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Just something I was curious on, would AoS have sold more, or at least had more positive feedback, if it hadn't come after WFB, for instance, GW started with 40k and AoS was their first try at getting into the fantasy setting.

For example, people could have loved WFB so much that AoS could be seen to them as an awful substitute, but have loved it if WFB had never existed.

Be interested on what you have to say,
Thanks.

People would probably say that it's an awful, poorly written version of 40k with magic instead of bolters. Some people may buy it but I don't think it would be doing as well as it is right now.

If AoS had been what WHF had been instead, GW would have never gotten off the ground. Remember Fantasy came first, then they decided to have Warhammer Fantasy "in speess!" which took off like crazy.

A terrible ruleset like AoS would never have survived back when the community had higher standards.

I'd say AoS would be better received, but not more popular.

I think as it is the majority of AoSs popularity comes from people who were WHFB fans sticking with it.

I think it would have been better able to stand on it's own merits.

The dual impact of selling expensive End Times tomes which were almost immediately invalidated along with killing the setting and system associated with it brought a lot of baggage to the new edition.

It is actually an interesting thought exercise as the expectation of a points based system in a lot of players minds owes a great deal to the Warhammer franchise. If AoS had come out back then when points weren't ingrained in wargaming culture and never added a points system (as Warhammer did at some point) who knows how things might have played out.

 Grey Templar wrote:
A terrible ruleset like AoS would never have survived back when the community had higher standards.

I don't think the rules standards of the day were anywhere near as high as today. With Warmachine, Infinity, Frostgrave, X-wing etc out there we've never been so spoiled for choice in terms of well written wargaming rulesets. What would AoS be competing with if launched the same year as WHFB?

 Grey Templar wrote:
If AoS had been what WHF had been instead, GW would have never gotten off the ground. Remember Fantasy came first, then they decided to have Warhammer Fantasy "in speess!" which took off like crazy.

A terrible ruleset like AoS would never have survived back when the community had higher standards.

Though I didn't play it, weren't the original WHFB rules a lot closer in spirit to AoS than what WHFB eventually became? They were initially based on Dungeons and Dragons, and I don't think the game had army lists until the third edition or so. I thought the whole point of AoS was to take miniature gaming back from the current competitive mindset towards the more narrative and cooperative mindset of the 80s and 90s.

I don't think our standards today are higher, I just think other companies have jumped on GW's declining standards and grabbed the customers who had higher standards.

Meanwhile, over the years GW's customers have become younger and less discerning about rule quality. So GW has gotten away with caring less about the competitive aspect of the game.

As was already said, Fantasy came out first. Fantasy was what, in it's third edition when Rouge Trader came out? So if Fantasy didn't come out, then there would be no 40K. If there was no 40K there would be no Sigmarines then. So I am not sure what the Original Poster is trying to make asking if AoS would be popular if there was no WFB. If there was no WFB where would the AoS minis come from since most of them are all Fantasy minis.

 Eldarain wrote:
The dual impact of selling expensive End Times tomes which were almost immediately invalidated along with killing the setting and system associated with it brought a lot of baggage to the new edition.

I said it before in other threads. It's not that things are expensive but it's worth. Right here is a perfect example why GW does not have a lot of worth in their products. I am sure most of us don't mind buying expensive products. As long as we have worth in those expensive products we will buy them. Problem is, why pay $90 for a book that will not even last 2 years, let alone 6 months like End Times have.

If anything, a lot of bad blood between GW and it's customers can be mitigated if GW communicated with their customers. Instead GW keeps everyone in the dark, and treats their customers as suckers. I have seen GW try and sell an edition book so it can get that one extra sale, KNOWING that a new edition will come out in two weeks hence. That is low. So at least on my part, I don't find worth in a lot of GW products. I have bought the Grand Alliance Chaos, my first AoS book, because I find worth in that. I will buy Grand Alliance Death, since I find worth in that, but for those $90 books GW is selling, to me it's not worth it.

If GW wants Age of Sigmar to succeed then they have to make it worth it. Right now, lower prices are needed because GW is basically selling Dollar Store or Grade school rules. Their books are sloopy, ( I tried reading a paragraph of AoS, I think I will go back and try and read 50 Shades of Grey. Yes 50 Shades of Grey writing is better than AoS ) If GW doesn't want to lower their prices to what their products are, then GW will need to step up the quality. Editors if they have any, need to do their jobs. GW needs a comprehensive and tight rule set. GW has to give it's customers worth.

GW forgets, they want our money, we don't need our products. If GW wants our money they need to give us what we want, other wise, we quit or go else where. GW got me into Age of Sigmar, but GW has not got me to continue AoS. I left. I came back now because I am starting to see GW change, and give me worth now. Thing is, will GW still give me worth in their products? Time will tell.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If AoS had been what WHF had been instead, GW would have never gotten off the ground. Remember Fantasy came first, then they decided to have Warhammer Fantasy "in speess!" which took off like crazy.

A terrible ruleset like AoS would never have survived back when the community had higher standards.

Though I didn't play it, weren't the original WHFB rules a lot closer in spirit to AoS than what WHFB eventually became? They were initially based on Dungeons and Dragons, and I don't think the game had army lists until the third edition or so. I thought the whole point of AoS was to take miniature gaming back from the current competitive mindset towards the more narrative and cooperative mindset of the 80s and 90s.

Depends on how far back you go.

The problem is that narrative and cooperative rulesets are terrible, for table top war games. They're great for RPGs, but WHF isn't an RPG. its a table top wargame, and that mandates clear and concise rules. And over the years GW had actually managed to refine the ruleset into a moderately successful one. Then threw all that progress out the window after lighting it on fire.

Competitive tight rulesets are actually better for the game, for both competitive and casual players alike(I hate using these terms as if they are opposing interests, they're not).

The beer and pretzel players don't want to spend time fighting over the nuances of the rules, they want to just have fun. But if the rules aren't tight, you end up fighting over them and how they work. You'll end up with clashes between two interpretations of the rules because player A has always played it like this and player B has always played it like that. They both view the other as sucking the fun out of the game.

Competitive players also don't want to waste time fighting over how rules work, they want to spend their time playing the game and figuring out how to beat each other(because they also want to have fun, and this is how they do it). They don't want to be fighting, because thats not fun. They want to have a cutthroat game which might come down to the wire, and once its done both players will have had a lot of fun.

Davor wrote:
So I am not sure what the Original Poster is trying to make asking if AoS would be popular if there was no WFB.

He's asking if being in WHFB's shadow has had a detrimental effect on the public perception of AoS - to which the answer is, yup. Without that influence, would AoS be given a fairer shake by gamers? Fairer, yes, but not completely fair, because there were other biases at work preventing people from objectively accepting AoS as is (for example, the lack of points or competitive play, and general dislike of GW's business practices). Even without those biases, I think AoS still wouldn't be for everybody, so the end result would simply be, AoS as a game that some people liked and played and some people didn't. There wouldd just be less whining about it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If AoS had been what WHF had been instead, GW would have never gotten off the ground. Remember Fantasy came first, then they decided to have Warhammer Fantasy "in speess!" which took off like crazy.

A terrible ruleset like AoS would never have survived back when the community had higher standards.

Though I didn't play it, weren't the original WHFB rules a lot closer in spirit to AoS than what WHFB eventually became? They were initially based on Dungeons and Dragons, and I don't think the game had army lists until the third edition or so. I thought the whole point of AoS was to take miniature gaming back from the current competitive mindset towards the more narrative and cooperative mindset of the 80s and 90s.

Depends on how far back you go.

The problem is that narrative and cooperative rulesets are terrible, for table top war games. They're great for RPGs, but WHF isn't an RPG. its a table top wargame, and that mandates clear and concise rules. And over the years GW had actually managed to refine the ruleset into a moderately successful one. Then threw all that progress out the window after lighting it on fire.

GW built its business on the back of being the UK publisher of Dungeons and Dragons. Citadel miniatures were initially created for DnD, but their popularity caused GW to make a miniature game - which was quite successful and enjoyed. So WHFB's origins are in RPGs, not war gaming, and it wasn't like WHFB only became popular after it was refined into a lean, mean, competitive machine - it was actually successful beforehand.

That refinement was also a result of the "squeaky wheel" syndrome, where a certain, louder population of players made their desires for the game well known, drowning out the moderate and minority voices, leading to the game being refined towards the wishes of only a small part of the population. It's entirely possible that the refinement of WHFB was what ultimately killed it, as it ended up excluding players that enjoyed how it was before, and prevented new players from feeling comfortable entering into it. And the problem with "squeaky wheels" is that they are never pleased. That's why they are so squeaky. So you end up hemorrhaging those players as well as you constantly offend their delicate sensibilities while chasing your own tail trying to figure out what the hell they want.

Competitive tight rulesets are actually better for the game, for both competitive and casual players alike(I hate using these terms as if they are opposing interests, they're not).

If I thought there was any way to prove this, I'd bet you money that you are wrong.

 Grey Templar wrote:
If AoS had been what WHF had been instead, GW would have never gotten off the ground. Remember Fantasy came first, then they decided to have Warhammer Fantasy "in speess!" which took off like crazy.

A terrible ruleset like AoS would never have survived back when the community had higher standards.

When WHF came out there was almost no competition for a fantasy mini wargame (in the UK where it came out). A lot of RPG players got into it from the likes of D&D and they weren't necessarily comparing to other wargames, and they probably would have found the loose formations and make your own scenario bit fitting. Many mini that were bought for RPGs were citadel ones as well. I wouldn't jump to the conclusion you have at all.

Its also worth bearing in mind that 1st ed WFB was nothing like later WFB. It was focused on heroes, massively unbalanced (from a points view), had no well defined background or armies. Had 1 scenario where a group have to defend a pyramid. 1 of the 3 rule books was an RPG/hero rule book. AoS really wouldn't have been that hugely different.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Competitive players also don't want to waste time fighting over how rules work, they want to spend their time playing the game and figuring out how to beat each other(because they also want to have fun, and this is how they do it). They don't want to be fighting, because thats not fun. They want to have a cutthroat game which might come down to the wire, and once its done both players will have had a lot of fun.

I agree with you completely on this part, and it's largely the reason that people who are competitive gamers don't like GW games. But the good solution to this isn't to bitch about GW games, it's to just play one of the many games that have good, cutthroat rules.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Competitive tight rulesets are actually better for the game, for both competitive and casual players alike(I hate using these terms as if they are opposing interests, they're not).

The beer and pretzel players don't want to spend time fighting over the nuances of the rules, they want to just have fun. But if the rules aren't tight, you end up fighting over them and how they work. You'll end up with clashes between two interpretations of the rules because player A has always played it like this and player B has always played it like that. They both view the other as sucking the fun out of the game.

I disagree with you on this part, because casual players really don't argue over rules, at least not to the point where it's disruptive to the game. When I play with someone, if they say the rules work a particular way, even if I know they're wrong, I'll just let them have their way, and I won't go to the rulebooks until afterwards. I'll simply say, "Sure, we can just do that and look it up after." As long as someone isn't changing the rules in the middle of the game... like, whatever. To me the rules aren't immutable; they're just a set of guidelines to go and move some minis in a social setting.

My version of fun does include trying to figure out how to beat the other player, but I'll have just as much fun if they beat me. It doesn't prove that one person is smarter or superior; I'm confident as to which percentile my intellect falls, and I certainly don't need a game relying on dice to boost that perception of myself On the other hand, I won't enjoy the game at all if my opponent isn't also having a good time, so I try pretty hard to make sure they're having fun.

Also, there are players, like myself, who simply don't want to play against other cutthroat players. It's not because I can't win or that I'm a fluff bunny. I just have more fun playing against people who are more easy-going and whose gaming personality is more casual. Among other things, I have found that people like this are more open to trying different things and building and playing models that are suboptimal; plus, the people who have been at it for a really long time, a lot of them, like me, have just mellowed out over the long haul.

I suspect if AoS had been put out by some no-name company with zero history, supported by a very small and very expensive range of some of the models needed for the game, it would have very rapidly sunk without a trace.

Irregardless of the merits or otherwise of the AoS rules as perceived by everyone, there is a large established pool of possible players already equipped with suitable modes only because WHFB had been popular for decades.

AoS could not have stood on its own merits, it has too few. the rules are shoddy, the models are ok, the fluff is trash. without the GW logo and the fans that come with it, it would have been dead on arrival. the competition is just far superior in every category. its not even the best "simple" mini game out there.

If AoS had magically puffed into existence - I think the models would have turned quite a few heads. Especially in this hypothetical thought experiment if all the WHFB range had popped into existence with it too.

Why do we have to imagine WHFB popping into existence at the same time as AoS when we in fact know that actually it popped out of existence?

It's just a thought experiment right? When AoS was launched it had an absolutely massive miniatures range because it inherited the entire WHFB miniatures range. My point was if a game popped into existence with that amount of miniatures - it's gonna make a big splash.

But then, you can nitpick if you want to and say the WHFB legacy miniatures don't count - the game would make a much smaller splash if it was just Stormcast and Bloodbound on release with no legacy miniatures range to back it up.

If AoS had a balancing mechanism, I would have been happy to try it out. As a light, high fantasy skirmish game, it's got a place in the market, and I already have multiple fantasy armies which had rules.

However, since AoS does not have a balancing mechanism and I am not interested in playing only scenario based games, I have not really done much past following the new releases in case a unit is released that I like the look of.

The treatment of WFB does annoy me, but the background still exists in my head and in the books I have, so I could have lived with that if the game did what I wanted it to. It's a shame that they didn't include a balancing mechanism. Too much like game design, I guess.

Talys: I completely disagree with your point about "casual" players never arguing over rules. It's just a "no true casual gamer" argument dressed up in some nicely written paragraphs.

I played in a very competitive group of players who travelled around Ireland and the rest of Europe to tournaments - several of them were on the Irish ETC team. We pretty much NEVER argued about rules - we would discuss ambiguous points in a fairly reasonable, dispassionate way and try to come to the most reasonable, conservative conclusion possible. Often, we decided things based on what would be logical in the game world, or in a way that made things less powerful (we ruled against Deffrollas attacking vehicles for example for all of the time that GW failed to clarify that). This was done completely amicably. As competitive players we had no interest in gaining unfair advantage- we wanted to win by the book. And when practicing for tournaments, it does not make sense to base your strategies around contentious rulings as rules packs or individual tournament judges make rule against you anyway.

My point? There is no "casual gamer" group that is reasonable and nice and a "cutthroat" competitive group that is always unreasonable about rules in game. There are just various groups who have differing approaches and values towards the game. Polarizing us into two opposing camps is just cruddy.

If it had to stand on its own merits, without any inertia from a previous game? Not a chance. Without functioning rules to play or nostalgia/inertia/je ne sais quoi from a previously existing legacy game, it'd be a disaster, and we'd talk about GW in the same breath as Rackham and other failed game companies.

 Bottle wrote:
It's just a thought experiment right? When AoS was launched it had an absolutely massive miniatures range because it inherited the entire WHFB miniatures range. My point was if a game popped into existence with that amount of miniatures - it's gonna make a big splash.

But then, you can nitpick if you want to and say the WHFB legacy miniatures don't count - the game would make a much smaller splash if it was just Stormcast and Bloodbound on release with no legacy miniatures range to back it up.

If we are assuming that WHFB did not exist, and therefore the massive range of figures for it did not exist to be used straight away in AoS, along with the large number of players who owned those armies, then AoS might have been launched with four reasonably well fleshed out factions instead of the two mini-factions it had (the Sigmarines and Chaos in the starter.)

This would have been more successful than launching with the starter only, but it still would have been much less successful than launching after WHFB had already built a large base of players and library of armies.

Imagine GW didn't exist, and launched out of nowhere with the AoS starter set. How much other stuff would GW have needed to provide to build up awareness of the game?

I doubt it'd get anywhere, but It's kind of a rough question, as AoS just couldn't exist without WHFB. Not just in the sense of minis support, or Games Workshop as a company, but the whole game is a reaction to the perceived weaknesses of late-era WHFB as a product. If WHFB didn't exist, there would have been no reason for AoS to exist in the fist place.

If it wasn't made by gw no one would of given AoS a second look.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

If we are assuming that WHFB did not exist, and therefore the massive range of figures for it did not exist to be used straight away in AoS, along with the large number of players who owned those armies, then AoS might have been launched with four reasonably well fleshed out factions instead of the two mini-factions it had (the Sigmarines and Chaos in the starter.)

This would have been more successful than launching with the starter only, but it still would have been much less successful than launching after WHFB had already built a large base of players and library of armies.

Imagine GW didn't exist, and launched out of nowhere with the AoS starter set. How much other stuff would GW have needed to provide to build up awareness of the game?

If we are talking, as noted earlier, about AoS having been launched instead of WFB back in the early 80s then I suspect it would have done quite well. It would have needed no more awareness than was available for WFB.

WFB to the best of my memory (can't be bothered going to get the rules from the garage) had no defined armies, although I think it had some rough good/evil/neutral groupings not unlike the AoS alliances. It had only the minis that citadel had out at the time which was to say mainly minis that were more RPG centric - lots of fighters, wizards, thieves, priests etc in different poses etc. It was picked up by the Fantasy RPG crowd who didn't for the most part have large armies as there was no major fantasy wargame for them to have collected for (In the UK anyway).

The ability to handle small forces, with no specific lists and loose formations perfectly fit those who picked up WFB, more so than WFB. The whole RPG and scenario feel is very similar to what WFB was. The lack of points wouldn't have likely been an issue, we all knew the points in WFB were borked, and we didn't have the collections to make points a worthwhile thing to use so didn't use them.

On the other hand if we are talking about launching today, then the lack of multiple factions and points etc would probably be a big hindrance. Of course that is a chicken and egg thing - if it launched today without WFB ever having existed then there may well still be no great competition so it do great. WFB made fantasy wargaming popular, and GW did a lot for mini quality etc. It would be interesting to think what could have driven the development that we see today if WFB had never existed. That's a perspective from me in the UK, what fantasy games were the rest of the world playing in the early/late 80s that could have substituted for GW/WFB?

puree wrote:

WFB to the best of my memory (can't be bothered going to get the rules from the garage) had no defined armies,

Incorrect. Each army had its own army book, which was equivalent to a codex. There was, for a short time, also a mercenary book(Dogs of War) which was its own individual army but each unit could also be taken by other armies as well.

In 8th edition, there was the introduction of an Alliance system for multi-player battles. With relationships and rules for Good, Neutral, and Evil factions.

 Grey Templar wrote:

puree wrote:

WFB to the best of my memory (can't be bothered going to get the rules from the garage) had no defined armies,

Incorrect. Each army had its own army book, which was equivalent to a codex. There was, for a short time, also a mercenary book(Dogs of War) which was its own individual army but each unit could also be taken by other armies as well.

In 8th edition, there was the introduction of an Alliance system for multi-player battles. With relationships and rules for Good, Neutral, and Evil factions.

There were most certainly no army books when 1st ed warhammer was released (bear in mind I was talking when it first released in the 80s). Dogs of war came a lot later. I remember regiments of renown being earlier, and having one (some foot knights of some description).

As far as i remember army book style lists came in 2nd edition with Ravening Hordes. Though there was an expansion just prior to 2nd edition that I didn't have that may have had something similar in?

When WFB first launched I'm pretty darn sure it was just something like the following models are 'good', 'evil' or neutral.

I wouldn't call 1st edition WHFB, just like I wouldn't call Rogue Trader Warhammer 40k. It was the first edition, things changed too heavily to really tie them together.

Just went to check on wiki, I like the wiki entry for 1st edition

Despite many rules inconsistencies, inadequate roleplaying rules, typing errors and poor presentation, the battle system was thought to be excellent[3] and exceptionally simple and playable in comparison to other miniatures games of the time.

Army books proper appeared in 4ed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I wouldn't call 1st edition WHFB, just like I wouldn't call Rogue Trader Warhammer 40k. It was the first edition, things changed too heavily to really tie them together.

No but we are talking whether Warhammer never existed and Aos had been there instead, seems a perfectly good discussion therefore - if 1st ed had been AoS what would have happened?

Equally what as changed a lot? The system at its core in 8th is very similar to what I played in 1st. Do we dismiss 6th as not being WFB as it was different to 8th with its fixed charge distance and other changes.

Okay, if we are talking about what would have happened if AoS had been launched in 1983 and WHFB was never created, then...

I played first edition WHFB in 1983. I personally thought the combat system was pretty crap, clunky and time-wasting, much like the AoS combat system now (because essentially it's the same system.)

Of course, there were other clunky and time-wasting systems in SF/Fantasy or Historical games at the time. However, mainstream Historicals like WRG Ancients were much more streamlined, and also took into account factors of command and control, and morale, that WHFB didn't have, and AoS doesn't have now. (WHFB introduced "psychology" in later editions.)

Therefore the WHFB system appealed to people who wanted a simple game of move and fight, like AoS is today.

WHFB was popular partly because it was the first main mass battle fantasy rules. It allowed people to set up games like their Ancients games but adding Dwarfs and the like. The skirmish element of fantasy was pretty well catered for by RPGs. I gave up WHFB because it turned into Hero Hammer, making troops essentially pointless, and becoming like a very simple RPG combat about the heroes and wizards, with added the expense of mass units for decoration.

It's hard to say how much all of this would have affected the chances of AoS compared to the big success that WHFB actually was.

AoS probably isn't any simpler than original WHFB was, so no difference there. AoS isn't mass battle, so it would not have had that sort of appeal. The potential appeal of it as a skirmish would have had to compete with various well-established RPG rules. Also there would not have been the figure support. No-one had the capability in the early 1980s to produce elaborate models like the Sigmarines. GW would have had to provide rules for using any company's fantasy figures with the rules, and try to build up their own catalogue over time.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I don't think our standards today are higher, I just think other companies have jumped on GW's declining standards and grabbed the customers who had higher standards.

Rules quality across the board is in a whole other world from, say, the 80's.


If AoS hadn't followed on the coat-tails of WHFB, it'd have had a single news & rumours thread with maybe a dozen posts on it, before disappearing.

I'm not sure. I'd kinda been in the wilds for about a year. I kept up on developments across GW, PP, FFG and others - was seriously considering trying out Guildball - but nothing really grabbed my interest.

When the AoS rules were leaked, played a few proxy games with a friend and we decided it was 'it'. The friend in question has played WFB exclusively with Dwarfs for 20 years and had a knowledge of the Old World that'd make a savant roll their eyes in disbelief.

We've also found that AoS has pretty much killed interest in anything bar Frostgrave for a number of my regular group.

I think objectively, AoS wouldn't have particularly stood out (either positively or negatively) against any other system.
It's suffered because I think those who were expecting the next edition of WFB were not only disappointed but vocally so.
If it had been standalone or not a continuation then it wouldn't have had that uphill struggle, but then it also wouldn't have had the massive amount of initial interest from existing fans.

So helpfully, I think either option had pros and cons.