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With digital sculpting these days, Nurgle would make sense. Presumably GW has (had) a bunch of digi-sculptors working overtime on Nurgle stuff from Dark Imperium all the way to the apparently upcoming Nurgle Daemon stuff. Getting them to knock out a few Nurgle BB players while they're in the zone and have the slime, warts & tentacles design-files open on their desktop anyhow should (I think) be an easy thing to do.

Well, cue my embarassment at not seeing the Lizardmen comments earlier.

If anyone's curious, the NAF put out a newsletter today with the results of a vote making the Khorne and Brettonian teams official.

Chikout wrote:
He definitely said lizardmen were a way off because I was hoping they would be the next team and was disappointed. They talked a lot about haflings. One person in the studio is a big fan so it could be them but from the tone if the conversation it sounded like a plan for the future not something already made.
I am assuming it was something he did not mention, so not nurgle, haflings, lizardmen or generic Chaos.
It could be Amazons, Norse, khemri or undead. None of those were talked about.
He talked about having three categories. the teams they need to do (because they already have rules or have been promised) Nurgle is one of these. The teams they want to do like halflings and the teams it would be cool to do if they have time.

Amazons need a lot of help. They start off extremely strong in a league but end up falling flap IMO.

Look at the catcher, sure she starts with dodge and catch but the 6 speed and 3 agi hold her back hard core. after a few skill ups she will have block which is nice to keep her up and if you get an M up or agi up its nice but she is still lacking behind even the human catcher and especially an elf catcher.

Shes not wearing any armor, she needs at least another pip of M.

Then the whole team needs a look over the way that the norse got. Give them a big guy (I say a krox) and another positional like the Ulfwereners. Maybe some crazy amazon chick closer to a witch elf or war dancer.

Amazons just get crushed by Dwarves and chaos dwarves from the get go. Tackle kills the dodge skill, and they don’t have stunty like goblins and halflings to give them more of a chance for survival.

I think Chaos might show up, a straight chaos team. Or even a tzeentch one.

 Theophony wrote:
Amazons just get crushed by Dwarves and chaos dwarves from the get go. Tackle kills the dodge skill, and they don’t have stunty like goblins and halflings to give them more of a chance for survival.

I think Chaos might show up, a straight chaos team. Or even a tzeentch one.

As much as I really, really, really want Lizardmen... I wouldn't mind a Tzeentch one. Especially if it was done in a Tzeentch Arcanites style. As much as I dislike a lot of AoS, the Tzaangors are pretty cool.

I would love to see a Tzeench team - or even an official Khorne one...

Havik110 wrote:
Amazons need a lot of help. They start off extremely strong in a league but end up falling flap IMO.

Look at the catcher, sure she starts with dodge and catch but the 6 speed and 3 agi hold her back hard core. after a few skill ups she will have block which is nice to keep her up and if you get an M up or agi up its nice but she is still lacking behind even the human catcher and especially an elf catcher.

Shes not wearing any armor, she needs at least another pip of M.

Then the whole team needs a look over the way that the norse got. Give them a big guy (I say a krox) and another positional like the Ulfwereners. Maybe some crazy amazon chick closer to a witch elf or war dancer.

Pretty sure that match results over thousands of matches have shown that Amazons start out ridiculous, then move up to merely powerful. There's no TV where Amazons are a weak team.

Chaos dwarf and dwarf teams are obviously really poor match-ups for Amazons.

I think the speed and the quality of these releases is going downhill fast, got the almanac today and after reading it, it just seems like a petty money grab, totally invalidates the two books they released this year already and im still using metal teams I bought twenty years ago.

I was so excited when this was released, but it seems that GW are cramming in more releases than they can cope with, I see it being an age before I get any new teams, im tempted to actually buy from another company for the first time ever
and just not play in WW.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ekwatts wrote:
At £30 the Almanac is quite good. It's cheaper than both Death Zones together, hardback, and includes all of the White Dwarf stuff AND minor corrections and streamlining.

Excellent for anyone who hasn't already bought the material previously, but I'll still be picking one up for the fact that it's hardback alone.

I know people have complained (because what else would they do?) but this really is how "old GW" used to operate. Issue new rules via the magazines and then scoop it all up with some errata (or not!) for a collected edition. Welcome to every Compendium that came out between 1984 and 1992!

100% correct unfortunately, I should have known better, they are still robbing bastards.

Aw crap, I never built my Lizardmen team because the plastic Sauri are so weedy. I don't want to repose them *and* sculpt 100 pounds of muscles on each one.

I'd take Chaos or more Nurgle to tide me over, though.

 Rayvon wrote:
I think the speed and the quality of these releases is going downhill fast, got the almanac today and after reading it, it just seems like a petty money grab, totally invalidates the two books they released this year already and im still using metal teams I bought twenty years ago.

I was so excited when this was released, but it seems that GW are cramming in more releases than they can cope with, I see it being an age before I get any new teams, im tempted to actually buy from another company for the first time ever
and just not play in WW.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ekwatts wrote:
At £30 the Almanac is quite good. It's cheaper than both Death Zones together, hardback, and includes all of the White Dwarf stuff AND minor corrections and streamlining.

Excellent for anyone who hasn't already bought the material previously, but I'll still be picking one up for the fact that it's hardback alone.

I know people have complained (because what else would they do?) but this really is how "old GW" used to operate. Issue new rules via the magazines and then scoop it all up with some errata (or not!) for a collected edition. Welcome to every Compendium that came out between 1984 and 1992!

100% correct unfortunately, I should have known better, they are still robbing bastards.

Do you want them to Not publish additional rules anywhere or never do collected editions?

 AduroT wrote:

 Rayvon wrote:
I think the speed and the quality of these releases is going downhill fast, got the almanac today and after reading it, it just seems like a petty money grab, totally invalidates the two books they released this year already and im still using metal teams I bought twenty years ago.

I was so excited when this was released, but it seems that GW are cramming in more releases than they can cope with, I see it being an age before I get any new teams, im tempted to actually buy from another company for the first time ever
and just not play in WW.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ekwatts wrote:
At £30 the Almanac is quite good. It's cheaper than both Death Zones together, hardback, and includes all of the White Dwarf stuff AND minor corrections and streamlining.

Excellent for anyone who hasn't already bought the material previously, but I'll still be picking one up for the fact that it's hardback alone.

I know people have complained (because what else would they do?) but this really is how "old GW" used to operate. Issue new rules via the magazines and then scoop it all up with some errata (or not!) for a collected edition. Welcome to every Compendium that came out between 1984 and 1992!

100% correct unfortunately, I should have known better, they are still robbing bastards.

Do you want them to Not publish additional rules anywhere or never do collected editions?

I think it's more that folk would prefer they make the "collected editions" the actual product, or at the very least acknowledge in advance they will be coming, rather than dripfeeding content over a long period while being purposefully ambiguous as to whether it will appear again later in a better value format for those willing to wait. But you knew that fine well.

 Yodhrin wrote:

I think it's more that folk would prefer they make the "collected editions" the actual product, or at the very least acknowledge in advance they will be coming, rather than dripfeeding content over a long period while being purposefully ambiguous as to whether it will appear again later in a better value format for those willing to wait. But you knew that fine well.

Yup,
I felt like a little drunken rant as well.
Also having not bought any rules for a while, I almost forgot the speed that GW outdates the books, at least i know never to buy death zone again.

Except this is actually "old GW" practices, from back in what many consider to be the glory days.

Anyone here that remembers Rogue Trader will know what I'm talking about. Additional rules came out in White Dwarfs at (as I remember) £1.50 a month. Let's say you got expanded vehicle rules one month, Harlequins the next and maybe cratered terrain rules the month after that, and so on. After spending your hard-earned £1.50's for twelve or more months, a book would be announced as a collected edition of all those rules. Here's the thing: White Dwarf used to print the rules with hole-punch guides so you could chop those pages out and keep them in a ring binder for yourself. Even better, the collected editions and compendiums tended to be EXACT reprints of the White Dwarf sections, typos and all.

And many of us went out and bought those collected editions simply for the sake of convenience.

And here we are in 2017, still doing the exact same thing.

Thing is, I do get the criticism. It's valid. But equally... who cares? If, like me, you've bought the Death Zones, all the White Dwarfs, and you think the Almanac is a rip off on top of all those additional purchases, it's cool! Just don't buy it. You have the rules already.

If, however, like me, you like the idea of collected hardbacks for convenience sake, then buy it.

Case closed, surely?

As for "business practices" and so on, I just can't be bothered getting into it. If this is now the worst GW behaviour we have to complain about (which amounts to "doing things the exact way they used to do things") then I'll take that. I'll also take the Almanac, too, cheers. And next years'.




And please be clear: Are you saying that there are rule changes in the Almanac that invalidate the rules in the Death Zones? Or are you giving an opinion, in which you think the Almanac makes the purchases we made of the Death Zone series of paperback books "invalid" when we bought them through the last twelve months in which there were no other means of acquiring the additional rules contained within them? Because I'm not sure that makes sense. I have no regret buying the Death Zones.

"I don't personally care about it and they were always this bad and you could just not buy it anyway so shattap" is not an argument, it's an opinion and a statement of the bleeding obvious wielded to silence criticism.

No, it's not the most pressing issue facing mankind, yes, there are still children starving in Africa; but if it's such a minor complaint, why then is it so hard for GW to take the tiny, obvious, equally minor step to solve it? Simply state, in advance, that they'll be putting out a compilation once a given number of mini-publications have been released.

That's a rhetorical question of course, it's self-evident why they don't; simple greed. They know that explicit confirmation will reduce sales of the microcontent.

Regardless, getting people to "stop complaining" will hurt nobody more than GW themselves - I've already chosen not to buy any Necromunda rules content whatsoever until and unless they put out a compilation book of the microcontent due over the next year or so, it wouldn't take many folk choosing likewise to stifle the game's potential somewhat.

I really don't understand what the problem is with the compendium.

I bought all the rules as they came out so I'm not going to buy it. If I was only just buying the new blood bowl now then I would buy it. What's the problem?

Now, if it contained a small amount of significant new material while being 90% reprinted stuff that would be really annoying.

 Yodhrin wrote:
"I don't personally care about it and they were always this bad and you could just not buy it anyway so shattap" is not an argument, it's an opinion and a statement of the bleeding obvious wielded to silence criticism.

But that's not the argument he made.

What he said was "If you already have the DZ books and the WD articles, then why is this a problem, as you already have the rules from the Almanac?".

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
"I don't personally care about it and they were always this bad and you could just not buy it anyway so shattap" is not an argument, it's an opinion and a statement of the bleeding obvious wielded to silence criticism.

But that's not the argument he made.

What he said was "If you already have the DZ books and the WD articles, then why is this a problem, as you already have the rules from the Almanac?".

I think we've given too much attention to what isn't really a big deal, but obviously there's going to be people who only bought those things because they thought they needed them to get the rules and then when the compendium comes out they realise they didn't have to do so.

If you didn't know a compendium was coming I can understand being a bit unhappy now, likewise if GW had of announced "Oh Hi Guys, BTW, all these rules are gonna come out later in a compendium" then they probably wouldn't have sold as many copies of all the drip fed publications.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I think we've given too much attention to what isn't really a big deal, but obviously there's going to be people who only bought those things because they thought they needed them to get the rules and then when the compendium comes out they realise they didn't have to do so.

If you didn't know a compendium was coming I can understand being a bit unhappy now, likewise if GW had of announced "Oh Hi Guys, BTW, all these rules are gonna come out later in a compendium" then they probably wouldn't have sold as many copies of all the drip fed publications.

I agree, but I also think that I'm going to treat GW rule releases like I do rumours of conversions from FW kits to GW plastic kits.

Heard a whisper that the Trygon kit was going to be made by GW in plastic, so held off buying a resin Trygon for quite some time. Paid off.
I didn't wait for a plastic Baneblade, despite whispers. I regret that now.
There have been whispers of plastic Warhounds and Thunderhawks for years, so I'll wait.

Now I'm not going to buy GW's little rulebooks because I'm going to wait for the combined version. So when they announce "Hive Bastards 1", which combines Gang War 1, Gang War 2 and the WD articles for Genestealer Cult and Chaos Cult gangs for Newcromunda, I'll avoid it as I'll have the rules already. But when Gang War 3 comes out I'll ignore it, along with Gang War 4, until Hive Bastards 2 is released.


I don't actually think the book'll be called "Hive Bastards", but it'd be fun if it was.

Hmmm... why don't they announce they have gonna release a "complete/gold edition"? For the same reason videogames don't.
What gains the guy that buys the rules when they come out instead of waiting?
Hmm... I don't know... maybe play 1 year before the one that waits for the "Gold Edition"?

This is like videogames. You can buy everything when it comes out, or you can wait for a complete edition or game of the year edition that may or may not come out at a huge discount to buy the game. But if you do, you'll be playing the game 1-2 years after everyone else has played it.

As everything in this life, you have time, or you have money. Is your choice. (I'm in the waiting for cheaper prices group. Only if is something that I REALLY WANT RIGHT NOW I buy things at full price)

 Galas wrote:
Hmmm... why don't they announce they have gonna release a "complete/gold edition"? For the same reason videogames don't.

Wait sorry maybe I missed it, but what do you think is that reason?

I mean, I assume it's because they feel if they announce it, less people will buy it knowing they can get it as a compendium later. They're trying to balance pissing off people who would rather buy a compendium with still making as much money out of them as possible. But you didn't explicitly say that so I'm not sure if you meant there was another reason.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Hmmm... why don't they announce they have gonna release a "complete/gold edition"? For the same reason videogames don't.

Wait sorry maybe I missed it, but what do you think is that reason?

I mean, I assume it's because they feel if they announce it, less people will buy it knowing they can get it as a compendium later. They're trying to balance pissing off people who would rather buy a compendium with still making as much money out of them as possible. But you didn't explicitly say that so I'm not sure if you meant there was another reason.

Yeah, thats exactly the reason.

Option no. 3: GW wasn't sure they were going to release a collected edition.

GW has even stated themselves that they were taken by surprise by the popularity of Blood Bowl. The Death Zones were a good, fairly cost-effective way of getting the rules out there. Sure, paperbacks aren't as durable as hardbacks, but I still have my 2nd edition rules in the booklet form from the box set, and they're doing fine (and the pages were perforated to allow them to be removed and placed in a binder!). But dropping a hardback in February, just over three months after the box set dropped, was never going to happen. The Death Zones were "the plan". Then, when the game, the plastics and the Death Zone books did well, a nice collected edition becomes a very real possibility. There's a cost outlay there that has to be justified, and the 2017 sales figures obviously did that.

There's nothing new in the books: All the development was already done previously, issued in the Death Zones and White Dwarfs. So a huge portion of the lead-in was already done. All they needed to do was send it off to their printers. If you'd wanted all the rules from the Death Zones in a big fat hardback book then, tough, you'd have been waiting this long regardless for the rules themselves to have been even worked on, regardless of the Death Zone releases. But to those of us who felt the campaign rules were important (like me, and literally every BB player I've ever met) they're basically essential, so the Death Zones, back in the months they were released (nearly six months since the last one now? July, I believe?) were essential to me. The Almanac isn't, but it's very nice of GW to have collected the Death Zones and other additional rules up, so it'll be a nice addition.

I really don't understand what the issue is here. As for the allegations of "greed", I'm not so sure. Margins on printed books over miniatures are SLIM for GW. It's why they don't bother with RPGs in-house. They make all of their cash off the figures, not the books. They'll be making some nice pennies off the Almanac, for sure, but it's nothing in comparison to the actual miniatures. Let's all chill, yeah?

 ekwatts wrote:


I really don't understand what the issue is here.

No one said it was a big thing, myself I was just a bit miffed that I fell for GWs gakky rules practices once more was all, even during the rogue trader era I never had two books outdated by another book within a year.
Having the compendiums, all the rules in one place, instead of a pile of magazines or pages in a binder, was something we were happy to pay for and not quite the same thing as invalidating entire books so quickly, not to me anyway.
Il just use my noggin this time and write down the stuff i need from someone elses books until the compendium comes out, and the same with Necromunda and all the other future games.

Wait, are the rules in the Death Zones invalidated by anything in the Almanac? Does the Almanac contradict them on a rules basis?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I mean, I assume it's because they feel if they announce it, less people will buy it knowing they can get it as a compendium later. They're trying to balance pissing off people who would rather buy a compendium with still making as much money out of them as possible. But you didn't explicitly say that so I'm not sure if you meant there was another reason.

We just have to learn to remember that when it comes to new releases.

I fight off the urge to buy new Warner Brothers or Ubisoft games when they come out because I know that 1 year down the track I'll be able to get the game, plus all their money-grubbing DLC/cut-content bs, during a sale, for less than the cost of the original (shell) game.

So bring on Hive Bastards Volume 1 and 2.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I mean, I assume it's because they feel if they announce it, less people will buy it knowing they can get it as a compendium later. They're trying to balance pissing off people who would rather buy a compendium with still making as much money out of them as possible. But you didn't explicitly say that so I'm not sure if you meant there was another reason.

We just have to learn to remember that when it comes to new releases.

I fight off the urge to buy new Warner Brothers or Ubisoft games when they come out because I know that 1 year down the track I'll be able to get the game, plus all their money-grubbing DLC/cut-content bs, during a sale, for less than the cost of the original (shell) game.

So bring on Hive Bastards Volume 1 and 2.

That would be Inglorious Hive Bastards....which might become my Orlock gang name.

I feel like a lot of people are giving GW too much credit on stuff like this.

The reason they don't announce a compendium from day 1 is because 1) they don't know that they're going to make a compendium and 2) they have no idea when said compendium will release if/when they do make one.

It would be like Forgeworld saying "Hey! We got this cool new kit, but just so you know, there is a chance that in the future this will come out in plastic, so, you know, there's that!"

I used to work for GW and left on very pleasant terms, trust me when I say that this stuff isn't on their radar from such an early point that they could even think about announcing a potentiality.

A great example of this (for me) is the 6th (or was it 7th?) edition Iyanden Eldar supplement. I got to talk with Andy Smillie at Adepticon last year and he offered insight into the development process of the Iyanden book supplement (and indicated that a LOT more stuff comes out in the same manner than most people realize). Basically, the Iyanden supplement was Andy being bored at his desk one day and then going around to see if the various departments (artwork, rules, etc...) could throw together some Iyanden stuff because he thought it would be cool. By the end of the week they supplement in draft. A lot of people cried that it was greedy 'ol gee dubs doing a money grab, but it was actually just Andy Smillie not having enough stuff to do one rainy Tuesday.

I dunno. While it may be comforting for some people to think of them as mustache twirling oil tycoons with a toy company, it's actually much more like a bunch of nerds that get to make some cool stuff now and then.

 godswildcard wrote:
I feel like a lot of people are giving GW too much credit on stuff like this.

The reason they don't announce a compendium from day 1 is because 1) they don't know that they're going to make a compendium and 2) they have no idea when said compendium will release if/when they do make one.

It would be like Forgeworld saying "Hey! We got this cool new kit, but just so you know, there is a chance that in the future this will come out in plastic, so, you know, there's that!"

I used to work for GW and left on very pleasant terms, trust me when I say that this stuff isn't on their radar from such an early point that they could even think about announcing a potentiality.

A great example of this (for me) is the 6th (or was it 7th?) edition Iyanden Eldar supplement. I got to talk with Andy Smillie at Adepticon last year and he offered insight into the development process of the Iyanden book supplement (and indicated that a LOT more stuff comes out in the same manner than most people realize). Basically, the Iyanden supplement was Andy being bored at his desk one day and then going around to see if the various departments (artwork, rules, etc...) could throw together some Iyanden stuff because he thought it would be cool. By the end of the week they supplement in draft. A lot of people cried that it was greedy 'ol gee dubs doing a money grab, but it was actually just Andy Smillie not having enough stuff to do one rainy Tuesday.

I dunno. While it may be comforting for some people to think of them as mustache twirling oil tycoons with a toy company, it's actually much more like a bunch of nerds that get to make some cool stuff now and then.

Nail. Head.

Except first off, supplements are in no way the same thing as collections, the first is new content typically but not always accompanying model releases, the latter is existing content repackaged in a way that's both more convenient and cheaper for the customer. There's an obvious motive to withhold information about the latter that doesn't exist for the former, which will do better with hype.

And that happy-clappy wee anecdote doesn't bear much resemblance to the info we get from ex-GW guys who actually worked in the studio, who have been quite frank about "moustache twirling" interference from the moneymen sometimes being a factor.

If you guys really want to sit there and pretend the SG team don't already know fine-well they'll be releasing a compilation of Gang War and WD content in a year or so unless the game totally bombs, have fun, and can I interest you in buying the deeds to Buckingham Palace? All legit and above board I assure you

 ekwatts wrote:
Wait, are the rules in the Death Zones invalidated by anything in the Almanac? Does the Almanac contradict them on a rules basis?

No, nothing is invalidated. It's hyperbole.