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 jonolikespie wrote:
I'll believe GW produce 'narrative' games next time I see them release a set of rules for HQs gaining xp and getting abilities over battles.

You mean like in Age of Sigmar where if you won your last game you get a bonus to one of your characters?

I don't think that makes a game more or less narrative. A narrative game to me is a game driven by a multitude of scenarios and where there is some kind of constraint against just taking all elite forces and having to use the core backbone of your army (GW games have never really enforced this in any of its games to any effective level though)

 Azreal13 wrote:
GW clearly aren't going to target the "10%" over the remainder deliberately, the whole narrative thing is an attempt to retroactively excuse a poor product.

Exactly. It's the same as the "beer and pretzels game" thing: sorry excuses for gakky rules.

auticus wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
I'll believe GW produce 'narrative' games next time I see them release a set of rules for HQs gaining xp and getting abilities over battles.

You mean like in Age of Sigmar where if you won your last game you get a bonus to one of your characters?

That ain't an xp system - not in the slightest. Mordheim has an xp system. Necromunda has an xp system. Not this abortion of a game.

Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

auticus wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
I'll believe GW produce 'narrative' games next time I see them release a set of rules for HQs gaining xp and getting abilities over battles.

You mean like in Age of Sigmar where if you won your last game you get a bonus to one of your characters?

That ain't an xp system - not in the slightest. Mordheim has an xp system. Necromunda has an xp system. Not this abortion of a game.

Exactly.

Korinov wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
GW clearly aren't going to target the "10%" over the remainder deliberately, the whole narrative thing is an attempt to retroactively excuse a poor product.

Exactly. It's the same as the "beer and pretzels game" thing: sorry excuses for gakky rules.

Wait, do you mean a game that requires you to spend hundreds of dollars, build models, and paint them, doesn't meet the requirements to be a game you can crack out at a party with half drunk friends and have everyone playing and understanding in 10 minutes?

 jonolikespie wrote:

Wait, do you mean a game that requires you to spend hundreds of dollars, build models, and paint them, doesn't meet the requirements to be a game you can crack out at a party with half drunk friends and have everyone playing and understanding in 10 minutes?

Well I guess it falls under that category if your friends are all GW hobbyists.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

Wait, do you mean a game that requires you to spend hundreds of dollars, build models, and paint them, doesn't meet the requirements to be a game you can crack out at a party with half drunk friends and have everyone playing and understanding in 10 minutes?

Well I guess it falls under that category if your friends are all GW Fanatics.

Fixed that for you.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

Wait, do you mean a game that requires you to spend hundreds of dollars, build models, and paint them, doesn't meet the requirements to be a game you can crack out at a party with half drunk friends and have everyone playing and understanding in 10 minutes?

Well I guess it falls under that category if your friends are all GW hobbyists.

Heh, last night I played a series of Kings of War games that had a Beer Phase. (Movement, Missiles/Magic, Melee, Beer - Drink!) Dixie cups of good beer. (I just can't bring myself to bother with bad beer, this was Shipyard, last month it was Sea Dog. On St. Patrick's Day it will be Guinness or Harp.)

A monthly tradition that now goes back for two months.

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
A monthly tradition that now goes back for two months.

Truly the most sacred of traditions then.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

Wait, do you mean a game that requires you to spend hundreds of dollars, build models, and paint them, doesn't meet the requirements to be a game you can crack out at a party with half drunk friends and have everyone playing and understanding in 10 minutes?

Well I guess it falls under that category if your friends are all GW hobbyists.

Heh, last night I played a series of Kings of War games that had a Beer Phase. (Movement, Missiles/Magic, Melee, Beer - Drink!) Dixie cups of good beer. (I just can't bring myself to bother with bad beer, this was Shipyard, last month it was Sea Dog. On St. Patrick's Day it will be Guinness or Harp.)

A monthly tradition that now goes back for two months.

The Auld Grump

Green food dye. You will thank me later.

auticus wrote:Warmachine is a great example. Great game. Magnet for competitive players. I've never seen or read about a campaign since Warmachine came out over a decade ago.

Warmachine may be a tighter ruleset but again, I'll venture that it's broadly built along the same lines as GW listbuilding: built to better reward those who can suss out the most optimal loadouts and combos of gear and special rules, to figure out which models to buy. (Or in the case of warscroll and dataslate formations, putting the buffed-up shopping list right in the punters' hands)

Plenty of gamers shy away from 'generic'* rules, where a variety of models can be represented by a general profile (maybe with a few simple tweaks), viewing them as 'unfluffy'. Not a lot of recognition that most of the fluff should lie in the minis and their backgrounds, and that more generalised profiles have more potential let you take the established fluff and let your imagination fly more readily with it. (As Dan Mersey said, remember when we used to have to use that in fantasy games?) Or that rules that aren't burdened down with special rules are a bit easier to balance, and are perhaps more concerned with that than with selling (or invalidating**) certain models.
And while I agree than there's such a thing as too generic, for my own particular tastes, I'd say that's because - thanks largely to GW - gamers have been conditioned to expect the rules to provide too much of the fluff and character, mostly in the way of special, unique rules for characters and units all neatly designated and prepackaged by the seller. "My skaven warpfire throwers and ratling guns are fluffy because they explode, fire randomly, or fail to do anything in totally different ways and on different D6 results! My Cygnar Sentinel is fluffy because it's got a chaingun that can strafe with autofire!***"
I wonder how many folks would consider their warpfire thrower and ratling gun minis to be unforgivably 'neutered' by their use as a reduced-model heavy missile unit in Dragon Rampant - a unit that won't explode? (At least without - whisper it - their own tinkering and houseruling) Or the same with a sentinel, used in Mayhem as a construct (a large inanimate figure activated and controlled by a wizard's magic point pool) with an organ gun's profile strapped on? Would the lack of WM's autofire rule, on an otherwise big, destructive gun, just kill it?

* Alternate appellation: 'inclusive'.

** Quite the opposite.

*** At least, according to the 1st ed card I still have around here.

Right out of college I worked for software company that catered to a very niche market. They got themselves in a position where they pretty much had sold their software to the entire market and suddenly realized that their revenue was tanking. There where lots of ways they could have adapted. Changed business models, try different markets, ext. But there was little will in upper management for radical change. What they had done before worked(the CEO even self-published a book on how their way was the best way). Since the company was located in a small town as well, too many of the employees had just never new any other culture than the one they worked in.

Anyway, they had a lot of similarities to GW in my opinion. Big fish in a small pond. The ratio of management to development was to heavy in favor of management. A policy of hiring for attitude over skill(and being proud of it). Fear of change and risk.

Many of the things I see GW do are reminiscent of that company's death spiral as well. When they realized what their business model was untenable, they started all kinds of projects and initiatives. Some of them were even good ideas. The problem was that a lot of the company didn't have any faith is these ideas. If they had, they would have been doing them already. Plus every one with any authority had their own pet solutions. So every new initiative was rolled out with huge fan-fair(they didn't put up any new gold statues outside the building, but similar grand gestures would be made) but would get axed in a month or two for something else when no immediate results where show.

That's what I see with GW. Lots of new strategies very shallowly implemented as the culture inside the company implodes. This is usually an unrecoverable situation. Because while this is happening, anyone with marketable skills who maybe had the talent to solve the crisis is going to set off for greener pastures(I know I did). The other side of this journey for a company is bankruptcy or a servery gutted shell of what it once was.

 CaulynDarr wrote:
(the CEO even self-published a book on how their way was the best way)

Are you sure this was a software company?

Not Mongoose Games?

Because while this is happening, anyone with marketable skills who maybe had the talent to solve the crisis is going to set off for greener pastures(I know I did).

Ah, well, good thing nothing like that has happened in GW.

I think...maybe...GW has started to turn the boat around?

AOS still appears to be a rock tied around their leg that is growing into a boulder with each new release being bigger and more expensive than the last. It may just be my perspective on the matter, but I can't see how that game is going to ever be profitable, let alone even get close to what WHFB was doing in its more successful days before 8th.

The Betrayal at Calth set seems like a great success IMO, and helps open the door to the Horus Heresy game. As it stands, they only need to produce a few different kits to help support that subset of the Warhammer 40k community, and it should be positively received by the customer base (since it comes as such a lower cost than Forgeworld). Of course, like the AOS boxset and its subsequent miniatures, we'll have to see if future Horus Heresy releases rely on the BaC bait as a hook for much more expensive miniatures down the line (although with Forgeworld alternatives, that might not be the case).

News of specialist games certainly feels like a positive development. Perhaps GW is realizing that getting rid of smaller games doesn't necessarily result in all of that money going straight to WHFB/40k? Time will tell with how those boxsets end up looking. Overall, the existing sets seem to be a very positive step for GW and I hope they continue them.

And dare I see some actual sales related to B̶l̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶F̶r̶i̶d̶a̶y̶ Cyber Monday?

GW seems to be moving to fix their issues, which are undeniably there. All of the yes-men in the world can't deny the truth of the company's very notable stagnation, so hopefully this new CEO will herald a GW that sees its customers as more than just walking wallets.

 Accolade wrote:


And dare I see some actual sales related to Black Friday?

You mean a 30% discount that requires spending hundreds of dollars to get? Yeah, I guess that's better than some of their privations "deals." What they need is product discounted to where a reasonable person would get if for someone else as a gift. No average aunt is going to drop $300 dollars on their nephew's Christmas present. 30% off a starter , battle force, or a Land-raider though; that would do.

And this reinforces my point about good ideas with shallow implementations. Black Friday Sale: good idea. Discounting only on very heavy bulk purchases like we always do: bad idea. New idea fails, and random middle manager gets to feel smug cause he just knew it would never work. Mostly because he torpedoed any chance of it working properly in the first place, but that's not important.

 CaulynDarr wrote:

 Accolade wrote:


And dare I see some actual sales related to Black Friday?

You mean a 30% discount that requires spending hundreds of dollars to get? Yeah, I guess that's better than some of their privations "deals." What they need is product discounted to where a reasonable person would get if for someone else as a gift. No average aunt is going to drop $300 dollars on their nephew's Christmas present. 30% off a starter , battle force, or a Land-raider though; that would do.

And this reinforces my point about good ideas with shallow implementations. Black Friday Sale: good idea. Discounting only on very heavy bulk purchases like we always do: bad idea. New idea fails, and random middle manager gets to feel smug cause he just knew it would never work. Mostly because he torpedoed any chance of it working properly in the first place, but that's not important.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I was thinking mostly about this:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/671870.page

About 10 pounds off of the iBooks for Cyber Monday. Not too bad in my opinion (although obviously the prices were insane to begin with).

I guess just the fact that they're starting to do some sales at all on a major sales holiday (in conjunction with the other stuff going on) seems to be be pointing to someone turning the wheel of the ship. Now whether the turn is fast enough is another issue, but it at least seems to be positive.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Again, leaving every other issue I'd take with what you're saying aside, what sense does it make for the largest producer of what is still the biggest selling system to cater for what you yourself say is a minority of gamers?

GW clearly aren't going to target the "10%" over the remainder deliberately, the whole narrative thing is an attempt to retroactively excuse a poor product.

I feel that's true to some degree. "Forging the narrative" on!y became a section in the 40K rules in 6th edition, which is also when they introduced things like "Unbound" and D weapons that make point based balance much harder to do. At the same time the intro bit sayingvhowcgames are balanced with points values was removed.

It looks like a repudiation of the attempt to create balance.

Of course, the 'narrative' section isn't rules, it's just a paragraph of platitudes telling us we ought to have fun telling a story with the game, blah blah. Thanks, GW for the help but actually I was doing this when I was five years old.

That said, you don't need rules to forge narrative, but how about some good advice and rules for running campaigns?

 Accolade wrote:

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I was thinking mostly about this:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/671870.page

About 10 pounds off of the iBooks for Cyber Monday. Not too bad in my opinion (although obviously the prices were insane to begin with).

I guess just the fact that they're starting to do some sales at all on a major sales holiday (in conjunction with the other stuff going on) seems to be be pointing to someone turning the wheel of the ship. Now whether the turn is fast enough is another issue, but it at least seems to be positive.

I don't think those are a very good sale item either. You can't not have a codex for your army, so you won't have too many people in a position to capitalize on the sale. At best, it's like their other current sales, meant for buying something for yourself.

I've read that the average american spends around $800 on chirstmas gifts; of that $130 is for themselves. The remaining amount will usualy get split 16 ways: around $40 per person. So a good Black Friday sale aught to shoot for either the self giver at around $130, or for allowing the giver to get the maximum value out of that $40 allotment.

I guess the codex's fall into the latter, but who gives ebooks as presents?

GW's holiday sales ask you to shaft your friends and family, or shaft yourself.

 CaulynDarr wrote:
Right out of college I worked for software company that catered to a very niche market. They got themselves in a position where they pretty much had sold their software to the entire market and suddenly realized that their revenue was tanking. There where lots of ways they could have adapted. Changed business models, try different markets, ext. But there was little will in upper management for radical change. What they had done before worked(the CEO even self-published a book on how their way was the best way). Since the company was located in a small town as well, too many of the employees had just never new any other culture than the one they worked in.

Anyway, they had a lot of similarities to GW in my opinion. Big fish in a small pond. The ratio of management to development was to heavy in favor of management. A policy of hiring for attitude over skill(and being proud of it). Fear of change and risk.

Many of the things I see GW do are reminiscent of that company's death spiral as well. When they realized what their business model was untenable, they started all kinds of projects and initiatives. Some of them were even good ideas. The problem was that a lot of the company didn't have any faith is these ideas. If they had, they would have been doing them already. Plus every one with any authority had their own pet solutions. So every new initiative was rolled out with huge fan-fair(they didn't put up any new gold statues outside the building, but similar grand gestures would be made) but would get axed in a month or two for something else when no immediate results where show.

That's what I see with GW. Lots of new strategies very shallowly implemented as the culture inside the company implodes. This is usually an unrecoverable situation. Because while this is happening, anyone with marketable skills who maybe had the talent to solve the crisis is going to set off for greener pastures(I know I did). The other side of this journey for a company is bankruptcy or a servery gutted shell of what it once was.

Although we don't know much beyond hearsay about the internal culture at GW, that does sound like it would be plausible. The litmus test will be if they drop AoS like a hot potato after 1-2 years and get out of fantasy altogether if it doesn't start selling, which would be a disaster, or if they keeping the game alive, rethinking their policies, revamping the rules and adopting a more community-friendly approach with the game, like they should.

That sounds uncomfortably like something as otiose as market research; we'll have none of that here, thank you.

If AoS implodes then GW will be forced to change course because another two or three years of declining sales will have put them dangerously close to loss-making territory with nothing left to rationalise and not enough money to make any big changes.

Now, while they're profitable and have got money in the bank, is the time for them to launch new initiatives (like AoS) but they have to get them right in terms of pricing and customer appeal.

Finally acknowledging that they're on the wrong side of the Laffer Curve would be a start.

(And yes I know its about taxation, but I think the concept is applicable).

Can't remember which thread I saw it in, but someone earlier mentioned Hero Quest and Space Crusade. They were my route into the world of GW, as I'm sure they were for many of you. Sold in regular toy shops, advertised on TV. That's what GW really ought to do (again).

I jumped at the Mantic kickstarter for Dwarf Kings Quest (Christmas present for my brother, hope he likes it!) basically hoping to recreate the fantastic fun we had with Hero Quest. If GW had any sense, they must have seen how much money that kickstarter raised and kicked themselves hard enough to feel it through terminator armour...

 JamesY wrote:
Although I fully welcome the return of specialist games, and will no doubt throw a wad of cash as thick as my arm at them over the next couple of years buying them, I'm not sure about what it will achieve in the long run, as we don't know the reasoning behind bringing them back. I had a chat with the Blanche about Necromunda when I was staff, and to quote him exactly "Necromunda was a great game, shame it made absolutely no profit.". This we know was the fate of all specialist games, high production costs and low model counts resulted in unsustainable games for gw.

I read this with particular interest. Necromunda was by far one of the best games I've ever played - and that includes miniatures games, board games and video games. I would rather have a bunch of people to play Necromunda with than have an XBox One with Fallout 4 or GTA V (and I say this as a huge fan of XBox and said XBox games). I can indeed see the lack of model count killing it off, although you did need to convert most of the models if you wanted people running round with hand flamers, plasma rifles and so forth, since the models all had uninspiring, bare-bones loadout. The first models I ever converted were Necromunda Orlocks.

On the other hand, Epic became a specialist game, but that had a ridiculous model count. The sight of a Land Raider company sallying forth to stop a Lord of Battle, ten stands of Juggers, nine daemon engines of Khorne and fifteen stands of World Eaters still gives me an emotional hard-on. Or assaulting my mate's Chaos-held castle and trying to shift a Great Unclean One and a bunch of Nurgle daemons, while under thunderous attack from a traitor Warlord that's blatantly ignoring the Warhounds blasting its void shields... I really, really miss Epic.

They didn't kill Epic with low model counts. For a long time it was one of the "Big Three" with 40K and WHFB. Then they completely changed the rules, making every single unit in the game anonymous. They changed the design of the Warlord Titan from the feudal and awe-inspiring Beetleback, with its ridiculous ton of weapon and configuration options (especially for Chaos Titans), to some crappy, bland, walking brick wall with a "death ray" (wow, I'm glad we lost Corvus assault pods, mace tails, harpoon launchers, plasma destructors and quake cannons for the "death ray" and a high "firepower" rating). Then they stopped supporting it. They turned an incredibly deep (admittedly ponderous and rules-overloaded) game which could last an entire weekend into some passionless, characterless, uninspired tactics game where you needed hundreds of blast markers and you needed to re-buy all your infantry on the new stands.

40K, to me, seems to be reversing this bland, generic dumbing down that it seemed to be going through a few years ago. The new Codices are extremely characterful and I love reading and re-reading them. You can build armies that completely epitomise their race (unlike previous editions of the Chaos Marine Codex for example, where everything was just the generic Black Legion and there were silly restrictions about what each other Legion could take, or the infamous Ultrasmurf Codex which even now, despite being extremely well put-together, shouts the praises of the blandest Chapter).

The sooner GW realises people see it as a Games company, the sooner it will pull itself out of its funk. Or maybe they should change their name to Miniatures Workshop, so Americans don't start asking them for $20,000,000 for misrepresenting their intentions.

 krazynadechukr wrote:
I think GW is saving themselves, with one caveat, AoS (sucks). But the 40k & now 30K stuff, may be their saving grace, as well as specialist games coming back.

I really dislike 7th ed, I totally sat out from 6th ed and 7th is nothing special.
I didn't much care for 5th eds obsession with tanks (and thankfully missed 6th obsession with flyers) not sure what the latest need to have is, some giant ugly kit that costs over 100 dollars I am sure.
40k used to be really cool but 12 years of space marines and other races often getting utterly neglected...
I don't play the game anymore, got rid of it all, well most of it, the old orks and chaos I own isn't worth anything so I am sort of stuck with it.
At least I could jump ship to KoW when Fantasy started sucking.
I have no idea what 30k is, are the rules better? I don't like GW's models anymore.
I have a worried hope for the Specialist Games, but I won't make any decisions until things come out, and more importantly, the rules come out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

auticus wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
I'll believe GW produce 'narrative' games next time I see them release a set of rules for HQs gaining xp and getting abilities over battles.

You mean like in Age of Sigmar where if you won your last game you get a bonus to one of your characters?

I don't think that makes a game more or less narrative. A narrative game to me is a game driven by a multitude of scenarios and where there is some kind of constraint against just taking all elite forces and having to use the core backbone of your army (GW games have never really enforced this in any of its games to any effective level though)

There are better rules to forge the same narrative.
It would be different if this were 1999 and the net was still pretty young, and there wasn't much competition to speak of, but now there are a ton of games, well known or not just a google search away.
I have played good beer and pretzels games and Age of Sigmar isn't one of them.
I mean those kind of simple games don't usually demand a giant investment to play.
And they have some form of balance and customer feedback...
If I really wanted to "forge a narrative" I'd just write a novel, I mean I'm not a fantastic writer but I think I could do better then some of the awful "edgy" fluff that I've read.
If they really wanted to give a good option for a simpler game they'd give us back Warbands.
Remember that?
That was alright...

 jonolikespie wrote:
I'll believe GW produce 'narrative' games next time I see them release a set of rules for HQs gaining xp and getting abilities over battles.

just saw this, and bear in mind, 'narrative' games are not necessarily about gaining xp. (then again, i view RPGs as being primarily about roleplaying, rather than 'levelling up' as well...)

A 'narrative' game is one with a defined story behind it, and where the mission/scenario being played (often a unique one,rather than something out of the book), and the forces/protagonists taking part are themed towards that story and accurately reflect that story, and would accurately represent whats 'likely' to be present, rather than being chosen soley for power/efficiency. It helps if armies are played as reflecting their lore and their worldviews as well - have the commanders striding out to duke it out in melee, dont have the khorne berzerkers hiding at the back guarding an objective - they should be screaming across the battlefield looking for skills. Sometimes for the narrative to take hold it helps to take a step back as a 'participant' and take a step forward as a 'spectator'. View it more as a movie almost taking place outside of your control, than a contest between you and your opponent. be an 'actor'.

personally, i see 'narrative gaming' as more of a change of perspective though, than a change of game/army list.

(and yes, every game can be built with 'narrative' in mind. we frequently do Flames of War or Infinity ones).

Frostgrave does multipart plastic kits with a huge variety of heads, weapons, torso and items choices.

GW ought to do the same for Necromunda and Mordheim. One Multipart plastic kit of 20+ models per faction, with a LOT of options, plus FInecast and plastic blisters for Characters/Leaders/Monsters etc.

If a relatively small startup can manage it, surely a multi million corporation with the huge advantages of owning its own in-house production facilities and retail network can manage it.

migooo wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

Wait, do you mean a game that requires you to spend hundreds of dollars, build models, and paint them, doesn't meet the requirements to be a game you can crack out at a party with half drunk friends and have everyone playing and understanding in 10 minutes?

Well I guess it falls under that category if your friends are all GW hobbyists.

Heh, last night I played a series of Kings of War games that had a Beer Phase. (Movement, Missiles/Magic, Melee, Beer - Drink!) Dixie cups of good beer. (I just can't bring myself to bother with bad beer, this was Shipyard, last month it was Sea Dog. On St. Patrick's Day it will be Guinness or Harp.)

A monthly tradition that now goes back for two months.

The Auld Grump

Green food dye. You will thank me later.

My grandmother-in-law is of dual Irish and American citizenship - green beer would not fly, at all at all. (Or... maybe it would fly... straight at whatever infidel dared sully the sacred brew.)

Besides, Guinness will not accept dye - it's natural dark goodness spurns such artificial blandishment.

The Auld Grump - if you could not tell, I likes me Guinness.

There's a whole lot of Chicken Little syndrome in this thread.

WH40K, FW and HH will keep GW in the black for a long time and with the Specialist Games all making a comeback... GW is going to have plenty of capital to work with. Even with the loss of sales there's simply no chance that AoS will or even can tank GW.

Historically, GW has been willing to kill any product(s) that are unsustainable - AoS is not exempt from this.

AoS is GW's "New Coke". Once they realize it's not working we'll see the release of "Coke Classic" (a.k.a. WFB 9th) or at least a new formula that's akin to WFB rules, but the new AoS story. One could blather on and on about "Oh, I hope they realize before it's too late."... They will... Don't get your panties too bunched up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

My grandmother-in-law is of dual Irish and American citizenship - green beer would not fly, at all at all. (Or... maybe it would fly... straight at whatever infidel dared sully the sacred brew.)

Besides, Guinness will not accept dye - it's natural dark goodness spurns such artificial blandishment.

The Auld Grump - if you could not tell, I likes me Guinness.

I really like Guinness, but I can't drink it anymore because it has a really strange affect on me. It causes me to lose my voice - completely. And I don't mean passed out drunk - it literally causes me to not be able to speak.

 oni wrote:
There's a whole lot of Chicken Little syndrome in this thread.

WH40K, FW and HH will keep GW in the black for a long time and with the Specialist Games all making a comeback... GW is going to have plenty of capital to work with. Even with the loss of sales there's simply no chance that AoS will or even can tank GW.

Historically, GW has been willing to kill any product(s) that are unsustainable - AoS is not exempt from this.

AoS is GW's "New Coke". Once they realize it's not working we'll see the release of "Coke Classic" (a.k.a. WFB 9th) or at least a new formula that's akin to WFB rules, but the new AoS story. One could blather on and on about "Oh, I hope they realize before it's too late."... They will... Don't get your panties too bunched up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

My grandmother-in-law is of dual Irish and American citizenship - green beer would not fly, at all at all. (Or... maybe it would fly... straight at whatever infidel dared sully the sacred brew.)

Besides, Guinness will not accept dye - it's natural dark goodness spurns such artificial blandishment.

The Auld Grump - if you could not tell, I likes me Guinness.

I really like Guinness, but I can't drink it anymore because it has a really strange affect on me. It causes me to lose my voice - completely. And I don't mean passed out drunk - it literally causes me to not be able to speak.

Seriously. GW loves their cash cows. I doubt WHFB won't be back in some form.

 NoPoet wrote:
They turned an incredibly deep (admittedly ponderous and rules-overloaded) game which could last an entire weekend into some passionless, characterless, uninspired tactics game where you needed hundreds of blast markers and you needed to re-buy all your infantry on the new stands.

Have you actually played Epic:Armageddon?

Epic 40K didn't work very well but Epic:Armageddon does. Its certainly a lot more streamlined than Space Marine, your not going to be firing small arms in the shooting phase anymore but they are used in 'firefights' during the assault phase which makes far more sense at this scale, but that doesn't mean that it lacks depth. You need about 10-20 blast markers, which are one of the key elements of the game by the way, and you can use any shape of base that you like provided it fits within certain dimensions, my current building project is being based on 1 and 2p coins.