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 Kilkrazy wrote:

Also, it's clear that rank and file Sigmarines and Fyre Slayers are adventurously priced.

Depends what you call "rank and file", since there is absolutely no restriction about what you can fill as troops in your army.

An All Elite force isn't the same than an All Monster one or Horde of Infantry.

To me, that argument is quite a fallacy.

Also, prices tend to go up and down if the game is skirmish or not. If you look at other Skirmish games and want to fill the same amount of miniatures, you will often find the prices are wildly going up in a fast way.

Did try to make 3 squads of 10 guardsmen infantry with Infinity miniatures a few years ago. What I bought at that time nearly put GW's products as cheap ones in comparison.

Since AoS is usually Skirmish friendly, well...maybe prices are just adapted to that.

Therein lies GW's biggest problem the accountants are running things.

All they are concerned with is profit not the quality of the product they sell.

What are the rules dept meant to do when the first they hear of anything is when the finished product is dumped on the desk in front of them? They are told to make it worth buying by the accountants.

It's no wonder there's no balance.

hobojebus wrote:


It's no wonder there's no balance.

There is no balance because the game is designed in such a way the players have to decide themselves what would make an interesting game.

Balance is seen as irrelevant in that case.

Thing is, players are asking for more tools to help them having a "fair game" without thinking about it too much. Point system was one of them.

Theres always the Balance Sheets.

 Sarouan wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Also, it's clear that rank and file Sigmarines and Fyre Slayers are adventurously priced.

Depends what you call "rank and file", since there is absolutely no restriction about what you can fill as troops in your army.

An All Elite force isn't the same than an All Monster one or Horde of Infantry.

To me, that argument is quite a fallacy.

Also, prices tend to go up and down if the game is skirmish or not. If you look at other Skirmish games and want to fill the same amount of miniatures, you will often find the prices are wildly going up in a fast way.

Did try to make 3 squads of 10 guardsmen infantry with Infinity miniatures a few years ago. What I bought at that time nearly put GW's products as cheap ones in comparison.

Since AoS is usually Skirmish friendly, well...maybe prices are just adapted to that.

I call rank and file all the Sigmarines who arean't special characters such as the bloke on a mini-dragon.

I tried to make an AoS army by commissioning Asprey's of Bond Street to make me individual Sigmarine-alike models out of 24 carat gold with diamond detailing. It came out to quite an expensive army.

 Sarouan wrote:


Depends what you call "rank and file", since there is absolutely no restriction about what you can fill as troops in your army.

rank and file
n.
1. The enlisted troops, excluding noncommissioned officers, in an army.
2. The people who form the major portion of a group, organization, or society, excluding the leaders and officers.

(http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rank+and+file)

Assuming that we all agree that the rank and file for the Stormcast are the Liberators (fluffwise, of course) since it has been mentioned here and on the Tome itself that they are the most common SE on the field, then the customer is paying 30£ for 5 rank and file miniatures.

So yes, adventurously priced.

If you want to consider other models as Rank and File (Paladins, etc) then the price goes even higher.


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RoperPG wrote:
I do enjoy AoS, but I'm not defending GWs actions or saying it was the only option - but I can see the logic behind the decisions they have taken, if not the logic behind the ones they didn't. (9th Edition WFB proper, for example)

Again, and especially on my posts (as I know I can be a very aggressive poster) please don't take anything said as a jab against your personal preferences game-wise. I think we all respect that regardless of our personal taste towards any specific game. I understand the logic behind AoS, I simply heartily disagree with it, and it exposed something in GW that radically changed my view on the "GW hobby"

 Sarouan wrote:

Also, prices tend to go up and down if the game is skirmish or not. If you look at other Skirmish games and want to fill the same amount of miniatures, you will often find the prices are wildly going up in a fast way.

Did try to make 3 squads of 10 guardsmen infantry with Infinity miniatures a few years ago. What I bought at that time nearly put GW's products as cheap ones in comparison.

Since AoS is usually Skirmish friendly, well...maybe prices are just adapted to that.

"Skirmish" is too broad a term to cover both AoS and Infinity. AoS is, apparently, a warband sized game, with minimum sized units (Liberators are a minimum 5 model unit). Infinity is a much smaller scale skirmish games, with at most 10-15 models needed to play. Trying to say that AoS's models should be more expensive because of Infinity's pricing isn't a good justification, not to mention the difference between plastic and metal miniatures.

 infinite_array wrote:

 Sarouan wrote:

Also, prices tend to go up and down if the game is skirmish or not. If you look at other Skirmish games and want to fill the same amount of miniatures, you will often find the prices are wildly going up in a fast way.

Did try to make 3 squads of 10 guardsmen infantry with Infinity miniatures a few years ago. What I bought at that time nearly put GW's products as cheap ones in comparison.

Since AoS is usually Skirmish friendly, well...maybe prices are just adapted to that.

"Skirmish" is too broad a term to cover both AoS and Infinity. AoS is, apparently, a warband sized game, with minimum sized units (Liberators are a minimum 5 model unit). Infinity is a much smaller scale skirmish games, with at most 10-15 models needed to play. Trying to say that AoS's models should be more expensive because of Infinity's pricing isn't a good justification, not to mention the difference between plastic and metal miniatures.

It is also good to note that Mordheim is also a Skirmish game and you could have a full Empire Warband with one Empire Free Company box.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

It is also good to note that Mordheim is also a Skirmish game and you could have a full Empire Warband with one Empire Free Company box.

When AoS came out, I bought some Empire stuff because the local store was having a sale. I found a Free Company box hiding amongst some others, and used that for my Frostgrave warband.

RoperPG wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

So for my money, I would have fixed WHFB and kept it, while launching AoS as an introductory game.

If keeping WFB in any way was an option as far as GW were concerned, AoS would never have happened.
It's not just a radically different set of rules, it's a complete overhaul of how GW do business.
Keeping WFB in anything like a recognisable format would have rendered the back-of-house changes impossible or pointless.

GW knew Warhammer had been dead for years. There's only so many times you can retcon the storyline and the number of SKUs for the line were out of control - and certain armies just weren't selling no matter what they did to overpower them (in a... points... based system! gasp). Warhammer was a bloated mess and no one was buying anything. Nuclear option.

As it stands, Age of Sigmar did nothing to Warhammer... Warhammer has had the same unmoving fiction since the early 1980's. The End Times at least progressed it, but any change at all in the Warhammer World would cause internet rage tears no matter what happened. If Warhammer was in a 9th edition and the storyline had progressed, there'd be the same amount of complaints because GW "ruined" something (which in itself is staggering as there's more people who claim GW "ruined" Warhammer than have ever actually played a game of Warhammer)

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay first, second, and third edition all still exist. Warhammer Fantasy Battles first through eight edition still exist. The storyline only ever progressed in 6th edition through 7th edition, only to be totally retconned in 8th, which then had the End Times. Pick your flavor of Warhammer and stick with it, as I have. I love the Warhammer World from 2000-2007 or so, and Warhammer will never be better than that.

Age of Sigmar is it's own entirely different and new creature, and the storylines are AWESOME.


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 Da Boss wrote:
Wow, how charming. Such empathy!

for...?
I got over Warhammer being killed off when 8th edition came out. I watched it struggle and fail and flounder and I mocked GW for their terrible decision to continue it. Then they killed it permanently and released Age of Sigmar, a far superior ruleset and setting than anything they've come up with in yeeaaaarrsss.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
I understand the logic behind AoS, I simply heartily disagree with it, and it exposed something in GW that radically changed my view on the "GW hobby"

Same here. I hadn't bought any GW models in three, four years, or longer, even... I got one of each of the TK releases when they got their 8th makeover, out of loyalty to my TK, having had the army since they day they launched in 6th edition. Thought Age of Sigmar was stupid and ridiculed it. Played a demo game, and then bought a starter set, a bunch of Stormcast Eternals, and then a Nurgle army. It's straight up a superior game to 8th, and I have more fun with it than most of my games of 7th. All my 6th edition bliss has moved to Kings of War at this point, which is a more tactically rewarding game than Warhammer. I mean, let's face it: Kings of War is a better mass battles game than Warhammer could ever hope to be (mainly because Warhammer's core rules are so dated, no matter what makeup you put on it the core of it is still a corpse and it still smells terrible), and Age of Sigmar is more fun than Warhammer had become. KoW and AoS are both different but equally better than Warhammer Fantasy. IMHO this is the best thing that could have happened in the marketplace; two superior games replacing a poorly written corpse of a game that had overstayed it's welcome.

 judgedoug wrote:
Same here. I hadn't bought any GW models in three, four years, or longer, even... I got one of each of the TK releases when they got their 8th makeover, out of loyalty to my TK, having had the army since they day they launched in 6th edition. Thought Age of Sigmar was stupid and ridiculed it. Played a demo game, and then bought a starter set, a bunch of Stormcast Eternals, and then a Nurgle army. It's straight up a superior game to 8th, and I have more fun with it than most of my games of 7th. All my 6th edition bliss has moved to Kings of War at this point, which is a more tactically rewarding game than Warhammer. I mean, let's face it: Kings of War is a better mass battles game than Warhammer could ever hope to be (mainly because Warhammer's core rules are so dated, no matter what makeup you put on it the core of it is still a corpse and it still smells terrible), and Age of Sigmar is more fun than Warhammer had become. KoW and AoS are both different but equally better than Warhammer Fantasy. IMHO this is the best thing that could have happened in the marketplace; two superior games replacing a poorly written corpse of a game that had overstayed it's welcome.

I will be finishing my HE army out of loyalty aswell (still need a few things since my hiatus since mid 7th to late 8th) but I have decided not to give a dime to GW while doing it. Ebay and other sources are my friends now. I will eventually consider other things, like bloodbowl and a possible BFG release. I will also consider it if they make a very good Aelf Dragon, but I can already see that the pricing will be prohibitive.

As for 40k... I shall keep looking into it - I mean I did buy the DA Codex and now my niece wants to start Eldar just to spite my nephew - but Ebay and others are always there for me.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

I call rank and file all the Sigmarines who arean't special characters such as the bloke on a mini-dragon.

Everything but the Celestant Prime, then. All right.

You know AoS has no limitations about what you want to put in your army. It can be 3 miniatures or 127 - money spent will obviously not be the same, since there is no real balancing factor other than yourself and your opponent.

Why would I bother to have rank and file troops if my army theme is a "Seven Samurai" all heroes warband? That's what I mean; you make the army you want for AoS. You don't have to take rank and file troops at all if it isn't what you wish for.

I tried to make an AoS army by commissioning Asprey's of Bond Street to make me individual Sigmarine-alike models out of 24 carat gold with diamond detailing. It came out to quite an expensive army.

Exactly! But that would be your choice to buy it at that price.

And it would certainly be awesome.

Thing is, price is always subjective, no matter the product. I know Infinity miniatures are cool and in metal, fact is they're not really made from gold and they still are miniatures of the same size and the same "value" in game if you choose to use them as proxies for another game.

So, when you say GW is expensive for its rank and file troops, I'm just answering the prices aren't especially that cheap with other companies. Especially Privateer Press, whose games are much more similar to AoS in terms of scale and that still have "rank and file troops" that can't really be called "cheap".

Seriously, did you see their prices for mere troopers? A squad of 10 elven archers in their simili-plastic material? Do you know how much you have to spend if you want to make an army full of "grunts" just for the pleasure of the horde? It won't be that far from GW's prices - sometimes even higher. One of the most funny things to see are players for Horde/Warmachine using GW MINIATURES to proxy some troops for their games. Because they ARE CHEAPER than Warmachine/Horde representatives. Seriously.

About AoS, it's obvious you will not buy several Stardrakes if they are expensive enough to make you think twice about it. But since you don't have to...well, not really a big deal. Apparently, GW is glad enough to sell a number of boxes at that price...that's their choice. If the consumers decide to take it or not, that's their choice.

Could be cheaper, sure. Matter of perspective. I play Stormcast Eternals as "Ogres" in Kings of War. Since I don't need a lot of them to make a sizable army, the money spent in comparison to what I would spend for "actual Ogres" feels quite reasonable enough so that I'm satisfied in the end. And I can still play them at AoS on a "big Skirmish scale" battle.

So, yeah, your mileage may vary even with miniature wargames.

Well said, have an exalt.

Okay, so we all know that the main appeal of the WFB setting was, and is, the main characters and heroes of the setting. Don't argue: When you think about your army, isn't it first and foremost built in a unique way that fits yourself, but also fits whatever Lord you had for the army? Even in the crunch, huge tactically differences are made on what equipment you give your characters, where you place them and what role you want them to perform. A Blender Lord wants into something huge and big unit and just kill away, while mages wants to stay a little away and dominate the battlefield with spells. Not only that, many heroes from the setting itself are build with a goal in mind, and can enchance their armies to a high degree. Plus, we have hero-level characters like Felix and that dwarf-fellow who have their own stories, who you can make legends by using them in your games.

So, in many ways, WFB is about the characters; something I always felt like 40k and many other settings lacked; it injects personality into the fluff and makes you invested, but the crunch is changed as well, as leader characters in WFB change a lot about their armies and determine how an army plays, where 40k just kinda... Have them. So...

How the hell did Age of Sigmar screw that up?!


What I mean by that is that GW had the perfect opportunity to make a setting where heroic journeys, lost treasure and a new, albeit a broken world makes up the adventures the players make themselves. It would be a natural fit. Take the Old World, smash it open a little bit, destroy some stuff and add new stuff: boom, now we have a new setting with unfamiliar stuff in it, and the dominant forces are weakened and put back. Plus, all factions have been well tumbled up and many propably lack purpose and goals now.

This new "Age of Sigmar" situation would have two games, with new models coming out for both. The 9th Edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle; a definitive version of the game, and the Age of Sigmar rules (with optional use of points) that would be slowly updated through World Tomes, which would be large books, including updates and additions, such as new scenarios for either game, new rules for new models, terrain rules and stuff. Like this, the Old World (we could call it the New World, or Broken World now or something) could be slowly explored, as both games slowly unfold themselves and new stories emerge.

The Age of Sigmar version of the game is basically a "Warband Skirmish Game", in which you create your own force (following some loose rules) and take them to battle. The twist, so to say, is that the game would be based around individualizing your Heroes, and making them into what you want them to be. Each new World Tome would add new equipment or ways to build a Warband, fitting the setting of the Tome, or just new stuff in general. You could have a Warband of an imperial mercenary, his men, a necromancer and his spirits, some dwarves and an elven princess and hey haven't I seen this somewhere...

This way, the Age of Sigmar part of the game isn't about the game, but the possibilities. Scenarios could be simple things like "Skirmish", or maybe "Final Bout", where one player plays his Warband against a player with a very powerful model and/or army (think the above Warband against End Times Mannfred with a large Grave Guard retinue, for example), and further updates could make Campaign rules. Much like Mordheim, but not as hardcore.

Meanwhile, the people who want to play with their armies could still do so, with the new, revised final rules for 9th Ed. New models would get rules for use in 9th if they fit, and the rest would be let up to the community.


... I mean comeon. Am I alone in thinking this could be the best Ed of Fantasy yet?

 judgedoug wrote:
There's only so many times you can retcon the storyline and the number of SKUs for the line were out of control -

There's no particular reason to change the setting every time you release a new edition, particularly when the setting is the thing that people like about the game. The rulebook fiction is solely there to provide a setting... it doesn't [i]have to be an ongoing story. They have a whole branch of the company dedicated to releasing the ongoing stories associated with the setting.

And nuking the entire game is not the only solution to the product range being too large. Consolidating into multi-unit boxes (as they have been doing with 40K), could have achieved a certain amount of that.

...and certain armies just weren't selling no matter what they did to overpower them (in a... points... based system! gasp).

Which could almost lead one to believe that in-game effectiveness isn't the only criteria on which people base their choice of army... but that's not really news to anyone who has been playing GW games for longer than three and a half minutes.

RoperPG wrote:
Yes, but think about what AoS has done. Anybody can buy any box and it's a game ready unit that they can field with whatever they already have.
Without being tied to book-and-mini release schedule - as we've already seen so far - they can release whatever they want whenever they want.

The same thing could have been achieved simply by ditching the army book release format, and just including a sheet of rules in the box with each unit. You don't actually have to kill off the entire game in order to change how army formation works, or how your releases are timed.


The thing is, the other thing that AoS has done is taken all of the things that made WHFB a distinct option from everything else in the market, and turned it into just another fantasy skirmish game in an increasingly crowded pool full of fantasy skirmish games.

From what I've seen, the two main issues with getting people into WHFB were that the rules were a mess, and the cost of entry was too high. Fixing the rules sorts out the first issue. And adding an entry level game to ease people in to army building fixes the second (assuming that you're not willing to go the cheaper miniature route, which GW are clearly not).

Nuking the entire game and starting over with something completely different is the 'throwing out the baby with the bathwater' option.

The unique thing about AoS is that it's by GW. Lots of people won't accept a game and figures that aren't by GW.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The unique thing about AoS is that it's by GW. Lots of people won't accept a game and figures that aren't by GW.

Indeed. That's why a lot of people say that FB is dead. FB is dead only in the sense that GW stopped supporting it, and that alone is enough to kill the setting altogether.
The Old World will still live and breathe for anyone who plays from 1st Edition all the way to 8th, regardless of taste. For some it will live on in 9th edition and Kings of War (I count myself upon these ranks, though I doubt I can find a game of those in Portugal).

 insaniak wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
Yes, but think about what AoS has done. Anybody can buy any box and it's a game ready unit that they can field with whatever they already have.
Without being tied to book-and-mini release schedule - as we've already seen so far - they can release whatever they want whenever they want.

The same thing could have been achieved simply by ditching the army book release format, and just including a sheet of rules in the box with each unit. You don't actually have to kill off the entire game in order to change how army formation works, or how your releases are timed.

But it's not that simple, is it?
If you wind up in a situation where a single box of something is a valid, viable unit, then something big happened in the mechanics of WFB. People will be pissed at that.
If they bin faction composition but try to keep points, balancing/giving armies their hook becomes very difficult - people will be pissed at that.
If they bin army books and put rules in the box, points values / specific magic items / etc. become a nightmare to maintain/manage; etc. They become a mess or get cut; people will be pissed.

Again, not saying the choices GW made were necessarily the right ones - but they only work/make any sense implemented en masse.

I think the sad truth is that the time to 'save' fantasy was about ten years ago. :(

Deadnight wrote:
I think the sad truth is that the time to 'save' fantasy was about ten years ago. :(

A critical juncture of that significance will have it's own time travel TV movie eventually.
But I think you're right. For me that's when the "bigger is just better, okay?!" mentality got stuck in 5th gear.

RoperPG wrote:
But it's not that simple, is it?
If you wind up in a situation where a single box of something is a valid, viable unit, then something big happened in the mechanics of WFB. People will be pissed at that.

Making everything usable straight out of the box doesn't mean making every box of equal strength. That certainly didn't happen with AoS, and there's no reason to expect that it's what would have happened if they had done it with WHFB.

If they bin faction composition but try to keep points, balancing/giving armies their hook becomes very difficult - people will be pissed at that.

I wasn't talking about binning army composition entirely, though... That's part of the reason you have the AoS gateway game.

AoS, as it does now, would allow you to just buy whatever models you want and plonk them on the table.

WHFB would remain focussed on structured armies... but would still benefit from all models having up to date rules, and model releases not being tied to the release of a book.

If they bin army books and put rules in the box, points values / specific magic items / etc. become a nightmare to maintain/manage; etc.

Only if they're making stuff up on the fly as they release it.

Assuming that releases are planned out some time in advance, it wouldn't really be any more complicated to maintain than it would be if they had been putting any actual effort into doing so for the last 15 years or so.

Other companes manage to do it. GW, with their vastly superior resources, should find it a sinch.

 insaniak wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
But it's not that simple, is it?
If you wind up in a situation where a single box of something is a valid, viable unit, then something big happened in the mechanics of WFB. People will be pissed at that.

Making everything usable straight out of the box doesn't mean making every box of equal strength. That certainly didn't happen with AoS, and there's no reason to expect that it's what would have happened if they had done it with WHFB.

If they bin faction composition but try to keep points, balancing/giving armies their hook becomes very difficult - people will be pissed at that.

I wasn't talking about binning army composition entirely, though... That's part of the reason you have the AoS gateway game.

AoS, as it does now, would allow you to just buy whatever models you want and plonk them on the table.

WHFB would remain focussed on structured armies... but would still benefit from all models having up to date rules, and model releases not being tied to the release of a book.

If they bin army books and put rules in the box, points values / specific magic items / etc. become a nightmare to maintain/manage; etc.

Only if they're making stuff up on the fly as they release it.

Assuming that releases are planned out some time in advance, it wouldn't really be any more complicated to maintain than it would be if they had been putting any actual effort into doing so for the last 15 years or so.

Other companes manage to do it. GW, with their vastly superior resources, should find it a sinch.

I don't know how many ways I can explain it.
If WFB was saveable in GW's opinion, then AoS wouldn't have happened.
When you look at it through the prism of financial flexibility/efficiency and a total fear of Chapterhouse MK2 on GW's part, AoS makes perfect sense - but only if AoS is as it is, and WFB is done and dead.
The reasons for AoS' existence are exactly the same reasons why WFB had to go.
A halfway house would have failed on all counts.

Yeah...all the talk about two separate games sounds nice on paper but that would've meant more costs sunk into a game that was giving back little in profits and in a tough market. The IP is also a large issue that the increase of competitive companies keeps pressure on.

GW doesn't have limitless resources afterall and that may have been like cutting a branch down the middle and expecting both halves to grow. They would've wilted and died....

RoperPG wrote:
If WFB was saveable in GW's opinion, then AoS wouldn't have happened. .

Yes... but the topic of this thread is 'What would you have done differently?'

Clearly GW didn't think that WHFB was worth trying to save. That doesn't mean that their assessment of the situation was correct. Remember, this is the company that quite proudly does no market research, and thinks that their customers will buy whatever they choose to offer us... So it is rather doubtful that they even have the faintest idea of why WHFB was actually doing badly, and what actions would have turned things around.

 insaniak wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
If WFB was saveable in GW's opinion, then AoS wouldn't have happened. .

Yes... but the topic of this thread is 'What would you have done differently?'

Clearly GW didn't think that WHFB was worth trying to save. That doesn't mean that their assessment of the situation was correct. Remember, this is the company that quite proudly does no market research, and thinks that their customers will buy whatever they choose to offer us... So it is rather doubtful that they even have the faintest idea of why WHFB was actually doing badly, and what actions would have turned things around.

aaand I get that. I just thought we were at least trying to be realistic in our suggestions, not just wishlisting with a blank cheque. Murder your darlings, and all that.

 insaniak wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
If WFB was saveable in GW's opinion, then AoS wouldn't have happened. .

Yes... but the topic of this thread is 'What would you have done differently?'

Clearly GW didn't think that WHFB was worth trying to save. That doesn't mean that their assessment of the situation was correct. Remember, this is the company that quite proudly does no market research, and thinks that their customers will buy whatever they choose to offer us... So it is rather doubtful that they even have the faintest idea of why WHFB was actually doing badly, and what actions would have turned things around.

Not to say that any decision is necessarily right, but GW would have far more knowledge about these things than any forumgoer, being able to see the exact numbers and trends and all that.

Without access to GW's financials and some actual market research, it's impossible to say which alternatives to GW's chosen route would have been realistic.

The best you're going to get in a thread like this is people offering the plans that make sense to them based on their own understanding of how it all works.


Having said that, the fact that WHFB used to be GW's flagship game should in itself be proof that killing it off entirely wasn't the only viable solution. The game used to be huge. So what changed, and what can be done about it?

Killing it and launching a new game in its place using a lot of the same resources was clearly deemed to be the safest and/or most cost-effective option... but I can't help but think that keeping it, fixing the issues with it and working on encouraging people to play it again would have been a better solution in the long run.


But who knows? With GW's apparent re-entry into the 'talk to your customers' game, maybe we'll see it return in some form or another, sooner or later.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

coldgaming wrote:

Not to say that any decision is necessarily right, but GW would have far more knowledge about these things than any forumgoer, being able to see the exact numbers and trends and all that.

They would have more knowledge of what is selling and what isn't.

Finding out why some things are selling and some aren't generally requires either communicating with your customer base or hiring some pretty outstanding marketing people who know what they are doing.



The fact that they proudly proclaim that they don't talk to their customers, and think that the best way to drum up interest in new product is to not tell anyone about it (including the people who have to try to sell it) strongly suggests that neither of those things happened prior to the launch of AoS.

 insaniak wrote:

coldgaming wrote:

Not to say that any decision is necessarily right, but GW would have far more knowledge about these things than any forumgoer, being able to see the exact numbers and trends and all that.

They would have more knowledge of what is selling and what isn't.

Finding out why some things are selling and some aren't generally requires either communicating with your customer base or hiring some pretty outstanding marketing people who know what they are doing.

The fact that they proudly proclaim that they don't talk to their customers, and think that the best way to drum up interest in new product is to not tell anyone about it (including the people who have to try to sell it) strongly suggests that neither of those things happened prior to the launch of AoS.

This.

Please excuse some of us if we don't share the sentiment that GW actually know what they are doing.

Case in point - 40k's slow descent into... well, wherever GW took FB to shoot it in head.

Oh, I've never claimed GW know what they're doing!
They're the only ones with the ability to be in full possession of all the facts, even if they don't exercise that ability.
As with anything else, I think the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes of 'GW are only interested in money!' and 'GW hate balanced competitive games and anyone who likes them!'
Although for my $0.02 I think you'd have to be pretty naive to think financial considerations were only minor.

I think as well that the various threads on what might have been have pointed something else out - beyond the description of "it's a fantasy battle game that uses ranked regiments of troops" WFB had evolved massively over its' lifespan, and a lot of people had their preferred iteration.
For example in my case, I think 6th was the best edition and 7th was the beginning of the end in terms of my interest.
So even if GW had pushed ahead with 9th, it wouldn't necessarily have been met with any more happiness.
There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity, and with AoS GW have definitely been one of those. I guess we'll find out in time which it was.

 judgedoug wrote:

GW knew Warhammer had been dead for years. There's only so many times you can retcon the storyline and the number of SKUs for the line were out of control - and certain armies just weren't selling no matter what they did to overpower them (in a... points... based system! gasp). Warhammer was a bloated mess and no one was buying anything. Nuclear option.

As it stands, Age of Sigmar did nothing to Warhammer... Warhammer has had the same unmoving fiction since the early 1980's. The End Times at least progressed it, but any change at all in the Warhammer World would cause internet rage tears no matter what happened. If Warhammer was in a 9th edition and the storyline had progressed, there'd be the same amount of complaints because GW "ruined" something (which in itself is staggering as there's more people who claim GW "ruined" Warhammer than have ever actually played a game of Warhammer)

Warhammer wasn't selling for years because it was totally neglected. The End Times seemed to have caused a pretty big resurgence up to the point the rumours hit that it was going to get squatted hard. I have to admit I can't recall anyone complaining about the fluff advancement in End Times, though there were some about the rule changes (like the 50% lords thing) and Nagash.

I have no figures, but I'm pretty sure the End Times series did more to boost GW's fantasy sales than AoS had. I think GW's fantasy sales are currently only holding on where they are because of other games (oldhammer, Kings Of War and Frostgrave). Even I've been tempted by a few GW boxes for Frostgrave warbands.