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 Kilkrazy wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Does anyone else feel that AoS is different enough from Warhammer that GW would have been better served as selling it in tandem with WHFB?

If they were going to have the war scrolls anyway... then the cannibalized sales would simply have been... sales.

The Auld Grump - I felt the same way about D&D 4th edition... it would have been better run in tandem with 3.X.

I think there would have been huge potential for confusion between the two games.

The war scrolls look like stat lines from WHFB army books but a bit simplified. The new models look like the old ones but a bit larger, on different stands and with new (whacky) names. You would have two superficially similar games that actually are incompatible.

More of a shocker that they DIDN'T do that! Seems right up their alley.

Someone brought up the idea that GW has given the Large Fantasy battle share away to competitors. By itself, not huge, but combined with them giving away blood bowl, space battles, and their other specialty games away it is huge.
AOS competes with other skirmish games but now Mantic (and anything else that might arise) have no competition from GW.
Now 40k is the only thing they have without competition and if they make 40k go the way of AOS then they'll give that away as well.

They haven't given up the large fantasy battles though, their rules state armies are about 100 mini's a side. This is not intended to be a skirmish game.

What they have given up, though, is a ranked fantasy battle system, and a fantasy battle system with tactical depth.

Nope, big GW fan, hope they do well. I haven't heard much negative at all from folks who have played the new rules. Old armies included too. I'm in with my current armies, looking forward to playing AOS rules. Not into the new armies but I'm not into some of the old armies either.

 Talys wrote:

But, again, you're talking about the situation as it was a week ago, when GW produced a legitimate fantasy game. With AoS they've essentially conceded that niche in the market to other companies, and that's a priceless opportunity for those half-forgotten and poor-selling WHFB alternatives to stop being poor sellers. A year from now we'll probably be asking how many people know someone who plays AoS, and speculating about how to use AoS models in KoW/WHFB/whatever.

That's possible! And it's also possible GW will do an about face and produce 9e WHFB set in the Sigmar timeframe.

You are right. it is possible. It is also not the current reality. As it stands now, GW has abandoned their previous approach. If GW re-enters the niche that WH Fantasy once occupied, then we'll discuss that on its merits. What is beyond dispute is that Mantic has been positioning itself to siphon off disaffected former WH Fantasy players and their job has been made easier now that Age of Sigmar has redefined the scope of GW's fantasy offering.

TheAuldGrump wrote:Does anyone else feel that AoS is different enough from Warhammer that GW would have been better served as selling it in tandem with WHFB?

If they were going to have the war scrolls anyway... then the cannibalized sales would simply have been... sales.

The Auld Grump - I felt the same way about D&D 4th edition... it would have been better run in tandem with 3.X.

Aye, as Wayne said. If it was a skirmish set in the old blown-up world, a (relatively) cheap buy-in that could be expanded to big battles, I personally would have thought that one of the shrewdest moves. ('Course, I thought they could have also made big-battle Warhammer a proper mass battle game, like Warmaster 3.0, but daring to make WFB more streamlined might've caused more rage than blowing up the world. Ah well. If wishes were fishes...)

Herzlos wrote:They haven't given up the large fantasy battles though, their rules state armies are about 100 mini's a side. This is not intended to be a skirmish game.

And I don't call that one of the shrewdest moves.

Herzlos wrote:
They haven't given up the large fantasy battles though, their rules state armies are about 100 mini's a side. This is not intended to be a skirmish game.

What they have given up, though, is a ranked fantasy battle system, and a fantasy battle system with tactical depth.

No, they've given up on fantasy because AoS is not a playable game. So GW's current product lines are 40k, a barely-supported and probably soon to be OOP skirmish-scale LOTR/Hobbit game, and some miniatures for KoW. Once the LOTR/Hobbit license expires GW's only presence in the fantasy market will be producing alternate models to use with rules published by some other company.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talys wrote:
And yet, there are people who play it and actually find it enjoyable.

Some people will white knight for GW no matter what they do. But I seriously doubt that anyone is going to be playing AoS a year from now. And if they are they certainly won't be playing it "out of the box", they'll be playing a heavily-modified version of AoS that fixes its worst problems.

That's possible! And it's also possible GW will do an about face and produce 9e WHFB set in the Sigmar timeframe.

It's incredibly unlikely that they would do that, and if they did it would almost certainly only happen once AoS has been a complete failure and destroyed GW's market share in the fantasy genre. All of the speculation about a new WHFB to replace AoS appears to be nothing more than wishful thinking. On the other hand, it's very plausible to have the former WHFB community move to KoW and make those products more appealing to store owners, especially as GW allows the current WHFB models to go OOP.

I think that AoS opens a legitmate demographic for Games Workshop, though it loses an unprofitable one concurrently.

What demographic is that? People who hate having money in their wallets but are morally opposed to drugs? The very young children of billionaires?

I appreciate that you hate a game structured like AoS, but you should see that there are some people who like scenario-based play a lot more than "my points your points, fight!", and you must concede that if two players play a scenario, the likelihood that they'll have a bad matchup is virtually zero.

AoS is terrible for scenario gaming.

it was for this guy who despite the fact people told him he could still play 8th ed. or simply sold all his models he does this...
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/141508-Hothead-Gamer-Burns-Warhammer-Fantasy-Army-Over-New-Age-of-Sigmar-Rules

That guy gave his army a "Viking Funeral". Their souls have gone to be reincarnated as Sigmarines.

I remember hearing a guy brag about burning all his old dice after buying 'super-randomised casino dice' or somesuch. IIRC he posted pics too.

As with this, you sort of wonder if the fumes from all that burning plastic caused a bit of brain damage, but they can't have been all that bright to consider it in the first place.

Well that guy or anyone that destroys their miniatures over this is a petty pos. (I remember an idiot that melted a finecast model and posted it here on Dakka.) Hell there is people who would LOVE to have that stuff but will never have the funds, to get it. It makes me sick.

I saw a video of a guy smashing Forge World DKOK minis, set to random music.

To the title of the thread, I think hoping AoS is the final nail for GW is akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face. I still have fun with GW games (more specifically WH40K) so if AoS is the end of GW I would probably end up cut off from somethign I have fun with and have invested in playing. I have played games in the past that went belly up and in my experience, not having something at all is a worse fate than having something that is less than optimal. If GW still exists you can always hope things get better, if they are GONE, then you have to find something to fill the gap.

Of courser if you are already in the anti-GW camp perhaps you have a different outlook.

The majority of the people that are in the "anti-GW camp" aren't doing it because they hate warhammer or doing it out of malice. They're just fed up with GW in general and see a crash necessary before things get better.

I agree with that camp. Like TSR, GW is beyond redemption and I'd rather the company crash and the IP get sold rather than me spend money on sub-par drivel.

 Absolutionis wrote:
I'd rather the company crash and the IP get sold.

As long as the IP gets sold that plan works, however that might not occur. Or it does get sold and still gets folded away (That happened to one of the games I used to play.)

I actually work at a company that sometimes buys IP/companies just to squash it as competition, or buys it for the human resources that comes with the company so I know it happens, I have seen it first hand.

 Peregrine wrote:
But I seriously doubt that anyone is going to be playing AoS a year from now. And if they are they certainly won't be playing it "out of the box", they'll be playing a heavily-modified version of AoS that fixes its worst problems.

Which, in turn, means that the fracturing of "GW-based" wargaming communities will only continue to increase, making it harder and harder to play (GW) games outside of people's existing "garage-gaming" group and/or specific FLGS.

It's bad enough in 40k having to learn everyone's different idea of what a "non-TFG" list is, but having to learn everyone's different houserules for balancing sides in AoS, not to mention all the silly rules, is an enormous turn off.

 Commissar41.0 wrote:
it was for this guy who despite the fact people told him he could still play 8th ed. or simply sold all his models he does this...
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/141508-Hothead-Gamer-Burns-Warhammer-Fantasy-Army-Over-New-Age-of-Sigmar-Rules

Anyone that sets miniatures on fire because they don't like a story or rules changes has disturbing anger issues, lol. That's like having a book burning because you didn't like the sequel.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Peregrine,

There are at least 2 demographics that AoS appeal to.

The first are people who enjoy 40k and like the aesthetic. This is another, easy to learn, light, small model count secondary time-filler game with minis that will appeal to anyone that loves 40k minis.

The second are players who enjoy campaign narratives and don't enjoy competitive play. Even if you have a disdain for this kind of play, you can't deny that such players exist. My wife falls squarely in this category. She can't stand list building, and would far prefer to play a game that said 'play with these models'.

As to your children of billionaires comment, strip away your inflammatory style, and on the substance of it, AoS and 40k are both affordable to anyone with an average wage in a first world nation with a bit of disposable income. If you can't afford AoS, you also can't afford any other miniature war game, or, really, much else in the form of luxury entertainment.

Edit: A third demographic is the people who just love the models and don't care about the game.

I am beginning to think that the last, best hope, for GW and fantasy is that Forgeworld does a Heritage Edition, or the like.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* The entirety of the rules for 2nd edition Age of Sigmar:
Each player alternates placing their miniatures on the table until they have no more miniatures to place.
Each player rolls 1d6 and adds the total cost of their armies in either US dollars or GB pounds.
High result wins.

Not been through all 20 odd pages but to answer the question. No, far from it. AoS wont kill GW. It`ll likely be just another small blip that they will ignore

 Talys wrote:
The first are people who enjoy 40k and like the aesthetic. This is another, easy to learn, light, small model count secondary time-filler game with minis that will appeal to anyone that loves 40k minis.

People who like 40k are not going to be interested in a "game" that has few, if any, of 40k's defining elements. Did you mean to say that AoS is supposed to appeal to fans of WHFB?

The second are players who enjoy campaign narratives and don't enjoy competitive play. Even if you have a disdain for this kind of play, you can't deny that such players exist. My wife falls squarely in this category. She can't stand list building, and would far prefer to play a game that said 'play with these models'.

AoS is terrible for narrative play. If narrative players are supposed to save GW then GW is screwed.

As to your children of billionaires comment, strip away your inflammatory style, and on the substance of it, AoS and 40k are both affordable to anyone with an average wage in a first world nation with a bit of disposable income. If you can't afford AoS, you also can't afford any other miniature war game, or, really, much else in the form of luxury entertainment.

I think you're missing the point here. Yes, most people with a decent income can afford miniatures games if they really want those games, but there's one key difference between the two products: 40k/WHFB/etc are serious hobby games while AoS is a joke of a "game" that most people will play once or twice and then throw in the garbage (where it belongs). I am willing to invest huge amounts of money into serious hobbies because those hobbies give me an appropriate return on my investment. $300 for a new 40k model is worth it because that model will give me many hours of enjoyment on its own, and it is part of my membership in a larger community that I want to make a significant part of my free time. AoS, on the other hand, offers no such return on my investment. I wouldn't pay more than $20 for it because the absolute most I could possibly get out of it is an hour or two of screwing around. It has no long-term potential and will never be a significant part of my life. But GW is still charging full "serious hobby" prices for AoS!

So what I mean by "children of billionaires" is that the target market seems to be immature children who find shallow rules and awkward "humor" appealing, and who have parents with an unlimited budget that allows them to throw away hundreds of dollars on a silly "screw around for a few minutes" game. That time vs. investment calculation only favors GW if you're so rich that $500 is a rounding error in your daily budget.

Edit: A third demographic is the people who just love the models and don't care about the game.

You mean the people who buy AoS models to play KoW? That's profit for GW, but it still means they're losing their "default fantasy game" status and GW products will no longer be at the top of the recommendation list for new customers.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Talys wrote:
The first are people who enjoy 40k and like the aesthetic. This is another, easy to learn, light, small model count secondary time-filler game with minis that will appeal to anyone that loves 40k minis.

People who like 40k are not going to be interested in a "game" that has few, if any, of 40k's defining elements. Did you mean to say that AoS is supposed to appeal to fans of WHFB?

No, not at all. I am squarely a 40k fan (superfan, by most definitions, except my low forgeworld consumption), but I would never have considered playing WHFB. I buy very occasional models, but my biggest problem with FB is that I don't like the high fantasy genre enough to paint another giant army. I'm not sure I have it in me to paint giant armies for any 2 games at the same time, and I think I paint more than most.

However, I do play WMH occasionally, as well as X-Wing, and very rarely Infinity, because these games don't take a lot to of time to get started. So even though I'm not a huge Menoth or Cyngar fan, a couple of weeks, I have a decently painted battleforce that I can play for kicks. I don't want a replacement for a game I like; I'm looking for low-requirement simple secondary games.

AoS is much the same. I'll give it a few occasional games, because I like the models, the rules were fun enough, and it will take me a couple of weeks to paint up the starter Sigmarites and maybe a box or of next week's drop.

AoS is terrible for narrative play. If narrative players are supposed to save GW then GW is screwed.

I dunno what you are looking for, and I haven't seen the campaigns that aren't out yet. I LOVE building armies, but I know some people that hate it (they are the furthest thing from hardcore gamers). For these people, it's nice that if you played a preplanned scenario where everything down to terrain, table size, and models are predetermined, any possibility of cheese should be greatly reduced.

I think you're missing the point here. Yes, most people with a decent income can afford miniatures games if they really want those games, but there's one key difference between the two products: 40k/WHFB/etc are serious hobby games while AoS is a joke of a "game" that most people will play once or twice and then throw in the garbage (where it belongs). I am willing to invest huge amounts of money into serious hobbies because those hobbies give me an appropriate return on my investment. $300 for a new 40k model is worth it because that model will give me many hours of enjoyment on its own, and it is part of my membership in a larger community that I want to make a significant part of my free time. AoS, on the other hand, offers no such return on my investment. I wouldn't pay more than $20 for it because the absolute most I could possibly get out of it is an hour or two of screwing around. It has no long-term potential and will never be a significant part of my life. But GW is still charging full "serious hobby" prices for AoS!

So what I mean by "children of billionaires" is that the target market seems to be immature children who find shallow rules and awkward "humor" appealing, and who have parents with an unlimited budget that allows them to throw away hundreds of dollars on a silly "screw around for a few minutes" game. That time vs. investment calculation only favors GW if you're so rich that $500 is a rounding error in your daily budget.

What you say makes perfect sense except that AoS *is* fun to some people, and it doesn't cost much. So for this demographic, it's not 'garbage'. Plus, I buy and paint a lot of models that I don't play with (showcase > garbage )

Edit: A third demographic is the people who just love the models and don't care about the game.

You mean the people who buy AoS models to play KoW? That's profit for GW, but it still means they're losing their "default fantasy game" status and GW products will no longer be at the top of the recommendation list for new customers.

 Kelly502 wrote:
Nope, big GW fan, hope they do well. I haven't heard much negative at all from folks who have played the new rules. Old armies included too. I'm in with my current armies, looking forward to playing AOS rules. Not into the new armies but I'm not into some of the old armies either.

Can i have some of what ever it is that you are smoking? AOS is the biggest pile of dog gak ive ever had the misfortune of reading. I hope this cripples GW and forces them to sell to a competent company that will restore warhammer to what it should be.

 Talys wrote:
No, not at all. I am squarely a 40k fan (superfan, by most definitions, except my low forgeworld consumption), but I would never have considered playing WHFB. I buy very occasional models, but my biggest problem with FB is that I don't like the high fantasy genre enough to paint another giant army. I'm not sure I have it in me to paint giant armies for any 2 games at the same time, and I think I paint more than most.

However, I do play WMH occasionally, as well as X-Wing, and very rarely Infinity, because these games don't take a lot to of time to get started. So even though I'm not a huge Menoth or Cyngar fan, a couple of weeks, I have a decently painted battleforce that I can play for kicks. I don't want a replacement for a game I like; I'm looking for low-requirement simple secondary games.

AoS is much the same. I'll give it a few occasional games, because I like the models, the rules were fun enough, and it will take me a couple of weeks to paint up the starter Sigmarites and maybe a box or of next week's drop.

The market you're describing here is "people who are open to trying new games if the cost is low enough", not "people who enjoy 40k". If you enjoy 40k then AoS offers you nothing special in that area. Sure, you might play it for other reasons, but your love of 40k isn't going to make you love AoS.

I dunno what you are looking for, and I haven't seen the campaigns that aren't out yet. I LOVE building armies, but I know some people that hate it (they are the furthest thing from hardcore gamers). For these people, it's nice that if you played a preplanned scenario where everything down to terrain, table size, and models are predetermined, any possibility of cheese should be greatly reduced.

What I'm looking for in a narrative/scenario game is a balanced and well-functioning foundation to build my stories on. AoS does not provide that, so you're limited to (at most) playing GW's stories with GW's chosen armies. If you try to do your own stuff you run straight into the problems of nonexistent balance and broken rules.

What you say makes perfect sense except that AoS *is* fun to some people

Those people are a minority. And I'll find this claim a lot more persuasive if people are still having fun with AoS once the "shiny new thing" effect has worn off and they're faced to confront its crippling problems.

and it doesn't cost much.

Have you seen GW's model prices lately? The rules are free but buying even a small army is well beyond the cost of a "screw around for an evening" game. And if you want to paint those models and/or build a normal-size army then the price is much higher.

There are people who buy models just to model and paint, and not to play.

And how common are these people? When you answer, consider two things:

1) GW's claims of "we sell to collectors" are skewed by the vast number of people who buy GW products with the intent to play the game but give up before they can. A new customer who buys a 40k starter set, realizes they don't like the game, and throws everything in the trash is a failure by GW, not a dedicated collector who appreciates great models for their own sake.

2) Collectors have no loyalty to GW. If you just want to paint 28mm fantasy miniatures there are lots of options available, many of them better than GW. So really the group you're talking about isn't collectors and painters in general, it's obsessive GW fans who only buy from GW and therefore have a chance of buying on the same scale as the gamers.

@Peregrine: i am one of those painters (i've never been interested in gaming) who has loyalty to GW for the minis...
from 1984 to 2000, i never bought a mini that wasn't Citadel or Marauder...
after 2000, Rackham opened my eyes to other Fantasy minis, but my buying was, and still is, skewed to about 75% GW minis, because they are the style i like, in the setting i enjoy the most...
while i enjoy Fantasy minis for Helldorado, Warmachine/Hordes, Crocodile Games, Reaper, Darksword, CMoN, Ilyad and Confrontation (it was sad to see them go), 99% of those minis sit in shoeboxes gathering dust while i continue painting GW minis, because those are the ones that really get me fired up to paint...
there are plenty of 28mm Fantasy minis on the market that equal GW's quality, there aren't any that i would say are better quality plastics...
the only real difference is in which setting a painter is more inspired by, and which aesthetic they prefer...
for example, of all the companies listed above, i have never been inspired enough by a Reaper mini to actually paint one, even though i have bought so many thinking i might get the itch, but it never happens, while an Ilyad or Rackham mini calls out to be painted...
GW is in the Rackham column for me, while Reaper and Darksword just aren't, no matter how much i wish they were...

personally, i am liking a good deal of what i see in the AoS previews, and look forward to seeing where they go with the next version of the classic WFB races...

cheers
jah


Edit: whoops, had the wrong poster name there for a few...

 Peregrine wrote:

The market you're describing here is "people who are open to trying new games if the cost is low enough", not "people who enjoy 40k". If you enjoy 40k then AoS offers you nothing special in that area. Sure, you might play it for other reasons, but your love of 40k isn't going to make you love AoS.

No, you're wrong. There's 40k players who are looking for lower model count secondary games.

AoS is attractive because the rules are quite simple to learn AND the Sigmarites and Chaos have similar aesthetic to popular 40k themes. All GW has to do is make a High Elves unit that looks like Wraithguard and Aspect Warriors, and they'll capture 75% of the 40k playerbase.

What's the first answer to someone's question, "what faction should I play in 40k?" -- it's, "the faction you identify with". That's what Sigmarites do. People like the Paladin/Grey Knight look. They like the angelic wings, the big cats -- these are all crowd pleasers.

What I'm looking for in a narrative/scenario game is a balanced and well-functioning foundation to build my stories on. AoS does not provide that, so you're limited to (at most) playing GW's stories with GW's chosen armies. If you try to do your own stuff you run straight into the problems of nonexistent balance and broken rules.

You can build your stories on AoS no differently than you could in D&D.

No matter how many times you say it, the rules aren't broken. You just don't like them.

[quoteThose people are a minority. And I'll find this claim a lot more persuasive if people are still having fun with AoS once the "shiny new thing" effect has worn off and they're faced to confront its crippling problems.

I have to hand it to GW. They really sold 'Forge the Narrative', even though what you do in AoS isn't narrative gaming.

If anything, narrative gaming should have stronger list building than competitive play. Because they're telling a story, and stories have a structure - locations, set participants, aims. When an author tells a story, he plans it out, then writes it. When a game master tells a story in an RPG, he sets up the characters, opponents and tells the story. When you tell a story in a wargame, look to historicals for how it's done.

What you're doing in AoS isn't narrative. It's simply throwing whatever on the table and having at it. This is fine, if it's what you want to do. But it's not, and never will be, narrative gaming any more than what you get out of a competitive game - both opponents are throwing stuff on the table and playing a scenario. The only difference in AoS is they removed the point system.

Yeah, all the best fun is organised fun.

That sounds constrained rather than narrative.

Narrative can be as simple as making up a story base along one die roll. I had a sentinel take a Greater Deamon's last wound in a tournament game once when it blew up, within two minutes my opponent and me had decided the pilot had slotted the beast with his las pistol as he leapt out of the cockpit as the machine went critical.

The pilots name; Arnold J. Rimmer. What a guy!

Anyhoo, narrative is whatever you want it to be, so I'm not saying your wrong.

Ps just cracked open my AoS. Very nice boxset, just need some ideas of what to do with the Skull Daemon, nasty bugger!

I have to agree with Loki. The idea that AoS is in anyway narrative 'gaming' is something I can't believe.

I'm currently in an Empire of the Dead (Victorian Gothic Steampunk Horror) game, running a gang of Lycaon (werewolves that are anti-civilization). My opponents for the first game were Holy Order, and we were playing a scenario where the defender had to protect a civilian model while the attacker had to reach them. We figured that the civilian was a high-ranking Parliament member that wanted to further Britain's de-forestation for the sake of industry.

During the game, one of my gang members got shot with a hunting rifle, and crawled back into cover before passing out (and being removed from the table). My werewolves assaulted the church ruins where they were defending the politicians (where one of the Holy Order models descended from the second floor on wings of light, only to be torn apart by my Beastlord), while the humans in my gang skirmished outside, using only bows and crossbows against the Order's guns.

I managed to win the scenario, and thanks to some incredible rolling, all of my casualties were just flesh wounds. My opponent was less fortunate. One of his models became unhinged, meaning that in further games there would be a chance he would run at the first sight of an enemy. Another of his models was captured by the police and, because he didn't have enough winnings at the end of the game, the model was deported out of the country (back to Rome, we figured). Lastly, another of his models was captured by my gang. Because she was a lowly grunt, he elected not to try a rescure mission, so the grunt was converted to my cause. Now, some 6-7 games later, she's still running around in my gang.

That's narrative gaming, to me. There's an actual story there, and the consequences from earlier games can have far-ranging consequences, much more so than anything AoS has demonstrated. Can AoS models develop skills, or change sides? Do they become injured, and have to wait for players to earn enough to take them to the doctors (either high end or back alley) to be cured? Can they be captured, meaning a player has to decide if its worth risking the injury or death of his other models/units to rescue the captured model?

 notprop wrote:
Ps just cracked open my AoS. Very nice boxset, just need some ideas of what to do with the Skull Daemon, nasty bugger!

Get him some lotion - he really needs to do something about his condition....

The Auld Grump - I really don't like that model, but I can see why others might.

Lotion? I was thinking Eau da Scalpel and some skull toupée's at a minimum!