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 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 Overread wrote:
So far we've no hint at a scale change - its purely the result of people chatting and wish-listing/dreaming on things they'd like.

I don't see how it would make any sense for them to announce a big project with part of the initial reveal being "Here's a square base, remember These and The Old World setting? We're gonna return to them, get excited!" only to a long while later go "Oh, we meant Warmaster, not WHFB!" or "This is a small scope game just for for those of you who played human factions", either of those suggestions would just be absurd and be like another slap in the face to WHFB fans.

Yet some people really have it stuck in like its 50/50.

I mean, yes we don’t know 100%.
But it’s 95 28mm fantasy as before, 5% unknown/different scale..

Hardly wish listing for many I'd think,

more that I (and it looks like many others) just can't see how GW can do a large scale rank and file game at 28mm (or 32mm if we're looking at todays sculpting scale) without hitting the same 'too expensive to make a decent sized army, and too tedious to paint even if you do afford it' which was one of the reasons WHFB started dying

and as well as making it more viable in terms of cost and army size (and time needed to paint said army) dropping the scale would also keep it clearly separate from AoS (and LoTR),

remember they flirted with having connections with WHFB and Rogue Trader/40K in the beginning but decided to abandon the idea. They've already got a connection between the world that was and AoS so easiest way to keen them well separated is a different scale

(i'd love to be wrong as I don't care for smaller scales,)

Just making it square based isn't going to be enough to differentiate it from AoS. They'd also have to change the aesthetic from the old miniatures and look to maintain their TM on Bretonnians, etc.

A smaller scale also allows them to potentially use the same system for a Battle of Five Armies relaunch, to to something similar for the Silmarillion or other LOTR offerings, and then to have it for TOW.

Them showing a square base could mean anything. Are there even any models remaining that ship with square bases? "Square Base" could be reference to "rank and flank" much like square bashing, etc.

Like I said before, they have several years to develop it, and who knows what changed or changes between the original announcement, and when (if) they finally release something.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Hardly wish listing for many I'd think,

more that I (and it looks like many others) just can't see how GW can do a large scale rank and file game at 28mm (or 32mm if we're looking at todays sculpting scale) without hitting the same 'too expensive to make a decent sized army, and too tedious to paint even if you do afford it' which was one of the reasons WHFB started dying

and as well as making it more viable in terms of cost and army size (and time needed to paint said army) dropping the scale would also keep it clearly separate from AoS (and LoTR),

remember they flirted with having connections with WHFB and Rogue Trader/40K in the beginning but decided to abandon the idea. They've already got a connection between the world that was and AoS so easiest way to keen them well separated is a different scale

(i'd love to be wrong as I don't care for smaller scales,)

I think the solution is changing the basing, either like KoW or ASOIAF, or something new, so that blocks of units require less models.

 Cruentus wrote:
Just making it square based isn't going to be enough to differentiate it from AoS. They'd also have to change the aesthetic from the old miniatures and look to maintain their TM on Bretonnians, etc.

Trademark is to do with logos, names, symbols etc, its to identify or associate something with a specific brand/source so you can differ them from other similar things and tell which is which - the Trademark for Bretonnians has absolutely nothing to do with the models themselves. The aesthetics of them doesn't matter regarding that at all and won't make any difference in terms of "defending" it, they just have to use the trademark to do that. It's copyright that can involve aspects of appearance, identity, portrayal etc but having lsomething ike the aesthetic style or theming of a miniature be protected under copyright is more difficult, as they can't really own the general idea underlying them.

It isn't a requirement for them to change the look and style of any of the old miniatures to "defend" them.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
remember they flirted with having connections with WHFB and Rogue Trader/40K in the beginning but decided to abandon the idea. They've already got a connection between the world that was and AoS so easiest way to keen them well separated is a different scale

They still had clear references to 40k in the WHFB Albion campaign ("magic" items that were basically 40k wargear), and linked the fluff as recently as the End Times (the Wood Elf Araloth encountered someone presumed to be Kaldor Draigo in the Realms of Chaos, and the Skaven had a phone call with the Eldar). Not to mention the continued shared daemons of course. Besides, why would they want to separate them? Daemon kits do double duty. Genestealer and Chaos cults exist in Necromunda. Warcry figures work in AoS and vice versa; even Underworlds warbands have rules in AoS. For some things, GW likes selling people 2 things instead of 1, but having partial overlap is also a good gateway from one system to another.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Hardly wish listing for many I'd think,

more that I (and it looks like many others) just can't see how GW can do a large scale rank and file game at 28mm (or 32mm if we're looking at todays sculpting scale) without hitting the same 'too expensive to make a decent sized army, and too tedious to paint even if you do afford it' which was one of the reasons WHFB started dying

and as well as making it more viable in terms of cost and army size (and time needed to paint said army) dropping the scale would also keep it clearly separate from AoS (and LoTR),

remember they flirted with having connections with WHFB and Rogue Trader/40K in the beginning but decided to abandon the idea. They've already got a connection between the world that was and AoS so easiest way to keen them well separated is a different scale

(i'd love to be wrong as I don't care for smaller scales,)

If you look at modern 40k or even most AOS armies they're absolutely gigantic at 2k points. In fact when you think that basically GW and the community encouraged 2.5k games for Fantasy to the exclusion of all else this idea that you "needed" too many models in the system is kind of false. Fact of the matter is, during 8th Edition 40k people were putting more models on the table than ever before, many of which approached or exceeded 2.5k games of Fantasy, and yet the game thrived and grew and grew and grew. And it's not like many of those armies were any less tedious to paint either. And it's not like price increases have kept up with average earnings: GW is more expensive nowadays, even accounting for inflation. 40k and AOS are not skirmish games, they are massed battle games without the rank and file.

What is important is scalability and initial buy-in being easy and relatively cheap. This is something that was eroded in Fantasy from 7th onwards, reaching an absolute peak in 8th where unless you had a giant block of 80 elite foot soldiers that could tank a few Purple Suns and still have enough models in afterwards to get rank bonus then you may as well not have been playing. Like I said on a previous page, you could make somewhat viable and effective regiments from the regiment boxes back in 6th because 4x4 was a valid size. With the change to width becoming 5 in 7th Ed a ton of boxes suddenly became worse overnight and then forced people into buying 2x of them. Added to this is that in the last two editions of the game, smaller ways to play were basically dropped and discouraged whereas in 6th there was much more support for 1k or 1.5k games, you even had the skirmish rules in the back of the rulebook. And this isn't even getting into some of the later sets that were unplayable from a physical point of view, where they literally didn't even fit on their tiny square bases much less rank up together properly. Who the feth is gonna buy that?

If you make initial buy-in easy, if you have proper scaling and support for multiple levels of play and if you sell basic products that are usable within your game system from the get-go, then there's no reason why a massed battle rank and file game at 28mm can't be successful.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 Overread wrote:
So far we've no hint at a scale change - its purely the result of people chatting and wish-listing/dreaming on things they'd like.

I don't see how it would make any sense for them to announce a big project with part of the initial reveal being "Here's a square base, remember These and The Old World setting? We're gonna return to them, get excited!" only to a long while later go "Oh, we meant Warmaster, not WHFB!" or "This is a small scope game just for for those of you who played human factions", either of those suggestions would just be absurd and be like another slap in the face to WHFB fans.

well, this would mean GW had a full plan when doing that and not just tried to mock Kings of War
by that time we also should have Squads back in 40k, as hints and "remember those" stuff is posted for years now


but by seeing what GW is doing and not knowing how armies of the current edition should look like 2 years in advance or changing the mind on how their game should look like in the middle of an Edition
I don't see them to have thought ahead on doing anything specific by showing the picture and still don't know what they should do

 DarkBlack wrote:

GrosseSax wrote:As someone (along with my normal group) who had been introduced to WHFB through Total War and instantly fell in love with the setting, we were very disappointed to find that the entire TT setting was nuked a few years prior to us discovering it. We looked into Age of Sigmar and were thoroughly unimpressed so we decided to go with 8th. After months of collecting dozens of boxes of older minis still available on GW's storefront (greatswords, dreadspears, skelies, kemmler/krell etc) and those now discontinued elsewhere (the guy putting together a Stirlander army almost had a stroke when he saw the prices of empire archers on ebay), we thought we were in a pretty good place after hearing about the "Old World".

Needless to say, we hope there are no major changes to scale. If so, we'll just go back to our original plan. No harm, no foul.

Why not try Kings of War while you wait? You can use the models that you have and the basic rules are free from here with a free list builder here

+1

if you come from Total War, Kings of War is the perfect way to spend the time until GW delivers something
the rules are model agnostic and the armies fit the themes of the old Warhammer armies

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 Overread wrote:
So far we've no hint at a scale change - its purely the result of people chatting and wish-listing/dreaming on things they'd like.

I don't see how it would make any sense for them to announce a big project with part of the initial reveal being "Here's a square base, remember These and The Old World setting? We're gonna return to them, get excited!" only to a long while later go "Oh, we meant Warmaster, not WHFB!" or "This is a small scope game just for for those of you who played human factions", either of those suggestions would just be absurd and be like another slap in the face to WHFB fans.

Something you need to understand is that "The Old World" refers very explicitly to one particular continent, and not the entirety of the world that continent belonged to (now known as the-world-that-was). From the moment of the announcement there should have been an expectation that not all factions would be present in the game (and most of the factions that would be in it would be human ones).

As for square bases - the reason people want square bases is because they want a rank n file game as opposed to the skirmish combat covered by all of the other games GW releases. If GW gives us minis in a different scale that fulfill the criteria of a rank n file game then they still gave us what they marketed.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Hardly wish listing for many I'd think, more that I (and it looks like many others) just can't see how GW can do a large scale rank and file game at 28mm (or 32mm if we're looking at todays sculpting scale) without hitting the same 'too expensive to make a decent sized army, and too tedious to paint even if you do afford it' which was one of the reasons WHFB started dying

Probably the same way they got people to buy HH armies full of expensive resin kits.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Something you need to understand is that "The Old World" refers very explicitly to one particular continent, and not the entirety of the world that continent belonged to (now known as the-world-that-was). From the moment of the announcement there should have been an expectation that not all factions would be present in the game (and most of the factions that would be in it would be human ones).

While I'm all for tempering expectations, "The Old World" is as much a name of a land mass as it is a term describing Ye Olde Warhammer.

I don't think it's particularly unreasonable for Delves, Lizzies or Khemri players to expect some attention directed towards their factions of choice down the line.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 Overread wrote:
So far we've no hint at a scale change - its purely the result of people chatting and wish-listing/dreaming on things they'd like.

I don't see how it would make any sense for them to announce a big project with part of the initial reveal being "Here's a square base, remember These and The Old World setting? We're gonna return to them, get excited!" only to a long while later go "Oh, we meant Warmaster, not WHFB!" or "This is a small scope game just for for those of you who played human factions", either of those suggestions would just be absurd and be like another slap in the face to WHFB fans.

Something you need to understand is that "The Old World" refers very explicitly to one particular continent, and not the entirety of the world that continent belonged to (now known as the-world-that-was). From the moment of the announcement there should have been an expectation that not all factions would be present in the game (and most of the factions that would be in it would be human ones).

This is something that seems a bit unclear, really.

Within the WHFB setting, "The Old World" referred to a particular part of the planet, the continent where Bretonia, the Empire etc was.

But within the context of this project and how they've referred to things, it does not sound limited to that continent:

"...Archaon destroyed the world. Classic Archaon.

Everything we knew of the Old World collapsed into a void of Chaos and infinite possibility."

"From the reforged primordial soup and etheric energies of the Old World rose wonders we could never have imagined "

If you’re itching to jump into the Old World right now, you can! There is a fantastic selection of computer games, such as Vermintide and Total War: Warhammer, offering a chance to engage in the enduring appeal of the setting.

They're talking about in a way that implies it's not just that one continent within The World That Was, but rather just using the term applied to the setting itself.

None of that points to "The Old World" as a planet vs "The Old World" as a region. Given that the announcement, and every WarCom post since, has *only* ever featured a map of that specific continent, it would be silly to assume they mean anything else.

chaos0xomega wrote:
None of that points to "The Old World" as a planet vs "The Old World" as a region. Given that the announcement, and every WarCom post since, has *only* ever featured a map of that specific continent, it would be silly to assume they mean anything else.

It's using the term "The Old World" in a context that implies it's not just a small part of a larger setting, but the setting itself. They're sentences where it would make far more sense to use "The World That Was" instead, it comes across as a bit odd by using The Old World - The Old World wasn't what got reforged and lead to "armies of ghosts, fleets of aether-powered aircraft, Greenskin brutes the size of horses, and flying sharks", it was the entire planet/setting that was. It's either using the term to refer to the whole setting, or referring to the continent in contexts where it doesn't have particular direct relevance to the sentence.

 kodos wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 Overread wrote:
So far we've no hint at a scale change - its purely the result of people chatting and wish-listing/dreaming on things they'd like.

I don't see how it would make any sense for them to announce a big project with part of the initial reveal being "Here's a square base, remember These and The Old World setting? We're gonna return to them, get excited!" only to a long while later go "Oh, we meant Warmaster, not WHFB!" or "This is a small scope game just for for those of you who played human factions", either of those suggestions would just be absurd and be like another slap in the face to WHFB fans.

well, this would mean GW had a full plan when doing that and not just tried to mock Kings of War
by that time we also should have Squads back in 40k, as hints and "remember those" stuff is posted for years now


but by seeing what GW is doing and not knowing how armies of the current edition should look like 2 years in advance or changing the mind on how their game should look like in the middle of an Edition
I don't see them to have thought ahead on doing anything specific by showing the picture and still don't know what they should do

 DarkBlack wrote:

GrosseSax wrote:As someone (along with my normal group) who had been introduced to WHFB through Total War and instantly fell in love with the setting, we were very disappointed to find that the entire TT setting was nuked a few years prior to us discovering it. We looked into Age of Sigmar and were thoroughly unimpressed so we decided to go with 8th. After months of collecting dozens of boxes of older minis still available on GW's storefront (greatswords, dreadspears, skelies, kemmler/krell etc) and those now discontinued elsewhere (the guy putting together a Stirlander army almost had a stroke when he saw the prices of empire archers on ebay), we thought we were in a pretty good place after hearing about the "Old World".

Needless to say, we hope there are no major changes to scale. If so, we'll just go back to our original plan. No harm, no foul.

Why not try Kings of War while you wait? You can use the models that you have and the basic rules are free from here with a free list builder here

+1

if you come from Total War, Kings of War is the perfect way to spend the time until GW delivers something
the rules are model agnostic and the armies fit the themes of the old Warhammer armies

Its been on our radar for a while and we've heard pretty good things about it on the various forums on which we lurk.

Thanks fellas, will definitely check it out.

As far as waiting for GW delivering - we have mostly everything we need to play without GW's support. I can't speak for anyone else, but if GW wants to put out a product that I want, I don't have a problem buying it on day 1 (despite the obnoxious pricepoints), if not, its not a big deal. Aside from reading a couple White Dwarf issues in the 90's and some purchases off the storefront over the last year, I really haven't had enough interactions with GW to get upset or expect anything. Ultimately, as a potential consumer, I remain optimistic about these announcements.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
None of that points to "The Old World" as a planet vs "The Old World" as a region. Given that the announcement, and every WarCom post since, has *only* ever featured a map of that specific continent, it would be silly to assume they mean anything else.

It's using the term "The Old World" in a context that implies it's not just a small part of a larger setting, but the setting itself. They're sentences where it would make far more sense to use "The World That Was" instead, it comes across as a bit odd by using The Old World - The Old World wasn't what got reforged and lead to "armies of ghosts, fleets of aether-powered aircraft, Greenskin brutes the size of horses, and flying sharks", it was the entire planet/setting that was. It's either using the term to refer to the whole setting, or referring to the continent in contexts where it doesn't have particular direct relevance to the sentence.

Hard disagree. If you read carefully you will note that they also refer to "the world that was", which reinforces the idea that these are two distinct terms - "And of course, much of the lore of the Mortal Realms has its roots in the world that was – with some of its most venerable denizens being the very same that fought across those war-torn kingdoms (along with a small selection of choice magical artefacts.)". Its amazing what happens when you take something out of context. These aren't three discrete quotes - this is a continuous narrative that need to be read together to ensure proper contextualization of the message:

For those of you who don’t know, in 2015, Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles changed forever, in so far as Archaon destroyed the world. Classic Archaon.

Everything we knew of the Old World collapsed into a void of Chaos and infinite possibility.

From that tumultuous storm came the Mortal Realms, heralding a new dawn of unending war in the Age of Sigmar. From the reforged primordial soup and etheric energies of the Old World rose wonders we could never have imagined – armies of ghosts, fleets of aether-powered aircraft, Greenskin brutes the size of horses, and flying sharks! The heroes, villains, warriors and monsters of Warhammer Age of Sigmar represent the best range of fantasy miniatures in the world, beloved of a passionate, global gaming community. And over the past four years, Warhammer Age of Sigmar has become by far, the most successful fantasy game ever.

And yet, the Old World whispers from ages past with its siren song. We grow misty-eyed at the memory of long-lost heroes and glorious kingdoms laid to ruin and of mighty champions whose sagas are sung no more.

And of course, much of the lore of the Mortal Realms has its roots in the world that was – with some of its most venerable denizens being the very same that fought across those war-torn kingdoms (along with a small selection of choice magical artefacts.)

The Old World is to Warhammer Age of Sigmar, as the Horus Heresy is to Warhammer 40,000. The bedrock of lore from which mortals rose to godhood and legends were forged. And like the Horus Heresy, seeing those mythic heroes in action has an undeniable appeal, as does re-creating the glorious armies of a previous epoch – an exciting proposition for hobbyists and gamers alike. And now, we have a dedicated team in the Warhammer Studio beginning the work of bringing all that awesome back to the tabletop.

Put in other terms:

"For those of you who don't know, the entire Warhammer Fantasy setting (i.e. the world) was destroyed in 2015 as part of a big fluff event.

Everything we know of the subject of this entire post (i.e. the Old World) got tossed in a blender as a result of that.

From that blender we got Age of Sigmar. The subjects raw material was part of the blending process and was incorporated into it to make all sorts of cool new stuff.

And yet, we yearn for the subject and are nostalgic for it.

And it wasn't just the subject that got turned into Age of Sigmar, the *entire world* was part of that rich and luxurious blend that got turned into an Age of Sigmar milkshake.

So, we're bringing the subject back in a brand new game!"

The fifth paragraph in all of this is key - if "The Old World" is being used to refer to the whole world, and the 2nd and 3rd paragraph inform us that The Old World was tossed into a blender and turned into Age of Sigmar, then it makes little sense for the 5th paragraph to say the same exact thing. That paragraph exists to remind us that it wasn't *just* "The Old World" that was used to create Age of Sigmar, but in fact the *entire* world that was.

You're putting far more thought into GW's words than they do with the "Old World" vs "World That Was" thing. It is safe to assume that this release will be what it seems to be.
It's a marketing campaign not an fething infernal contract.

GrosseSax wrote:
As someone (along with my normal group) who had been introduced to WHFB through Total War and instantly fell in love with the setting, we were very disappointed to find that the entire TT setting was nuked a few years prior to us discovering it. We looked into Age of Sigmar and were thoroughly unimpressed so we decided to go with 8th. After months of collecting dozens of boxes of older minis still available on GW's storefront (greatswords, dreadspears, skelies, kemmler/krell etc) and those now discontinued elsewhere (the guy putting together a Stirlander army almost had a stroke when he saw the prices of empire archers on ebay), we thought we were in a pretty good place after hearing about the "Old World".

Needless to say, we hope there are no major changes to scale. If so, we'll just go back to our original plan. No harm, no foul.

Felt the same same when I saw the prices on Ebay for Bretonnian Men at Arms. Not to mention anything else that isn't 5e Archers and Knights of the Realm.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

GrosseSax wrote:
As someone (along with my normal group) who had been introduced to WHFB through Total War and instantly fell in love with the setting, we were very disappointed to find that the entire TT setting was nuked a few years prior to us discovering it.

I don't think there is any better example of how badly thought out the launch of AoS was than the fact that they did it just before the release of the biggest and most anticipated video game based on their IP.

Was it even announced at the time?

A smaller scale also allows them to potentially use the same system for a Battle of Five Armies relaunch

You mean Warmaster. (its the same basic ruleset, just slightly modified).

Them showing a square base could mean anything. Are there even any models remaining that ship with square bases? "Square Base" could be reference to "rank and flank" much like square bashing, etc.

This was almost certainly the message. Square bases on their own are almost completely meaningless, nobody (that I know of) is a square based fetishist because they get their jolly from having corners on their bases, the desire for square basing is so you can position your troops in neat ranks and files, specifically and explicitly so you can maneuver and fight in such formations.

They still had clear references to 40k in the WHFB Albion campaign ("magic" items that were basically 40k wargear), and linked the fluff as recently as the End Times (the Wood Elf Araloth encountered someone presumed to be Kaldor Draigo in the Realms of Chaos, and the Skaven had a phone call with the Eldar). Not to mention the continued shared daemons of course. Besides, why would they want to separate them? Daemon kits do double duty. Genestealer and Chaos cults exist in Necromunda. Warcry figures work in AoS and vice versa; even Underworlds warbands have rules in AoS. For some things, GW likes selling people 2 things instead of 1, but having partial overlap is also a good gateway from one system to another.

You will note, however, that in almost all the examples you've listed (Daemons notwithstanding), cross-functionality was not a "day one" feature. Genestealers and Chaos Cults took what, 1-2 years to show up in Necromunda? Warcry figures got day 1 rules in AoS (as basic as they were) but it took months before AoS minis got support for use in Warcry. Underworlds untis did not initially have AoS rules, that came some weeks/months after they began releasing them. Quite frankly I think the timing is intentional and manipulative. The goal is to get people to buy stuff. It took forever for GSC and Chaos cults to get Necromunda support because GW wanted you to buy its new range of Necromunda minis. Only after Necromunda had been on the market did they start making allowances for proper 40k factions to be utilized, that was because at that point they figured that if you hadn't already bought the Necromunda minis you weren't going to, though maybe they could sucker you into playing a game or two with your existing minis and if you liked it enough maybe you'd pick up that Cawdor gang you were on the fence about.

Warcry figures got AoS rules on launch because they were new minis that GW wanted you to buy. AoS minis didn't get Warcry rules on launch because they really wanted you to buy the new Warcry minis first instead of using your existing AoS minis, they only gave the AoS minis rules after release because at that point if you hadn't jumped into the Warcry pool you weren't going to, but just like with Necromunda, maybe if you played a game or two you could be convinced to buy a box of The Unmade or The Corvus Cabal...

If you look at modern 40k or even most AOS armies they're absolutely gigantic at 2k points. In fact when you think that basically GW and the community encouraged 2.5k games for Fantasy to the exclusion of all else this idea that you "needed" too many models in the system is kind of false. Fact of the matter is, during 8th Edition 40k people were putting more models on the table than ever before, many of which approached or exceeded 2.5k games of Fantasy, and yet the game thrived and grew and grew and grew.

The rules indirectly encouraged larger games though to the point that its not really "false" to say that you needed too many models, I don't really know that thats the communities fault (but it is GW's). If the rules contain mechanics for something called "Hordes" that you can't really meaningfully take advantage of until your units hit 30 models each, then its reasonable to assume that you're going to want to play a game where that rule comes into play. That wasn't the only rule that encouraged larger unit sizes, etc. mind you - there was quite a bit in the rulebook that pointed in that direction. The community merely adopted a standard that enabled players to meaningfully engage and interact with the rules as written. Could people have played smaller games? Yes, but then they would be leaving rules on the table. Sociologically/psychologically speaking, gamers are overwhelmingly similar to horders - they want everything they can get their hands on, every mini, every mechanical advantage, everything. If theres a rule for something, you can expect your players to use it unless it serves no meaningful purpose. From a designers standpoint - if you put a rule for something into a game, you can reasonably expect your players to want to use it. In short, 2.5k games were unavoidable without a change to the rules.

The real problem here though is that the game played differently at low points values compared to high points values, because at lower points those "big unit" rules didn't come into play. The armies were clearly balanced around making full use of those rules and thus not having them in effect would have an impact on how the game played. By extension, playing smaller game sizes would produce a different experience which wouldn't necessarily be comparable to the experience of a full size game which limits their value as a way of "escalating" players to larger game sizes if the game felt significantly different at 2.5k points compared to 1k points.

You're putting far more thought into GW's words than they do with the "Old World" vs "World That Was" thing. It is safe to assume that this release will be what it seems to be.
It's a marketing campaign not an fething infernal contract.

I agree. They named the game after one specific continent in the setting and keep showing us maps of that one specific continent and absolutely no other parts of the world map. Clearly, its safe to assume that the game is going to be exactly what it seems to be - a game centered around that one specific area of the setting.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Nothing they've shown us suggests anything about the scale. Warmaster used the same bases as Warhammer Fantasy Battle (IIRC they were all on cavalry bases, so not exactly "square" so much as rectangular), and concept artwork is concept artwork, it doesn't point to any specific scale.

Anyway, if I was GW the first factions out of the gate would be Warriors of Chaos, Kislev, Bretonnia, and Tomb Kings. Bretonnia and Tomb Kings because theres the most fan support for them (in the same way as Sisters of Battle). Warriors of Chaos are easily back-ended in via Age of Sigmar as most of their range is still available (though again I think GW doesn't want to sell us the same minis we already have), but also the design studio considers Chaos Warriors to be the fantasy equivalent of a Space Marine and amongst the most iconic and unique aspects of the setting. No way they reboot WHFB without Chaos Warriors. Kislev has become a meme within the Total War community, release a miniatures line, get a bunch of pc nerds hooked into the tabletop game, and then release an expac for the PC game featuring them afterwards - GW will make millions.

You still need some glue to bind those 4 factions together, so you release Empire, which sits smack dab in the middle of them. With clever art and miniatures design, an Empire range also gets you minis easily usable for Bretonnia and Kislev as well, so its kind of a win/win and the Empire was the central "good guy" faction of the setting, hard to do a reboot without them. Empire also easily allows you to bring back Vampires which are a much beloved army that don't exist as a cohesive whole in Age of Sigmar - rumors abound of Vampirates coming for AoS, which is great, but its not the same. While I'm at it, if you're doing generic Empire minis, you can easily get Estalia, Tilea, and Border Princes in too.

So those are the factions that I would expect to see if I were doing the game: Warriors of Chaos, Kislev, Bretonnia, Tomb Kings, Vampires, and Empire + non-Empire human factions.

To me, Wood Elves and High Elves are a trap, as are Orcs. I don't doubt GW will stick them in the game, just that I don't think they make sense, at least not before the others I listed.

Warmaster was on 20x40mm flat stand bases, not even remotely the same as cav bases.

 Bosskelot wrote:

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Hardly wish listing for many I'd think,

more that I (and it looks like many others) just can't see how GW can do a large scale rank and file game at 28mm (or 32mm if we're looking at todays sculpting scale) without hitting the same 'too expensive to make a decent sized army, and too tedious to paint even if you do afford it' which was one of the reasons WHFB started dying

and as well as making it more viable in terms of cost and army size (and time needed to paint said army) dropping the scale would also keep it clearly separate from AoS (and LoTR),

remember they flirted with having connections with WHFB and Rogue Trader/40K in the beginning but decided to abandon the idea. They've already got a connection between the world that was and AoS so easiest way to keen them well separated is a different scale

(i'd love to be wrong as I don't care for smaller scales,)

If you look at modern 40k or even most AOS armies they're absolutely gigantic at 2k points. In fact when you think that basically GW and the community encouraged 2.5k games for Fantasy to the exclusion of all else this idea that you "needed" too many models in the system is kind of false. Fact of the matter is, during 8th Edition 40k people were putting more models on the table than ever before, many of which approached or exceeded 2.5k games of Fantasy, and yet the game thrived and grew and grew and grew. And it's not like many of those armies were any less tedious to paint either. And it's not like price increases have kept up with average earnings: GW is more expensive nowadays, even accounting for inflation. 40k and AOS are not skirmish games, they are massed battle games without the rank and file.

What is important is scalability and initial buy-in being easy and relatively cheap. This is something that was eroded in Fantasy from 7th onwards, reaching an absolute peak in 8th where unless you had a giant block of 80 elite foot soldiers that could tank a few Purple Suns and still have enough models in afterwards to get rank bonus then you may as well not have been playing. Like I said on a previous page, you could make somewhat viable and effective regiments from the regiment boxes back in 6th because 4x4 was a valid size. With the change to width becoming 5 in 7th Ed a ton of boxes suddenly became worse overnight and then forced people into buying 2x of them. Added to this is that in the last two editions of the game, smaller ways to play were basically dropped and discouraged whereas in 6th there was much more support for 1k or 1.5k games, you even had the skirmish rules in the back of the rulebook. And this isn't even getting into some of the later sets that were unplayable from a physical point of view, where they literally didn't even fit on their tiny square bases much less rank up together properly. Who the feth is gonna buy that?

If you make initial buy-in easy, if you have proper scaling and support for multiple levels of play and if you sell basic products that are usable within your game system from the get-go, then there's no reason why a massed battle rank and file game at 28mm can't be successful.

I don't recall 40k games getting up to those sizes on a typical basis, at least not around these parts. I myself have a Tyranid army and despised playing large games with 100 or so models as half the day would be taken up doing the movement phases, whereas my WHFB O&G army weighs in at about 170 to 200 models.

But yeah I agree on the scalability thing. I recall in earlier editions it was a valid tactic to run several smaller units with a couple of big blocks for achors to gain a movement advantage over armies running only big blocks, but that tactic died out in later editions as they'd just be swept away.

Whatever they do we are just not going to be able to get GW's new style figures to rank up on old WHFB sized bases.

Derek H wrote:
Whatever they do we are just not going to be able to get GW's new style figures to rank up on old WHFB sized bases.

I recently got the new start collecting box for chaos warriors and had a really plesant surprise at the size of them. They are basicly the size of an old Empire human in heavy armour -their weapons are of a more realistic scale rather than the absurd bloat of gigantic axes, flaming swords or magic effects flying all over the place.
Without loosing any of the menacing and dominating appearance they are actually sleeker and more nimble than ever. The bare heads, if you want them, are as small as the lord of the rings range.

They would fit great in a generic old world setting

I dont expect the new game to use the same base and unit sizes as the old one. Wouldnt be surprised if they went a bit along the KoW route and use movement trays/multibase for units and not count each individual model in a 30+ man unit.

This would allow them to have overlap between AoS and TOW and also let them have the new more "artistic" style without the problem of 0 models able to actually rank up well.

In 7th you had 5x5 units for a 100x100mm unit if they were on 20mm bases. If going for round 25mm bases it would be possible to go for 4x4 with special movement trays and keep the 100x100 for an infantry unit.They might instead go for 120x120 as the basic size and allow some flexibility to how you rank them. 6x6 on 20mm if you can manage it or 4x4 on round 25 with a movement tray with some space or anything in between. Or it would be slightly wider if they base it on 32mm round bases. I have no idea of the base size of AoS so they might go for that instead.

Monsters, warmachines and skirmishers could still be the same just that they increase the size of the square base by a level. Like a monster on a 40mm round base would be a 45-50mm square base so you could use extensions.

It all depends on if they want overlap of their games or not. If they have in mind to make the new game be on the same level as old WFB and stand on its own in the future then they probably wont make it too easy to use the models for both systems. But if it instead is more on the likes of their specialist games and they wont support it at the same level as 40k or AoS then lots of overlap wont really hurt or be able to kill their main game AoS so why not go for it to draw in the players that right now are looking at KoW or other systems. Having overlap will help increase the playerbase at the beginning and help the game take off.

I never played whfb but as I'm building Bestigors right now, which were designed for rank'n'file, I can't tell you how much I hope they up base sizes across the board, so the models can have more than one "I hold my weapon right in front of me" pose.

Seconded!

 Egyptian Space Zombie wrote:

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Hardly wish listing for many I'd think,

more that I (and it looks like many others) just can't see how GW can do a large scale rank and file game at 28mm (or 32mm if we're looking at todays sculpting scale) without hitting the same 'too expensive to make a decent sized army, and too tedious to paint even if you do afford it' which was one of the reasons WHFB started dying

and as well as making it more viable in terms of cost and army size (and time needed to paint said army) dropping the scale would also keep it clearly separate from AoS (and LoTR),

remember they flirted with having connections with WHFB and Rogue Trader/40K in the beginning but decided to abandon the idea. They've already got a connection between the world that was and AoS so easiest way to keen them well separated is a different scale

(i'd love to be wrong as I don't care for smaller scales,)

I think the solution is changing the basing, either like KoW or ASOIAF, or something new, so that blocks of units require less models.

I think part of what appeals about rank and file games is how they're densely packed units. Something is lost when the formation becomes too loose.

Of course that contradicts the idea of having something easier to get into, but something like this just looks cool standing opposite you on the battlefield...

My desire is a return to the gritty, down and dirty look and feel of Oldhammer.

I dislike modern versions for many reasons. One of the big ones is how ludicrous the overly ornate miniatures are. It literally looks like Brazilian parade in which several of the float contestants got in to a squabble. Huge centerpiece surrounded by gaudily dressed show girls.

Rules I can tinker with. I always do. But for me to buy the models they must look the part. Grubby peasants, Skaven looking like they just crawled from a sewer, Knights in battered armor, Dwarves with grubby fingers and menacing glares, etc.

I can not imagine dwarves spending countless hours on their hair before battle................throw on a hat and get to marching.

This means models to scale and aesthetic with 6th edition.

I honestly do not have much hope for anything that emerges but will buy the book for a read. After reading some online reviews..............

Even if the rules are good they will pulverize them before long. Making army lists and special rules for each and every model. Meaning game tactics are 5% and army list building- (and buying) are the other 95% of the experience.

I went back to 3rd edition and it will take a peach of a rules set for me to move ahead.

Just my $.02.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

I don't recall 40k games getting up to those sizes on a typical basis, at least not around these parts. I myself have a Tyranid army and despised playing large games with 100 or so models as half the day would be taken up doing the movement phases, whereas my WHFB O&G army weighs in at about 170 to 200 models.

But yeah I agree on the scalability thing. I recall in earlier editions it was a valid tactic to run several smaller units with a couple of big blocks for achors to gain a movement advantage over armies running only big blocks, but that tactic died out in later editions as they'd just be swept away.

for 40k there was the time were "formations" added expensive models for free
like if you have X units of Y ther transports for those are free, ending up with people being able to put 4000 points worth of units in a 2000 point game
and there rules were written in a way that you wanted to use those formations because those were the "fluffy" way of playing a specific company/faction

and those things did not scale well as one army could use those formations already at 1,5k points while another only at 2,5k points

same way Warhammer stopped scaling well in 8th, as with the 50% Heroes instead of a fixed number and rules that needed larger blocks, was well as stronger monsters, magic and warmachines, playing less than 2k points was a problem as a single model could wipe out the opponents army in a single turn (something we haven't had since 5th Edition) and 2,5-3k was the point level were things started to work

a strange thing, that was the communities fault, was that while house rules were dominant in 7th and made it work, people were strongly against them in 8th "because GW now fixed all problems and we need to play the game as it is for the full Warhammer experience"
don't know were this trend was coming from but changing rules that did not work well, was a no-go while it was normal in 7th that stuff that was obvious broken at lower points got changed without a doubt

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I think part of what appeals about rank and file games is how they're densely packed units. Something is lost when the formation becomes too loose.

Of course that contradicts the idea of having something easier to get into, but something like this just looks cool standing opposite you on the battlefield...

Believe me, I fully understand that. Few things are cooler than a full shieldwall of spearmen, which your opponent has to charge.

I don't want to loose that phalanx feeling either, but I believe there is a middle ground between "I have to pose all my models with them holding their weapons up, so they don't use up more than 25cm²" and the Khorne Wrathmongers.

Daughters of Khaine Witch Aelves are rank and file models and yet have a very dynamic pose to them. I would suspect that digital sculpting would allow designers to really get wild with poses and experiment with what can and cannot work in conceptual form far easier and quicker than physical sculptors who would likely find it more of a challenge (and a huge amount of time reposing and redesigning models etc...).