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 Egyptian Space Zombie wrote:
I'm really looking forward to this game. So much so, that I'm basically focusing on finishing what I have, and selling off what I don't want to finish so that I jump into this when it launches.

The game doesn't launch for another 2-3 years minimum it seems, so you may want to hold on to your stuff for a while longer yet.

I’m really only in it if BL releases some new novels by Werner, Wraight or One of their peers.

Don Savik wrote: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.

What I don't get is why people cling to GW games despite all the disapointment. There are other companies that make good games.
You want rank and file games? Have you had a look at Kings of War, Conquest, A Song of Ice and Fire, Oathmark or Age of Fantasy?

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

I would expect something like the new chaos warriors.

SamusDrake wrote:Hoping that this will also involve a return to Man O' War, being set in the old world and all that.

If you want an fantasy game involving boats; Mantic released Kings of War: Armada recently.
If you are under the impression that Mantic only produces subpar models; then it's time to look again.

 DarkBlack wrote:
What I don't get is why people cling to GW games despite all the disapointment. There are other companies that make good games.
You want rank and file games? Have you had a look at Kings of War, Conquest, A Song of Ice and Fire, Oathmark or Age of Fantasy?

It takes a lot of impetus to get into a new rank and file game. It's not like a skirmish game where you only need a handful of models to buy and paint and you may very well be able to buy and paint both sides of a game yourself to try and get others into it. With a rank and file game, deciding on a game, learning some of the lore, learning the rules then buying and painting a bunch of models, you kind of need a group of a few people all willing to invest heavily their time and money to give it a go.

I'd suggest a large portion of the people who started WHFB did so because a group already existed that played it.

Aside from that you have things like the aesthetic, finding a game where there's 3 or 4 armies that 3 or 4 different people actually want to paint and play is sometimes a challenge. I think WHFB only really started to snowball after there were a wide range of well fleshed out and appealing factions.

I don't see why people say WFB didn't scale well. Our gaming groups during 6th played 1,000 battles all the time.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 DarkBlack wrote:
What I don't get is why people cling to GW games despite all the disapointment. There are other companies that make good games.
You want rank and file games? Have you had a look at Kings of War, Conquest, A Song of Ice and Fire, Oathmark or Age of Fantasy?

It takes a lot of impetus to get into a new rank and file game. It's not like a skirmish game where you only need a handful of models to buy and paint and you may very well be able to buy and paint both sides of a game yourself to try and get others into it. With a rank and file game, deciding on a game, learning some of the lore, learning the rules then buying and painting a bunch of models, you kind of need a group of a few people all willing to invest heavily their time and money to give it a go.

I'd suggest a large portion of the people who started WHFB did so because a group already existed that played it.

Aside from that you have things like the aesthetic, finding a game where there's 3 or 4 armies that 3 or 4 different people actually want to paint and play is sometimes a challenge. I think WHFB only really started to snowball after there were a wide range of well fleshed out and appealing factions.

Lore wise it was huge and well built up too. So it was a lot to lose for people to move on from it after too. Particularly if it took such heavy investment to get in.
I think that’s the other reason people are still a bit hit by this whole thing. And where the “you can still pay it” argument falls down if you’re in it for more than just playing a rule set (at which point moving in to a different game might have been preferable anyway).
An End Times follow on game that had a brand new rule set for smaller easier games, even in round bases style, would have still been WHF.
It was the destruction and then whole new world which ended it for many that I know..

 Just Tony wrote:


Was anyone else on here collecting and/or playing in the early 2,000's? Does anyone else remember the "toybox" promotion where they ran fresh copies of 2nd Ed. 40K plastics, along with Talisman, Warhammer Quest, and 4th and 5th edition Fantasy plastics? Quite a few characters in my many armies came from the Adventurers and Wizards boxes, and all my Swarms and a fair share of my Minotaurs came from the Dungeon Denizens box. Some of those molds were at least a decade old when the promotion ran, so there's literally nothing stopping GW from running fresh frames off as long as they kept the dies. Hell, Revell just ran off a bunch of out of print 40K plastics, you can't tell me it's not possible.

Eliminate production overhead and this becomes even cheaper to start up than another small scale game that'll crash and burn like the last one...

No one says they can't reuse older molds. Heck Atlantis models is reissuing kits from the 60s that still work.

It's more that what little we've seen so far says TOW will be a new game with new units and ideas, not just a nostalgic reissue of old kits. I could see this if it was Necromunda or Realms of Chaos style skirmish game. But it will also be a rank and file, square base game.

Which to me still doesn't make sense. How can a 28mm game that was ruled unprofitable and not worth it just 5 or 6 years back now be a great idea with a huge relaunch and dozens of kits? Especially when the Perrys, Fireforge, Ice & Fire, and Frostgrave (and more) already make plastic kits that cover a lot of this ground?

Maybe it is just an attempt to outflank possible challengers?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


It takes a lot of impetus to get into a new rank and file game.

It's not a zero sum thing though, it's not like you have to go all in with two armies without making an informed choice (seems like KS hype train culture has blinded us a bit to that fact). The models and general aesthetic either grab you or they don't, there are tons of good batreps on youtube and if the core system is a concern the rank&file games translate especially well into some cardboard cutout bases to give it a try.

And as far as TOW goes I don't understand why anyone would risk making a fool of themselves by so desperately wanting to form a comprehensive opinion on it at this stage. However much you might know of the history of Warmaster (and how well it sold at your FLGS) or Fantasy's editions, the fact is we still don't know even the scale of the new model line. Of course GW isn't helping by blowing hot air into the balloon once a year ... Personally I just hope it's done more like AT where it is a loving modern interpretation of a beloved classic and less like Necromunda.


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 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Maybe it is just an attempt to outflank possible challengers?

IIRC the announcment came out just as Mantic published KoW 3.0 (and they, in turn, ran that "you don't have to wait years for an awesone rank&file game" teaser), so the theory isn't entirely far-fetched.
Add the disgruntled and loud WHF community, the successful 3rd party rank&file model Kickstarters, the Total War franchise and the overall "second life" that the Old World got in other computer games, BB and the new pen&paper RPG edition and all of a sudden the project doesn't seem commercially unviable. I completely understand why GW would want to be back behind the helm of the thing that spawned so many succesful products.

Yeah GW's reasons for reintroducing a game or IP are usually because a competitor is making a similar game and having it be successful, which shows GW that this old game that they mismanaged and let die does actually have some legs. We wouldn't have gotten the reborth of AI if not for X-Wing, just like all the various skirmish games out there basically led to the rebooting of Necromunda, investment in Kill Team and introduction of Warcry. The success of KoW is absolutely a big part of the TOW project.

I'm quite interested to see if KoW itself has any real influence on TOW's rules writing too. For me, I never stopped using my WHFB army, because I could just transplant it over to KoW with no issues whatsoever. And honestly, after playing KoW I'd find it really hard to go back to any game based on 7/8th WHFB. Even 6th Edition (the Golden Age) would be difficult to go back to just because KoW feels like a progression or an attempt to solve the issues of Warhammer, which makes sense since it was primarily designed by Alessio Cavatore. That's not to say it's perfect and that WHFB doesn't do certain things better, but if you're wondering how to make a massed battle rank and file game easily accessible, straight-forward to play, but still with oodles of tactical depth and all taking less than an hour and a half for a 2k game (!!!) then it's basically what you should be looking at for inspiration.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 DarkBlack wrote:
What I don't get is why people cling to GW games despite all the disapointment. There are other companies that make good games.
You want rank and file games? Have you had a look at Kings of War, Conquest, A Song of Ice and Fire, Oathmark or Age of Fantasy?

It takes a lot of impetus to get into a new rank and file game. It's not like a skirmish game where you only need a handful of models to buy and paint and you may very well be able to buy and paint both sides of a game yourself to try and get others into it. With a rank and file game, deciding on a game, learning some of the lore, learning the rules then buying and painting a bunch of models, you kind of need a group of a few people all willing to invest heavily their time and money to give it a go.

I'd suggest a large portion of the people who started WHFB did so because a group already existed that played it.

Aside from that you have things like the aesthetic, finding a game where there's 3 or 4 armies that 3 or 4 different people actually want to paint and play is sometimes a challenge. I think WHFB only really started to snowball after there were a wide range of well fleshed out and appealing factions.

but this is the same for TOW
there is no difference in starting KoW or Oathmark than starting TOW when it comes out, except that you can use any models you want (and KoW might need less models to play)


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 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Which to me still doesn't make sense. How can a 28mm game that was ruled unprofitable and not worth it just 5 or 6 years back now be a great idea with a huge relaunch and dozens of kits? Especially when the Perrys, Fireforge, Ice & Fire, and Frostgrave (and more) already make plastic kits that cover a lot of this ground?

Maybe it is just an attempt to outflank possible challengers?

Success of KoW going into its 3rd Edition with growing community
Success of Horus Heresy which is still a niche Specialist Game
GW realising that the IP is their strongest selling point and they need to do something with it

and people rather wait 3-4 years for a new GW game that might be similar to Warhammer with all the problems of GW games and the possibility that they cannot use their existing collection as it is (new scale, new bases, different unit organisation etc) than use rules from a different company


there is the possibility that we won't see a game here anytime soon but just an announcement from time to time to keep the people away from other games

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Which to me still doesn't make sense. How can a 28mm game that was ruled unprofitable and not worth it just 5 or 6 years back now be a great idea with a huge relaunch and dozens of kits? Especially when the Perrys, Fireforge, Ice & Fire, and Frostgrave (and more) already make plastic kits that cover a lot of this ground?

Maybe it is just an attempt to outflank possible challengers?

Pretty much, I imagine. It fits with how GW tries to monopolize "the hobby" as being just them, basically not acknowledging other companies and ranges. Ever since the end of WHFB, companies have tried to fill that gap, and customers have been looking for replacements. Same as bringing back the former Specialist Games. Where they seemingly used to think sales of the smaller ranges were cannibalizing those of their main games, or that they were not returning sufficiently on investment, I think GW now sees them as complementing their other ranges and attracting players who would otherwise not be their customers. There's also the difference between making a lower profit than other games and actively losing money. If you only ever compare your sales numbers to your best-selling Space Marines, everything will look poor, but that doesn't mean you should only produce Space Marines. (Yeah, okay, they admittedly haven't fully dropped that idea, but at least they didn't continue the Sigmarine train in AoS, instead focussing on other ranges eventually.)

Just Tony wrote:I don't see why people say WFB didn't scale well. Our gaming groups during 6th played 1,000 battles all the time.

Never understood why GW didn't advertise that side of the game more.
My first games were with these skirmish rules originally from WD I think, where you had the reduced unit sizes (minimum 3 infantry, 2 cav and 1 for troll-sized figures), and it allowed you to play a proper game with multiple units manoeuvring and outflanking with just some odd boxes and blisters from an army. Just because a game could be played that way, didn't mean you'd stop buying as soon as you had that: monsters and artillery were greatly restricted, and the game clearly looked more impressive with more on the table. But it gave you something to do when you were just starting out, a short-term goal, plus the ability to learn the rules, without having to first spend hundred of euros and hours of work to get a full 2000pts army ready. It does seem GW is realizing that more now, but even then it could be part of the main rules rather than some additional supplement/separate game (which just means having to buy yet more books, and thus a higher threshold for new players).

6th scaled well and also had rules for Skirmish games, different asymmetric Scenarios (Heroes VS Horde) etc

this was less a thing with 7th and not really possible any more with 8th

main reason why GW did not advertise it more was for the same reason they increased the minimum unit size
to sell more models and people thinking the full 2500 points game is the only possibility need more models to start with the game

it is just now that GW has realised that slowly growing collections lead to more overall sales than buying a 2k point army at once and drop the game soon after

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

It's more that what little we've seen so far says TOW will be a new game with new units and ideas, not just a nostalgic reissue of old kits. I could see this if it was Necromunda or Realms of Chaos style skirmish game. But it will also be a rank and file, square base game.

Which to me still doesn't make sense. How can a 28mm game that was ruled unprofitable and not worth it just 5 or 6 years back now be a great idea with a huge relaunch and dozens of kits? Especially when the Perrys, Fireforge, Ice & Fire, and Frostgrave (and more) already make plastic kits that cover a lot of this ground?

Maybe it is just an attempt to outflank possible challengers?

I think the only person with any inside knowledge of numbers was Hastings, who said WHFB was still making them money it just wasn't the amount they wanted to make. Clearly they thought if Space Marines sell double literally any other GW product, making fantasy Marines will make them even more money, but since they didn't fit into WHFB it had to go. I genuinely believe that if they'd kept up with WHFB instead of killing it, that it would be enjoying the same success as AoS right now, because AoS' recent success' are attributed more to GW itself doing well than AoS being a better ruleset - it was completely dead during 1e and any LFGS will tell you the boxes were just gathering dust on shelves. It's not a coincidence AoS started taking off around the point GW had it's 8th 40k resurgence and started pushing it's very aggressive release policy (which WHFB absolutely didn't have).Sure the General's Handbook also helped, but I think that's overstated as the main reason (and I've say 2e was a bigger deal than GHB). Even Lord of the Rings is doing well again despite not that much changing from 2014 beyond the odd resin blister now and again.

TOW's announcement was 100% an attempt to hurt KOW. The timing of it with 3e was far too obvious, especially when we know GW hate reveal new projects to the public until they're almost finished and sitting in warehouses. The worst part is that it worked and all you really hear about KoW is the occasional "I'm playing it until TOW is out." TOW could be the worst version of WHFB ever, but you know it's going to kill KOW completely because people will always take a GW alternative.

On a less grim note if you're looking for a rank-and-file game that's lighter on the pocket and with a solid ruleset, A Song of Ice and Fire is a good option. Most armies you only need their starter and maybe a couple of boxes and you're at the 40pt 'average game size' and some like Night's Watch you need less than that. The community for TTS is also very active and done a lot to try and mitigate some of TTS' usual clunkiness.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:


Was anyone else on here collecting and/or playing in the early 2,000's? Does anyone else remember the "toybox" promotion where they ran fresh copies of 2nd Ed. 40K plastics, along with Talisman, Warhammer Quest, and 4th and 5th edition Fantasy plastics? Quite a few characters in my many armies came from the Adventurers and Wizards boxes, and all my Swarms and a fair share of my Minotaurs came from the Dungeon Denizens box. Some of those molds were at least a decade old when the promotion ran, so there's literally nothing stopping GW from running fresh frames off as long as they kept the dies. Hell, Revell just ran off a bunch of out of print 40K plastics, you can't tell me it's not possible.

Eliminate production overhead and this becomes even cheaper to start up than another small scale game that'll crash and burn like the last one...

No one says they can't reuse older molds. Heck Atlantis models is reissuing kits from the 60s that still work.

It's more that what little we've seen so far says TOW will be a new game with new units and ideas, not just a nostalgic reissue of old kits. I could see this if it was Necromunda or Realms of Chaos style skirmish game. But it will also be a rank and file, square base game.

Which to me still doesn't make sense. How can a 28mm game that was ruled unprofitable and not worth it just 5 or 6 years back now be a great idea with a huge relaunch and dozens of kits? Especially when the Perrys, Fireforge, Ice & Fire, and Frostgrave (and more) already make plastic kits that cover a lot of this ground?

Maybe it is just an attempt to outflank possible challengers?

Need to look at GW’s changes since the demise of WHFB.

Not only have they massively diversified their offerings, but they’re now a very profitable business.

With AoS and 40k doing the heavy lifting between them, there’s less need for every game to deliver reliable profits. So if TOW returns the sort of money WHFB was making, it’s still more money in their coffers - and not going to competitors.

Is it necessarily a calculated blow to kill off other game systems? Perhaps, I guess. But I suspect it’s still mostly about keeping the consumer’s attention on GW. After all, if they’re tickling the tastebuds of the majority of the market, how does anyone else get a look in? This is reflected in their approach with Warhammer Community. Overall, it’s content is actually pretty trivial, no? But it is daily. It offers comics, articles, interviews, painting showcase etc.

Their competitors? X-Wing and Armada tend to have quite sporadic releases and previews. Mantic? My friend is their chief resin caster, but I couldn’t tell you what’s coming up, apart from that Naval game - because they don’t have my attention.

TOW feeds into that. First, we have the anticipation of an old, beloved game returning. Whilst I for one would prefer far more regular updates and insights, their current stuff is clearly having the desired affect. And I dare say that as the project roles on, we might get articles showing insights into the actual game design process.

Eyes on. That’s what they’re up to these days, if you ask me. And I accept I could be way off!

Does it have anything to do with licensing contracts ending which allows GW to produce Lord of the Rings products?

 kodos wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 DarkBlack wrote:
What I don't get is why people cling to GW games despite all the disapointment. There are other companies that make good games.
You want rank and file games? Have you had a look at Kings of War, Conquest, A Song of Ice and Fire, Oathmark or Age of Fantasy?

It takes a lot of impetus to get into a new rank and file game. It's not like a skirmish game where you only need a handful of models to buy and paint and you may very well be able to buy and paint both sides of a game yourself to try and get others into it. With a rank and file game, deciding on a game, learning some of the lore, learning the rules then buying and painting a bunch of models, you kind of need a group of a few people all willing to invest heavily their time and money to give it a go.

I'd suggest a large portion of the people who started WHFB did so because a group already existed that played it.

Aside from that you have things like the aesthetic, finding a game where there's 3 or 4 armies that 3 or 4 different people actually want to paint and play is sometimes a challenge. I think WHFB only really started to snowball after there were a wide range of well fleshed out and appealing factions.

but this is the same for TOW
there is no difference in starting KoW or Oathmark than starting TOW when it comes out, except that you can use any models you want (and KoW might need less models to play)

Sure, but at this stage I'm only talking about WHFB and not judging TOW because I have no idea what it'll be. Maybe I can use my old armies and it costs me nothing, maybe it's a whole new thing, maybe it's 15mm scale.

GW in general does a better job than other random games because I live near a couple of GW stores and so the stores foster a community. FLGSs (at least the ones I've been to around here) just cater to whatever is already popular. If a game isn't popular, an FLGS won't stock it and won't have games nights for that game, so you're left forming your own community or a club to do that. I've had the annoying experience of seeing a certain game on the shelf of my local FLGS, buying a few items, then a month later it's not on the shelves any more and the store owner tells me they stopped selling it because it wasn't popular. GW will work to make an unpopular game popular because they can't afford to do anything less.

But we'll see how it goes with TOW.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 DarkBlack wrote:
What I don't get is why people cling to GW games despite all the disapointment. There are other companies that make good games.
You want rank and file games? Have you had a look at Kings of War, Conquest, A Song of Ice and Fire, Oathmark or Age of Fantasy?

It takes a lot of impetus to get into a new rank and file game. It's not like a skirmish game where you only need a handful of models to buy and paint and you may very well be able to buy and paint both sides of a game yourself to try and get others into it. With a rank and file game, deciding on a game, learning some of the lore, learning the rules then buying and painting a bunch of models, you kind of need a group of a few people all willing to invest heavily their time and money to give it a go.

I'd suggest a large portion of the people who started WHFB did so because a group already existed that played it.

Aside from that you have things like the aesthetic, finding a game where there's 3 or 4 armies that 3 or 4 different people actually want to paint and play is sometimes a challenge. I think WHFB only really started to snowball after there were a wide range of well fleshed out and appealing factions.

If you played WHFB then you can use those armies to play Kings of War, Oathmark or Age of Fantasy.
Most KoW players start that way.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
With AoS and 40k doing the heavy lifting between them, there’s less need for every game to deliver reliable profits. So if TOW returns the sort of money WHFB was making, it’s still more money in their coffers - and not going to competitors.

If TOW only makes a trickle of money it's not necessarily a terrible thing, but I think GW can't afford to have such a massive range as they had for WHFB if it's not making the big bucks.

One thing that hurt WHFB over the years is that it just kept growing, GW is a company that lives off the sales of new releases more than existing products, so they need to resolve the issue of ranges just getting bloated. There's nothing wrong with a game where for each army you only have a couple of hero options, a couple of core options and a couple of special/rare options. But I don't know what the solution is to that.




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 DarkBlack wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 DarkBlack wrote:
What I don't get is why people cling to GW games despite all the disapointment. There are other companies that make good games.
You want rank and file games? Have you had a look at Kings of War, Conquest, A Song of Ice and Fire, Oathmark or Age of Fantasy?

It takes a lot of impetus to get into a new rank and file game. It's not like a skirmish game where you only need a handful of models to buy and paint and you may very well be able to buy and paint both sides of a game yourself to try and get others into it. With a rank and file game, deciding on a game, learning some of the lore, learning the rules then buying and painting a bunch of models, you kind of need a group of a few people all willing to invest heavily their time and money to give it a go.

I'd suggest a large portion of the people who started WHFB did so because a group already existed that played it.

Aside from that you have things like the aesthetic, finding a game where there's 3 or 4 armies that 3 or 4 different people actually want to paint and play is sometimes a challenge. I think WHFB only really started to snowball after there were a wide range of well fleshed out and appealing factions.

If you played WHFB then you can use those armies to play Kings of War, Oathmark or Age of Fantasy.
Most KoW players start that way.

I'll be the first to admit I haven't really tried hard to adapt my models to a new game. By the time WHFB died for real, most people I knew had already shelved their armies (I myself was rarely playing and disliked the latter editions), when it was killed for real some people sold their armies. A few of us tried KoW but as a group it wasn't well liked enough keep things going, and the community rules for WHFB didn't seem to be taking off anywhere.

I think for the general population, you really can't underestimate the value of the ready made community WHFB and GW games in general enjoy. Having ubiquity is probably more important for a wargame company than it is for a fast food company like McDonald's.

Yeah, no question it could make money, but Return on Investment is a thing. Spending time and money on a game that makes $1 million profit is still considered a waste when that same time and money could have gone into a game that made $10 million.

Which again, is why I still can't quite get my head around his, except as a mirage to scare off anyone thinking of making a low fantasy Rank and File game.

A small release like Mordheim or Warmaster or Man O War to test the market for Olde Worlde games and Olde Worlde fluff would feel very likely. This just... does not.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
A small release like Mordheim or Warmaster or Man O War to test the market for Olde Worlde games and Olde Worlde fluff would feel very likely. This just... does not.

Considering the IP is doing very well in other mediums, I don't see why they'd need to test the market.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Sure, but at this stage I'm only talking about WHFB and not judging TOW because I have no idea what it'll be. Maybe I can use my old armies and it costs me nothing, maybe it's a whole new thing, maybe it's 15mm scale.

GW in general does a better job than other random games because I live near a couple of GW stores and so the stores foster a community. FLGSs (at least the ones I've been to around here) just cater to whatever is already popular. If a game isn't popular, an FLGS won't stock it and won't have games nights for that game, so you're left forming your own community or a club to do that. I've had the annoying experience of seeing a certain game on the shelf of my local FLGS, buying a few items, then a month later it's not on the shelves any more and the store owner tells me they stopped selling it because it wasn't popular. GW will work to make an unpopular game popular because they can't afford to do anything less.

But we'll see how it goes with TOW.

This is why I'm worried KoW/Conquest/Oathmark/maybe ASOIAF will suffer so much when TOW lands.Their offers are almost always far weaker, more flawed, less balanced rulesets and more expensive models than their alternatives. The difference is that it's this mindset of people not wanting to buy into other games because GW is so popular that leads to the self-fulfilling prophecy.

LFGS stocks non-GW game -> dedicated, very small core buy and play it -> that core works to foster a community around it, makes some progress -> new GW edition/game comes out -> almost everyone runs off back to the GW game because it's what everyone is playing -> game dies or that tiny core is all that remains -> none picks it up again because it's perceived as a dead game -> Repeat

It's like the episode of The Simpsons when Lisa tries to make a less sexist alternative to Malibu Stacy and everybody's chomping at the bits to grab it, but then Malibu Stacy releases a new doll (with a new hat) seconds prior and only one person ends up buying the alternative doll.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Yeah, no question it could make money, but Return on Investment is a thing. Spending time and money on a game that makes $1 million profit is still considered a waste when that same time and money could have gone into a game that made $10 million.

Which again, is why I still can't quite get my head around his, except as a mirage to scare off anyone thinking of making a low fantasy Rank and File game.

A small release like Mordheim or Warmaster or Man O War to test the market for Olde Worlde games and Olde Worlde fluff would feel very likely. This just... does not.

To be fair this is likely a relatively small release similar to their Necromunda/AT/Warcry set ups. I think people are getting slightly unreasonable expectations because they are showing the old world map and old big name races/factions. I feel like off the bat we're getting a starter, some mild terrain, and likely an infantry, a cavalry, and a hero type box sets (so 3). They'll be able to be used by the initial "factions" which will all be Empire affiliated. Similar to the initial Horus Heresy "Board Game" they released but without the smoke and mirrors of releasing a "board game" as a starter to get it past old GW.

They can then rapid release another faction or two like Kislev or "Undead" which will use some of the core plastics but get some of their own sets. With Brets and Woodelves being a later combined release.

Essentially look at the Necromunda style with just a couple of extra kits. The difference is they'll likely push a lot more stuff quickly out so they need the time to design and build up stock as this is likely a much larger release than Necromunda or AT and both of those went gangbusters upon release.


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I don't think it's nearly that simple. Not including that a game can get stagnant if stuff isn't releasing fairly regularly and that kills games as much as new gw shiney;

-a lot of gamers have limited time. So formats that have events and presence where you can get a lot of games in on a small schedule are critical. Hence why the only real competition GW has at a LGS level has ever been X-wing and Warmachine with a distant third of Armada. Because those game systems have or had robust support from their creators and regular "tournaments" which are really just an excuse to get a lot of games in in a single day.

-GW has their own stores. So they recruit. And so people's first taste is GW and GW has been around FOREVER. Buy into a game or two and have the company stop supporting (not just locals) and you get real gunshy real quick.

-Cost isn't that different for the models you get nowadays. Most "alternatives" are fairly close to GW pricing for some equal but mostly slightly to massively poorer models most of the time in a worse medium (a lot of resins and poorer plastics). Difference is quantity needed but quality and ACCESSIBILITY wise GW tends to be super high.

-The rules thing isn't really the same thing it was in the past. A lot of people harp on it but I see the same type of discussions for nearly every game I follow that I see for GW nowadays. The exception being Armada but I'm sure they're coming with the switch to 1.5. To be fair I don't follow tiny skirmish games as those aren't what I'm looking to play. But GW is writing fairly tight rules and updating issues in a reasonable way now.

GW is top dog because they are safe, they are accessible, they are reasonable for most hobby costs nowadays, they are recognizable, and you can get a game in with GW's main games in pretty much any place that has a hobby space.

I have my Fantasy stuff. ANd I know it won't be messed with.

Thanks GW, but I'm good. You taught me all I needed to know about how you think of Fantasy.

You had the chance, you blew it.

 Arbitrator wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Sure, but at this stage I'm only talking about WHFB and not judging TOW because I have no idea what it'll be. Maybe I can use my old armies and it costs me nothing, maybe it's a whole new thing, maybe it's 15mm scale.

GW in general does a better job than other random games because I live near a couple of GW stores and so the stores foster a community. FLGSs (at least the ones I've been to around here) just cater to whatever is already popular. If a game isn't popular, an FLGS won't stock it and won't have games nights for that game, so you're left forming your own community or a club to do that. I've had the annoying experience of seeing a certain game on the shelf of my local FLGS, buying a few items, then a month later it's not on the shelves any more and the store owner tells me they stopped selling it because it wasn't popular. GW will work to make an unpopular game popular because they can't afford to do anything less.

But we'll see how it goes with TOW.

This is why I'm worried KoW/Conquest/Oathmark/maybe ASOIAF will suffer so much when TOW lands.Their offers are almost always far weaker, more flawed, less balanced rulesets and more expensive models than their alternatives. The difference is that it's this mindset of people not wanting to buy into other games because GW is so popular that leads to the self-fulfilling prophecy.

LFGS stocks non-GW game -> dedicated, very small core buy and play it -> that core works to foster a community around it, makes some progress -> new GW edition/game comes out -> almost everyone runs off back to the GW game because it's what everyone is playing -> game dies or that tiny core is all that remains -> none picks it up again because it's perceived as a dead game -> Repeat

It's like the episode of The Simpsons when Lisa tries to make a less sexist alternative to Malibu Stacy and everybody's chomping at the bits to grab it, but then Malibu Stacy releases a new doll (with a new hat) seconds prior and only one person ends up buying the alternative doll.

People like GW models. You don't have to pretend this isn't the case, like everyone is sheeple and only buy their product because of social conditioning or something. People like their models, which is one of the main reasons people they play their games. Yes, some of them aren't great, but the good ones are usually better than the vast majority of the competition.

JWBS wrote:

People like GW models. You don't have to pretend this isn't the case, like everyone is sheeple and only buy their product because of social conditioning or something. People like their models, which is one of the main reasons people they play their games

and just because someone likes the models means they must play the game as well?

KoW, Oathmark or OnePage rules are all model agnostic, they are fine to be played with any models you like (not like Warhammer or 40k, were you must use the GW models but people just don't care and hope to not get caught in the GW store, you can do that officially)

So yes, if you think you cannot play other games because you like GW models and/or you need to play the game as well because you like the models, this is the pure product of social conditioning (or something)

I think you guys are grossly overestimating Kings of War. Mantic is a company that employs a dozen people and has estimated revenue of about $5 million a year. GW makes a million dollars per day at this point (not an exaggeration), why would it even care? Kings of War isn't even Mantics most successful revenue generator if kickstarter is any indication. They've run three KoW kickstarters over the past decade, the first pulled $350k from 1500 backers, the second $370k from 2700 backers, and the most recent $270k from 2200 backers. GW literally makes more money in the 8 hours thst its stsff are asleep every night than Kings of War has been able to pull in any 30 day block of time on kickstarter.

If you take that entire market segment together, lumping Kings of War in with Conquest, Song of Ice and Fire, and random fantasy ministures lines for other games, etc you're *maybe* looking at $5-10 million in revenue per year if we are being generous. Again, why would GW even care?

 kodos wrote:

JWBS wrote:

People like GW models. You don't have to pretend this isn't the case, like everyone is sheeple and only buy their product because of social conditioning or something. People like their models, which is one of the main reasons people they play their games

and just because someone likes the models means they must play the game as well?

KoW, Oathmark or OnePage rules are all model agnostic, they are fine to be played with any models you like (not like Warhammer or 40k, were you must use the GW models but people just don't care and hope to not get caught in the GW store, you can do that officially)

So yes, if you think you cannot play other games because you like GW models and/or you need to play the game as well because you like the models, this is the pure product of social conditioning (or something)

He's talking about buying models from another game. It's the second sentence that I quoted.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Again, why would GW even care?

one reason is GW is the Hobby

the whole marketing is made up to give people "The Hobby" experience, Wargaming = GW

so it does not matter how much money Mantic makes with KoW, there are enough people playing it that GW feels the need to release their own Fantasy Rank&File system to cover that niche

same reason we have Kill-Team, Necromunda, Adeptus Titanicus, and AI. Not because they make so much money or there is a big player base here.
but GW wants to cover all kind of games the "The Hobby" might offer so that no one needs to go to someone else

the biggest threat that Kings of War offers to GW is that people forget Warhammer Fantasy as a game and think of KoW rules first when someone say "R&F game"


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JWBS wrote:

He's talking about buying models from another game. It's the second sentence that I quoted.

he is talking about building a non-GW game community

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Yeah, no question it could make money, but Return on Investment is a thing. Spending time and money on a game that makes $1 million profit is still considered a waste when that same time and money could have gone into a game that made $10 million.

The trick being the game that makes $10 million is already there (40K) and there's no more room for growth. Thus, you try something new to grow your company and make even MORE money.

Or as they put it in the business world, if your company is not growing, you're about to go bankrupt.

 Arbitrator wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Sure, but at this stage I'm only talking about WHFB and not judging TOW because I have no idea what it'll be. Maybe I can use my old armies and it costs me nothing, maybe it's a whole new thing, maybe it's 15mm scale.

GW in general does a better job than other random games because I live near a couple of GW stores and so the stores foster a community. FLGSs (at least the ones I've been to around here) just cater to whatever is already popular. If a game isn't popular, an FLGS won't stock it and won't have games nights for that game, so you're left forming your own community or a club to do that. I've had the annoying experience of seeing a certain game on the shelf of my local FLGS, buying a few items, then a month later it's not on the shelves any more and the store owner tells me they stopped selling it because it wasn't popular. GW will work to make an unpopular game popular because they can't afford to do anything less.

But we'll see how it goes with TOW.

This is why I'm worried KoW/Conquest/Oathmark/maybe ASOIAF will suffer so much when TOW lands.Their offers are almost always far weaker, more flawed, less balanced rulesets and more expensive models than their alternatives. The difference is that it's this mindset of people not wanting to buy into other games because GW is so popular that leads to the self-fulfilling prophecy.

LFGS stocks non-GW game -> dedicated, very small core buy and play it -> that core works to foster a community around it, makes some progress -> new GW edition/game comes out -> almost everyone runs off back to the GW game because it's what everyone is playing -> game dies or that tiny core is all that remains -> none picks it up again because it's perceived as a dead game -> Repeat

It's like the episode of The Simpsons when Lisa tries to make a less sexist alternative to Malibu Stacy and everybody's chomping at the bits to grab it, but then Malibu Stacy releases a new doll (with a new hat) seconds prior and only one person ends up buying the alternative doll.

I think you overestimate the ability of a GW game to take away the community of another company's game, more likely that other company's game never established a significant community in the first place, stopped being supported by the company, or died a natural death.