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Well, this is an unfortunate set of rumours to see just after deciding to get back into the hobby.

I'm seeing a lot of people talking about "wait and see" policies, partially brought on by GW's secrecy when it comes to this new edition and what's going to happen with it. Is that something folks would recommend to new players/people just getting back into the hobby, or is the caution unnecessary? I figure I'd better get my ideas straight before I go barrelling right into building a new army.

I'd hold off. Worst case scenario you wait a few months & can set aside more money to buy a bigger starter army. Best case you saved a lot of money for something else.

Wait & see is the best option atm.

Given that roughly half the 40k range are Space Marines or Chaos Space Marines the "Space Marines Outsell Fantasy" claim isn't really a big deal. All that means is that 40k is about twice as popular as fantasy.

Rumors state that WHFB costitutea 8% of GW's profits these days. This is no longer "Space Marines outsell all of WHFB" like many years ago, it's more like "All of WHFB is equal to one of the medium-selling 40k armies."

That's a lot of product for very little return.

Maybe after nine editions GW will get it right...

All of the rumors sound awesome to me. It's too bad if they come true there will be zero people to play that game with.

 melkorthetonedeaf wrote:
All of the rumors sound awesome to me. It's too bad if they come true there will be zero people to play that game with.

Meh is they come true there wont be as many OLD people to play with. Thats not to say there will be none &/or there won't be new players.

In my town, there will be exactly zero. If I want to drive 45 minutes to play a game, I'll bring Malifaux or WM/H.

We shall se what the new WHFB brings in terms of new players. That the state of WHFB is such that GW is willing to sacrifice all of its veteran WHFB players in hopes of getting enough new players to cover their losses show just how far the game has declined.

I think the real test will be whether people want to play this new grimdark WHFB or WM/H, since rumors make it sound like these two games will be much more similar.

 Accolade wrote:
We shall se what the new WHFB brings in terms of new players. That the state of WHFB is such that GW is willing to sacrifice all of its veteran WHFB players in hopes of getting enough new players to cover their losses show just how far the game has declined.

I think the real test will be whether people want to play this new grimdark WHFB or WM/H, since rumors make it sound like these two games will be much more similar.

When I hear statements like this I find it so disjointed from real life. Just yesterday I went to play WHFB in my local GW and there was 7 of us in total, outnumbering the 40k and 30k players combined. I'm going to be so sad if 9th is unrecognizable to its predecessors.

Guess what GW gets from me after I've dumped thousands of dollars into fantasy and they invalidate half or more of what's on my shelf; the finger, that's what they get and not another dime of my money.

Just keep playing 8th and be done with it. I, personally and all tournaments I organize, went back to 40k 4th and we haven't looked back ever since. GW still hasn't knocked at our door and asked us to play 7th

Chute82 wrote:Maybe after nine editions GW will get it right...

Bless you that you think they want to.

Oh, they've been getting it 'right', but 'right' in their eyes is releasing the same game with points of the flawed meta switched about, so that folk buy it again, get frustrated and bored with the problems, and buy the same game with another stirred-up flawed meta yet again. The rumours of ninth show one thing most of all: their version of 'right' is experiencing a few hiccups.

Bottle wrote:
When I hear statements like this I find it so disjointed from real life.

But the thing is, Bottle, 'real life' is not just your life.

 Accolade wrote:
Rumors state that WHFB costitutea 8% of GW's profits these days. This is no longer "Space Marines outsell all of WHFB" like many years ago, it's more like "All of WHFB is equal to one of the medium-selling 40k armies."

That's a lot of product for very little return.

8% sounds way too low and contradicts another rumour that the USA constitutes 50% of global 40k sales (when the USA in it's entirety only makes up a third of total sales).

Maybe it's 8% in the USA, I could believe that. 8% globally sounds off to me. Though 8th edition really did feth things up majorly, so maybe.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:

 melkorthetonedeaf wrote:
All of the rumors sound awesome to me. It's too bad if they come true there will be zero people to play that game with.

Meh is they come true there wont be as many OLD people to play with. Thats not to say there will be none &/or there won't be new players.

Given 8th edition wiped out most my potential opponents (and wiped me out after a while too ) then I think there's lots of areas where 9th could be the death knell of WHFB.

 Vermis wrote:
Oh, they've been getting it 'right', but 'right' in their eyes is releasing the same game with points of the flawed meta switched about, so that folk buy it again, get frustrated and bored with the problems, and buy the same game with another stirred-up flawed meta yet again. The rumours of ninth show one thing most of all: their version of 'right' is experiencing a few hiccups.

Your point of view is flawed, because you assume all players give a gak about building the meanest army they can field, instead of grabbing what they actually like. And hey, if you do, it's your choice, it's not like GW is pointing a gun to your head to force you to buy the new stuff.

Your point of view is flawed because I didn't say a thing about 'meanness'.

Sure, I've seen a few people say they just collect an army rather than play, and I've seen a few (especially with these 9th rumours) say they'll stick with an older edition*; and speaking personally I think it's much better to go with an army whose models and background interest you, rather than 'who's got the best rules'.

But most WFB gamers still use rules anyway - it's kind of integral to the game, regardless of whether you're a WAACer or beer-n-pretzeler - so ignoring them isn't much use. Problem is GW seems to ignore the rules, in certain ways, more than the gamers do. They also seem to have indoctrinated gamers into thinking that the game is only 'supported' when BRB and army book rules are constantly revised and rereleased to be bought and rebought. Can you imagine an edition of a wargame that was left as it is for ten years, or fifteen or longer, and it didn't really matter?

It might not matter with Warhammer if GW was interested in (or even capable of) playtesting and balancing their rules. That's one of the ways of hooking you into a cycle of Alan Merrett's definition of the GW 'hobby': 'buying GW products'. Even just taking the last couple of editions: they mucked up seventh with a chaotic jumble of army books so that a load of people were waiting for eighth to 'fix' things.
Now some folk say that eighth is the most balanced edition for ages. I'm not sure how. Maybe because big blocks of infantry don't actually go anywhere anymore. That's one of the many complaints I keep seeing about eighth, and I don't think they can all be handwaved away as a minority of 'haters' because something has to account for the dwindling sales of GW in general and WFB in particular, and the desperate steps GW seem to be taking with End Times and the supposed changes with ninth. There's a bunch of other Chute82s out there who have come to the conclusion that "y'know what, after eight editions, GW won't get it right."

*But a lot of those will move to ninth or drop out. Maybe they game in a GW store where they have to keep up. Maybe they're stuck with a gaming group who 'have' to keep up. Maybe they themselves are so institutionalised into following GW round and buying, buying, buying that they won't be able to resist for too long. As with the folk dropping out of eighth, the only winning move is not to play.

I'm not concerned.

I play both undead armies, i.e. the two factions most likely to get rolled into one, and you could quite easily cull half the unit entries in each book and nobody would notice.

VC: Coven thrones, bat swarms, black coaches, blood knights, units of cairn wraiths, and to a lesser extent ghouls, varghulfs, ghoul kings, and corpse carts. The entire character roster is garbage old metal characters who can basically all be ditched.

TK: skeleton horsemen, ushabti (all varieties), necrolith colossi, tomb swarms, tomb scorpions, and if their models weren't so fantastic necrosphinxes.


Notice how much of the chaff models are in metal too. They're prime targets for GW to give a big buff and a plastic kit to in a normal update cycle, but they could just as easily be culled to pare down into a combined list.

Making TK an expansion book update on a combined undead list would be trivially easy. It's only the model line that's at issue, since their visual style is so unique. However an upgrade sprue to turn core VC skeletons into TK warriors/archers (which many people basically use the TK skeleton kit as already) would solve the core issue, and their existing plastic line (chariots, necroknights/stalkers, sphinxes) could round it out. All we'd need in addition would be a couple character clamshells and a plastic casket/catapult/warmachine of some sort.


I suspect that the rest of the armies will get the same treatment. Drop all the old models that are basically just bloat. Combine the armies into "factions" and "sub factions," then add in elements like the Morghasts / Blight Kings that can be used by multiple subfactions at once.

I heard from the guy at my local GW that 9th will bring a new set of post end times rules, we will then have the choice of playing the end times, pre end times or post end times. I find it rather cool.

 Chaos Rising wrote:
I heard from the guy at my local GW that 9th will bring a new set of post end times rules, we will then have the choice of playing the end times, pre end times or post end times. I find it rather cool.

No accurate rumours ever started with the words "I heard from the guy at my local GW...".

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Chaos Rising wrote:
I heard from the guy at my local GW that 9th will bring a new set of post end times rules, we will then have the choice of playing the end times, pre end times or post end times. I find it rather cool.

No accurate rumours ever started with the words "I heard from the guy at my local GW...".

Yeah...this seems to have almost become a rule when it comes to rumors!

 Vermis wrote:
Your point of view is flawed because I didn't say a thing about 'meanness'.

That's true, you merely implied it by talking about the unbalanced meta scene, as a reason for people to buy more stuff. That in my book implies that people buy to stay at the top of the food chain, whereas it's a decision a player makes on his own. The only thing I've bought since when the new wood elves were released were two boxes of sisters of the thorn. Woop, GW got my money, so obviously I must have been hypnotized by them. Instead of, you know, consciously choosing to buy because I happen to like those deer mounts.

 Vermis wrote:
Sure, I've seen a few people say they just collect an army rather than play, and I've seen a few (especially with these 9th rumours) say they'll stick with an older edition*; and speaking personally I think it's much better to go with an army whose models and background interest you, rather than 'who's got the best rules'.

But most WFB gamers still use rules anyway - it's kind of integral to the game, regardless of whether you're a WAACer or beer-n-pretzeler - so ignoring them isn't much use. Problem is GW seems to ignore the rules, in certain ways, more than the gamers do. They also seem to have indoctrinated gamers into thinking that the game is only 'supported' when BRB and army book rules are constantly revised and rereleased to be bought and rebought. Can you imagine an edition of a wargame that was left as it is for ten years, or fifteen or longer, and it didn't really matter?

It might not matter with Warhammer if GW was interested in (or even capable of) playtesting and balancing their rules. That's one of the ways of hooking you into a cycle of Alan Merrett's definition of the GW 'hobby': 'buying GW products'. Even just taking the last couple of editions: they mucked up seventh with a chaotic jumble of army books so that a load of people were waiting for eighth to 'fix' things.
Now some folk say that eighth is the most balanced edition for ages. I'm not sure how. Maybe because big blocks of infantry don't actually go anywhere anymore. That's one of the many complaints I keep seeing about eighth, and I don't think they can all be handwaved away as a minority of 'haters' because something has to account for the dwindling sales of GW in general and WFB in particular, and the desperate steps GW seem to be taking with End Times and the supposed changes with ninth. There's a bunch of other Chute82s out there who have come to the conclusion that "y'know what, after eight editions, GW won't get it right."

*But a lot of those will move to ninth or drop out. Maybe they game in a GW store where they have to keep up. Maybe they're stuck with a gaming group who 'have' to keep up. Maybe they themselves are so institutionalised into following GW round and buying, buying, buying that they won't be able to resist for too long. As with the folk dropping out of eighth, the only winning move is not to play.

It's not the first time I've seen you write about WHFB players in a demeaning way, as if someone has to be brain damaged to actually like the game, or that someone has to suffer from compulsive shopping when it comes to GW. Reality check: you're wrong. What you imply is insulting and gratuitous, and it's not the first time either that people call you out on these wild assumptions you make. So cut it out already.
No one sane is indoctrinated by GW, and there's plenty of people that still play older editions, or armies that are now officially unsupported. So yeah, I can imagine playing with 10 years old rules - as a matter of fact, I have been playing Blood Bowl with the same rules for quite a few years now. I also can imagine playing with an army that is out of production like Dogs of War, and the only thing that actually held me back from starting a small tilean army months ago is that I had to replace my fencing mask, and those don't come cheap.
Personally, I like WHFB and have fun with it; furthermore, I know many other players who share the same opinion - some from my gaming group, others from different places. Some of us are actually looking forward to 9th edition because we hope it will provide a ruleset that we can use as a replacement for Mordheim.
I've heard someone complain about the steadfast infantry. It's a guy who keeps charging his bretonnian lances of 9 knights straight into mobs of 30+ models. That proves that he can't adapt his tactics, not that the steadfast rule is bad, per se. To be honest, I fail to see how you can call 8th edition bad, and then be unhappy with the fact that a new edition is around the corner.
Does GW follow bad policies? Yes, of course. Do they do mistakes? Yes. Are their prices too high? Without question. Do they try to place their products on the market? It's their job, and it's going to be the same for every wargame that aims to grow a returning customer base.
Or do you think that PP will shut down and say "thank you, it was a great run" once everyone has completed his warband? Oh look, they just nerfed Shifting Stones - I guess GW isn't the only company that touches up the meta, from time to time.
The rumors are wild, but not inherently bad. What do we know? Basically, that armies are going to gain access to allies. Everyone screamed and shouted when this was introduced in WH40k, yet people adapted: who wanted to make use of the new options did, the others - be they tourney organizers or simple players - self policied theirselves.
Background rumors are strange too, however we do not have a clear picture yet, and there's definitely potential in this change.

 Accolade wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Chaos Rising wrote:
I heard from the guy at my local GW that 9th will bring a new set of post end times rules, we will then have the choice of playing the end times, pre end times or post end times. I find it rather cool.

No accurate rumours ever started with the words "I heard from the guy at my local GW...".

Yeah...this seems to have almost become a rule when it comes to rumors!

By "the guy" I mean the store manager, not just some random dude.

 Chaos Rising wrote:

 Accolade wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Chaos Rising wrote:
I heard from the guy at my local GW that 9th will bring a new set of post end times rules, we will then have the choice of playing the end times, pre end times or post end times. I find it rather cool.

No accurate rumours ever started with the words "I heard from the guy at my local GW...".

Yeah...this seems to have almost become a rule when it comes to rumors!

By "the guy" I mean the store manager, not just some random dude.

Might as well have been a random dude. GW store managers don't have any more information than their customers.

 Chaos Rising wrote:

 Accolade wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Chaos Rising wrote:
I heard from the guy at my local GW that 9th will bring a new set of post end times rules, we will then have the choice of playing the end times, pre end times or post end times. I find it rather cool.

No accurate rumours ever started with the words "I heard from the guy at my local GW...".

Yeah...this seems to have almost become a rule when it comes to rumors!

By "the guy" I mean the store manager, not just some random dude.

Yeah we know what you meant. Store managers have no special information and are well known for making stuff up. Store managers don't know what's coming out next until they get their copy shipped to them a few days before it releases, by which time the internet has typically already leaked it. The current store manager at my local GW is actually honest, he outright says he has no idea but previous store managers have told me all sorts of random gak that wasn't true.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Chaos Rising wrote:

 Accolade wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Chaos Rising wrote:
I heard from the guy at my local GW that 9th will bring a new set of post end times rules, we will then have the choice of playing the end times, pre end times or post end times. I find it rather cool.

No accurate rumours ever started with the words "I heard from the guy at my local GW...".

Yeah...this seems to have almost become a rule when it comes to rumors!

By "the guy" I mean the store manager, not just some random dude.

Yeah we know what you meant. Store managers have no special information and are well known for making stuff up. Store managers don't know what's coming out next until they get their copy shipped to them a few days before it releases, by which time the internet has typically already leaked it. The current store manager at my local GW is actually honest, he outright says he has no idea but previous store managers have told me all sorts of random gak that wasn't true.

Ok then thanks, I'll know not to trust him in the future.

Not to mention that with the advent of one-man stores, "store manager" just means he's the only person who works there.

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:
I'm not concerned.

I play both undead armies, i.e. the two factions most likely to get rolled into one, and you could quite easily cull half the unit entries in each book and nobody would notice.

VC: Coven thrones, bat swarms, black coaches, blood knights, units of cairn wraiths, and to a lesser extent ghouls, varghulfs, ghoul kings, and corpse carts. The entire character roster is garbage old metal characters who can basically all be ditched.

Not entirely acurate thanks to lore of undeath. Bloodknights are utterly fantastic, when summoned with lore of undeath. They will utterly destroy a unit in ways black knights just cant. Bat swarms are also useful against elves, take away their asf and you take away their rerolls,again a great summoned unit.

A unit of cairn wraiths makes a great summoned redirector ezpecially if your opponent doesnt have magical attacks.

Vargulfs have a 4+ regen and are vampiric so dont need a general to march and make great WM hunters / flank chargers. While true terrorgeists are genrally better vargulfs still have a very useful place.

Ghouls are great, who doesnt love T4 with 2 poisoned attacks each. I use a horde of them every game to great effect.

Corpse carts are also great. Bubble ASF for free because yiu cast invocation? Yes please. Plus balefire makes them a real thron in the side of opponents. True -1 to cast may not seem like much but it also means youre at +1 to dispel.

Though I must agree on the coven throne and the ghoul king. The throne is a pure fluff choice and the ghoul king has 1 build that can be effective l, even then it's pretty meh.

If my Lizardmen fly off into space never to be seen or heard from again I'll be pretty disappointed. I've got a small Elf and Ogre Kingdoms army that may remain viable. What'll mostly bother me is I won't be able to sell my lizards if I want to cash out.

Sarge wrote:
If my Lizardmen fly off into space never to be seen or heard from again I'll be pretty disappointed. I've got a small Elf and Ogre Kingdoms army that may remain viable. What'll mostly bother me is I won't be able to sell my lizards if I want to cash out.

Latest rumors say that lizardmen fly off in space with their cities, find the Ancients and practically save pieces of reality from Chaos by wrapping them in "bubbles". All in all, if these rumors are true, from a background pov I'd say they are fundamental.

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:
I'm not concerned.

I play both undead armies, i.e. the two factions most likely to get rolled into one, and you could quite easily cull half the unit entries in each book and nobody would notice.

VC: Coven thrones, bat swarms, black coaches, blood knights, units of cairn wraiths, and to a lesser extent ghouls, varghulfs, ghoul kings, and corpse carts. The entire character roster is garbage old metal characters who can basically all be ditched.

Not entirely acurate thanks to lore of undeath. Bloodknights are utterly fantastic, when summoned with lore of undeath. They will utterly destroy a unit in ways black knights just cant. Bat swarms are also useful against elves, take away their asf and you take away their rerolls,again a great summoned unit.

A unit of cairn wraiths makes a great summoned redirector ezpecially if your opponent doesnt have magical attacks.

Vargulfs have a 4+ regen and are vampiric so dont need a general to march and make great WM hunters / flank chargers. While true terrorgeists are genrally better vargulfs still have a very useful place.

Ghouls are great, who doesnt love T4 with 2 poisoned attacks each. I use a horde of them every game to great effect.

Corpse carts are also great. Bubble ASF for free because yiu cast invocation? Yes please. Plus balefire makes them a real thron in the side of opponents. True -1 to cast may not seem like much but it also means youre at +1 to dispel.

Though I must agree on the coven throne and the ghoul king. The throne is a pure fluff choice and the ghoul king has 1 build that can be effective l, even then it's pretty meh.

Agree 100%

Corpse cart is A++, I can't believe how many people poo poo this unit, nothing like attacking anything that has ASF at the sametime, which negates the high INT re-roll. Or, going first if they don't have ASF. Mega cast VHDM and High Elf players start rolling thier eyes.