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Is it me or GW is moving towards a dual system?

40k and AoS are far more streamlined systems, with more abstractions from realism, which to me means they are more like a "board game".

At the same time, 30k and (pressumably) the upcoming Old World kept a lot of the "wargaming" elements of the game.

Personally, I favor "wargames" over "board games", so I am happy to have the 30k option. At the same time, I fear that they might not support 30k / Old World as much as the more popular streamlined versions.

Am I missing something?

No. You are not missing something. You are a minority who wants more of a simulation than a game. The majority just want to play a game and not get bogged down in minutia to do it.

That minutia was a barrier to entry that kept wargaming niche. AoS and 8th have sales because they have accessibility. The old games won't be supported as much or at all and they will get abondoned for newer more streamlined rule sets.

Why would a company chase a more limited customer base?

Yeah, 8th and AoS aren't board games. Not even close.

Coming from a more RPG background, I find it amusing how often 'boardgamey' is used as a negative, considering how much innovation there has been in boardgames over the past decade, and how successful the industry is.

 Lance845 wrote:
No. You are not missing something. You are a minority who wants more of a simulation than a game. The majority just want to play a game and not get bogged down in minutia to do it.

That minutia was a barrier to entry that kept wargaming niche. AoS and 8th have sales because they have accessibility. The old games won't be supported as much or at all and they will get abondoned for newer more streamlined rule sets.

Why would a company chase a more limited customer base?

Why would a company choose to sell non-GMO when most people won't care?
And, will it always be the case that most people won't care?
Maybe it is smart to "chase" an expanding customer base... could the sim-interested group represent such a neglected market?

Accessible and popular does not mean a better product.
Some brands market to quality and reliability - i.e. a better product - and a smaller market - e.g. expensive, niche... - rather than mass meh leveled down to the lowest common denominator.

 harlokin wrote:
Coming from a more RPG background, I find it amusing how often 'boardgamey' is used as a negative, considering how much innovation there has been in boardgames over the past decade, and how successful the industry is.

Each to their own.


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 Lance845 wrote:
No. You are not missing something. You are a minority who wants more of a simulation than a game. The majority just want to play a game and not get bogged down in minutia to do it.

That minutia was a barrier to entry that kept wargaming niche. AoS and 8th have sales because they have accessibility. The old games won't be supported as much or at all and they will get abondoned for newer more streamlined rule sets.

Why would a company chase a more limited customer base?

I was looking into it and they seem to be releasing sculpts and rules for 30k frequently. Or have I missed some obvious messages to the contrary?

It's not real popular here in the states. I wish it was. They do still support it though. Not a lot right now because fw is still shut down. Hope they open up soon, was thinking of picking up Road To Thramas just for the lore, as long as it isn't all "The Great and Valiant First Legion Crushes the Foul and Cowardly Eighth ".

 Lance845 wrote:
No. You are not missing something. You are a minority who wants more of a simulation than a game. The majority just want to play a game and not get bogged down in minutia to do it.

That minutia was a barrier to entry that kept wargaming niche. AoS and 8th have sales because they have accessibility. The old games won't be supported as much or at all and they will get abondoned for newer more streamlined rule sets.

Why would a company chase a more limited customer base?

40k could turn around tomorrow and become a hardcore wargame simulation and it would still sell millions by virtue of being 40k. Most people keep buying into it because the brand is known and popular. New blood on the other hand is kept niche due to GW overwhelmingly being the first thing they associated with the hobby and the eyewatering prices turned them off. I'd attribute their recent newblood more due to the overall explosion of 'geek culture'.

AoS 1.0 was about as streamlined and accessible as you'd find in a game, almost to the point of parody, and it was a massive flop until the General's Handbook.

The Old World's returning due to demand. If GW didn't think they could spin a sizeable profit off that, they'd have kept it dead.

Grey40k wrote:

 harlokin wrote:
Coming from a more RPG background, I find it amusing how often 'boardgamey' is used as a negative, considering how much innovation there has been in boardgames over the past decade, and how successful the industry is.

Each to their own.


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 Lance845 wrote:
No. You are not missing something. You are a minority who wants more of a simulation than a game. The majority just want to play a game and not get bogged down in minutia to do it.

That minutia was a barrier to entry that kept wargaming niche. AoS and 8th have sales because they have accessibility. The old games won't be supported as much or at all and they will get abondoned for newer more streamlined rule sets.

Why would a company chase a more limited customer base?

I was looking into it and they seem to be releasing sculpts and rules for 30k frequently. Or have I missed some obvious messages to the contrary?

30k was being made before 8th and GW left FW out of the loop on 8th until the last minute. FW basically doesn't exist as a design studio any more. they have been folded into the GW rules writers. And GW has moved on. Do you think there won't be a 2nd ed 30k that updates to the latest 40k edition format? Why would GW keep plugging away at an outdated edition?



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 jeff white wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
No. You are not missing something. You are a minority who wants more of a simulation than a game. The majority just want to play a game and not get bogged down in minutia to do it.

That minutia was a barrier to entry that kept wargaming niche. AoS and 8th have sales because they have accessibility. The old games won't be supported as much or at all and they will get abondoned for newer more streamlined rule sets.

Why would a company chase a more limited customer base?

Why would a company choose to sell non-GMO when most people won't care?
And, will it always be the case that most people won't care?
Maybe it is smart to "chase" an expanding customer base... could the sim-interested group represent such a neglected market?

Accessible and popular does not mean a better product.
Some brands market to quality and reliability - i.e. a better product - and a smaller market - e.g. expensive, niche... - rather than mass meh leveled down to the lowest common denominator.

GWs dollars tell them otherwise. 8th has been more popular then 40k ever has been. The sim interested group is not an expanding market. They are a shrinking one.

In my eyes Old World is just a different approach to fantasy. While AoS is a skirmish game, Old World is a larger scale rank&file system.

30K... struggles to be staying alive because its most important writer died. It uses terrible core rules and it only shows how awesome Alan Bligh was that he could make a functional system out of the mess that was 6th/7th edition 40K. I'd be interested in 30K the moment it would move to 8th edition, but with the clumsy 7th edition system? No way.

I'd love if the Old World was like that (never a fan of 3rd-7th 40k really so not as into Horus Heresy but I'm sure I'd enjoy if had a game), FIngers crossed, I really hope that they don't still streamline WFB massively whilst keeping the blocks of troops etc though. Wonder when information will start dripping through on that. If it's not worse than any prior editions (though I hope it isn't based on 8th) I will probably buy at least two armies.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
In my eyes Old World is just a different approach to fantasy. While AoS is a skirmish game, Old World is a larger scale rank&file system.

30K... struggles to be staying alive because its most important writer died. It uses terrible core rules and it only shows how awesome Alan Bligh was that he could make a functional system out of the mess that was 6th/7th edition 40K. I'd be interested in 30K the moment it would move to 8th edition, but with the clumsy 7th edition system? No way.

For me, it is precisely the opposite.

I love initiative, WS checks, armor values per side. It feels more like a simulation, whereas strat combos and the rest feel "arcade" to me.

I dislike the highly streamlined AoS and the semi streamlined 8th 40k.

So I hope they keep 30k alive in a more detailed ruleset. I am just a tad afraid they would discontinue it, but it seems they released a massive range of miniatures for it.

Similar things can be said about Aos vs Old World (presumably, if old world is somehow more related to WHFB).




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 Arbitrator wrote:

40k could turn around tomorrow and become a hardcore wargame simulation and it would still sell millions by virtue of being 40k. Most people keep buying into it because the brand is known and popular. New blood on the other hand is kept niche due to GW overwhelmingly being the first thing they associated with the hobby and the eyewatering prices turned them off. I'd attribute their recent newblood more due to the overall explosion of 'geek culture'.

AoS 1.0 was about as streamlined and accessible as you'd find in a game, almost to the point of parody, and it was a massive flop until the General's Handbook.

The Old World's returning due to demand. If GW didn't think they could spin a sizeable profit off that, they'd have kept it dead.

Hard to know, honestly.

They made their choice to streamline but IMHO the whole thing goes beyond rules alone. Painting style (although arguably this is more on the playerbase), sculpt style; compare primaris to HH releases. HH feels more grim dark than 40k, IMHO.

I really feel that they are doing this divide quite consciously:

''Board game'' like streamlined rules, cleaner modern looks VS Old wargaming grim dark "realistic".

Look at the books, HH leaderbound / pretentious and WH40k cleaner / comic like books. The pricing differences probably are not only due to scale but also public differences; I'd imagine HH players are older and have more disposable income.

And by no means I claim one style is superior to the other; although I like far more HH30k stuff. I am just sad that the competitive community there seems very small.

 Lance845 wrote:
No. You are not missing something. You are a minority who wants more of a simulation than a game. The majority just want to play a game and not get bogged down in minutia to do it.

That minutia was a barrier to entry that kept wargaming niche. AoS and 8th have sales because they have accessibility. The old games won't be supported as much or at all and they will get abondoned for newer more streamlined rule sets.

Why would a company chase a more limited customer base?

I tend to find that kind of statement ironic... AoS and 40K are both, at their core, very simple systems that have both grown massively bloated in rules that bog things down. “Streamlined” and “Accessible” are about the last things that comes to my mind when I look over the corpus of AoS and 40k rules...

Valete,

JohnS

.


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 cygnnus wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
No. You are not missing something. You are a minority who wants more of a simulation than a game. The majority just want to play a game and not get bogged down in minutia to do it.

That minutia was a barrier to entry that kept wargaming niche. AoS and 8th have sales because they have accessibility. The old games won't be supported as much or at all and they will get abondoned for newer more streamlined rule sets.

Why would a company chase a more limited customer base?

I tend to find that kind of statement ironic... AoS and 40K are both, at their core, very simple systems that have both grown massively bloated in rules that bog things down. “Streamlined” and “Accessible” are about the last things that comes to my mind when I look over the corpus of AoS and 40k rules...

Valete,

JohnS

Yes, but the bloat comes from "special rules" and so on, not so much from a detailed core, if that makes sense.

 cygnnus wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
No. You are not missing something. You are a minority who wants more of a simulation than a game. The majority just want to play a game and not get bogged down in minutia to do it.

That minutia was a barrier to entry that kept wargaming niche. AoS and 8th have sales because they have accessibility. The old games won't be supported as much or at all and they will get abondoned for newer more streamlined rule sets.

Why would a company chase a more limited customer base?

I tend to find that kind of statement ironic... AoS and 40K are both, at their core, very simple systems that have both grown massively bloated in rules that bog things down. “Streamlined” and “Accessible” are about the last things that comes to my mind when I look over the corpus of AoS and 40k rules...

Valete,

JohnS

Oh I agree. GW sucks ass at keeping the rules clean and simple. But the core rules the game runs on are simple and light.

You don't need to memorize a dozen different unit types and what special rules they have and how they interact with different elements of the game. You don't need over 80 special rules including 3 different ones for how many spaces in a transport your unit takes up. There is no need for a special dice and templates.

By comparison 7th/30k was NEVER clean or simple. its a mess before you even look at a single codex.

 Lance845 wrote:

 cygnnus wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
No. You are not missing something. You are a minority who wants more of a simulation than a game. The majority just want to play a game and not get bogged down in minutia to do it.

That minutia was a barrier to entry that kept wargaming niche. AoS and 8th have sales because they have accessibility. The old games won't be supported as much or at all and they will get abondoned for newer more streamlined rule sets.

Why would a company chase a more limited customer base?

I tend to find that kind of statement ironic... AoS and 40K are both, at their core, very simple systems that have both grown massively bloated in rules that bog things down. “Streamlined” and “Accessible” are about the last things that comes to my mind when I look over the corpus of AoS and 40k rules...

Valete,

JohnS

Oh I agree. GW sucks ass at keeping the rules clean and simple. But the core rules the game runs on are simple and light.

You don't need to memorize a dozen different unit types and what special rules they have and how they interact with different elements of the game. You don't need over 80 special rules including 3 different ones for how many spaces in a transport your unit takes up. There is no need for a special dice and templates.

By comparison 7th/30k was NEVER clean or simple. its a mess before you even look at a single codex.

And funny thing is, it doesn't even make for a more tactical game. It's simply bloat for the bloat god.

I wouldn’t say it’s that accidental/inadvertent, although Bloat for the Bloat God is a heck of a catchy line... It’s far more driven by a business model that requires a steady stream of new rules for people to “have to” buy if they want to play against other people. It’s been a pretty darned successful model for the shareholders, but it also invariably causes bloat.

Valete,

JohnS

 cygnnus wrote:
I wouldn’t say it’s that accidental/inadvertent, although Bloat for the Bloat God is a heck of a catchy line... It’s far more driven by a business model that requires a steady stream of new rules for people to “have to” buy if they want to play against other people. It’s been a pretty darned successful model for the shareholders, but it also invariably causes bloat.

Valete,

JohnS

And what a business! Books alone must make them quite a bit. They managed to get a super dominant market position and they certainly milk it.

That said, I do feel that they are moving a the board game direction very strongly; simplify the core rules, but add a ton of "combos".

 cygnnus wrote:
I wouldn’t say it’s that accidental/inadvertent, although Bloat for the Bloat God is a heck of a catchy line... It’s far more driven by a business model that requires a steady stream of new rules for people to “have to” buy if they want to play against other people. It’s been a pretty darned successful model for the shareholders, but it also invariably causes bloat.

Valete,

JohnS

You don't HAVE to buy anything. If other people want to use the rules THEY have to bring a book that supports it. No one is holding a gun to YOUR head and making YOU buy anything other than the codex and BRB.

Grey40k wrote:


For me, it is precisely the opposite.

I love initiative, WS checks, armor values per side. It feels more like a simulation, whereas strat combos and the rest feel "arcade" to me.

I dislike the highly streamlined AoS and the semi streamlined 8th 40k.

.

Completely agree with this. WS and Initiative added personality... the statlines feel so bland now.

Same with armour values- vehicles just feel like boxes with wounds now.

Streamlining doesn't always equate to a good game. 40k's base rules have the tactical depth of a puddle now- the main tactical element comes from weird rules interactions and strategems which feels cheap.

Let's not kid ourselves that comparing 2 attributes on a chart made anything tactical. Or that having a inherently higher initiative meant you always fought first (sorry necrons and orks) was YOU making any actual decisions. Or that armor values meaning point your front towards the enemy while arguing over where exactly the corner of a necrons ghost ark or Tau hammerhead was added anything to the game that wasn't time and frustration.

You view that garbage with rose tinted glasses. None of it equated to tactics.

 Lance845 wrote:
Let's not kid ourselves that comparing 2 attributes on a chart made anything tactical. Or that having a inherently higher initiative meant you always fought first (sorry necrons and orks) was YOU making any actual decisions. Or that armor values meaning point your front towards the enemy while arguing over where exactly the corner of a necrons ghost ark or Tau hammerhead was added anything to the game that wasn't time and frustration.

You view that garbage with rose tinted glasses. None of it equated to tactics.

I certainly don’t miss arguing over armour values, but I do think the collapsing of WS into a target value has really shortened the design range.

It used to be there was a somewhat meaningful (if small) difference between the merely good and the exceptional. You’d have say an incarnate daemon of a god of war (Avatar or Bloodthirster) at WS 10 and a basic character at WS 5. Yeah they’d both hit most things on 3s, but the captain would be hitting the Avatar on 4s and even some elite troops would be hitting it on 5s.
Now they (and everything between them) just hit on a 2+ which means you need extra special rules and re-rolls to distinguish them and it does not help the spiralling lethality.

Initiative is more of a mixed bag - on the one hand it showed an interesting distinction between say Eldar and Necrons where the latter were tough but the former used speed for defence by striking first. But on the other hand you had marines who were tough and fast and orks who always seemed bizarre slow in comparison.

It didn’t really add to tactics though, just differentiation.

 Lance845 wrote:
Let's not kid ourselves that comparing 2 attributes on a chart made anything tactical. Or that having a inherently higher initiative meant you always fought first (sorry necrons and orks) was YOU making any actual decisions. Or that armor values meaning point your front towards the enemy while arguing over where exactly the corner of a necrons ghost ark or Tau hammerhead was added anything to the game that wasn't time and frustration.

You view that garbage with rose tinted glasses. None of it equated to tactics.

I disagree. I'd rather worry about facing that about whether there exists some weird strat on a random supplement that allows my oponent to do some weird thing. See? Easy to portray the other side on a negative light.

I do feel 30k retained more "wargame" elements that I like more, and the more I look into it the more that I am convinced that is the case. Some don't like them, but I do.

The WS table of 7th edition and prior was ridiculous. Funnily enough in 8th edition the spread from 2+ to 6+ is larger, as the WS table meant 95% of the time you hit either on 3s or 4s and were hit on 3s or 4s. Anything else was an outier like a firewarrior fighting a bloodthirster or someone actually losing a fear check (it must have been a very unlucky day to ever fail a fear check).

Im not defending stratagems. Strats are hot garbage. In my opinion 40k has always had the tactical depth of a paper towel. Pretending that those things which did not give you decisions to make added to that shallow depth is just crazy.. It was just bs you had to put up with.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
The WS table of 7th edition and prior was ridiculous. Funnily enough in 8th edition the spread from 2+ to 6+ is larger, as the WS table meant 95% of the time you hit either on 3s or 4s and were hit on 3s or 4s. Anything else was an outier like a firewarrior fighting a bloodthirster or someone actually losing a fear check (it must have been a very unlucky day to ever fail a fear check).

Because the current system is so good.

 Lance845 wrote:
Let's not kid ourselves that comparing 2 attributes on a chart made anything tactical. Or that having a inherently higher initiative meant you always fought first (sorry necrons and orks) was YOU making any actual decisions. Or that armor values meaning point your front towards the enemy while arguing over where exactly the corner of a necrons ghost ark or Tau hammerhead was added anything to the game that wasn't time and frustration.

You view that garbage with rose tinted glasses. None of it equated to tactics.

4th/5th/6th edition had an objectively greater tactical depth than 8th edition. That simply isn't up for debate.

So you think Weapon Skill charts were garbage? I'll tell you what is garbage- Guardsmen hitting Primarch and Phoenix Lords on the same roll as Grots.

And things like Armour Value 100% added tactical depth. Tank facing is completely irrelevent now, they've just scrubbed off that strategic element to movement completely.

-------------------


It's like people trying to argue that AoS has greater tactical depth than movement tray WHFB...



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
The WS table of 7th edition and prior was ridiculous. Funnily enough in 8th edition the spread from 2+ to 6+ is larger, as the WS table meant 95% of the time you hit either on 3s or 4s and were hit on 3s or 4s. Anything else was an outier like a firewarrior fighting a bloodthirster or someone actually losing a fear check (it must have been a very unlucky day to ever fail a fear check).

Oh yeah, because Guardsmen hitting Primarchs and Phoenix Lords on the same role as Grots is sooo much better right?

All it needed was a refinement. It didn't need to be completely dumbed down to the point of making zero thematic sense.

pm713 wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
The WS table of 7th edition and prior was ridiculous. Funnily enough in 8th edition the spread from 2+ to 6+ is larger, as the WS table meant 95% of the time you hit either on 3s or 4s and were hit on 3s or 4s. Anything else was an outier like a firewarrior fighting a bloodthirster or someone actually losing a fear check (it must have been a very unlucky day to ever fail a fear check).

Because the current system is so good.

Better than prior versions for sure. More spread on WS would need a whole rewrite with D10 or else and I'm not seeing that.
See, for me that old WS table is pretty representative of the unnecessary bloat these editions had. Yes, WS COULD be from 1-10, but effectively 95% of the units were between WS 3-5. The other 4% were Tau with 2, and the last 1% were characters/ some rare monsters with higher values. The new system simplified that AND provided a larger spread. And rolled in the aweful (also practically useless) tankshock rules. Admittedly now we have most characters sitting on the same 2+, but in earlier editions they all were effectively 3+.


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nemesis464 wrote:

4th/5th/6th edition had an objectively greater tactical depth than 8th edition. That simply isn't up for debate.

That simply is an opinion and needs citation.
My opinion is that 8th has an objectively greater tactical depth than 6th and 7th. I can't say for 5th as I didn't play that.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
The WS table of 7th edition and prior was ridiculous. Funnily enough in 8th edition the spread from 2+ to 6+ is larger, as the WS table meant 95% of the time you hit either on 3s or 4s and were hit on 3s or 4s. Anything else was an outier like a firewarrior fighting a bloodthirster or someone actually losing a fear check (it must have been a very unlucky day to ever fail a fear check).

Because the current system is so good.

Better than prior versions for sure. More spread on WS would need a whole rewrite with D10 or else and I'm not seeing that.
See, for me that old WS table is pretty representative of the unnecessary bloat these editions had. Yes, WS COULD be from 1-10, but effectively 95% of the units were between WS 3-5. The other 4% were Tau with 2, and the last 1% were characters/ some rare monsters with higher values. The new system simplified that AND provided a larger spread. And rolled in the aweful (also practically useless) tankshock rules. Admittedly now we have most characters sitting on the same 2+, but in earlier editions they all were effectively 3+.

It's not really. It's just silly. It just looks better because there's less steps in this bad system compared to the last bad system but at least 7 and prior actually attempted to be a decent game.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:In my eyes Old World is just a different approach to fantasy. While AoS is a skirmish game, Old World is a larger scale rank&file system.

30K... struggles to be staying alive because its most important writer died. It uses terrible core rules and it only shows how awesome Alan Bligh was that he could make a functional system out of the mess that was 6th/7th edition 40K. I'd be interested in 30K the moment it would move to 8th edition, but with the clumsy 7th edition system? No way.

I'd rather play 30k w 8th rules & will patiently waiting until then.