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It will be interesting to see what the actual scope is; a full reboot of every prior faction seems unlikely but the implication from some of the articles seems to be that they'll at least all have rules, even if no new models. I wouldn't be surprised if the core focus of the launch stuff is based around the Time of Three Emperors conflict so that it can be similar to the Horus Heresy (i.e. miniatures that can be either used to form one army or 2 opposing ones).

going via the old Warhammer channels, people are already saving up money and stop playing other games while bringing their old armies into shape to be ready day 1

 kodos wrote:
well, it is super easy to be all-in and stop playing anything else and wait for years based on a promise

and for those people, an official rule book and the promise for support is enough

I don't think anyone has stopped and is pausing. Perhaps they've stopped investing into game X and are playing game Y because they hope that the new Warhammer game will replace X for them.

But otherwise no one is just sitting there waiting - a few might well be, but I'd not suspect that to be anywhere near a majority or significant number. Especially right now. A few might have started going full stop until the reality of "3 years at the very absolute least and that was before a global pandemic" hit home.




And people argue over everything online. From official models to paint jobs to concepts to maps to whatever.

(duplicate - ignore)

 kodos wrote:
going via the old Warhammer channels, people are already saving up money and stop playing other games while bringing their old armies into shape to be ready day 1

I find that incredibly difficult to believe that people would drop everything and do nothing for half a decade. At minimum.

a lot of people expected it to drop sooner than later
even here a lot thought it will be released together with TWW3 or at least in the same year

that HH took the spot some believed was meant for TOW was a surprise, and I have already said it, a lot of those that are hyped now (better said, still are) will be disappointed at best

 Overread wrote:
But otherwise no one is just sitting there waiting

not just waiting, but waiting and building
one of the local players stopped everything else and is now building and painting a Chaos Army from scratch because he want to be ready (he also thought that TOW will be 2022/23 because of the "soon" from GW), another one is doing the same with an Empire army

following old logs/blogs, a lot of them started over again, stopping current games/projects to get an TOW army ready

there are not many of course, but for those it does not matter how many new kits or factions will be there in release, they just want official rules and support

How could anyone possibly be "ready" when there's absolutely no clue what the rules are? He could spend this time building a completely invalidated force before (and if) the game ever launches.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kodos wrote:
a lot of people expected it to drop sooner than later
even here a lot thought it will be released together with TWW3 or at least in the same year

that HH took the spot some believed was meant for TOW was a surprise, and I have already said it, a lot of those that are hyped now (better said, still are) will be disappointed at best

 Overread wrote:
But otherwise no one is just sitting there waiting

not just waiting, but waiting and building
one of the local players stopped everything else and is now building and painting a Chaos Army from scratch because he want to be ready (he also thought that TOW will be 2022/23 because of the "soon" from GW), another one is doing the same with an Empire army

following old logs/blogs, a lot of them started over again, stopping current games/projects to get an TOW army ready

there are not many of course, but for those it does not matter how many new kits or factions will be there in release, they just want official rules and support

People who believed that deluded themselves when they were explicitly told 3 years minimum. And that was before the pandemic hit.

 kodos wrote:
one of the local players stopped everything else and is now building and painting a Chaos Army from scratch because he want to be ready (he also thought that TOW will be 2022/23 because of the "soon" from GW), another one is doing the same with an Empire army

Then find out GW's units aren't anything at all like he builds

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Dead as in top-3 miniature game seller. 40k, star wars, fb

I'm guessing you're talking about the ICv2 top seller lists, since we have nothing else to go on. Last time WHFB was even a blip on that chart was 2013, two years before it was canned.

ICv2 was never a good indicator because of the bias in the polling method (they didn't poll GW stores or online store), and from memory it only considered the US (maybe I'm misremembering?) and we know WHFB was never as popular in the US as it was elsewhere in the world.

Space Marines massively bias any comparison. I remember the comment that WHFB was outsold by Space Marines alone, but Space Marines outsold the rest of 40k combined also, hell, GW just had great success with their Space Marine vs Space Marine game in which most 40k factions don't exist and the ones that do don't have rules anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That also depends on how the game is played.

Ranked infantry blocks? Not so much variety needed overall, because they’re inherently limited in movement and the game mechanics.

If we breakdown WHFB? There weren’t that many unit types overall.

You had….Skirmishers, Ranged Infantry, Combat Infantry, Cavalry, Chariots, Big Infantry (Ogres etc) Monsters and Artillery - plus of course characters.

Now each of those types of course had sub types (heavy infantry, horde infantry, ranged infantry, medium infantry) and of course unit or racial rules added further variety.

And an armies access to those also varied. But breaking it down that’s the main options.

You listed 9 categories, so that's quite a lot.

Lets face it, WHFB got very bloated in its range and it needed a cull (even though I didn't want them to cull the whole bloody game!), but even ignoring that bloat to make a WHFB army the bare minimum would (I think) be 2 infantry kits, a cav, a character, something special and something rare.

I don’t agree the game became bloated.

I think the main issue is that over the editions, as long term players collections expanded, so did the scope of the rules to enable people to use more of their collections. Sadly, they lost sight of keeping the entry cost reasonable. And due to the mechanics, a 1,000 point game wasn’t all that satisfying, as army selection cut out a bunch of options. So if you wanted to field a Dragon, for instance, you needed a 2,000 point army. Which got more and more expensive over the editions.

3 years minimum, more like 4-5 years but some take this literally and think GW won't have made a teaser without a ready to launch product

and building an army based on old fantasy rules because GW promised it will be based on previous ones

people do strange things and for some the nostalgia and love for Warhammer is very real

tneva82 wrote:
Then find out GW's units aren't anything at all like he builds

as I said, a lot of people will be disappointed, one way or the other

 kodos wrote:
3 years minimum, more like 4-5 years but some take this literally and think GW won't have made a teaser without a ready to launch product

and building an army based on old fantasy rules because GW promised it will be based on previous ones

people do strange things and for some the nostalgia and love for Warhammer is very real

tneva82 wrote:
Then find out GW's units aren't anything at all like he builds

as I said, a lot of people will be disappointed, one way or the other

Because GW promised...111-come on now.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I don’t agree the game became bloated.

I think the main issue is that over the editions, as long term players collections expanded, so did the scope of the rules to enable people to use more of their collections. Sadly, they lost sight of keeping the entry cost reasonable. And due to the mechanics, a 1,000 point game wasn’t all that satisfying, as army selection cut out a bunch of options. So if you wanted to field a Dragon, for instance, you needed a 2,000 point army. Which got more and more expensive over the editions.

When I say bloated I didn't mean points cost, I mean the shear number of SKU's that needed to be maintained. A quick flick through some of the old Army Books and it was pretty typical for armies to have 15 to 20 unit entries not including characters, throw on another 5 or so character options and 5 to 10 special characters, multiplied by, what was it in the end, 13 factions? That's a huge range, even if some of those options were dual kits or whatever, it's still a whole lot of individual products and options.

I do also think the rules were a bit bloated, though they kind of always were bloated rather than "becoming" bloated. It was GW's typical style of long winded rules, rules spread across multiple locations within books and then across multiple books. One of the last games I played was me and a friend trying to get into a new edition and spending ages just flipping from book to book and rule to rule to perform what felt like something that should be simple.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Dead as in top-3 miniature game seller. 40k, star wars, fb

I'm guessing you're talking about the ICv2 top seller lists, since we have nothing else to go on. Last time WHFB was even a blip on that chart was 2013, two years before it was canned.

ICv2 was never a good indicator because of the bias in the polling method (they didn't poll GW stores or online store), and from memory it only considered the US (maybe I'm misremembering?) and we know WHFB was never as popular in the US as it was elsewhere in the world.

Space Marines massively bias any comparison. I remember the comment that WHFB was outsold by Space Marines alone, but Space Marines outsold the rest of 40k combined also, hell, GW just had great success with their Space Marine vs Space Marine game in which most 40k factions don't exist and the ones that do don't have rules anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That also depends on how the game is played.

Ranked infantry blocks? Not so much variety needed overall, because they’re inherently limited in movement and the game mechanics.

If we breakdown WHFB? There weren’t that many unit types overall.

You had….Skirmishers, Ranged Infantry, Combat Infantry, Cavalry, Chariots, Big Infantry (Ogres etc) Monsters and Artillery - plus of course characters.

Now each of those types of course had sub types (heavy infantry, horde infantry, ranged infantry, medium infantry) and of course unit or racial rules added further variety.

And an armies access to those also varied. But breaking it down that’s the main options.

You listed 9 categories, so that's quite a lot.

Lets face it, WHFB got very bloated in its range and it needed a cull (even though I didn't want them to cull the whole bloody game!), but even ignoring that bloat to make a WHFB army the bare minimum would (I think) be 2 infantry kits, a cav, a character, something special and something rare.

I don’t agree the game became bloated.

I think the main issue is that over the editions, as long term players collections expanded, so did the scope of the rules to enable people to use more of their collections. Sadly, they lost sight of keeping the entry cost reasonable. And due to the mechanics, a 1,000 point game wasn’t all that satisfying, as army selection cut out a bunch of options. So if you wanted to field a Dragon, for instance, you needed a 2,000 point army. Which got more and more expensive over the editions.

Agreed. Heck 40K armies are easily as big as Old World 2K armies were back in the day - some might even be bigger if you build your force a certain way (swarm Tyranids).

The issues for Old World were many; but a huge part was that there was this massive entry barrier. You "needed" to hit that 2K or at least 1.5K for the game to work. You could play at smaller point values but the system didn't work all that well. Some armies were very imbalanced and some almost didn't function. Plus small point value games looked and played a little daft. Hit 500points and you're basically just lining up and charging forward with your two or three units without much to move around or play with.


Old World also needed investment and attention. End Times showed that there was still a healthy legacy interest with gamers and could easily have been used to build up hype for a new edition and to at the very least re-activate the long term fans and get them gaming. Get them back in and then introduce smaller scale games and systems to make entry games. GW could easily have done something like Warcry/Killteam and Underworlds boardgames and skirmish games to ease people in. Nothing AoS has done are things that Old World could not have done - heck even most of the armies in AoS could fit into Old World very easily.

Khadorans are Dwarves who followed that crazed scottish dwarf and rejected the Engineers Guild's restrictions on technology; Ossiarchs are Nagash's newest creation upon his return; Nighthaunt represent a powerful swath of magic flooding the world and the once slaved ghosts of the Vampires fragmenting off in great enough numbers to form their own forces etc....

Looking forward to this VERY tempted to make a Skaven force for it.. Now I assume that they are going to focus on some factions to start with like the Imperial Civil War of succession before they do the wider roster... Id love to see a supplement a'la Ravening Hordes for it...

Just got to see where it goes ... I wonder if they will retcon "The End Times" or the "Rushed Apocalypse" as I like to call it.

But I doubt it because it was believe it or not the best selling bow out for the old world..I like AoS though would like to see the rules for Warhammer be less bulky no cards more intrigating the magic into a dice pool for casting..

Done right this could be banging..

If it takes in time of 3 emperor there doesn't have to be any retcon as it's far in future and wouldn't have any impact anyway.

It's only needed retcon if they put it to time AFTER end times...

Was it really 13 major factions? Let me see, I get:

1-Elves, High
2-Elves, Dark
3-Elves, Wood
4-Dwarves
5-Humans, Empire
6-Humans, Brettonian
7-Humans, Vampiric
8-Humans, Skeletal
9-Humans, Chaotic
10-Humans, Lizard
11-Ogres
12-Orcs and Goblins
13-Daemons

OK Undead, Orcs and Ogres, and Chaos could be squished back together but yeah that is a lot, a lot lot.

I know GW has refuted this more than once, but a smaller scale game where you could do an army on a sprue or two would make so much sense. I don't want to say Warmaster, but something like Warmaster.

Because now GW would be supporting 3 slightly different 28mm fantasy war games plus I dunno how many skirmish games.

 Overread wrote:
And people argue over everything online. From official models to paint jobs to concepts to maps to whatever.

No, they don't!

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I don’t agree the game became bloated.

I think the main issue is that over the editions, as long term players collections expanded, so did the scope of the rules to enable people to use more of their collections. Sadly, they lost sight of keeping the entry cost reasonable. And due to the mechanics, a 1,000 point game wasn’t all that satisfying, as army selection cut out a bunch of options. So if you wanted to field a Dragon, for instance, you needed a 2,000 point army. Which got more and more expensive over the editions.

When I say bloated I didn't mean points cost, I mean the shear number of SKU's that needed to be maintained. A quick flick through some of the old Army Books and it was pretty typical for armies to have 15 to 20 unit entries not including characters, throw on another 5 or so character options and 5 to 10 special characters, multiplied by, what was it in the end, 13 factions? That's a huge range, even if some of those options were dual kits or whatever, it's still a whole lot of individual products and options.

I do also think the rules were a bit bloated, though they kind of always were bloated rather than "becoming" bloated. It was GW's typical style of long winded rules, rules spread across multiple locations within books and then across multiple books. One of the last games I played was me and a friend trying to get into a new edition and spending ages just flipping from book to book and rule to rule to perform what felt like something that should be simple.

Is there a viable fix to the extensive model ranges, though? Ask me, The Old World is not true to the legacy it claims unless I can play my Tomb Kings. And if everyone else has modern models, I don't want to be stuck with my two decades old army looking sad and out of place. So I want rules and model support for Tomb Kings. Ask another person, they'll say the same about Brettonians, Ogre Kingdoms, Warriors of Chaos, and so forth. For good or ill, Warhammer Fantasy left a legacy of several decades and people who don't feel their once supported faction is catered to will dispute that the Old World is what it claims to be.

How is GW to respond to that? They'll to find some solution if they actually want the game to be working nostalgia bait.

+Skaven!

14 factions to support!

Before they add Cathay and Kislev!

3 Elves
2-4 Humans
2 Dwarfs
2-3 Undead
Skaven
Lizards
2 Greenskin
Ogres
3 or 4 Chaos (3 per Type or 4 by Gods)

make it 9 to 21 factions depending on how they split and what they want to do with it

but for the beginning it is enough if there are army lists for those to make people happy

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Was it really 13 major factions? Let me see, I get:

10-Humans, Lizard

I know they're called 'Lizardmen' but delineating them as 'humans' is... yeah.

JimmyWolf87 wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Was it really 13 major factions? Let me see, I get:

10-Humans, Lizard

I know they're called 'Lizardmen' but delineating them as 'humans' is... yeah.

(It's a joke)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kodos wrote:


but for the beginning it is enough if there are army lists for those to make people happy

Army lists that have to be written, edited and play tested...

Even if GW does their usual slapdash version it's still a lot to ask.

I mean I keep wondering how this could work even in theory and I don't see it.

On the retail side, the shelf space alone...

in the usual GW way, as they base TOW on an existing edition with some modification, they are just taking the exiting army list, remove most special rules and be done

no thinking ahead or playtesting needed, this can be done later with campaign books (and there only the factions of the campaign need to work)

and 4 books and 1 starter set does not take that much shelf space


GW has shown many times that they don't need a good product to sell, they just need the promise of a good product and the right IP

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

JimmyWolf87 wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Was it really 13 major factions? Let me see, I get:

10-Humans, Lizard

I know they're called 'Lizardmen' but delineating them as 'humans' is... yeah.

(It's a joke)

I shall take your word for it.

Re. the scale; I can't imagine they'd want to alienate the potential for cross-compatibility with stuff like the (upcoming) Cities of Sigmar releases or some of the other existing AoS models that are definitely just lifted from an Old World aesthetic (the Witch Hunters from Underwords etc.). I remember when that set got revealed on stream and barely a single comment was about players actually using them for Underworlds as opposed to using them for Mordhiem or something. They'd basically have to do almost nothing to the Chaos ranges to make them suitable. Plus the notion that existing collections will still be compatible (remains to be seen if that will stick of course).

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I think the main issue is that over the editions, as long term players collections expanded, so did the scope of the rules to enable people to use more of their collections. Sadly, they lost sight of keeping the entry cost reasonable. And due to the mechanics, a 1,000 point game wasn’t all that satisfying, as army selection cut out a bunch of options. So if you wanted to field a Dragon, for instance, you needed a 2,000 point army. Which got more and more expensive over the editions.

That's a really interesting idea, actually. If you boil things down, "What do players want out of WHFB?" And I think you're right. People want a big monster or centerpiece. They want a variety of units. And it doesn't seem out of line to have that be a game you could play in an evening. But by the end, you really couldn't. That would be a good place for them to start planning and scaling things.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 kodos wrote:
going via the old Warhammer channels, people are already saving up money and stop playing other games while bringing their old armies into shape to be ready day 1

I find that incredibly difficult to believe that people would drop everything and do nothing for half a decade. At minimum.

So do I but at the time of the first annoucement even in Matic channels I saw droves of people saying "oh I was gonna try KoW with the new edition comign out but now I'll just wait for TOW"

Presumably they're playing something in the mean time but it's not a Fantasy replacement, and it was peculiar how GW accidentally by happenstance fired a torpedo and it randomly hit Mantic in the face at the perfect time.

I'm excited to see what kits come out with the game, and what the game and theme is like.

I'd imagine that Horus Heresy release the last few months is a pretty good indicator of what old world will be like when it (eventually) comes out. (good selection of core plastic kits, and resin characters and upgrade kits).

I do find it hard to believe there will be many factions at launch. Definitely Humans for sure (and maybe sharing core kits for multiple factions, with upgrade kits giving character?).

Besides that, who knows. Makes a lot of financial sense for there to be a civil war as the backdrop of the game, and get more millage out of universal plastic human kits which work for multiple factions.

I never played Fantasy, so I'm not nostalgic for the old game, I'm just excited to see what they do.

 jaredb wrote:
I'm excited to see what kits come out with the game, and what the game and theme is like.

I'd imagine that Horus Heresy release the last few months is a pretty good indicator of what old world will be like when it (eventually) comes out. (good selection of core plastic kits, and resin characters and upgrade kits).

I do find it hard to believe there will be many factions at launch. Definitely Humans for sure (and maybe sharing core kits for multiple factions, with upgrade kits giving character?).

Besides that, who knows. Makes a lot of financial sense for there to be a civil war as the backdrop of the game, and get more millage out of universal plastic human kits which work for multiple factions.

I never played Fantasy, so I'm not nostalgic for the old game, I'm just excited to see what they do.

I agree but those 'multiple different factions' would be more 'different flavours of Empire' as opposed to multiple human factions. Not that there couldn't be a solid amount of variety between those looks but a 'generic human' kit wouldn't really work without completely undermining the established aesthetics (something they've shown no indication of doing). Imperials, Tileans, Bretonnians, Norse, Kislev and Cathay all look very different to one another. If that's indeed the way they start out then I'd expect it to be more a case of shared, core Empire troops that can be slit between sub-factions ala Reikland, Middenheim, Ostland etc. probably with resin upgrades to characterise them more.

TBH, we do have clues about the rules from that article with Andy Hoar

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/07/21/square-bases-and-kislev-ascendant-see-your-questions-about-warhammer-the-old-world-answered/

Will it be new rules or 8th edition ? Both! We’ve played every single edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles over the years and like every player, we have our favourite bits from each. Warhammer: The Old World will gather up all our favourite mechanics from the 3rd edition to the 8th edition** and add new elements where needed to create something deeply familiar yet fresh and new.

And then we have the new edition of Horus Heresy and Blood Bowl as a perfect example for what GW means with "both new and old" ; a few rule changes like reaction system in HH but the core mechanic is the same as the old.

I expect the Old World will be the same (please combine profiles like chariots in 8th for monster riders ).

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 kodos wrote:
going via the old Warhammer channels, people are already saving up money and stop playing other games while bringing their old armies into shape to be ready day 1

I find that incredibly difficult to believe that people would drop everything and do nothing for half a decade. At minimum.

So do I but at the time of the first annoucement even in Matic channels I saw droves of people saying "oh I was gonna try KoW with the new edition comign out but now I'll just wait for TOW"

Presumably they're playing something in the mean time but it's not a Fantasy replacement, and it was peculiar how GW accidentally by happenstance fired a torpedo and it randomly hit Mantic in the face at the perfect time.

The WTOW facebook group is filled with these folks. I do not find it hard to believe at all that lots of people are just fence-sitting, waiting for this

Seems worth pointing out the first announcement was 3 years ago and they just appointed a guy this week to start tinking about what the game will be.