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a witch-doctor stormcast? brave idea!

 Galas wrote:
I remember the backlash agaisnt ogre kingdoms. Because they didn't fitted in the old world (Even when you had dark elves in Naggarond participating without a problem), that they were retconing the better human ogres like the mordheim one, etc....

I don't recall too much complaining about the introduction of Ogre Kingdoms themselves other than the removal of regular Ogres. Not saying no one was complaining, but it wasn't a complaint I heard amongst my group. People in general seemed happy that we were getting something that expanded eastwards, and what complaints I did hear were more about how balanced an army consisting entirely of monstrous infantry would be.

WHFB fans were by the most parts extremely adverse to any kind of change or new introduction to the setting.

For the most part, even WHFB fans knew the game was dying and needed something to boost it. GW's attempts mostly focused on people buying bigger armies, but that wasn't well received and stopped new players getting into it.

When something is new, everything is possible and fresh, but the more time pases, the more things are set in stone.

Nothing I've seen in AoS couldn't exist in WHFB, WHFB was still a fantasy setting with magic, it's not hard to make a place for something new. But by killing WHFB they could get rid of a large portion of the existing kit. In the end I reckon that was the case, killing WHFB had less to do with expansions not fitting well into WHFB, but rather GW wanting to cull half the WHFB range.

Certainly whatever backlash there would have been from expanding WHFB would have paled into insignificance compared to the backlash from outright killing the setting. I recall The End Times being quite well received up until people started realising they were actually killing the setting and started to panic.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


Nothing I've seen in AoS couldn't exist in WHFB, WHFB was still a fantasy setting with magic, it's not hard to make a place for something new. But by killing WHFB they could get rid of a large portion of the existing kit. In the end I reckon that was the case, killing WHFB had less to do with expansions not fitting well into WHFB, but rather GW wanting to cull half the WHFB range.
Certainly whatever backlash there would have been from expanding WHFB would have paled into insignificance compared to the backlash from outright killing the setting. I recall The End Times being quite well received up until people started realising they were actually killing the setting and started to panic.

I always just thought it showed that they didn't have a confidence in the new game and setting. So, a stick was employed rather than a carrot. AoS is such a vastly different game to WHFB (in both fantasy setting and game mechanics) that both of them could have easily lived alongside each other.

Also probably being one of the most callous things GW has ever done in its history (actually eclipsing the destruction of the Squats by a country mile, which really were just allowed to whither and die) you have to know it was a business/accounting decision. There is absolutely no way anyone in the creative departments would have supported it and you have to think there must have been some opposition within GW to that act.

And yes the gaming population wasn't massive but I would say it was still pretty significant. My local club had teams that went to tournaments around the UK and Europe that were attended by hundreds of players, and those guys played every single week. All of that community got shattered, and obviously a great deal of them felt resentment for what had happened and not everyone enjoyed AoS (especially in the early days). I wasn't ever a massive WHFB fan, but I knew people that were and I've seen grown men get a lump in their throat when talking about it. It was absolutely an egregious act, regardless of the reasons for it, it should not be forgotten and GW should not have been forgiven for doing it.

My local club had teams that went to tournaments around the UK and Europe that were attended by hundreds of players, and those guys played every single week.

So what happened? Did someone from GW come and confiscate all their Warhammer Fantasy books and models so they couldn't play anymore?

 Albino Squirrel wrote:

My local club had teams that went to tournaments around the UK and Europe that were attended by hundreds of players, and those guys played every single week.

So what happened? Did someone from GW come and confiscate all their Warhammer Fantasy books and models so they couldn't play anymore?

GW games are sourounded by an insulation, or cult of officialdom. What GW says, will happen, for most players.
Just as most players will accept an edition shift, despite not needing one.

When GW says WHFB is dead it's to these people dead, despite having a good enough basis and population to self sustain itself with community works like so many other games did.
In fact that is part of GW's strategy to make players more dependant aswell, since it prevents 3rd party opponents in the market to compete and guarantees a core dependant custommer base.

On occaision some of these people wake up and realise, that GW isn't the hobby , it's whatever system they like, and if they find themselves they can run the system to their liking without GW's influence of churn and burn. But most GW players are not that way, for most of them also the "Plug and play" and "always an opponent" factor from official GW are more important, without realising that this is solely a product of GW's mass /inertia.

Hence when GW kills off a system by it's unmigitated greed like WHFB the game feels worse than it actually is or was in previous iterations. So the players switch or will go and never come back.

That's what happens when you form a parasocial relationship with a product. To GW it was plastic to be shifted, to GW fans it was their Hobby (tm). You buy into corporate bullcrap about Hobby and other FeelGood slogans how we're all together, you end up being used. Customers should really know better. But they don't, they never learn and are always surprised when companies don't have the same love for their products that they do.

Cronch wrote:
That's what happens when you form a parasocial relationship with a product. To GW it was plastic to be shifted, to GW fans it was their Hobby (tm). You buy into corporate bullcrap about Hobby and other FeelGood slogans how we're all together, you end up being used. Customers should really know better. But they don't, they never learn and are always surprised when companies don't have the same love for their products that they do.

Well GW is fostering that relationship, even moreso nowadays with their medicore PR department.
But for those that it is their Hobby tm , the relationship to daddy GW and all the inertia a GW game generally builds up through that mass relation ship is more important actually than their Hobby really is. It's in many ways the same churn and burn manipulations you see in the mobile games market.

That's not to say though that even if WHFB was your hobby that you have to stop and this is where beeing a selfreliant and independent hobbiest is an advantage, GW might killed off WHFB, but last i heard 6th edition books are cheap or available through other means, and their new AOS range even has some decent upgrades to the Modellines. Heck why not check out 3rd parties.

Anyways, new skellies, awesome, new foot vampire, quite awesome.

Of course GW is fostering the relationship, it's making them money. It's also somewhat evil in my opinion, ,but that's my opinion on all corporations playing on emotional responses to shift their products.

Can we please take the WHFB talk to a different thread? It is neither news nor rumor relevant. Thanks!

 Albino Squirrel wrote:

My local club had teams that went to tournaments around the UK and Europe that were attended by hundreds of players, and those guys played every single week.

So what happened? Did someone from GW come and confiscate all their Warhammer Fantasy books and models so they couldn't play anymore?

Sorry I don't want to de-rail what this thread is for and so this will be my last post on it here. As Not Online!!! has said above, really you just had a fracturing of the community. Some guys just bought in wholesale, others did once some of the nonsense/silly rules were removed and points values and stuff came back in, others have gone off to play other games or just stopped altogether. Think you've got some other groups, like the 9th Age, who have tried to persist with fan-made versions of the rules. But, the main point I was trying to make was that it split those communities of guys and took away something that was fun for them, and I thought that was just so sad.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:

My local club had teams that went to tournaments around the UK and Europe that were attended by hundreds of players, and those guys played every single week.

So what happened? Did someone from GW come and confiscate all their Warhammer Fantasy books and models so they couldn't play anymore?

Wargames don't endure without new blood. The whole reason most people stick with GW over other games is the sheer volume of players, rather than sticking within the circle of the same three-four people. That's why games are considered "dead" when their LFGS 'only' has a handful of people playing them, as opposed to stores full the way AoS/40k and formally WHFB did. Wargaming isn't cheap, so naturally people want to 'invest' in something that's going to have longevity. Sure, your books didn't go away, but the new blood to that game is going to be non-existent, be that because people don't want to play something discontinued - nevermind Ebay prices for WHFB models that aren't used in AoS - or because those groups go insular for that reason.

See also the Cult of Officialdom that gets talked about above.

 Pacific wrote:

And yes the gaming population wasn't massive but I would say it was still pretty significant. My local club had teams that went to tournaments around the UK and Europe that were attended by hundreds of players, and those guys played every single week. All of that community got shattered, and obviously a great deal of them felt resentment for what had happened and not everyone enjoyed AoS (especially in the early days). I wasn't ever a massive WHFB fan, but I knew people that were and I've seen grown men get a lump in their throat when talking about it. It was absolutely an egregious act, regardless of the reasons for it, it should not be forgotten and GW should not have been forgiven for doing it.

What's hilarious is how quickly these same people turned around and forgave GW, falling hook, line and sinker for their PR department. "Uh yeah we're probably unkilling that game you loved" and how quickly a lot of these people went from bitter cynics to the biggest GW shills you can imagine. Kings of War? 9th Age? Conquest? Song? Who cares! The OFFICIAL rank-and-file game Warhammer(tm) from our friends Games Workshop(tm) is here! Please let me love you daddy!

This seems to be getting pretty far off topic, maybe you can take it to the Dakka Fiction subforum?

For the record; I know Dakka Fiction is for in-universe fiction generally speaking, but fictional stories about the IRL end of WHFB fit better there than here.

Interesting new short story - turnskin Beastmen perspective and again all about Alaerielle's new song

 Mr Morden wrote:
Interesting new short story - turnskin Beastmen perspective and again all about Alaerielle's new song

Is it available for wide release or just to those subscribed to the email?

 mokoshkana wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Interesting new short story - turnskin Beastmen perspective and again all about Alaerielle's new song

Is it available for wide release or just to those subscribed to the email?

Should be out in a day or two i think on warhammer community.

I believe they go up on Fridays.

 Kanluwen wrote:
I believe they go up on Fridays.

Looks like the Broken Realms fiction has been going up every other Friday, with a story due tomorrow.

 mokoshkana wrote:
Can we please take the WHFB talk to a different thread? It is neither news nor rumor relevant. Thanks!

This, very much so. The tangent ends now people, keep the N&R thread for N&R and not a digression about what happened 6+ years ago.

So rumour is kragnos 760, kroak 430. Also another version of kroak warscroll out. Pretty similar to old one that I see though force barrier gets more attacks near monsters(think that's new) and the old 4+++ gets changed to roll 3d6+wounds suffered during phase. 20+ kroak dies, otherwiose you heal all. If you suffer 18 wounds(nominal wound characteristic) you die. Easier to kill if you can do 12+ wounds in same phase, very hard if you only chip him for couple wounds per phase.

If true no more kroak in about every order army.

I'm pretty sure those Kragnos points are wrong. His actual value is probably 480 which is much more reasonable. It is Alarielle who is 760 points.

Same source said alarielle 740.

Mind you this was salted post on forum so could be wrong. Don't think any official points been seen yet

I'm going to say that I am quite dissapointed about the lack of special Broken Realms kits for Destruction. I didn't expected to see 3 damned, foul Chaos boxes in the final batch.

On the other side, I hope this means that now they will focus on Destruction for 3E, more likely given the hoborcblins, but I'd really like they resurrect Kragnos race as some kind of earth elemental centaurs or something.

Also, sky goblins is high on almost everyones wishlists.

Looking at what may be the new Kroak scroll and points, kroaknado is gone, you will likely need guards no matter what and he just fits into the engine.
Now really just a regular slann+1

Kind of glad as it would be nice to use the new model without being classed as "that guy"


I'm hoping it's a mix up with Kraggy though.
At that cost he will never see a match.
If he is that cost, I'm hoping he has some big allegiance abilities in the book to atleast justify it a bit.

Definitely going to be interesting to see the official details though.

Archaon looks in jealously

Well, Kraggy is looking like 760.
Frog is 430.

Thats a big hit for destruction players as he is now potentially the easiest 760 points in the game to kill due to low wounds and no MW save.

Dominion , it better have Jem’hadar in it . Actually I think I might be more excited if it did. Maybe I’ll paint up some Stormcasts with the yellow blue and redshirts just in case.

Jackal90 wrote:
Well, Kraggy is looking like 760.
Frog is 430.

Thats a big hit for destruction players as he is now potentially the easiest 760 points in the game to kill due to low wounds and no MW save.

I’m not so sure Kragnos is a points sink. Yes he’s vulnerable to Mortal Wounds, but not a great deal else thanks to his 2+ save, and his Shield should overcome spell based MW with ease (3d6 to beat the casting number, not whatever your opponent rolled to cast).

And he’s going to smash up pretty much anything he gets his paws on, even without the charge based MW, so tarpitting him is gonna be difficult. Get him +1 to hit from somewhere, and he’ll be like a hot knife through butter.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Jackal90 wrote:
Well, Kraggy is looking like 760.
Frog is 430.

Thats a big hit for destruction players as he is now potentially the easiest 760 points in the game to kill due to low wounds and no MW save.

I’m not so sure Kragnos is a points sink. Yes he’s vulnerable to Mortal Wounds, but not a great deal else thanks to his 2+ save, and his Shield should overcome spell based MW with ease (3d6 to beat the casting number, not whatever your opponent rolled to cast).

And he’s going to smash up pretty much anything he gets his paws on, even without the charge based MW, so tarpitting him is gonna be difficult. Get him +1 to hit from somewhere, and he’ll be like a hot knife through butter.

At that cost he's competing with characters that not only cause massive damage, but also act as a force multiplier.
2+ save is nice, but rend eats in to that pretty quickly.

He has no way of gaining fly or buffing his own movement, so he is pretty slow in terms of things.
If I throw a speed bump unit at him he has to kill it as his movement isn't enough to go around it without being charged.

Most MWs come from abilities rather than spells.
At that cost I'd honestly have hoped to see him have a general MW save.

Being a pure beat stick is nice, but with no delivery system its kind of a big problem.
In the average 2k game he is also using up over 1/3 of your points straight away.
So now you need to build around him, which due to lack of any real keywords make it impossible.

Potato cam, anyone?