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"Snakes and ladders" huh? Glad you're not pushing your personal biases onto unsuspecting Total Warhammer crossovers What you're writing is what YOU think of AoS, not what someone coming from TWH (and again, we have no idea how many would even if WHFB still existed) would necessarily or even likely think.

edit: Oh, and saying that they'll view it "in the same way as WFB fans"... so I guess some will like it and some will hate it, and we have no idea how many are in each camp then? Just like WFB fans.

And of course, the scientific approach of calling those who enjoy AoS 'GW Fanboys'.....

True. Equating it to Snakes and ladders is probably giving AoS too much credit. Snakes and ladders is neither unbalanced or pay-to win. And it's a lot cheaper to buy the "army" for it.


We've all had these discussions far to many times though. A major misconception is that the alternatives was to either keep WHFB exactly as it was or just say feth it all to the game and lore people had loved for decades and release AoS. I think no one disagrees that WHFB was in a death spiral, (which was due to the incompetence and neglect of GW, who seemingly had decided to scrap it all, years ago).


The argument is that a better alternative would have been to put the resources put into AoS to instead revitalize WHFB and enthuse the fanbase, instead of throwing everythin in the trash and start anew with just the hardcore of the most sycophantic of fanboys remaining.

Apart from indicating AoS has climbed out of the hole it found itself in at launch, the comparasions of 5% and 30% revenue doesn't mean much if we don't know which periods is compared. If the alledged 5% of WHFB is during the months after the end times when nothing was released and not a word said of the future whilst the 30% AoS is a period of almost exclusively AoS releases; that's a lot less impressive than if the 5% WHFB is from the height of the End times compared to a 30% AoS during a time of equal or more 40K releases.


Maybe GW has indeed managed to get themselves new customers to offset the loss of the old. The "tragedy" is that they could have had them both.

It's probably best for the hobby at large though that the people tired of GW's bs got the kick in the behind needed to seek out something else. And I'm sure there's at least someone that'll get pulled in by AoS who wouldn't have been interested in a competently made WHFB and can then eventually graduate to a more rewarding game.

 Zywus wrote:
True. Equating it to Snakes and ladders is probably giving AoS too much credit. Snakes and ladders is neither unbalanced or pay-to win. And it's a lot cheaper to buy the "army

Stopped reading there obviously, as I imagine most people would. If you actually wanted to discuss I assume you wouldn't intro with a troll. But maybe you just want those who agree with you to read your posts?

You and Vermis both assume that AoS is a gak game and that every sensible person, or non-GW fanboy, will agree with you. Having that as the jumping-off point for a discussion is not great. Notice how other people like Azrael13 manage to discuss without doing this?

 shinros wrote:


Problem is GW is a public company and if what hulk said is true and my manager who I am good friends with has also told me tactical's out sold the whfb range of course said company will do something about it. In my opinion by large they don't care about our feelings or if some people liked reading the story on the internet(they are not actually customers GW don't care about them at all).

This is demonstrably untrue (with a little bit of inference)

Using North American sales (which anecdotally leaned heaviest to 40k vs Fantasy - compared to Europe as an example) in 2010 the Space Marine tactical box made $106,278 and the High Elf spearman box made $29,291 we can see that SM Tacticals were nowhere near outselling all of WHFB, if elf spearman sold almost 1/3 the amount of the tactical box.

Where are you getting that data from?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Where are you getting that data from?

The filing in the Chapterhouse law case. There was a file posted that was later taken down as it contained sensitive information ( GW sales numbers for specific items)

 Mymearan wrote:
"Snakes and ladders" huh?

It's a different game that only shares the aspects of moving playing pieces across a board according to a set of rules, and it has nowhere near the inherent tactical complexity of chess. ("My model has all these rules on it's warscroll" doesn't count) Seems a pretty good analogy.

Edit: though yeah, what Zywus said.

What you're writing is what YOU think of AoS, not what someone coming from TWH (and again, we have no idea how many would even if WHFB still existed) would necessarily or even likely think.

edit: Oh, and saying that they'll view it "in the same way as WFB fans"... so I guess some will like it and some will hate it, and we have no idea how many are in each camp then? Just like WFB fans.

I didn't say no-one would go for it. But imagine you've never looked at GW in your life, and you're coming fresh from TW, which is about moving big blocks in big armies, in this case set in the gritty, finite, (relatively) down to earth Warhammer world. Then you go to GW to look for the corresponding tabletop game, which should have actual physical representations of the armies and troops you've become so familiar with on your monitor. What you've got instead is a game apparently about big golden ogre-knights with hand-cannons who fight in infinite, magical, planet-of-hats dimensions, with units that just seem to mill about in a group, and rules that depend less on pulling off flank charges and more who's brought the best warscrolls and battalions. Hey, where'd they put the Tomb Kings? Where are the high elf spearmen?

Do you honestly think that of those TW gamers who go looking, the majority are going to instantly squee and clasp that game to their breast?

Ashitaka wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Where are you getting that data from?

The filing in the Chapterhouse law case. There was a file posted that was later taken down as it contained sensitive information ( GW sales numbers for specific items)

Fair enough (in case of doubt, I always ask for citation on such odd nuggets - it's never personal)


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 Vermis wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:
"Snakes and ladders" huh?

It's a different game that only shares the aspects of moving playing pieces across a board according to a set of rules, and it has nowhere near the inherent tactical complexity of chess. ("My model has all these rules on it's warscroll" doesn't count) Seems a pretty good analogy.

What you're writing is what YOU think of AoS, not what someone coming from TWH (and again, we have no idea how many would even if WHFB still existed) would necessarily or even likely think.

edit: Oh, and saying that they'll view it "in the same way as WFB fans"... so I guess some will like it and some will hate it, and we have no idea how many are in each camp then? Just like WFB fans.

I didn't say no-one would go for it. But imagine you've never looked at GW in your life, and you're coming fresh from TW, which is about moving big blocks in big armies, in this case set in the gritty, finite, (relatively) down to earth Warhammer world. Then you go to GW to look for the corresponding tabletop game, which should have actual physical representations of the armies and troops you've become so familiar with on your monitor. What you've got instead is a game apparently about big golden ogre-knights with hand-cannons who fight in infinite, magical, planet-of-hats dimensions, with units that just seem to mill about in a group, and rules that depend less on pulling off flank charges and more who's brought the best warscrolls and battalions. Hey, where'd they put the Tomb Kings? Where are the high elf spearmen?

Do you honestly think that of those TW gamers who go looking, the majority are going to instantly squee and clasp that game to their breast?

Spoken like someone who's never actually got the hang of AoS.

Flanks might not be formal. Formation marching may not be compulsory. But they're very much there, and in greater variety.

I'd point out that people that zoom in on fights in TW will see fights that look much more similar to aos. Even when they move, formations, charging it looks more similar to AoS. Honestly there is exactly one army that exists for AoS thay doesn't have a TW equivalent and that's Stormcast. The rest right now will come out at some point over the course of the 3 games.

Honestly having been the guy selling 40k to people coming in from the video game AoS is going to go over much better than fantasy would have.

Ashitaka wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Where are you getting that data from?

The filing in the Chapterhouse law case. There was a file posted that was later taken down as it contained sensitive information ( GW sales numbers for specific items)

That's very interesting information thanks for the correction.

 Vermis wrote:
Hey, where'd they put the Tomb Kings? Where are the high elf spearmen?

And someone fresh from TW:W wouldn't even know what Tomb Kings and High Elf spearman were given they're not in the game. Assuming that TW:W is their only exposure to the Warhammer world of course.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:And of course, the scientific approach of calling those who enjoy AoS 'GW Fanboys'.....

Scientific? You wouldn't be putting words in my mouth, MDG? If you want to go there, it's more scientific than talking about things being 'cool to hate'.

'Cos with the amount of mental gymnastics I've seen to explain why WFB deserved to die (as opposed to being properly reworked), why four pages of non-rules buried under reams of special rules in warscrolls and battalions is much better (are those flank attacks and marches built into the game, or are they loopholes from vague core rules, or special rules intended to make you feel better about your purchases?), why GW is great again because it has a youtube channel and it's four quid per stormcast now, and why a little upwards waver in flat sales figures means AoS is the saviour of GW, I have to think that I'm not the only one showing off a lot of biases.


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TonyL707 wrote:And someone fresh from TW:W wouldn't even know what Tomb Kings and High Elf spearman were given they're not in the game. Assuming that TW:W is their only exposure to the Warhammer world of course.

Hulksmash wrote:Honestly there is exactly one army that exists for AoS thay doesn't have a TW equivalent and that's Stormcast. The rest right now will come out at some point over the course of the 3 games.

By the way, Hulksmash, the fact that you had to sell them on 40K doesn't mean anything? TW gamers may buy into a game that isn't Warhammer, but it's a far cry if Warhammer's what they came looking for in the first place.

 Hulksmash wrote:
You're adorable. I've been in this thread a fair bit.

Just to be clear it's not that I can't handle a contrary opinion. It's when you're willfully pushing against reason just to stand on your soap box of AoS not selling that I tend to roll my eyes. It's not to dissimilar to a political argument honestly.

Thing is even in 2002-2003 I SAW the numbers for sales for WFB. At the time the Space Marine line alone outsold the entire WFB range. I have it on good authority with people I trust that were still involved with GW in 2010 that the range had actually dropped below the Tactical Squad box sales. It was in a single digit percentage performance.

.

This doesnt fit very well with those figures from the Chapterhouse case , someones making stuff up

@Vermis

People see a video game. It's called Dawn of War but it's got the brand Warhammer 40,000. They came looking for that game and the depth of what you needed and needed to do to play that game put off 50-60% of the people that came into my store at least and this was in 2002ish during the first DoW game.

Now imagine the same thing for Fantasy in 8th edition. It won't bring people in. You might get 1 in 1000 of the people that play the game to start Fantasy 8th. Especially considering it wasn't really being played. Now AoS has a much lower bar, similar to then 4th edition 40k but with FREE RULES. I can tell you right now which one would grow. And simply saying, as stated before, the game is basically the campaign that Archaeon won and now there are pocket kingdoms across several realms warring with the victorious Chaos is pretty easy.

I'd also dial back on claiming people are saying AoS is a savior of GW. I haven't seen a single person in this thread say that. What they have said is what GW has said. That AoS is contributing to their increased profits and is doing better than Fantasy has for years (even years with active releases). The mental gymnastics are coming from people who disliked it on release and still dislike it trying to show it's doing poorly so bring back WFB!


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dalezzz wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
You're adorable. I've been in this thread a fair bit.

Just to be clear it's not that I can't handle a contrary opinion. It's when you're willfully pushing against reason just to stand on your soap box of AoS not selling that I tend to roll my eyes. It's not to dissimilar to a political argument honestly.

Thing is even in 2002-2003 I SAW the numbers for sales for WFB. At the time the Space Marine line alone outsold the entire WFB range. I have it on good authority with people I trust that were still involved with GW in 2010 that the range had actually dropped below the Tactical Squad box sales. It was in a single digit percentage performance.

.

This doesnt fit very well with those figures from the Chapterhouse case , someones making stuff up

I can say for a fact the 2002-2003 numbers are correct. But I don't think anyone would argue that Fantasy was being outsold by the entire Marine Range on it's own. As for the Chapterhouse case and actual numbers maybe they were telling people it was below the tactical box to get them to push harder. I never claimed to see the numbers for 2010 so I'm good with people providing the actual numbers. Either way Fantasy was pretty heavily under performing even when it was getting new armies (TK's and Ogres) so they decided to reboot when it hit low numbers even with support.

morgoth wrote:

Actually they have AoS to offer these customers, a game which has shown it's easy to pick up.

So a game with a different setting, different aesthetic and even different names for nearly everything? You may as well claim that 40k is a good tabletop surrogate of Starcraft.

Bringing back 8th would not be workable, mostly because the game as it stood was utter gak, but bringing back the Old World would be perfectly feasible. I would fully support a return of Warmaster.

The problem with WHFB is that its rules were terrible and the model count was inexorably expanding (much like 40k...) so people simply gave up on it. It wasn't a core game for 30 years for nothing.

Also anyone who claims that exposure to a potential customer base of 1.3 million+ people, most if not all of whom are your target demographic, isn't worth capitalising on clearly doesn't know what they are talking about.

I also want to know when will the Island of Blood kit will go to the Best seller list. It had 3 reprints and sold out quite fast compared to others.

Or it will damned to be a second liner due to its WHFB aesthetic.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

morgoth wrote:

Actually they have AoS to offer these customers, a game which has shown it's easy to pick up.

So a game with a different setting, different aesthetic and even different names for nearly everything? You may as well claim that 40k is a good tabletop surrogate of Starcraft.

Bringing back 8th would not be workable, mostly because the game as it stood was utter gak, but bringing back the Old World would be perfectly feasible. I would fully support a return of Warmaster.

The problem with WHFB is that its rules were terrible and the model count was inexorably expanding (much like 40k...) so people simply gave up on it. It wasn't a core game for 30 years for nothing.

Also anyone who claims that exposure to a potential customer base of 1.3 million+ people, most if not all of whom are your target demographic, isn't worth capitalising on clearly doesn't know what they are talking about.

The old world setting actually fits pretty well inside the current setting. I wouldn't say the aesthetic is that different either. Orks brutes would fit right in in WFB next to Ard Boyz and other orks. Same with the new Sylvaneth models. Fireslayers are literally slightly modified dwarf slayers. The Khorne models fit right in as well. So again we basically come back to Stormcast since that's a new army and one that people who wanted WFB to stay state could have been brought into WFB without much issue if Sigmar made his own warriors in the Old World. Name thing sure I'll give you but it's the same stuff. Not that I would be against the return of Warmaster. I think that'd be great!

Speaking as someone who has never played Warhammer Fantasy Battle or Age of Sigmar, some sort of Hybrid system would interest me.

Lord of the Rings did it quite well. You had a skirmish system (SBG) with individual models.But you also had a mass battle system (War of the Ring). You would simply group miniatures up together in movement trays for the mass battle system.

WOTR had a lot of promise and it really deserved a second edition, or at the very least an updated living rulebook sort of thing/ IMO it failed to sell well because 1. It was released towards the end of the LOTR bubble period and 2. It became prohibitively expensive.


They should do something similar for Age of Sigmar. Repurpose the old WOTR movement trays and create a mass battle system so AOS players can use their existing collections for larger games with a more in depth mass battle style tactics (blocks, flanking etc).

 Hulksmash wrote:

The old world setting actually fits pretty well inside the current setting.

Remind me where Altdorf is, how about Barak Varr, Salzenmund, Lorien? Its a different setting.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:


They should do something similar for Age of Sigmar. Repurpose the old WOTR movement trays and create a mass battle system so AOS players can use their existing collections for larger games with a more in depth mass battle style tactics (blocks, flanking etc).

will that work with everything being on 32mm bases now? Or is that just those fantasy marines on that base size?

A lot went to 32mm but they could make new trays. I'd be down for something like this. I only like LOTR when we got WOTR which was excellent.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:

The old world setting actually fits pretty well inside the current setting.

Remind me where Altdorf is, how about Barak Varr, Salzenmund, Lorien? Its a different setting.

It's also a far larger setting - near infinite one could say. There's a plain in the Realm of Ghur which is said to be so mind bogglingly vast, you could not cross it in a lifetime.

The Old World was cool. And will always remain cool. So cool, I've gone back to my Slayer novels yet again.

But the Old World was very limited in scope. To use your examples, we knew all about Altdorf, Barak Varr, Salzenmunda and Lorien. The scale of the setting didn't allow for much change at all.

AoS doesn't have that restriction - but if you give City of Secrets and the Hammerhal short story a read, you'll see they are very much Old World in feel.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:


They should do something similar for Age of Sigmar. Repurpose the old WOTR movement trays and create a mass battle system so AOS players can use their existing collections for larger games with a more in depth mass battle style tactics (blocks, flanking etc).

will that work with everything being on 32mm bases now? Or is that just those fantasy marines on that base size?

Good point, they might have to design larger trays.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

But the Old World was very limited in scope. To use your examples, we knew all about Altdorf, Barak Varr, Salzenmunda and Lorien. The scale of the setting didn't allow for much change at all.

It was an entire world, that's more than enough scope for anything you want.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

But the Old World was very limited in scope. To use your examples, we knew all about Altdorf, Barak Varr, Salzenmunda and Lorien. The scale of the setting didn't allow for much change at all.

It was an entire world, that's more than enough scope for anything you want.

Apparently, if you cannot sink entire continents, blow up a bunch of capital cities, exterminate entire races or remove planets, the stories are meaningless.

It's a bit weird, since there's millions upon billions of fictional stories written that takes place in our own real world, where there doesn't even exist simple elves or orcs at all. If one was cynical, one could call that whole "limited scope" of the old world spiel as nothing but excuses by lazy and incompetent/disinterested writers, being parroted by apologists searching for justifications for AoS.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

But the Old World was very limited in scope. To use your examples, we knew all about Altdorf, Barak Varr, Salzenmunda and Lorien. The scale of the setting didn't allow for much change at all.

It was an entire world, that's more than enough scope for anything you want.

During its entire run Arabay was touched on but Tombkings really sorted that out,

Cathay was wishlisted. But even 20 years of GW listening to its customer base didn't see that area explored.

We got the misty island of Albion for a campaign setting.

WHFB is probably not coming back. GW may relent and produce an anniversary rulebook or create a campaign for within the AOS world but its marginal.

If I want rank and file I can load up TW:W

 Zywus wrote:

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

But the Old World was very limited in scope. To use your examples, we knew all about Altdorf, Barak Varr, Salzenmunda and Lorien. The scale of the setting didn't allow for much change at all.

It was an entire world, that's more than enough scope for anything you want.

Apparently, if you cannot sink entire continents, blow up a bunch of capital cities, exterminate entire races or remove planets, the stories are meaningless.

It's a bit weird, since there's millions upon billions of fictional stories written that takes place in our own real world, where there doesn't even exist simple elves or orcs at all. If one was cynical, one could call that whole "limited scope" of the old world spiel as nothing but excuses by lazy and incompetent/disinterested writers, being parroted by apologists searching for justifications for AoS.

The gyst of the argument is "DON'T TALK gak ABOUT GW!!!!!" There were at least three continents that hadn't been thoroughly explored. NEW RACES could have been introduced at any time. No, this was more about Chaos winning, and that stupid bugbear wrapped around every crevice of WFB and 40K's necks.

Seem to be at the bottom of a Dogpile....not entirely sure why?

 Hulksmash wrote:

It gets old reading over and over again from the same posters pedantic statements about the size of sales or trying to cut down how well AoS is actually doing. You and the same others are correct. We don't know the exact numbers that AoS accounts for. However we do know that GW is saying it's selling better than Fantasy has in years. We are seeing what looks to be the first year that they are going to profit and actually INCREASED unit sales. We're seeing large events for AoS showing up all over the place in the US and UK. That's non-anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is whatever people want it to be honestly. Your insistence on being contrary just to be contrary do get wearisome.

Thing is, I never actually said I thought AOS wasn't selling did I?

Initially, I highlighted how an unqualified statement in an editorial part of GW's financial statement cannot be taken at face value in response to Motski's post.

You took my aribitrary number of 5% for illustrative purposes as some sort of statement of belief on my part as to the current sales revenue. (Yeah, you said you were joking about that. No, I'm not buying it.) You then made the sweeping "Jesus Christ" post that prompted this exchange.

I responded with a variety of other things that have gone on sale this year which could explain the turnaround without being contingent on AOS dramatically improving at all.

You then take this as some sort of assault on the idea that AOS could be anything other than an unmitigated success.

So, to be clear - I have no issue with the idea that AOS is doing well. I can understand where one can get this idea from, and agree it's perfectly logical. Where I do have a problem is with you, or anyone else, trying to take a bunch of circumstantial, anecdotal and unqualified 'evidence' and trying to present those as some sort of self evident truth because it fits their opinion.

I would have exactly the same issue if someone was trying to argue AOS was still somewhat of a bit player and that it was solely down to 40K releases.

We do not have the necessary information to prove either view, and there is a good basis for either as a hypothetical argument.

TLDR: Your premise is fine, but your ability to support it with evidence isn't, don't speak in absolutes when you've no means of backing it up.