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It does though I have never seen it really talked about or played anywhere.

I know here my LOTR community is tiny and is the main game. No one wants to play an unssupported dead game.

Go and ask the GBHL on Facebook about it. You'll get lots of info there. And it's not really unsupported in that sense. It got a core book and expansion and both are cheap and easy enough to find. The models are the same, so you've already got those for all intents and purposes.

LotR has had a cult following for some time with GW/FW acknowledging that recently with the release of new books and box set. Hell, even I am tempted to start a force or two with the new box. I am excited to see how this will develop in the coming year.

Perhaps I am a bit of a naysayer(and I apologize for that), but it feels like the rank and file are a dying breed except for some smaller games. I do wonder if it is because those games tend to require a larger investment than the other games. As much as I found WHFB fascinating(and had a few models) it was still something I never broke into due to how much I felt I needed to invest into it and I get the same feeling with Kings of War and similar products.

I think the issue is that rank and file requires more investment up front to get to a "decent" standard of game that looks good. That or you take a hit on miniature quality or rely on an china factory to pump out stuff cheap.

I personally think Warmaster (or AoS in the same scale) should come back. I just feel that scale of game is far better for showing massive rank and file armies whilst keeping the price down. I also feel that the way terrain appears at that scale just works better for rank and file. 35mm always looks a bit boring on the board for rank and file because of how you've got to have room to wheel and turn armies. That wasn't an issue 20 years ago, but today we are spoilt for terrain and it does make a table more interesting.

 Overread wrote:
I think the issue is that rank and file requires more investment up front to get to a "decent" standard of game that looks good. That or you take a hit on miniature quality or rely on an china factory to pump out stuff cheap.

I personally think Warmaster (or AoS in the same scale) should come back. I just feel that scale of game is far better for showing massive rank and file armies whilst keeping the price down. I also feel that the way terrain appears at that scale just works better for rank and file. 35mm always looks a bit boring on the board for rank and file because of how you've got to have room to wheel and turn armies. That wasn't an issue 20 years ago, but today we are spoilt for terrain and it does make a table more interesting.

I wouldn't mind Warmaster coming back. Space Marine(later known as Epic 40k) is what brought me into this hobby and I would love to see both fantasy and 40k versions of it coming back.

If they DO bring Warmaster back, then it needs something that WFB or AOS doesn't bring. That was part of the charm in Epic, the scale and certain units that were only available for that game BECAUSE of the scale. Warmaster didn't have that.

AoS has loads of "god beasts" and mythic monsters that are far too big to put on a 35mm tabletop game. Plus terrain features plus you can do things like sieges "properly" without beggering yourself on a castle wall in resin/plastic/foam and having to use a van to get it to the game club/shop.

So I think there's loads that AoS can bring to a Warmaster scale game along with the representation of rank and file. The biggest risk would be trying the more dynamic poses that GW is doing in such small sizes. They'd have to redesign many units to a simpler appearance - you would not be having rank and file khinerai standing on their 1 10th of a mm thick tails

Rank and Flank has been dying for a while for a few reasons.

1) you need a lot of "boring weak core tax"

2) because you need a lot of "boring weak core tax" you have to both assemble and paint that. People like low model count. In 5th edition WHFB (late 90s) that was the name of the game: hero hammer and tiny model count armies. 6th ed brought back troops which was great but also caused a lot of people to leave because of "weak core tax" and a lack of desire to buy, collect, assemble, and paint a lot of models when they were happy with the game that let them take 20 or so models and call it a day (my chaos WHFB GT army in the 90s was 11 models for reference)

3) games that rely on movement and positioning fell out of favor long ago for games that instead rely on listbuilding and combo synergies. This started in the late 90s with magic the gathering and started picking ups team when games like warmachine came out in the early 2000s focused on synergies.

Movement and positioning for a lot of people is either more difficult to master than they like or "boring".

Sources: having worked on the team of a few games (mostly in video game industry) there was a lot of research into what the customer wanted most, and over the years those polls created a deep trend that crystalized roughly 2009 or 2010 and has not abated since (if anything the combo / deckbuilding paradigm for games like AOS has only gotten deeper)

I strongly believe the reason why Warmaster has not been heard from is simply that that type of game would not make GW much if any money, despite there being a target audience that would love it.

I feel that target audience (of which I am a part) is just too small for a company like GW to feel its worthwhile.

I think the Titanicus game for 40k is them dipping their toe into tiny scale EPIC to gauge the interest. The interest does not seem very overwhelmingly positive to me.

Didn't AT sell out nearly all of its stock of its starting core box at launch despite it being the most expensive box that GW has ever made, by far. I'd say even if the interest in it isn't as big as 40K or other games, its certainly within, if not exceeding GW's estimated sales rates.

Warmaster might have more luck if GW launched it alongside Creative Arts launching Age of Sigmar Total War.

auticus wrote:
Rank and Flank has been dying for a while for a few reasons.

1) you need a lot of "boring weak core tax"

2) because you need a lot of "boring weak core tax" you have to both assemble and paint that. People like low model count. In 5th edition WHFB (late 90s) that was the name of the game: hero hammer and tiny model count armies. 6th ed brought back troops which was great but also caused a lot of people to leave because of "weak core tax" and a lack of desire to buy, collect, assemble, and paint a lot of models when they were happy with the game that let them take 20 or so models and call it a day (my chaos WHFB GT army in the 90s was 11 models for reference)

3) games that rely on movement and positioning fell out of favor long ago for games that instead rely on listbuilding and combo synergies. This started in the late 90s with magic the gathering and started picking ups team when games like warmachine came out in the early 2000s focused on synergies.

Movement and positioning for a lot of people is either more difficult to master than they like or "boring".

Sources: having worked on the team of a few games (mostly in video game industry) there was a lot of research into what the customer wanted most, and over the years those polls created a deep trend that crystalized roughly 2009 or 2010 and has not abated since (if anything the combo / deckbuilding paradigm for games like AOS has only gotten deeper)

I strongly believe the reason why Warmaster has not been heard from is simply that that type of game would not make GW much if any money, despite there being a target audience that would love it.

I feel that target audience (of which I am a part) is just too small for a company like GW to feel its worthwhile.

I think the Titanicus game for 40k is them dipping their toe into tiny scale EPIC to gauge the interest. The interest does not seem very overwhelmingly positive to me.

In regards to point #3. How well is warmachine doing?

auticus wrote:
T

I would be head over heels in love if they brought LOTR with some rank and flank or made it a game about maneuver and positioning.

Already done.

In early 2009, Games Workshop also released an expansion to the original game called War of the Ring which, according to the company, allows players to emulate the large battles included in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings by streamlining the game system.[2] This expansion differs from the main game in several ways. Firstly, War of the Ring uses a larger number of models but the models are placed on movement trays with two cavalry models or eight infantry models on each. This allows for much easier and quicker movement of large numbers of models at once. These are called "companies". Larger creatures such as Ents and Trolls are treated as separate models and do not use movement trays. Combat within the game is also treated differently. In the original game players both roll dice to determine who wins the fight and then the victor rolls to see how much damage is done. In War of the Ring only dice to determine damage are rolled. Also, in War of the Ring, heroes are treated more like upgrades for their company rather than individual models, as they are in the original game.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_Strategy_Battle_Game#Legions_of_Middle-earth



There is no reason that AoS can't be rank and file, other than that GW doesn't want them to.

War of the ring is a game that is not officially supported and thus deemed "dead" by the community at large.

While it technically exists, it is not a supported game, and thus to many and most people I know or interact with - is not a viable option.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

In regards to point #3. How well is warmachine doing?

Warmachine was doing super great until they did other things to implode their game.

That doesn't change that combo building deckbuilding list synergy games are by and large the dominant lifeform in game design and the marketplace and that currently there are only two known rank and file games. One is historical. The other is Kings of War. Combined their community is a fraction of what AOS is as a whole (or if thats false then there is a massive number of players with no online presence and they actively avoid events)

Where could I find the rules for LOTR? I’m interested to see how it works.

I don't think they are free. However... they just released their new edition and the rules are just in one rulebook. The army lists for LOTR are in another book. The army liists for all of the Hobbit era are in a third book.

auticus wrote:
War of the ring is a game that is not officially supported and thus deemed "dead" by the community at large.

While it technically exists, it is not a supported game, and thus to many and most people I know or interact with - is not a viable option.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

In regards to point #3. How well is warmachine doing?

Warmachine was doing super great until they did other things to implode their game.

That doesn't change that combo building deckbuilding list synergy games are by and large the dominant lifeform in game design and the marketplace and that currently there are only two known rank and file games. One is historical. The other is Kings of War. Combined their community is a fraction of what AOS is as a whole (or if thats false then there is a massive number of players with no online presence and they actively avoid events)

What did warmachine do?

Also in regards to being “dominant” , the battle arena fad has totally “dominated” the game space recently. Does that mean that evey game that uses the battle arena paradigm is automatically considered “good”?

I don't play warmachine as combo games don't interest me, so I can't answer that with any confidence.

However, dominant in this case means that it is what the vast majority of players are playing.

No it doesn't mean its good. A lot of people on these forums will even say they don't play AOS or 40k because they feel the games are good. They play them because they know that their monetary investment wont be wasted and that they can always find games.

Combo synergy games tipped around 2009 to be dominant so we're looking at a solid 10 years now of almost nothing but these types of games being produced because thats what sells right now.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Where could I find the rules for LOTR? I’m interested to see how it works.

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/searchResults?N=803593788+1846657639

I'm still having a hard time giving a damn about the AoS setting, even after reading two of the Realmwars novels. Everything is just too over the top, like Stormcast spending 8 days marching, and then 4 straight days climbing up a solidified waterfall of molten silver just to have several full-scale battles at the top, back-to-back.

The fantastical one-upsmanship of each story and set-piece of the Realms just keeps me from getting comfortable. I would have been far happier if the Old World had been remade into something easier to relate to than godbeasts-as-suns, etc.

Pancakey wrote:

auticus wrote:
War of the ring is a game that is not officially supported and thus deemed "dead" by the community at large.

While it technically exists, it is not a supported game, and thus to many and most people I know or interact with - is not a viable option.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

In regards to point #3. How well is warmachine doing?

Warmachine was doing super great until they did other things to implode their game.

That doesn't change that combo building deckbuilding list synergy games are by and large the dominant lifeform in game design and the marketplace and that currently there are only two known rank and file games. One is historical. The other is Kings of War. Combined their community is a fraction of what AOS is as a whole (or if thats false then there is a massive number of players with no online presence and they actively avoid events)

What did warmachine do?

Also in regards to being “dominant” , the battle arena fad has totally “dominated” the game space recently. Does that mean that evey game that uses the battle arena paradigm is automatically considered “good”?

The writers of Warmachine had an idea about what their game was supposed to be/how it was supposed to work that didn't really line up with the playerbase's, so they ran through an edition change without taking enough feedback that violently disassembled most of the power models from Mk.II and annoyed most of the players.

Then they discovered that Warmachine has this reputation as a hardcore munchkin's wombo-combo game where you run at each other and whoever's card-combo goes off better wins, which is making it hard for them to attract new players.

Then they decided it'd be a great idea to pull their game from distributors and force retailers to deal with them directly, which a lot of small retailers have apparently responded to by dropping the game.

And on top of all that the MTG judge lawsuit led to them pulling the Press Ganger volunteer community organizer program, which left a massive hole in both marketing and event organization.

A grand confluence of things that mean that while the game may have improved in the transition from Mk.II to Mk.III (particularly because of the reintroduction of the community playtesting/feedback platform) the community has largely disintegrated.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I'm still having a hard time giving a damn about the AoS setting, even after reading two of the Realmwars novels. Everything is just too over the top, like Stormcast spending 8 days marching, and then 4 straight days climbing up a solidified waterfall of molten silver just to have several full-scale battles at the top, back-to-back.

The fantastical one-upsmanship of each story and set-piece of the Realms just keeps me from getting comfortable. I would have been far happier if the Old World had been remade into something easier to relate to than godbeasts-as-suns, etc.

Fanboy from day one and even I agree with your Realmgate Wars assesment, but...

The Realmgate Wars fell flat for many reasons, some of which you list and I think they’ve largely course corrected. I believe “City of Secrets” was the response to that negative feedback and I look at that novel and its continuing series as a new start of Age of Sigmar in terms of how they presented the lore.

Also, if you are up for it, definitely checkout Hallowed Knights: Black Pyramid. 3/4ths set in just one “normal” city, with Stormcast, Collegiate Arcane, Dwarven Death God(not Nagash) worshipping Dispossesed, Ironweld Arsenal and various Freeguild with different dispositions and cultures (one of the regiments or an officer in the regiment worship Sotek of all things) :


Its brutal street by street, building by building cityfighting, and a far cry from the over the top Realmgate Wars battles. Its also very much diverse cast of characters(many of them female) , furthering it even more from Realmgate Wars stories which were Stormcast Sausagefests. I think its been a very concious decision to tone down alot of initial craziness, as well as giving non SCE their time in the sun.

There is still some off the wall stuff in “Spear of Shadows”, but even that novel is mostly focused on the interactions and tribulations of the various parties searching for the Eight Lamentations. The setting has some stuff that would never work in WHFB, but its never distracting in the Eight Lamentations series, like it was in RGWs.

I agree the Realmgate novels have their problems; the other issue being that because they are so heavily focused on the combat the characters get little room to be, well, characters.

Personally I found Pestilens book a great read and did a battle setup that wasn't all about Sigmar really well. Then the new Novellas have really opened up about other factions and settings and fleshed things out well. I think the writers were almost as lost with AoS as the gamers early on but I think they've caught up now and have a better grasp on the settings and peoples outside of Stormcast.

The only thing lacking from the lore now I feel is a stronger sense of geography of the realms and timelines. 2.0 has brought some maps with it for some realms and the major events do string together. I hope that at some point GW starts up a proper "time" period possibly a few hundred years after the Realmgate Wars - so that the world has settled after the big push against Chaos and we can focus on peoples and places and see the worlds play out their stories.


I think the other big trick missed was the lack of big stories of the mythic and chaos era. GW skipped two whole eras of the world and gave us one after the fall of many civilizations. That said there are several of those stories right in the first volume of the new Inferno.

Even though I don't play I have nothing against the setting apart from initial shock. The literature is on par with late whfb efforts, i.e a mixed bag. I like that there are more audio books now so I can listen while painting. And besides being up down in quality my largest issue is that sometimes the prefix obsession when it comes to weapons and armour grates on my nerves. Thats one thing whfb had going for it, an axe was an axe not a "starfalldestroyeraxe" or whatever. For some reason it feels like a tacky commercial and not in funny over the top way

I was looking into the game a bit more and something that I noticed disappointed me. It is obvious that Stormcast are the "main" faction and all other factions exist only as foils to them. They are obviously intended as the Space Marines of AoS in all respects, and I think that that is unhealthy for the game (not GWs bottom line, which I do not care about). I stopped playing 40K because of this and it puts me off playing AoS if I know my faction will always be second rate foils to the poster boys.

Actually right now besides their model count, Stormcast are doing fairly poorly for a modern and poster-child army. Balance wise and in the competitive scene they are not ranking as high as many other armies. I think GW has taken great pains to avoid Stormcast being overpowered and too easy to play to avoid having them dominate in the same way that Marines do in 40K.

I think they realise that a poster army works well for giving a central story for their casual marketing focus; but that they mustn't bleed too much power in to the army otherwise it dominates too heavily and they can end up with one army pulling the rest along. Makes good sales, but isn't actaully healthy for the company.


The only thing stormcast really have going for them at present is a really well fleshed out army for a brand new force. Many people are hoping that this year SC shift back a gear and dont' get any new models or only a hero or two - even within SC there's not a huge amount of room for many more infantry style models before they are tripping over each other in what they offer on the tabletop.

I really fundamentally disagree, I think Space Marines are not generally the most overpowered army in 40K, they tend to be middle of the road and playable but they do not tend to be the top. The way they dominate is not through gameplay power, it is through:
1. Always being in the starters.
2. Having the most extensive model selection and plastic range.
3. Always getting a new army book update promptly with each edition.
4. Always featuring in promotional materials, and always having fiction told from their POV.
5. Being the central "badasses" in the fiction.

So I think that you talking about army power is misunderstanding my point, and my issue with the idea of a poster army at all. Fantasy never had much of a "poster" army, it had a few ones that were more favoured (Empire, Orcs and Goblins, High Elves, and Chaos) but generally the game was much more diverse and interesting due to not having one faction be designed as the "main" faction. When I play against space marines in 40K I feel like a bit part in their heroic story rather than part of an equal story. I think Stormcast are in some ways even more extreme than this due to the nature of AoS factions - they are massively overdeveloped in terms of options and new releases compared to other factions which have been splintered into irrelevance or released with a very shallow model variety compared to the Stormcast.

Maybe they will fix this but I spent years hoping GW would fix the dominance of Space Marine armies to no avail so I think it just part of their business model and obviously works well for them.

Stormcast may not be winning every GT but in the casual scene / non tournament pickup scene they are most definitely on easy mode and are frustrating to play against. Additionally the part about them being front and center to everything is very accurate, and while I learned to deal with that from 40k, it is something that generates some people's dislike and they don't get involved because of it.

WHereas WHFB did not have any space marine race that was front and center over everything.

I will interject here to note that I gave AoS an honest try, including buying a Stormcast army, and the degree to which Stormcast are easy-mode is a major reason why I'm not still playing. AoS feels like it's gotten past "we can determine who's won by reading the army lists" and into "we can determine who's won by reading the name of both army books" territory, at least for pick-up play.

Reason I never bought into AOS or WHFB (yet) is because the 40K universe is enough for me, and by being in the distant future it becomes something special and not too derivative of Tolkein's middle earth. Somehow 40K feels fantasy enough...the human imperium is reminiscent of the Spanish Inquistion, Witchfinder Generals and Roman empire. The Eldar as obviously the elves and the Necrons are the undead. The large chaos demons are probably Balrogs...

By leaving it with 40K its easier to explore other franchises for serious fantasy with games such as Frostgrave and of course the D&D games such as Castle Ravenloft. And then there is GW's own Middle Earth game.

My brother aquired a copy of the older ROTK rule book and we've been kicking around the idea of some monster/adventure themed games. The Shelob mission seems good fun!

That said, I wouldn't mind getting Storm Strike. Just like 40K's First Strike, there is a lot of value in that box! Who knows...

Stormcast are pretty easy-mode until one gets to top end competitive where their lack of finesse hurts them rather than helps. Like ogors the army is easy to play well but has tactical limits in capability; the main strength is being good in a straight-up fight but at the high end the combos push the specific builds used above that. Retributors are essentially the Stormcast meta in a nutshell.

That said the sacrosanct stuff is undercosted by a fair margin and does decently.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

That said the sacrosanct stuff is undercosted by a fair margin and does decently.

This is actually what turned me away again from AoS
GW just did not learned from mistakes in the past and just making the shiny new models straight up better than the old one leading to an army with a lot of units but most of them doing the same but better instead of giving the player some options