactical squad, a blood angel tactical squad, and a space wolf grey hunter squad to cover bog standard marine troops choices. Same thing goes for bikes... do we really need multiple bikes squads (two separate ravenwing ones (three if you've still got the the legacy version), the normal one, a scout bike squad? How about assault marines? Do we need vanguard vets, assault marines, and sky claws? While I think the space wolf sprues from 2008 are some of the best work that GW has ever done in plastics and value, if I were a store owner I'd have preferred stocking just a single box with multiple copies and then ordering much cheaper chapter specific accessory sprues as needed instead. One fully featured space wolf accessory sprue could replace a half dozen other SKUs. The same goes for DA, GK, and BA. You could probably cut the astartes product line in half by doing that and frankly not lose much as long as the sprues were well designed (like the Dark Angel one is). 40k is suffering from the same bloat if not more that fantasy is but the difference is that it seems to be more popular regardless so it doesn't affect the bottom line as much.

 warboss wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


For a store owner things were even worse because - unlike 40k's Space Marine proliferation, where 6, or 7 or 8 armies shared vehicles and other kits - each fantasy army had several unique infantry, monster, cavalry and artilley kits.

I'm not sure how that is any better on the 40k side with the spamming of marginally different space marine units that do the same thing. As a theoretical store owner, I'd rather stock just a "space marine tactical squad" than have to stock a space marine tactical squad, a blood angel tactical squad, and a space wolf grey hunter squad to cover bog standard marine troops choices. Same thing goes for bikes... do we really need multiple bikes squads (two separate ravenwing ones (three if you've still got the the legacy version), the normal one, a scout bike squad? How about assault marines? Do we need vanguard vets, assault marines, and sky claws? While I think the space wolf sprues from 2008 are some of the best work that GW has ever done in plastics and value, if I were a store owner I'd have preferred stocking just a single box with multiple copies and then ordering much cheaper chapter specific accessory sprues as needed instead. One fully featured space wolf accessory sprue could replace a half dozen other SKUs. The same goes for DA, GK, and BA. You could probably cut the astartes product line in half by doing that and frankly not lose much as long as the sprues were well designed (like the Dark Angel one is). 40k is suffering from the same bloat if not more that fantasy is but the difference is that it seems to be more popular regardless so it doesn't affect the bottom line as much.

It is still not as bad as in Fantasy because all SM armies do use the same vehicles and largely the same infantry (with only 4-5 different kits). In WHFB every army has completely unique kits, thus requiring a lot more space on the shelves.

I realize that but in fantasy you don't have a half dozen armies that are basically the same thing like space marines on top of the ones like eldar/chaos that are doubled up... you just have some doubled and one triple. The space marines use similar vehicles but have twice as many factions under that umbrella to fill out the other stuff with. I'm just saying that there is plenty of bloat in both, not that there isn't any in fantasy.

Well that and KK made the point that 40k is becoming like Fantasy in this regard, and it's something that might bring about or accelerate its downfall as well.

 Accolade wrote:
Well that and KK made the point that 40k is becoming like Fantasy in this regard, and it's something that might bring about or accelerate its downfall as well.

40k is the "newer" title by several years and editions but the bloat there has been going on for a while as well (probably since early 5th edition IMO). I don't think it is becoming like fantasy per se but simply everything is becoming more bloated. The same is true both of the main two IP's owned by GW (WHFB and 40k) as well as the work done by their subsidiaries. Black Library and the HH series has become the poster child for literary fragmentation and bloat and Forgeworld is even starting to go that route (Istvaan did NOT need 3 books and let's not get started about the contemptor dreadnought of the month club). I think it is more accurate to say that fantasy is simply suffering from the same thing as everything else GW... not that things are becoming more like fantasy. In the end, it's semantics so I won't belabor the point further.