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Great news! This is set about 150 years before the rediscovery of Blood Bowl, and therefore is in a parallel dimension where The End Times never happened.

At least, that's how I'm going to think of it!

(Map looks awesome. Orcs with a "c")

 Matrindur wrote:
Did they ever actually say it is going to be a normal 28mm game? Could it turn out to be something like Epic was for 40k? The smaller scale would both make it need less sculpting work so possible to have more armies and wouldn't make it as expensive as you would need to have big armies

Maybe not as small as Epic was but still smaller than 28mm?

As discussed multiple times before, the entire reason for this venture is to get WHFB veterans to "return to the fold". Some things will be different of course (see also: Blood Bowl, Necromunda, AI), so that GW can sell old players new things, but as radical a departure as a completely different scale for a game of this scope is unlikely to either be welcomed by the old players or be a commercial success, and GW cares at least about one of those. Some newer players may like what they see and buy in to it, but I don't imagine many people who witnessed the original destruction of their beloved setting will be enamoured by something along the lines of a completely different scale.


As for the latest news, well, it's good to be able to put a date on things at least, given the lengthy earlier discussion about who the names of the Empire characters referred to and what that may mean for the setting. The current maps still imply a potentially reduced setting (literally the Old World rather than the whole Warhammer Fantasy scope), with the new High Elf presence near Bretonnia a convenient excuse for their inclusion. From a production point of view, this means they could first focus on a limited number of factions, fill in the map, and then expand outwards after enough of the ranges are made and seeing how successful the game is anyway. Tomb Kings, Dark Elves, Ogres and Lizardmen may have to wait a while, although the latter two are still doing okay in terms of the miniature ranges' survival into AoS (and when did the Lizards get a foothold in Albion, which is clearly depicted on the map?); then again, Tomb Kings were mentioned in the first announcements' memes several times, due to which I'm not sure if they would in fact be excluded as such.

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:

 Matrindur wrote:
Did they ever actually say it is going to be a normal 28mm game? Could it turn out to be something like Epic was for 40k? The smaller scale would both make it need less sculpting work so possible to have more armies and wouldn't make it as expensive as you would need to have big armies

Maybe not as small as Epic was but still smaller than 28mm?

As discussed multiple times before, the entire reason for this venture is to get WHFB veterans to "return to the fold". Some things will be different of course (see also: Blood Bowl, Necromunda, AI), so that GW can sell old players new things, but as radical a departure as a completely different scale for a game of this scope is unlikely to either be welcomed by the old players or be a commercial success, and GW cares at least about one of those. Some newer players may like what they see and buy in to it, but I don't imagine many people who witnessed the original destruction of their beloved setting will be enamoured by something along the lines of a completely different scale.

As for the latest news, well, it's good to be able to put a date on things at least, given the lengthy earlier discussion about who the names of the Empire characters referred to and what that may mean for the setting. The current maps still imply a potentially reduced setting (literally the Old World rather than the whole Warhammer Fantasy scope), with the new High Elf presence near Bretonnia a convenient excuse for their inclusion. From a production point of view, this means they could first focus on a limited number of factions, fill in the map, and then expand outwards after enough of the ranges are made and seeing how successful the game is anyway. Tomb Kings, Dark Elves, Ogres and Lizardmen may have to wait a while, although the latter two are still doing okay in terms of the miniature ranges' survival into AoS (and when did the Lizards get a foothold in Albion, which is clearly depicted on the map?); then again, Tomb Kings were mentioned in the first announcements' memes several times, due to which I'm not sure if they would in fact be excluded as such.

I think the Lizardmen "returned" to Albion in Dark Shadows and some of the older ruins are part of the Great Work I think . As a (very) old Warhammer player - its all very exciting

Dark Elves raid everyone anyway so thats not a issue. Ogres can go back to being mainly mercs for hire if nothing else.

The specific names of the High Elf stuff might be new, but them being present in Bretonnia is far from new.

 Kanluwen wrote:
The specific names of the High Elf stuff might be new, but them being present in Bretonnia is far from new.

Were they still there that late - I thought they mainly relied on Marienburg by this point in the Old World?

 Eiríkr wrote:
My only wish for this is for the Bretonnia range to return unchanged.

I'd be happy with just the Men at Arms really.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Either TOW is a much bigger project than anyone suspects, or it's exactly as small as people previously thought and all the map stuff is just background fluff, or they'll be bringing back the classic models.

I approximate the chances of GW bringing back old plastics at just below death by meteor.

Beyond the fact that this whole WFB revival thing is an excuse to sell models, and new models sell better than old ones, there's the issue of many of the old moulds likely being damaged beyond usefulness or outright scrapped. The masters might not exist, and if they do, GW would have to digitize and clean them up for new mould cutting, at which point designing new stuff is likely a better solution anyway.

In truth, I just want new Empire State Troop kits. I have hundreds of the old ones.

 His Master's Voice wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Either TOW is a much bigger project than anyone suspects, or it's exactly as small as people previously thought and all the map stuff is just background fluff, or they'll be bringing back the classic models.

I approximate the chances of GW bringing back old plastics at just below death by meteor.

Beyond the fact that this whole WFB revival thing is an excuse to sell models, and new models sell better than old ones, there's the issue of many of the old moulds likely being damaged beyond usefulness or outright scrapped. The masters might not exist, and if they do, GW would have to digitize and clean them up for new mould cutting, at which point designing new stuff is likely a better solution anyway.

In truth, I just want new Empire State Troop kits. I have hundreds of the old ones.

I seem to recall people saying the same about Sisters, Squats, Bloodbowl, Necromunda, Adeptus Titanicus

 Mr Morden wrote:

 His Master's Voice wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Either TOW is a much bigger project than anyone suspects, or it's exactly as small as people previously thought and all the map stuff is just background fluff, or they'll be bringing back the classic models.

I approximate the chances of GW bringing back old plastics at just below death by meteor.

Beyond the fact that this whole WFB revival thing is an excuse to sell models, and new models sell better than old ones, there's the issue of many of the old moulds likely being damaged beyond usefulness or outright scrapped. The masters might not exist, and if they do, GW would have to digitize and clean them up for new mould cutting, at which point designing new stuff is likely a better solution anyway.

In truth, I just want new Empire State Troop kits. I have hundreds of the old ones.

I seem to recall people saying the same about Sisters, Squats, Bloodbowl, Necromunda, Adeptus Titanicus

You're making his point. They didn't just bring back/re-issue the old stuff, they replaced it all (except Squats, beyond a one-off or two) with completely new rules and models.
Even with a different scale in the case of AT.

 Mr Morden wrote:
I seem to recall people saying the same about Sisters, Squats, Bloodbowl, Necromunda, Adeptus Titanicus

I was talking about the models. All of the things mentioned got brand new plastic crack, A to Z.

Like, I'd love to get my hands on the last iteration of Knights of the Realm, but I can't see those kits coming back. Ever.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
The specific names of the High Elf stuff might be new, but them being present in Bretonnia is far from new.

Were they still there that late - I thought they mainly relied on Marienburg by this point in the Old World?

They might not have had full settlements there, but it would not be beyond belief for them to reclaim old citadels for the duration of the War against Chaos.

Agreed, if GW did epic scale again for fantasy they'd use AoS - the most current game - rather than Old World. Heck with godbeasts and the like AoS would actually work really well with warmasters scale.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
The specific names of the High Elf stuff might be new, but them being present in Bretonnia is far from new.

Were they still there that late - I thought they mainly relied on Marienburg by this point in the Old World?

They might not have had full settlements there, but it would not be beyond belief for them to reclaim old citadels for the duration of the War against Chaos.

The article talks about treaty trading ports so I think they are shifting things a bit - be interesting to see what else they bring in or not.

 Overread wrote:
Agreed, if GW did epic scale again for fantasy they'd use AoS - the most current game - rather than Old World. Heck with godbeasts and the like AoS would actually work really well with warmasters scale.

Very true - Cog forts and the like - be like Dystopian Wars

 Matrindur wrote:
Did they ever actually say it is going to be a normal 28mm game? Could it turn out to be something like Epic was for 40k? The smaller scale would both make it need less sculpting work so possible to have more armies and wouldn't make it as expensive as you would need to have big armies

Maybe not as small as Epic was but still smaller than 28mm?

Goddamn it, here we go again, hopefully for the last time...



For the 17 people across the globe that played Warmaster: no, they will most assuredly NOT be doing this in a different scale. Warmaster has the second fastest death spiral at retail. The only reason it lived on at Fanatic as long as it did is because they thought they could fleece a few more bucks out, and because a couple studio guys liked it.

Give it a rest: this will NOT be Warmaster. Anything stating different without some sort of legitimate leak is essentially gak posting.



NOW...

Giving this game this much leeway as far as explicit setting allows for a ton of old kits to be used with little to no investment on GW's part.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 His Master's Voice wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Either TOW is a much bigger project than anyone suspects, or it's exactly as small as people previously thought and all the map stuff is just background fluff, or they'll be bringing back the classic models.

I approximate the chances of GW bringing back old plastics at just below death by meteor.

Beyond the fact that this whole WFB revival thing is an excuse to sell models, and new models sell better than old ones, there's the issue of many of the old moulds likely being damaged beyond usefulness or outright scrapped. The masters might not exist, and if they do, GW would have to digitize and clean them up for new mould cutting, at which point designing new stuff is likely a better solution anyway.

In truth, I just want new Empire State Troop kits. I have hundreds of the old ones.

I seem to recall people saying the same about Sisters, Squats, Bloodbowl, Necromunda, Adeptus Titanicus

Uuuh...what of those　got old models back?

Sisters. Either metal models that were on sale　continued to be　sold(priests, death cult assasins) or new plastics.

Squats? New sculpts.

Bloodbowl? Now on　2nd new model round. Did they rerelease　any old models?

Necromunda? Again new models.

At? Old models would be　ridiculously small to true　6mm scale(old ones were more like　2mm scale) so no. All new models.

Pretty thin on old models having been brought back...

 Just Tony wrote:

 Matrindur wrote:
Did they ever actually say it is going to be a normal 28mm game? Could it turn out to be something like Epic was for 40k? The smaller scale would both make it need less sculpting work so possible to have more armies and wouldn't make it as expensive as you would need to have big armies

Maybe not as small as Epic was but still smaller than 28mm?

Goddamn it, here we go again, hopefully for the last time...



For the 17 people across the globe that played Warmaster: no, they will most assuredly NOT be doing this in a different scale. Warmaster has the second fastest death spiral at retail. The only reason it lived on at Fanatic as long as it did is because they thought they could fleece a few more bucks out, and because a couple studio guys liked it.

Give it a rest: this will NOT be Warmaster. Anything stating different without some sort of legitimate leak is essentially gak posting.



NOW...

Giving this game this much leeway as far as explicit setting allows for a ton of old kits to be used with little to no investment on GW's part.

I don't know if modern GW is really bound by past failures. They released AI again despite it originally being a failure (though they managed to screw it up again and make it a failure a 2nd time round unfortunately!).

Warmaster didn't really fail because of the scale. 10 to 15mm is actually a great scale for a rank and file style fantasy game.

As far as I'm aware, at this point we don't really know anything about what GW intends to do with it. Unless I missed something, they've been pretty tight lipped on what it's actually going to be. I'd be no less surprised to see a new run of models than reusing the old models, as GW makes most their money off new models I imagine they'll try and exploit that. For every old kit that might make them a bit of money if they release it again, there's probably 2 or 3 old kits that no one would want, especially with many of the old models being well due for an update when they were killed.

 Just Tony wrote:

 Matrindur wrote:
Did they ever actually say it is going to be a normal 28mm game? Could it turn out to be something like Epic was for 40k? The smaller scale would both make it need less sculpting work so possible to have more armies and wouldn't make it as expensive as you would need to have big armies

Maybe not as small as Epic was but still smaller than 28mm?

Goddamn it, here we go again, hopefully for the last time...



For the 17 people across the globe that played Warmaster: no, they will most assuredly NOT be doing this in a different scale. Warmaster has the second fastest death spiral at retail. The only reason it lived on at Fanatic as long as it did is because they thought they could fleece a few more bucks out, and because a couple studio guys liked it.

Give it a rest: this will NOT be Warmaster. Anything stating different without some sort of legitimate leak is essentially gak posting.



NOW...

Giving this game this much leeway as far as explicit setting allows for a ton of old kits to be used with little to no investment on GW's part.

So, clearly this game will be a re-boot to Warmaster since that game was popular enough to spin off Warmaster Ancients, the Battle of 5 Armies, and eventually the entire Warlord series of Blackpowder, Hail Ceasar, and Pike and Shotte. With such a popular base set of rules, they can steal the wind right out of Warlord's sales! See what I did there!

<Runs off giggling uncontrollably>

No, in all actuality I agree with Tony. There is no way this is a Warmaster re-boot. It is WHFB all the way or nothing.

 Eiríkr wrote:
My only wish for this is for the Bretonnia range to return unchanged.

You're not getting that wish. Those molds are already ancient to begin with, and the sculpts are not up to GWs modern standards. Let the past die, kill it if you have to.

If they actually do intend to include the whole breadth of the classic factions as people hope this map suggests, rather than just doing a Heresy-style "one main army with themed lists and a few other minifactions" approach, I don't really think they have any alternative to bringing back the old range.

GWHQ might have given them the resources to do a single full faction of minis, maybe even two, but all of them? Even accounting for the more modern WHFB minis that are still used in AoS and so could be re-reboxed(although that approach wouldn't bode well for the affordability of TOW - they're hardly going to provide classic models in the affordable bulk necessary for a rank & flank system when that would make a lot of the "legacy" models in AoS packaging look like poor value by comparison), there's a *lot* of stuff that's gone the way of the dodo, with even the more complete ranges still having big gaps and of course a couple being gone entirely.

Either TOW is a much bigger project than anyone suspects, or it's exactly as small as people previously thought and all the map stuff is just background fluff, or they'll be bringing back the classic models. My money is still on this being a smaller project and the maps are just fluff b

My expectations largely remain unchanged (assuming GW doesn't grant my wish of making it a Warmaster reboot instead). It will be a human-centric game (with an apparent 4 Empire factions and another 14 Bretonnian factions based on this map, plus Kislev which isn't included for some reason, theres certainly a lot of humans to go around) with the majority of units being buildable from just a handful of kits - really you can probably boil it all down to three kits: a "conscript troops" tier, a "professional troops" tier, and a "knightly" tier. These kits will be basic - i.e. bodies (and horses where applicable), plain weapons, etc. Add a handful of upgrade sprues with faction specific bits like heads, armor pieces, special weapons, etc. to spice up your units (Bretonnian sprue makes your knights look like grail knights, etc. your conscripts look like peasant bowmen, and your professionals look like men at arms, Empire sprue makes your knights look like Knightly Orders, your professionals look like state troops, etc., Kislev sprue makes your knights look like winged lancers or something, and I expect the basic kislev infantry would look a lot like Empire troops otherwise). Each faction then maybe gets a couple of unique kits (Kislev gets Ice Guard and bear cavalry, Empire gets a Steam Tank and artillery, Bretonnia gets Pegasus Knights and a Trebuchet), a couple characters, and that covers the initial wave of releases. Further units will be additional upgrade sprues or resin add-ons, with occasional unique kits, similar to the release models establshed by games like Adeptus Titanicus, Aeronatuica Imperialis, Necromunda, etc.).

I think we will end up seeing Dogs of War, Estalians, Border Princes, and Tileans as resin upgrades to the same basic kits used by the other factions (maybe Kislev falls in here instead of having a sprue) and a handful of additional unique standalone kits for some of the more unique units.

Vampires I think will be able to utilize the majority of the human kits, with at a minimum a special Sylvania upgrade sprue to make them more representative of the humans enthralled/enslaved by the Vampires, and at best an undead upgrade sprue to make things more deadish (knights become blood knights, professionals become grave guard, conscripts become skeletons and zombies, add a couple of unique kits like the others, etc.). Some of the Age of Sigmar range I think doesn't sit well in the AoS range and will be back-ported over to The Old World, specifically the Coven Throne and Mortis Engine which are kind of forgotten bastard children of the Death Grand Alliance both aesthetically and thematically. The Soulblight range as a whole is actually somewhat unloved, most of us are hoping to see them get redone but maybe its possible GW has decided the faction will work better in the Old World and has no place in Age of Sigmar. TBH I think most of us are expecting the Soulblight faction to be remade as vampirates, so theres room for GW to remake the Vampire Counts largely as they were without overlapping with the Age of Sigmar range.

Other factions come after, I expect them to be for the most part fairly limited in scope and support (i.e. limited numbers of units, the basics will be in plastic, with most of the rest of the range being resin, etc.). I think the "major factions" here which will get significant plastic releases will be Wood Elves, Orcs/Greenskins, and Dwarves. These factions have effectively been squatted and remade in Age of Sigmar in a way that is wholly unique to the setting (Sylvaneth, Bonesplitterz/Ironjawz, and Kharadron/Fyreslayers respectively), so there is room for "Old World" versions of all three that do not have much overlap (but could borrow some units, the treefolk from Sylvaneth could crossover into the Wood Elf roster in a limited fashion, for example).I think we see extensive plastic support for these factions and we can expect them to be fairly complete rosters.

High Elves I think end up being primarily resin upgrades to the Wood Elves (I expect the wood elves to be designed in a way that will easily accept parts to make them look like something other than Wood Elves, similar to how I expect the human sprues to be designed - perhaps we'll even get a plastic High elf upgrade sprue here - basically just basic garb in a standard infantry/cavalry kit, for example, and then the upgrade kits contain separate armor sets and accessories that you put over them to make them "high elf" or "wood elf"). Of course I can see a couple unique plastic/resin kits here as well, but I think overall they will be a "minor faction" - we're not going to see the full High Elves army list of old, just outpost garrisons/vanguard type forces representing the forces mustered to defend the elven colonies. I don't expect to see Dragons or any of the super elite units of yore here - perhaps they are limited to being allies rather than a standalone force. Likewise I could see Dark Elves being introduced in similar faction - but we're getting corsairs and raiders, not the core of the armies found in Naggaroth or assaulting Ulthuan. In the lore the "Sea Elves" are also kicking around near Marienburg around this timeframe, maybe they finally get introduced too? In any case, the Wood Elves seem to be the main Elf faction, as they are the only one who have a power base in the Old World vs overseas.

I think Tomb Kings make a comeback in a big way, not on release, but after a couple years. Aside from Bretonnia, they are the only other faction that was completely squatted from the range during the transition to Age of Sigmar in a manner that makes the minis virtually wholly unusable. Unlike Bretonnia, a lot of their kits were pretty much brand new when the transition was made. Lorewise, there were Tomb Kings slaving raids along the coasts and a Tomb King invasion of Sylvania, as well as a Tomb King invasion of Norsca, within the general time period covered by the game (I don't think The Old World will be set in any one year, I think its going to cover a period of history a couple hundred years long similar to Horus Heresy, I think at least one of the Vampire Wars will be included within that timeframe alongside a few other notable events), so it wouldn't be out of left field or beyond the geographic scope to include them. Similarly a number of Empire and Bretonnian invasions of the Tomb Kings domains are attempted during this timeframe.

Lizardmen I think are left for Age of Sigmar - they sit outside the setting of the game and the near-entirety of their miniatures range exists as a cohesive entity and faction within Age of Sigmar. Ogre Kingdoms are in a similar boat, but I think (maybe not on release, but not long after) some of their units show up as mercenaries that you can take alongside your other armies - maybe there will be just enough of them that you can take them as a small standalone army with limited options, but I don't think the entirety of their range makes it into the game. I would expect it to be something like Tyrant, Gluttons/Ironguts, Leadbelchers, and the Ironblaster only. Maybe Gnoblars + Scraplauncher and Maneaters too. Doubt they bring over the Beastclaw parts of the faction - even though they originated in WHFB I think they've established a stronger identity within Age of Sigmar. Skaven are an interesting one, because they are somewhat iconic to the WHFB setting, but have (similar to some of the other factions) made a solid home for themselves in Age of Sigmar. I can't see them being excluded, but I struggle to see how GW includes them in a manner that doesn't cost them potential sales of new minis, etc. think they probably will only end up being the "generic" aspects of the faction (I.E. none of the special/named clans) - lorewise it doesn't seem the Skaven were too active within the era of the games setting, but they weren't completely absent either. Chaos Dwarves are outside of the geographic scope of the game for the most part, though FW has the Legion of Azgorh line which would fit in well as a limited faction (certainly fits into the Old World better than they do in AoS as they are largely unloved).

In general, the big questionmark here is how they handle Chaos - I struggle to imagine GW won't include them, especially when Norsca makes up almost half of the setting map. Daemons are basically omnipresent in all of GWs 28mm games, I don't expect this one to be any different (seriously, I hesitate to say that people are hobbying wrong but - if you don't collect daemons as a 2nd army at least, then you're probably doing it wrong as they are the most versatile minis range in the hobby and are your passport to basically all of GWs games). Beastmen and Warriors have found a bit of a home in Age of Sigmar but are both so intrinsic to the WHFB setting, I struggle to imagine Chaos won't be a fully featured faction in TOW, but I don't know how GW does that without losing out on potential sales to existing customers. If nothing else, I imagine that this will be a good excuse for GW to recapitalize the warriors and beastmen ranges with new sculpts, etc. usable for both games, as the mini ranges are long in the tooth (and the expected revamp of Slaves to Darkness seems to be nowhere in sight after the release of the start collecting box).

Interested in the snow army they teased a while back - the one with the "Golden Compass" bears. As a Frostgrave player I'd be up for that...

Have some respect for Kislev you peasant!

They've been clear that Old World is to AoS what 30K is to 40K. Which means the same scale.

The only part of 30k seeing active and consistent releases at the moment is Adeptus Titanicus - which is decisively *not* the same scale. The "proper" Horus Heresy game seems to be in a state of semi-limbo/development hell with occasional new resin releases, a book every few years, and zero plastic support (can you even buy the handful of old 30k plastic kits they released a few years back anymore???).

For the 17 people across the globe that played Warmaster: no, they will most assuredly NOT be doing this in a different scale. Warmaster has the second fastest death spiral at retail. The only reason it lived on at Fanatic as long as it did is because they thought they could fleece a few more bucks out, and because a couple studio guys liked it.

This again? Pretty sure I remember slapping this argument down on facebook a few months ago pretty hard, was that you? Warmaster was around for over a decade and got continuous new releases about once a year through that time. The "second fastest death spiral at retail" gak is nonsense, it arguably had more support than Battlefleet Gothic did and spun off a ton of games in the historicals genre, some of which have been nipping at GWs heels for over a decade now.

Mind you, I doubt its a warmaster reboot, though if the goal is to do rank and file it would work much better in a smaller scale than 28mm unless GW is committed to limiting this to a smaller skirmish sized game of a couple heroes, 3-4 blocks of up to 20 troops each, and a warmachine/monster.

 Londinium wrote:

 kodos wrote:
so 2200, 50 years after and 100 years before the next big war in the timeline

so no real Horus Heresy of AoS as the missed the most exiting wars of that time

but really just the human civil war with minor conflicts

and I guess another year of nothing but artworks and the hope that GW won't mess it up again

hype train does not move for me

If anything it's perfect. Great big sandbox to do whatever you want with, especially with the highly fractured Empire. GW learned it's lesson with the issues in WHFB

well, current releases with 40k, AoS, BB show that GW did everything but learning something from the past
the big Sandbox is AoS, if they want an anything is possible R&F game they just need to release rules for that

and to make TOW into a similar big Sandbox, it would take many more years and it being the main game that get Space Marine like treatment

for now it is more likley it will start with 2 to 6 factions with small armies and slowly expand into more
the strong point of Warhammer here is the same as with HH, the main story and not the sandbox

This again? Pretty sure I remember slapping this argument down on facebook a few months ago pretty hard, was that you? Warmaster was around for over a decade and got continuous new releases about once a year through that time. The "second fastest death spiral at retail" gak is nonsense, it arguably had more support than Battlefleet Gothic did and spun off a ton of games in the historicals genre, some of which have been nipping at GWs heels for over a decade now.

Once a year releases are actually a great argument for why Warmaster is never coming back. That is absolute life support, especially when it was being managed by a quasi-independent part of the company solely created for the purposes of supporting lower volume games.

Anyone with any idea of marketing and business, knows that Warhammer Fantasy is not coming back in Warmaster scale based upon the marketing released thus far. It would be absolutely baffling, potentially the stupidest thing modern GW (post Kirby) has ever done if they went down that route. I'm honestly baffled by why some people keep pushing this idea.

Imagine getting a Space marine release in February, then having to wait until next February for another : )

 Londinium wrote:

This again? Pretty sure I remember slapping this argument down on facebook a few months ago pretty hard, was that you? Warmaster was around for over a decade and got continuous new releases about once a year through that time. The "second fastest death spiral at retail" gak is nonsense, it arguably had more support than Battlefleet Gothic did and spun off a ton of games in the historicals genre, some of which have been nipping at GWs heels for over a decade now.

Once a year releases are actually a great argument for why Warmaster is never coming back. That is absolute life support, especially when it was being managed by a quasi-independent part of the company solely created for the purposes of supporting lower volume games.

Its the same amount of support that games like Necromunda, Mordheim, Battlefleet Gothic, Adeptus Titanicus/Epic, Blood Bowl, Aeronautica Imperialis, Man O War, Warhammer Quest, Space Hulk, and others received. Actually, Warmaster had *more* support than most, if not all of the games I just listed when you factor in the Warhammer Historicals and Lord of the Rings spinoffs. If that level of "life support" was enough to justify the revitalization of some of those games (and demands to revitalize some of the others) then its sure as gak enough to justify a return of Warmaster, or are we throwing logical consistency to the wind now?

 Sledgehammer wrote:
Here's hoping it's an alternate universe where the world doesn't get blown up.

Retconning the whole thing, sigmarines and all, would be great.

 kodos wrote:

 Londinium wrote:

 kodos wrote:
so 2200, 50 years after and 100 years before the next big war in the timeline

so no real Horus Heresy of AoS as the missed the most exiting wars of that time

but really just the human civil war with minor conflicts

and I guess another year of nothing but artworks and the hope that GW won't mess it up again

hype train does not move for me

If anything it's perfect. Great big sandbox to do whatever you want with, especially with the highly fractured Empire. GW learned it's lesson with the issues in WHFB

well, current releases with 40k, AoS, BB show that GW did everything but learning something from the past
the big Sandbox is AoS, if they want an anything is possible R&F game they just need to release rules for that

and to make TOW into a similar big Sandbox, it would take many more years and it being the main game that get Space Marine like treatment

for now it is more likley it will start with 2 to 6 factions with small armies and slowly expand into more
the strong point of Warhammer here is the same as with HH, the main story and not the sandbox

I'm not really sure of that. What would be the main story here? We're between major wars, and they've already mapped out everything from Kislev to the coasts of Bretonnia so far.

So far, faction-wise, they've already name dropped:
Kislev
Empire (in four sub-factions)
Bretonnia (in a mess of possibilities)
Orcs
Wood Elves (two big icons on the new map)

they're even pointing out some High Elf outposts

It'd be weird not to have Beastmen (since they affect Empire, Brets and Wood elves) and Undead (even if its just vampire counts) as internal enemies.
And of course, never discount some Chaos or Skaven fun.

Oh, I'm pleased to be wrong for once, thanks for the tip off about it being set earlier than the typical WFB time period and that explaining the Louen Orc-slayer thing. Explains a lot!

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Olthannon wrote:
Given how good the empire blood bowl models are of the new release I'm very much looking forward to the models they put out. It's also a while before Mordheim is flattened by the comet so maybe.. just maybe that gets a cheeky refresher too. Who knows..

Even if it doesn't, a new range of models will make for some fun new warbands.

Mordheim is destroyed in 2000 so its been a deamon/Skaven/mutant infested pile rubble for a couple of hundred years.

Yep! Sorry I meant it's also a while *after* - brain had a little moment there.

chaos0xomega wrote:

Spoiler:

 Eiríkr wrote:
My only wish for this is for the Bretonnia range to return unchanged.

You're not getting that wish. Those molds are already ancient to begin with, and the sculpts are not up to GWs modern standards. Let the past die, kill it if you have to.

If they actually do intend to include the whole breadth of the classic factions as people hope this map suggests, rather than just doing a Heresy-style "one main army with themed lists and a few other minifactions" approach, I don't really think they have any alternative to bringing back the old range.

GWHQ might have given them the resources to do a single full faction of minis, maybe even two, but all of them? Even accounting for the more modern WHFB minis that are still used in AoS and so could be re-reboxed(although that approach wouldn't bode well for the affordability of TOW - they're hardly going to provide classic models in the affordable bulk necessary for a rank & flank system when that would make a lot of the "legacy" models in AoS packaging look like poor value by comparison), there's a *lot* of stuff that's gone the way of the dodo, with even the more complete ranges still having big gaps and of course a couple being gone entirely.

Either TOW is a much bigger project than anyone suspects, or it's exactly as small as people previously thought and all the map stuff is just background fluff, or they'll be bringing back the classic models. My money is still on this being a smaller project and the maps are just fluff b

My expectations largely remain unchanged (assuming GW doesn't grant my wish of making it a Warmaster reboot instead). It will be a human-centric game (with an apparent 4 Empire factions and another 14 Bretonnian factions based on this map, plus Kislev which isn't included for some reason, theres certainly a lot of humans to go around) with the majority of units being buildable from just a handful of kits - really you can probably boil it all down to three kits: a "conscript troops" tier, a "professional troops" tier, and a "knightly" tier. These kits will be basic - i.e. bodies (and horses where applicable), plain weapons, etc. Add a handful of upgrade sprues with faction specific bits like heads, armor pieces, special weapons, etc. to spice up your units (Bretonnian sprue makes your knights look like grail knights, etc. your conscripts look like peasant bowmen, and your professionals look like men at arms, Empire sprue makes your knights look like Knightly Orders, your professionals look like state troops, etc., Kislev sprue makes your knights look like winged lancers or something, and I expect the basic kislev infantry would look a lot like Empire troops otherwise). Each faction then maybe gets a couple of unique kits (Kislev gets Ice Guard and bear cavalry, Empire gets a Steam Tank and artillery, Bretonnia gets Pegasus Knights and a Trebuchet), a couple characters, and that covers the initial wave of releases. Further units will be additional upgrade sprues or resin add-ons, with occasional unique kits, similar to the release models establshed by games like Adeptus Titanicus, Aeronatuica Imperialis, Necromunda, etc.).

I think we will end up seeing Dogs of War, Estalians, Border Princes, and Tileans as resin upgrades to the same basic kits used by the other factions (maybe Kislev falls in here instead of having a sprue) and a handful of additional unique standalone kits for some of the more unique units.

Vampires I think will be able to utilize the majority of the human kits, with at a minimum a special Sylvania upgrade sprue to make them more representative of the humans enthralled/enslaved by the Vampires, and at best an undead upgrade sprue to make things more deadish (knights become blood knights, professionals become grave guard, conscripts become skeletons and zombies, add a couple of unique kits like the others, etc.). Some of the Age of Sigmar range I think doesn't sit well in the AoS range and will be back-ported over to The Old World, specifically the Coven Throne and Mortis Engine which are kind of forgotten bastard children of the Death Grand Alliance both aesthetically and thematically. The Soulblight range as a whole is actually somewhat unloved, most of us are hoping to see them get redone but maybe its possible GW has decided the faction will work better in the Old World and has no place in Age of Sigmar. TBH I think most of us are expecting the Soulblight faction to be remade as vampirates, so theres room for GW to remake the Vampire Counts largely as they were without overlapping with the Age of Sigmar range.

Other factions come after, I expect them to be for the most part fairly limited in scope and support (i.e. limited numbers of units, the basics will be in plastic, with most of the rest of the range being resin, etc.). I think the "major factions" here which will get significant plastic releases will be Wood Elves, Orcs/Greenskins, and Dwarves. These factions have effectively been squatted and remade in Age of Sigmar in a way that is wholly unique to the setting (Sylvaneth, Bonesplitterz/Ironjawz, and Kharadron/Fyreslayers respectively), so there is room for "Old World" versions of all three that do not have much overlap (but could borrow some units, the treefolk from Sylvaneth could crossover into the Wood Elf roster in a limited fashion, for example).I think we see extensive plastic support for these factions and we can expect them to be fairly complete rosters.

High Elves I think end up being primarily resin upgrades to the Wood Elves (I expect the wood elves to be designed in a way that will easily accept parts to make them look like something other than Wood Elves, similar to how I expect the human sprues to be designed - perhaps we'll even get a plastic High elf upgrade sprue here - basically just basic garb in a standard infantry/cavalry kit, for example, and then the upgrade kits contain separate armor sets and accessories that you put over them to make them "high elf" or "wood elf"). Of course I can see a couple unique plastic/resin kits here as well, but I think overall they will be a "minor faction" - we're not going to see the full High Elves army list of old, just outpost garrisons/vanguard type forces representing the forces mustered to defend the elven colonies. I don't expect to see Dragons or any of the super elite units of yore here - perhaps they are limited to being allies rather than a standalone force. Likewise I could see Dark Elves being introduced in similar faction - but we're getting corsairs and raiders, not the core of the armies found in Naggaroth or assaulting Ulthuan. In the lore the "Sea Elves" are also kicking around near Marienburg around this timeframe, maybe they finally get introduced too? In any case, the Wood Elves seem to be the main Elf faction, as they are the only one who have a power base in the Old World vs overseas.

I think Tomb Kings make a comeback in a big way, not on release, but after a couple years. Aside from Bretonnia, they are the only other faction that was completely squatted from the range during the transition to Age of Sigmar in a manner that makes the minis virtually wholly unusable. Unlike Bretonnia, a lot of their kits were pretty much brand new when the transition was made. Lorewise, there were Tomb Kings slaving raids along the coasts and a Tomb King invasion of Sylvania, as well as a Tomb King invasion of Norsca, within the general time period covered by the game (I don't think The Old World will be set in any one year, I think its going to cover a period of history a couple hundred years long similar to Horus Heresy, I think at least one of the Vampire Wars will be included within that timeframe alongside a few other notable events), so it wouldn't be out of left field or beyond the geographic scope to include them. Similarly a number of Empire and Bretonnian invasions of the Tomb Kings domains are attempted during this timeframe.

Lizardmen I think are left for Age of Sigmar - they sit outside the setting of the game and the near-entirety of their miniatures range exists as a cohesive entity and faction within Age of Sigmar. Ogre Kingdoms are in a similar boat, but I think (maybe not on release, but not long after) some of their units show up as mercenaries that you can take alongside your other armies - maybe there will be just enough of them that you can take them as a small standalone army with limited options, but I don't think the entirety of their range makes it into the game. I would expect it to be something like Tyrant, Gluttons/Ironguts, Leadbelchers, and the Ironblaster only. Maybe Gnoblars + Scraplauncher and Maneaters too. Doubt they bring over the Beastclaw parts of the faction - even though they originated in WHFB I think they've established a stronger identity within Age of Sigmar. Skaven are an interesting one, because they are somewhat iconic to the WHFB setting, but have (similar to some of the other factions) made a solid home for themselves in Age of Sigmar. I can't see them being excluded, but I struggle to see how GW includes them in a manner that doesn't cost them potential sales of new minis, etc. think they probably will only end up being the "generic" aspects of the faction (I.E. none of the special/named clans) - lorewise it doesn't seem the Skaven were too active within the era of the games setting, but they weren't completely absent either. Chaos Dwarves are outside of the geographic scope of the game for the most part, though FW has the Legion of Azgorh line which would fit in well as a limited faction (certainly fits into the Old World better than they do in AoS as they are largely unloved).

In general, the big questionmark here is how they handle Chaos - I struggle to imagine GW won't include them, especially when Norsca makes up almost half of the setting map. Daemons are basically omnipresent in all of GWs 28mm games, I don't expect this one to be any different (seriously, I hesitate to say that people are hobbying wrong but - if you don't collect daemons as a 2nd army at least, then you're probably doing it wrong as they are the most versatile minis range in the hobby and are your passport to basically all of GWs games). Beastmen and Warriors have found a bit of a home in Age of Sigmar but are both so intrinsic to the WHFB setting, I struggle to imagine Chaos won't be a fully featured faction in TOW, but I don't know how GW does that without losing out on potential sales to existing customers. If nothing else, I imagine that this will be a good excuse for GW to recapitalize the warriors and beastmen ranges with new sculpts, etc. usable for both games, as the mini ranges are long in the tooth (and the expected revamp of Slaves to Darkness seems to be nowhere in sight after the release of the start collecting box).

Interested in the snow army they teased a while back - the one with the "Golden Compass" bears. As a Frostgrave player I'd be up for that...

Have some respect for Kislev you peasant!

They've been clear that Old World is to AoS what 30K is to 40K. Which means the same scale.

The only part of 30k seeing active and consistent releases at the moment is Adeptus Titanicus - which is decisively *not* the same scale. The "proper" Horus Heresy game seems to be in a state of semi-limbo/development hell with occasional new resin releases, a book every few years, and zero plastic support (can you even buy the handful of old 30k plastic kits they released a few years back anymore???).

For the 17 people across the globe that played Warmaster: no, they will most assuredly NOT be doing this in a different scale. Warmaster has the second fastest death spiral at retail. The only reason it lived on at Fanatic as long as it did is because they thought they could fleece a few more bucks out, and because a couple studio guys liked it.

This again? Pretty sure I remember slapping this argument down on facebook a few months ago pretty hard, was that you? Warmaster was around for over a decade and got continuous new releases about once a year through that time. The "second fastest death spiral at retail" gak is nonsense, it arguably had more support than Battlefleet Gothic did and spun off a ton of games in the historicals genre, some of which have been nipping at GWs heels for over a decade now.

Mind you, I doubt its a warmaster reboot, though if the goal is to do rank and file it would work much better in a smaller scale than 28mm unless GW is committed to limiting this to a smaller skirmish sized game of a couple heroes, 3-4 blocks of up to 20 troops each, and a warmachine/monster.

Good analysis; sounds reasonable. And fun!

I don't know whether to be concerned about all the faction name drops, I hope they are not going to be overambitious and end up crashing with this project!

I'm as excited to see the return of Ungol Horse Archers as the next bloke, but I rather hope they focus on a handful of key factions like Orks, Dwarves, Empire and Chaos to start with.

I can't believe some people are still extremely salty about Age of Sigmar all these years later. You'd think Age of Sigmar killed their mom or something.

As someone who was looking to get into Fantasy but couldn't back in the day (too young, too expensive) I'm glad its coming back so I can play a good rank and file mini game. Age of Sigmar is still great and I love playing it though. I don't see why you can't like both.

Lets hope they can fix some of the major glaring flaws with WHFB though. Lets not kid ourselves that it was a perfect game. The amount of matches I've seen end after the first turn is ridiculous and tbh is a failure of a wargame. Also if it is going to be a rank and file game I hope the unit sizes are more manageable, either being priced cheaper or smaller/more durable.

Assuming they keep to the same scale, I think the Old World will be comparatively "skirmish" sized as opposed to the mass battle game that was WHFB around 7th/8th edition. Basically a return to pre-6th edition where armies were a hero, 3-4 block of cavalry/infantry (not more than 20 models each), and a monster/warmachine each.

The apparent trend towards smaller tables started by 40k (almost guaranteed to role over into Age of Sigmar next year with the supposed launch of AoS 3 if Warcry is any indication) will likely kill any possibility of The Old World being a "mass battle" type game the way WHFB was. It was already difficult enough to maneuver larger armies around a 6x4 table, and you were basically forced to play in an open field sans terrain because of the difficulty involved with positioning blocks on the table. Cutting table sizes by about 20-30% would make a game like that impossible to play.

Basically the only way I think we're seeing "big battles" back is if they go smaller scale with the minis.