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ComTrav wrote:
I lol'd when I read the part about GW doing cons and trade shows.

Does that make me a bad person? The idea that the great and mighty GW might deign to soil themselves by giving demos to the common player like some kickstarter?

I mean, it might actually be a good idea -- I suspect a lot of people got into the game because a local employee at a GW store gave a good demo. It just seems like the kind of community relations GW is so bad at, now, and doesn't even seem to care about.

Community relations are otiose.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Well, rumors and looking at the gak that GW has been releasing for rules over the last several years.

Just because it is rumor does not mean that it is uninformed rumor.

The Auld Grump - after all, Dread Fleet was so very good, right?

Still, it is -rumor-, no matter how you try to dress it up.

If someone chooses to base their opinion on rumor ('informed' or not), that's their right, of course. But completely writing off the game before seeing the -non- rumored material and facts is just plain ignorant.

If WHFB is as 'bad' as people claim it was, is it really out of the realm of possibility for the new product to offer -some- sort of improvement over the old? Maybe it won't.... Maybe it will. But the possibility certainly exists.

Not sure what the point is of your reference to Dread Fleet - apples and oranges. AoS obviously =/= Dread Fleet, other than it comes from the same company.

I understand pessimism. I understand not giving GW the benefit of the doubt. But to summarily judge the product before it's even been -seen- is willfully ignorant.

 Mort wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Well, rumors and looking at the gak that GW has been releasing for rules over the last several years.

Just because it is rumor does not mean that it is uninformed rumor.

The Auld Grump - after all, Dread Fleet was so very good, right?

Still, it is -rumor-, no matter how you try to dress it up.

If someone chooses to base their opinion on rumor ('informed' or not), that's their right, of course. But completely writing off the game before seeing the -non- rumored material and facts is just plain ignorant.

If WHFB is as 'bad' as people claim it was, is it really out of the realm of possibility for the new product to offer -some- sort of improvement over the old? Maybe it won't.... Maybe it will. But the possibility certainly exists.

Not sure what the point is of your reference to Dread Fleet - apples and oranges. AoS obviously =/= Dread Fleet, other than it comes from the same company.

I understand pessimism. I understand not giving GW the benefit of the doubt. But to summarily judge the product before it's even been -seen- is willfully ignorant.

But many of us already have seen the thing that we're basing our judgement on; the Warhammer World is gone, dead, caput, finito. They can drape the bloody rags of its skin over whatever new drek they've written up under the lash of the IP lawyers, but the only reason this new game isn't actually a new game is GW don't have the sack or imagination to just kill WHFB properly and do something genuinely new.

It's not really ignorant when people have years worth of facts and observations to back up their opinions, if you ask me. And from what one can tell GW has not changed its attitude significantly, they don't seem to have any more desire to put out a quality product than they did before, if anything still insisting that what they're putting out is absolutely the best even when no one is buying it, and they're relying on the exact same team of "talent" that killed WHF dead with 8th and turned 40k into an unplayable mess.

What reason do you have to be optimistic about this new product? Why should we believe this is going to be an improvement when GW has been doing everything it can to make things worse, throwing any semblance of structure or balance completely out the window? What have you got to go on other than hopes and prayers at this point? For all we know this is GW making change for the sake of change, just barely realizing that there was a problem with one of their flagship games that needed to be fixed but not having any clue what that problem was or what needed to be done to correct it, because they absolutely refuse to do any research whatsoever or engage with the customer base that have all but given up on them.

Is it possible that Age of Sigmar might not only be good, but might be exactly what everyone's been waiting for? Yeah, it could be, but I think the smart thing to do at this point is to assume the worst and wait to be proven wrong, because believing at this point that AoS is going to be a hit flies in the face of all logic. Some people might very well change their minds once they actually see the new game, but I don't think it's wrong to assume, based on what's been rumored, that they're going to be disappointed. Personally I'm still interested in seeing what it is, but I'm not kidding myself, either.

 Mort wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Well, rumors and looking at the gak that GW has been releasing for rules over the last several years.

Just because it is rumor does not mean that it is uninformed rumor.

The Auld Grump - after all, Dread Fleet was so very good, right?

Still, it is -rumor-, no matter how you try to dress it up.

If someone chooses to base their opinion on rumor ('informed' or not), that's their right, of course. But completely writing off the game before seeing the -non- rumored material and facts is just plain ignorant.

If WHFB is as 'bad' as people claim it was, is it really out of the realm of possibility for the new product to offer -some- sort of improvement over the old? Maybe it won't.... Maybe it will. But the possibility certainly exists.

Not sure what the point is of your reference to Dread Fleet - apples and oranges. AoS obviously =/= Dread Fleet, other than it comes from the same company.

I understand pessimism. I understand not giving GW the benefit of the doubt. But to summarily judge the product before it's even been -seen- is willfully ignorant.

No.

Usually, when you see a new edition of a game, you get a sense of excitement. WANT, Want to need. whatever you want to call it. There is nothing in the news for this edition of the game to make me want to go run out and buy three copies, and a fourth to rip apart and add to my army and my pals armies.

You call it willfully ignorant? on what grounds, aside from your opinion?

I read this rumor, it goes nothing from bad to worse, and your calling me ignorant? Read what I wrote, next time, instead of just shooting from the hip.

Want to have some fun?

Point me in the right direction of a semblance of "Good news" in this rumor of the new edition of this .... new car smell?

I wrote, and again, that I read through this "New edition news" and I'm not excited for a new game, I'm dreading it.

Its not what I signed up for, and its sure not going to be worth the 80- 120 $$$ price tag.

 Mort wrote:


Pretty blind of you to write-off the new edition, when very few facts have been released about it.

Why would anyone want to play? I dunno... because they like the rules? The setting? Though it's hard to know yet if AoS is 'likable' or not because mostly what we have are rumors.

But the sky is not yet falling. We've only heard -rumors- that the sky is falling.

This is the same company that after 15+ years managed to kill stone cold dead my enthusiasm for 40k right?

Same writers even?

Why would anyone assume that they'll have a sudden attack of competence this time?

I actually find the rules and such for 40k quite good for the most part. And the product they are producing is excellent. The issue for most people is, oddly, the release schedule. The sheer mass of items being released, let alone rules, is the main issue with 40k. Not the rules or models themselves.

At least that's the feeling from most people that I talk to.

There's lots to get excited about if the skirmish and round bases rumors are true:

1. Smaller units, feeling less like the back row are just "wound counters"

2. Better interaction with terrain

3. Faster games

4. Lots of new models!

5. No ranking up issues, more freedom in modelling

I'm really excited for Age of Sigmar! :-)

 Hulksmash wrote:
I actually find the rules and such for 40k quite good for the most part. And the product they are producing is excellent. The issue for most people is, oddly, the release schedule. The sheer mass of items being released, let alone rules, is the main issue with 40k. Not the rules or models themselves.

At least that's the feeling from most people that I talk to.

My gaming group doesn't have any major issues with GW, were playing and very much enjoying 7th and find the rules to be a big improvement on 6th. Easier when you only play against people you know (who don't enjoy cheese) or in tournaments of course, since the "pick-up game" doesn't exist here (or really anywhere outside the U.S. i reckon). The release pace is pretty great compared to the snails pace they were going at before, with a few exceptions (Knights).

Anyway, really looking forward to 9th, and I'm very hopeful that I'll finally be able to get into Fantasy again without having to assemble and paint hundreds of generic troop guys...

I think I am at ease at last with Warhammer going skirmish.

The Old World is gone, I will always remember it and still write my FF set in it, but I can move on from it. I am willing to play the new warhammer and 8th will still be strong at my club. AoS is going to be a new game that I am going to go into for my skirmish battles. The rest of my group have access to KoW and with the new Not-Warhammer army lists available at Mantic we'll make the transistion for larger scaled battles there. In fact I think it will be a lot of fun running a smaller AoS game earlier in the day and then use that as a set up for the larger battle for the KOW battles.

So with Age of Sigmar, the Old World is gone, a land that I have been following for over 12 years. But I gained all new ones in exchange. Worlds that I have a chance to explore, play in and eventually conqueror... if only on the table top.

 Grot 6 wrote:

 Mort wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Well, rumors and looking at the gak that GW has been releasing for rules over the last several years.

Just because it is rumor does not mean that it is uninformed rumor.

The Auld Grump - after all, Dread Fleet was so very good, right?

Still, it is -rumor-, no matter how you try to dress it up.

If someone chooses to base their opinion on rumor ('informed' or not), that's their right, of course. But completely writing off the game before seeing the -non- rumored material and facts is just plain ignorant.

If WHFB is as 'bad' as people claim it was, is it really out of the realm of possibility for the new product to offer -some- sort of improvement over the old? Maybe it won't.... Maybe it will. But the possibility certainly exists.

Not sure what the point is of your reference to Dread Fleet - apples and oranges. AoS obviously =/= Dread Fleet, other than it comes from the same company.

I understand pessimism. I understand not giving GW the benefit of the doubt. But to summarily judge the product before it's even been -seen- is willfully ignorant.

No.

Usually, when you see a new edition of a game, you get a sense of excitement. WANT, Want to need. whatever you want to call it. There is nothing in the news for this edition of the game to make me want to go run out and buy three copies, and a fourth to rip apart and add to my army and my pals armies.

You call it willfully ignorant? on what grounds, aside from your opinion?

I read this rumor, it goes nothing from bad to worse, and your calling me ignorant? Read what I wrote, next time, instead of just shooting from the hip.

Want to have some fun?

Point me in the right direction of a semblance of "Good news" in this rumor of the new edition of this .... new car smell?

I wrote, and again, that I read through this "New edition news" and I'm not excited for a new game, I'm dreading it.

Its not what I signed up for, and its sure not going to be worth the 80- 120 $$$ price tag.

Their 'wall of silence' approach to advertising seems to be frightening more people off rather than exciting them. There were rumours way back that the end of times would result in a total redesign of the game rendering a lot of models obsolete. No wonder so many people have stopped playing and traders like Mikhalia stop stocking. GW really need to be open an communicate things to reassure their customer base, panicking and scaring them off product for months because they refuse to even acknowledge a replacement product that has clearly been coming for nearly a year is stupid.

 mikhaila wrote:
So this is from GW as of a minute ago. I will continue to hammer my sales rep about 4 times a week, and he's promised to call me whenever new info pops up.

-Ages of Sigmar is a new system, not necessarily WFB 8.5 or 9.0

-Story advances after the events in Endtimes.

-All current models will be usable. But it's a new system, so how good/bad something was in 8th isn't an indication of how it will perform in AoS.

-Age of Sigmar is not a boardgame, is not an intro game to something larger. It's the main event.

I know this was a few pages back, but just catching up. Specifically regarding the "All current models will be usable", this could mean several different things, but as it's from the perspective of a GW rep to a store owner, it could mean that the models currently stocked by FLGS will be usable, NOT all models will be usable. For example the Bone Giant has been direct only for years, it could be cut from the new edition with the above quote still being 100% correct.

My big fear is that what happens with 40K normally happens with Fantasy and vice versa. Seems they're taking this approach a bit literally now. I'm envisaging lots of USRs with dumb names, multiple mini-army books, and stupidly expensive full size army books which are replaced every 12 months.

Yay.

It will be somewhat encouraging to see GW actually paying attention to things like "Cost Barriers to Entry" and other sales data.

Smaller armies/skirmish sized games are something they consciously moved away from - even though many (most?) people buy multiple armies when they play such systems?

But as you note - this is GW, even if this is a smaller scale skirmish sized ruleset, they're figure out some other way to up the prices.

Maybe the all the models will just get an awful increase?

Still, I'll remain cautiously optimistic here!

If Age of Sigmar is a skirmish system, then I'm seeing two different elements at work.

First, is Age of Sigmar, which is most definitely not a replacement for Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

Second is the sudden pulling of army books, which would suggest that those books are shortly going to be replaced in some fashion. A skirmish system would not replace those books.

Some of the 'rumors' in this thread have strongly suggested that there is NO 'next version of WFB' - Age of Sigmar is IT.

Now, of course, if it tanks and/or beancounters insist, it may return.

But as of now, allegedly, this is it.

 Alpharius wrote:
It will be somewhat encouraging to see GW actually paying attention to things like "Cost Barriers to Entry" and other sales data.

Smaller armies/skirmish sized games are something they consciously moved away from - even though many (most?) people buy multiple armies when they play such systems?

But as you note - this is GW, even if this is a smaller scale skirmish sized ruleset, they're figure out some other way to up the prices.

Maybe the all the models will just get an awful increase?

Still, I'll remain cautiously optimistic here!

As much as I am alright with the new system coming out. I can't help but think of this in regards to how GW views it's data collection.

 Flashman wrote:
My big fear is that what happens with 40K normally happens with Fantasy and vice versa. Seems they're taking this approach a bit literally now. I'm envisaging lots of USRs with dumb names, multiple mini-army books, and stupidly expensive full size army books which are replaced every 12 months.

Yay.

Yeah I believe that the spam of lots of books will only cause more confusion and frustration. May seem like its not much of a problem but when others are giving away rules for free

So, they had LOTR exclusively in a fantasy setting.

Recognizable IP, solid game, and entirely new model range. It lasted, what, three years total? Then hobbit flopped. Now try the same thing with what amounts to a fresh IP and world, with the current rules guys (the same guys who have had over ten years to figure out how Sisters of Twilight are supposed to work, but haven't; who cannot manage one FAQ every six months; who still can't establish what "unmodified leadership" really is), and the GW Marketing Team (the guys who decided the way to deal with the internet was to pretend it didn't exist; who have been recycling the same artwork for going on three decades; who honestly believed that charging the same for a tablet rulebook as the hard cover would not result in rampant piracy). Yeah, not a chance this goes well.

There is more to it than simple IP stuff, but I think Fantasy has suffered from a number of issues in the last few years, most of which are GW's own fault. As others pointed out, they let other companies chip away at the market share unchallenged and (worse) did an inferior job at, well really everything other than _maybe_ miniature production. They spent tons of time defending their IP only to have Chapterhouse happen, which was an enormous waste of money and actually damaged their ability to defend their own holdings. They blew tons of money to make one of the worst web sites imaginable. The worst thing to me is that they largely neglected Fantasy for a long time, mostly because from their standpoint why bother developing a complex line when you can just toss a different set of shoulder sprues on the same marine models and call it another chapter? That LOTR shelf space and design time had to come from somewhere (though I did not mind being deprived of the comedy rules design stylings of Mr Ward....), further cannibalizing the line. The specialist games that served as good gateways into Fantasy all disappeared (instead, when 40k peeps got Space Hulk to reel people in, we got.... Dreadfleet?).

They got complacent and lazy. Then as they bleed money, they got desperate and short sighted. That's why they sold their balls to New Line for the lopsided Hobbit license agreement. They were hoping for another quick buck like the LOTR bubble gave them before they flushed all of that away. They existed so long without any competition that they essentially forgot how to make a good product, which is what happens when a niche game lets the bean counters and marketing people take over. At this point, I think Kirby and Jervis are just looking to ride the dead horse carcass long enough to cash out their options.

So, one of my spies returned, wounded unto death and managed to give me a bit of info on the Great Enemies battleplan.
He was delerious and really wanted a cookie before he died, so take this with a grain of salt.

-The new system will have both Skirmish and large battle with ranked troops versions.

-Skirmish can use round or square. Large version is square.

-The round 32mm bases in the space marine boxes were originally made for WH:AoS, but the 40k studio guys liked the look and they fit space marines better.

-AOS box will have both round and square bases in the box.

Many thanks mikhaila!

I don't know if I like the sound of the "square or round bases" as far as separating the skirmish from the large scale. It feels like the same problem with demons in that you have to commit one way or the other (40k or WHFB), but with this both bases are effectively within the same game realm (as opposed to two different ones).

I guess they might be trying to maintain the large scale game, but it feels like everyone will just go to skirmish size and large scale will be no more the popular.

Tracking to be a jack of all trades, end up being fun for none?

I hope not!

 mikhaila wrote:
Skirmish can use round or square. Large version is square.

Oh well, still waiting to see what the skirmish version looks like...

Sounds like SBG/WOTR.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Sounds like SBG/WOTR.

Except for a subtle, but somewhat crucial difference

Ah I'm desperate for fantasy to go round. But now going round locks you into one game mode?? :/

 Flashman wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Sounds like SBG/WOTR.

Except for a subtle, but somewhat crucial difference

It's gak?

I suppose if they are sticking with 25mm rounds, any 25mm square based models could be done by putting the model on a 25mm round and then magnetizing into a 25mm square base or movement tray. 20mm squares could be mounted on the model then magnetized to a round.

No clue what to do with cavalry or monsters with that though.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Flashman wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Sounds like SBG/WOTR.

Except for a subtle, but somewhat crucial difference

It's gak?

Lol no, I meant you need to own the same miniatures twice

Meh. Stick them on round 28mm bases, and use the WOTR movement trays.