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wildger wrote:


Back in the 80 and 90's, the other competitors were so tiny and lack of resources to go against anything that GW put forward. Nowadays, other companies can make better games and better quality products with a cheaper price. Other than the nostaglia effect, none of these specialist game is attractive anymore.

Not sure that is true. Necromunda has some issues with the campaign system, but it is a solid ruleset, Moderheim can be viewed the same.

Epic did have rules problems, the more they messed with it the worse it got, but here is the thing. If you truly want to recreate the horus heresy, as nice as the current forgeworld stuff is, and I've spent a fortune on it, 6mm is the scale that can best represent it on the tabletop. 28mm doesn't really translate the scope of the battles very well.

Warmaster remains to this day the best wargame rules GW has ever produced. It is head and shoulders above most of the market even now in terms of a cohesive, intelligent game.

Anyways sort of on topic-- Heresy Miniatures site exploded with Ganger orders yesterday after this news dropped lol. Clearly there's a good bit of excitement for this going around..

 angelofvengeance wrote:
On a side note- Heresy Miniatures site exploded with Ganger orders yesterday after this news dropped lol.

That seems a bit premature Unless people are just getting exited for Necro in general and start playing right now with the available rules.

 Mymearan wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
Frostgrave mighg be a good game. And it might be a whole lot cheaper than a revamped mordeheim. But, good luck finding someone who plays it, or even sell it (outside of UK, where it seems to be doing good). Thats why these specialist games will work, their market presence and name is enormous. Most people only know of GW and only buy products from GW

I've just been going through my records and hey, bingo! I just found the PDFs for all the Mordheim rules/expansions...and epic...

Oh, look, there's some cheap non-GW minis from a million different companies, that look the part.

So, free rules, and a box of minis for £20 or less. I'm good to go. Who needs GW? Not me. And neither do my friends. Here's some free rules for you.

I'm not saying GW can't pull this off, I'm just saying it's not going to be straightforward as some people think it will be.

Now let's see how many people in an average gaming group or FLGS community will be willing and able to start playing these old, unsupported versions of games with you, researching alternate models, etc, when they have the option to simply buy a box in a GW store and have everything they need to get going right there... my guess is very few, unless no other option exists. I have done it with Necromunda in my group, but if there was an updated, official version available in a nice box I doubt anyone would have agreed to play the Community Edition with me.

I could print off half a dozen copies of the PDF and hand them out very quickly, as could most people. Or the tablet option is there for people with tablets or other gadgets.

Hey look, there's wayland games. So that's the minis sorted. That took me less than minute.

If I can do that, then 99% of other gamers could do that.

Mordheim is a very nice set of rules written by some very good games designers. I would be hard to better that rule set.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
Frostgrave mighg be a good game. And it might be a whole lot cheaper than a revamped mordeheim. But, good luck finding someone who plays it, or even sell it (outside of UK, where it seems to be doing good). Thats why these specialist games will work, their market presence and name is enormous. Most people only know of GW and only buy products from GW

I've just been going through my records and hey, bingo! I just found the PDFs for all the Mordheim rules/expansions...and epic...

Oh, look, there's some cheap non-GW minis from a million different companies, that look the part.

So, free rules, and a box of minis for £20 or less. I'm good to go. Who needs GW? Not me. And neither do my friends. Here's some free rules for you.

I'm not saying GW can't pull this off, I'm just saying it's not going to be straightforward as some people think it will be.

Now let's see how many people in an average gaming group or FLGS community will be willing and able to start playing these old, unsupported versions of games with you, researching alternate models, etc, when they have the option to simply buy a box in a GW store and have everything they need to get going right there... my guess is very few, unless no other option exists. I have done it with Necromunda in my group, but if there was an updated, official version available in a nice box I doubt anyone would have agreed to play the Community Edition with me.

I could print off half a dozen copies of the PDF and hand them out very quickly, as could most people. Or the tablet option is there for people with tablets or other gadgets.

Hey look, there's wayland games. So that's the minis sorted. That took me less than minute.

If I can do that, then 99% of other gamers could do that.

Mordheim is a very nice set of rules written by some very good games designers. I would be hard to better that rule set.

I'm not saaying people who are well-versed enough in wargaming to easily be able to identify which documents to download, which minis to buy, etc (this isn't most people btw) can't do it easily. I'm saying that you'll probably have a hard time toting it as a better alternative to a boxed, ready-to-go product.

 Mymearan wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
Frostgrave mighg be a good game. And it might be a whole lot cheaper than a revamped mordeheim. But, good luck finding someone who plays it, or even sell it (outside of UK, where it seems to be doing good). Thats why these specialist games will work, their market presence and name is enormous. Most people only know of GW and only buy products from GW

I've just been going through my records and hey, bingo! I just found the PDFs for all the Mordheim rules/expansions...and epic...

Oh, look, there's some cheap non-GW minis from a million different companies, that look the part.

So, free rules, and a box of minis for £20 or less. I'm good to go. Who needs GW? Not me. And neither do my friends. Here's some free rules for you.

I'm not saying GW can't pull this off, I'm just saying it's not going to be straightforward as some people think it will be.

Now let's see how many people in an average gaming group or FLGS community will be willing and able to start playing these old, unsupported versions of games with you, researching alternate models, etc, when they have the option to simply buy a box in a GW store and have everything they need to get going right there... my guess is very few, unless no other option exists. I have done it with Necromunda in my group, but if there was an updated, official version available in a nice box I doubt anyone would have agreed to play the Community Edition with me.

It will depend on the community itself, and how good the new game really is. Though, granted, they will to buy at least the rulebook to check the new rules.

Epic would probably be the only one that interested me, as most of the others have almost identical alternatives in abundance. I guess it's just a game of wait and see to see if the other games are competitive in terms of price and whatnot.

 zedmeister wrote:
Personally, I reckon the incoming CEO came in, saw the sales decline, isn't a fool and actually understood what it meant, looked around and saw the successful parts of the business, turned to them and said "You're doing well. Make me more money - here's more freedom to do it"

It feels weird to be sceptical of a development because it's too sane and makes too much sense, but I guess that's how low my opinion of GW had dropped, and how consistently pants-on-head stupid their policies have been.

NoggintheNog wrote:
Not sure that is true. Necromunda has some issues with the campaign system, but it is a solid ruleset, Moderheim can be viewed the same.

If by "some issues", you mean "they were utterly atrocious", I agree entirely. Nothing like coming out of a winning game worse than you went in, because the other player got better post-game injury and income rolls than you.

wildger wrote:

Back in the 80 and 90's, the other competitors were so tiny and lack of resources to go against anything that GW put forward. Nowadays, other companies can make better games and better quality products with a cheaper price. Other than the nostaglia effect, none of these specialist game is attractive anymore.

GW has always had competitors, good ones too, for a while I was torn between GW and battletech, D+D was also big at the time.
The gaming sections of certain stores were full of stuff that was not GW as well during the late 80s and early 90s.
Games workshop store fronts in busy areas with painted minis in the window, was all that made the difference back then imo, in the UK anyway.

If anything GW has more of a head start on the competitors nowadays than it did back then just because of the 40k IP and thats before you take into account the production capabilities.

There are other really popular IPs as well, mainly star wars at the moment but I doubt that they can keep pumping out new ships none stop for the next few years, even with three new movies coming out.

If these old games are reproduced well and quality rule sets like the Epic ones are reproduced well also, they will be really popular, hell, we have only known about this for a couple of days and look at the hype already.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
There are still plenty of "ifs" though.

I would be happy to see an updated (i.e. rebalanced) version of Mortheim, and I can see that some folks are really looking forward to EPIC, BFG, Necromunda or a continuation of LOTR.

I seriously doubt, however, that these will come back with anything else than a hefty price tag attached.

The one Citadel game that I really like is BB and that one needs no GW anymore, at least not for miniatures and rules. Thanks for giving the IP to FFG, though. BB Team Manager is still one of my favorite board games!

A rebalancing of Mordheim would be great. Undead nerf please, thx.

(Though, from what I hear, slings are the scariest things. Never saw them, though; just super vampires and ghouls.)

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


Mordheim is a very nice set of rules written by some very good games designers. I would be hard to better that rule set.

Power of nostalgia in action, again.

In fact, it was just a copy and paste from old rules for WFB, with overpriced (and totally useless) armors and random tables so that you could vaguely play small bands of warriors in a campaign mode.

It wasn't that great as a rule system. In fact, games could be very one-sided and become quickly ridiculous with some experience.

It's not so hard to do better, honestly - Frostgrave offers something simple yet fast to play and not having to use bloated rules from an old game system that is utterly not fit for a skirmish mode. Same for other games, actually. Especially Necromunda, which followed the same pattern but from old rules for W40k instead (to be honest, Mordheim was designed as the same pattern of Necromunda, since that last one came out first).


I didn't really expect to see Specialist Games rise from the ashes, but why not. I expect to see new miniatures - that would be the true revolution. About the game system? Well...we'll see.

 SilverDevilfish wrote:

You ignore him by appealing to his bosses, aka you get the rest of the board on your side and have them shut down Kirby. Can't imagine Kirby is too popular with the shareholders right now.

And if they fire him because he wasn't listening to Kirby, but was still getting results... well that means a better company will likely pick him up.

I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding the relationship between Rountree and Kirby, and the dysfunctional nature of the GW board - Kirby had Rountree installed because he fundamentally agrees with him on everything. Kirby being on the board, and a major shareholder, and in control of the CEO would have raised significant scrutiny from other shareholders just about anywhere else, but the dividends keep the investment funds distracted enough.

NoggintheNog wrote:

Epic did have rules problems, the more they messed with it the worse it got,

Epic:Armageddon is possible the pinnacle of GW games design. Simple rules, 26 pages IIRC, that foster unit synergies and complex game play that produce a believable outcome that is heavily dependent upon player ability. Epic:40k went a bit wrong and prior editions got a bit too bogged down in detail but there is little or nothing that need changed with E:A. The few changes that were required have already been made by the guys at NetEA , who have also created functional army lists for all 40K armies.

The old rules, reformatted with pretty pictures and new army lists, combined with new plastics (say Eldar and Chaos for variety) would be all that would be required for a new Epic box.

 Sarouan wrote:

It wasn't that great as a rule system. In fact, games could be very one-sided and become quickly ridiculous with some experience.

Having just completed a Mordheim campaign I disagree. There are some issues certainly (not least the uselessness of armour) but overall it is a game that plays well, even in fairly long campaigns.

 NTRabbit wrote:

 SilverDevilfish wrote:

You ignore him by appealing to his bosses, aka you get the rest of the board on your side and have them shut down Kirby. Can't imagine Kirby is too popular with the shareholders right now.

And if they fire him because he wasn't listening to Kirby, but was still getting results... well that means a better company will likely pick him up.

I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding the relationship between Rountree and Kirby, and the dysfunctional nature of the GW board - Kirby had Rountree installed because he fundamentally agrees with him on everything. Kirby being on the board, and a major shareholder, and in control of the CEO would have raised significant scrutiny from other shareholders just about anywhere else, but the dividends keep the investment funds distracted enough.

No I was speculating. Just as you're speculating, unless you have some sort of solid proof that what you're saying is true?

 Sarouan wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


Mordheim is a very nice set of rules written by some very good games designers. I would be hard to better that rule set.

Power of nostalgia in action, again.

In fact, it was just a copy and paste from old rules for WFB, with overpriced (and totally useless) armors and random tables so that you could vaguely play small bands of warriors in a campaign mode.

It wasn't that great as a rule system. In fact, games could be very one-sided and become quickly ridiculous with some experience.

It's not so hard to do better, honestly - Frostgrave offers something simple yet fast to play and not having to use bloated rules from an old game system that is utterly not fit for a skirmish mode. Same for other games, actually. Especially Necromunda, which followed the same pattern but from old rules for W40k instead (to be honest, Mordheim was designed as the same pattern of Necromunda, since that last one came out first).


I didn't really expect to see Specialist Games rise from the ashes, but why not. I expect to see new miniatures - that would be the true revolution. About the game system? Well...we'll see.

Says the AoS defender. Pardon me while I laugh my bum off.

Love to see a BFG 2nd edition and considering that it, like Epic has lots of crossover potential with campaign packs and Forge World

 Crazyterran wrote:
A rebalancing of Mordheim would be great. Undead nerf please, thx.

(Though, from what I hear, slings are the scariest things. Never saw them, though; just super vampires and ghouls.)

Slings in Mordheim are extremely cheap, but just as effective as bows, if not better (you can fire twice at short range if you don't move). This was one of the reasons many thought Skaven were overpowered -- people just bought tons of Clanrats armed with slings, daggers and clubs, and swarmed the badly outnumbered enemies. The house rule we used was that wounds from slings gave the victim a +1 armor save, and if they fail that they can take a -1 on their injury roll (less likely to be stunned or go out of action).

Mordheim is great, advancing your warband through a campaign is a blast, but a lot of the rules will need better testing and balancing.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Sarouan wrote:

It wasn't that great as a rule system. In fact, games could be very one-sided and become quickly ridiculous with some experience.

Having just completed a Mordheim campaign I disagree. There are some issues certainly (not least the uselessness of armour) but overall it is a game that plays well, even in fairly long campaigns.

From the campaign I've been in, it really isn't. It has the same "rich get richer, poor get poorer" issue as Necromunda, losing all your Heroes to a turn of bad dice would shaft you in the post-game, as would suffering some unlucky deaths early on, and Skaven were game-breakers; some scenarios against them weren't even interactive. Good idea, but it needs a LOT of work.

Necromunda's system isn't very balanced either. I think the most you could expect to ever get was T4 on one of your regular gangers, yet they allowed in heavy weapons like plasma guns, missile launchers and lascannons into the rules, which mean to wound you'd only need a 2 and you'd take down anyone you hit. They should have stuck with this being more a gang war type situation where the pinnacle of weaponry that one could hope to get would be a lasgun in brand new condition. They could have had a bunch of other esoteric items, but just make sure they weren't game breaking.

Group of friends and I played one game once as a trip down memory lane. Now we're much happier playing Infinity, thanks very much.

 Elemental wrote:

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Sarouan wrote:

It wasn't that great as a rule system. In fact, games could be very one-sided and become quickly ridiculous with some experience.

Having just completed a Mordheim campaign I disagree. There are some issues certainly (not least the uselessness of armour) but overall it is a game that plays well, even in fairly long campaigns.

From the campaign I've been in, it really isn't. It has the same "rich get richer, poor get poorer" issue as Necromunda, losing all your Heroes to a turn of bad dice would shaft you in the post-game, as would suffering some unlucky deaths early on, and Skaven were game-breakers; some scenarios against them weren't even interactive. Good idea, but it needs a LOT of work.

Skaven can be easily brought to rein with a few, minor tweaks. Same for Shadow Warriors, before you even consider bringing them up. Also, a single scenario victory for the underdog can change things drastically in the financial side.

Also, considering that you're in a wargaming forum, basing your reasoning that a game is bad just because you can get shafted by dice is... well, I don't know how to put it. Besides, you can't lose ALL your heroes in a single turn of dice roll if you know how to play, since learning how to protect your heroes is basic Mordheim tactics. Learning when to quit the field, too. Forced routing is your friend.

If you're consistently getting all your heroes taken out of action in one match, you seriously need to rethink your strategy.

If this pans out then GW will have made what I consider to be two good moves in 2015, as well as the complete and utter boondoggle that was Age of Sigmar.

With any luck, maybe Warhammer will be moved to Specialist as well.

The other good move is Warhammer 30,000 getting an official box - though I am waiting on how the rules look before building my hopes up.

Necromunda... I know some folks that are going to be very, very happy.

The Auld Grump

 Fenriswulf wrote:
Necromunda's system isn't very balanced either. I think the most you could expect to ever get was T4 on one of your regular gangers, yet they allowed in heavy weapons like plasma guns, missile launchers and lascannons into the rules, which mean to wound you'd only need a 2 and you'd take down anyone you hit. They should have stuck with this being more a gang war type situation where the pinnacle of weaponry that one could hope to get would be a lasgun in brand new condition. They could have had a bunch of other esoteric items, but just make sure they weren't game breaking.

Group of friends and I played one game once as a trip down memory lane. Now we're much happier playing Infinity, thanks very much.

Yeah, they should have had some better defensive options (energy fields?) you could find or buy to give your leader or heavy a chance against plasma or a lascannon! Seemed like there was something, but if so it was probably the rarest archeotech in the underhive.

That, and the random advances that gave your heavy a melee skill every damn time....

Hopefully, if they bring these games back, some of these glaring problems get fixed.

I'm not interested in any more games than what I have already.

However, I'm very excited for my friends that were really into Blood Bowl and Necromunda possibly getting more/new support for games they really likes.

Don't feth up, GW!

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
Skaven can be easily brought to rein with a few, minor tweaks. Same for Shadow Warriors, before you even consider bringing them up. Also, a single scenario victory for the underdog can change things drastically in the financial side.

That's the Oberoni Fallacy in action--being able to houserule problems is good, but it doesn't mean there wasn't a problem in the first place, or that it doesn't reflect poorly on the rules as written. I notice you didn't even try to defend armour being a giant noobtrap, as I found out the hard way.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
Also, considering that you're in a wargaming forum, basing your reasoning that a game is bad just because you can get shafted by dice is... well, I don't know how to put it. Besides, you can't lose ALL your heroes in a single turn of dice roll if you know how to play, since learning how to protect your heroes is basic Mordheim tactics. Learning when to quit the field, too. Forced routing is your friend.

Good old "lrn2play n00b". I don't think I'll post a battle report, because it was a few years ago, and you'd probably just nitpick it until you could bend it into your narrative of me being a scrub. But if "expendable dude ahead of him, behind cover" doesn't count as protecting heroes, no idea what to tell you. I usually voluntarily routed as soon as the cascade started--because a game should reward actually playing the game as little as possible, I guess?

And sorry to derail your lecture, but I'm not talking about dice rolled in the game where I make actual decisions, I'm talking about the post-game, which is just as bad in Necromunda. Wow, I really trounced those guys--oh wait, someone died and I got bad rolls on the income, turns out my opponent finished ahead of me due to pure luck.

It's worked the other way too--in a later Necromunda campaign, I got through two games (average performance in the games themselves) with no injuries, got some good rolls to get new juves, and rolled a double-xp game. After that, I was pretty much top of the heap, purely down to my superior post-game dice rolling.

 Elemental wrote:

 zedmeister wrote:
Personally, I reckon the incoming CEO came in, saw the sales decline, isn't a fool and actually understood what it meant, looked around and saw the successful parts of the business, turned to them and said "You're doing well. Make me more money - here's more freedom to do it"

It feels weird to be sceptical of a development because it's too sane and makes too much sense, but I guess that's how low my opinion of GW had dropped, and how consistently pants-on-head stupid their policies have been.

NoggintheNog wrote:
Not sure that is true. Necromunda has some issues with the campaign system, but it is a solid ruleset, Moderheim can be viewed the same.

If by "some issues", you mean "they were utterly atrocious", I agree entirely. Nothing like coming out of a winning game worse than you went in, because the other player got better post-game injury and income rolls than you.

To me, that's exactly what's so great about Necromunda. A Necromunda campaign isn't a competition, it's trying to survive against the odds. A big part of that is coping with the random or unexpected, like the death of important members of your gang. The unpredictability that shapes the personal story of your gang p is what makes it fun. If one gang becomes too strong, just throw in a special scenario where they have to face two squads of Arbites to bring them down a notch, or several games working together against them, stuff like that.

 Elemental wrote:

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
Skaven can be easily brought to rein with a few, minor tweaks. Same for Shadow Warriors, before you even consider bringing them up. Also, a single scenario victory for the underdog can change things drastically in the financial side.

That's the Oberoni Fallacy in action--being able to houserule problems is good, but it doesn't mean there wasn't a problem in the first place, or that it doesn't reflect poorly on the rules as written. I notice you didn't even try to defend armour being a giant noobtrap, as I found out the hard way.

I didn't know that had a name and had to look it up.

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Oberoni_Fallacy

I do take offence at it being named the "Oberoni" Fallacy though as Palladium's Kevin Siembieda has been championing that idea as his mantra since the mid 1980's. He's built his whole company('s flawed rules) based on that idea.

 Mymearan wrote:
To me, that's exactly what's so great about Necromunda. A Necromunda campaign isn't a competition, it's trying to survive against the odds. A big part of that is coping with the random or unexpected, like the death of important members of your gang. The unpredictability that shapes the personal story of your gang p is what makes it fun.

I agree to a point, but one thing I noticed when getting thrashed in Mordheim and when dominating Necromunda was that those random dice rolls were often more influential than what happened in the actual game. That excessive luck dependence is what I'm objecting to, and what I want to see fixed. Heck, remember the "outlaw" rules from the Necromunda supplement where you could lose all your terrain bar one if you got unlucky on just one roll?

 Elemental wrote:
Good idea, but it needs a LOT of work.

I never said it was perfect but its not fundamentally broken and to be honest I don't think there is a way to make a campaign interesting without the potential for nasty things happening.

 angelofvengeance wrote:
Anyways sort of on topic-- Heresy Miniatures site exploded with Ganger orders yesterday after this news dropped lol. Clearly there's a good bit of excitement for this going around..

I wonder if the other places I name dropped as being good alternatives for Necromunda figures took a sale bump? I'm glad Andy picked up some business. Things have been slow according to his tweets and FB posts.

I'm glad my thoughts on the release model are well-received.. I just hope GW sees it that way :/ Death by blister packs is a 2-way street and nice bite sized boxes should offset that.

A lot of people are throwing out ideas about what will and won't get in the way and it's starting to feel a bit "Fox News/CNN" in here. Assuming anything will or won't be a barrier is presumptuous. There's a 40k MMOFPS in open/closed/premium Alpha right now, which I presume will be at least fairly popular when it launches (I'm not fond of it currently). Thinking back though, Warhammer Age of Reckoning and Dawn of War had big launches and from what I saw in shops, they actually brought more people in. I still run into people every now and then who know about Dawn of War but are only loosely aware or completely unaware of 40k.

The old SG rules at the time were awesome. I say that in the same way that I say the Tim Burton Batman films were awesome or Goldeneye 64. We remember those things fondly, but as someone who still plays Mordheim, those rules are far from perfect and very open to exploitation if you're in a cheeky group (I'm not..it's me and my kids out here in the middle of nowhere).

Anyway, I think we've hit our infinite loop of empty comments so I think I might be done with this particular stick of gum.