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Isn't losing IP a risk you take whenever you get into a game with IP? No matter the holder?

 Monkeysloth wrote:
This one is hard as they pretty much lost the license. We really don't know if it was FFG not wanting to renew, not being able to afford or if GW killed it on their end.

It was diminishing returns. GW didn't drop FFG, and FFG didn't drop GW. It was a "meet in the middle" situation. Everyone packed up and went home.

 Monkeysloth wrote:
That being said the 40k RPG from them had lots and lots of books. It was pretty well supported until the last year or so (probably because FFG already knew the outcome of the license) and there's not much missing from what their vision of what a 40k RPG should be (as I don't think they ever really wanted to get into playing as Xenos).

Only War and DH2.0 still had room for improvement, and I know what they could have done for at least one more Deathwatch release. I suspect they might have wanted to do a Rogue Trader 2.0, but obviously that never materialised.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Monkeysloth wrote:
This one is hard as they pretty much lost the license. We really don't know if it was FFG not wanting to renew, not being able to afford or if GW killed it on their end.

It was diminishing returns. GW didn't drop FFG, and FFG didn't drop GW. It was a "meet in the middle" situation. Everyone packed up and went home.

That makes the most sense. There was a really slowdown in RPG sales and they weren't doing any new 40k boardgames since Relic I think?

 Monkeysloth wrote:
That being said the 40k RPG from them had lots and lots of books. It was pretty well supported until the last year or so (probably because FFG already knew the outcome of the license) and there's not much missing from what their vision of what a 40k RPG should be (as I don't think they ever really wanted to get into playing as Xenos).

Only War and DH2.0 still had room for improvement, and I know what they could have done for at least one more Deathwatch release. I suspect they might have wanted to do a Rogue Trader 2.0, but obviously that never materialised.

Even then DH2.0 is pretty compatible with 1.0. It wouldn't be hard to covert things. I only bought DH2.0 after the line ended as I didn't see much reason for it as I actually liked DH1.0's leveling progression. But 2.0 did bring it inline with the FFG version of the system. I don't see much of a reason for RT2.0 (outside of getting people to rebuy) unless they were really going to revamp the system as overall it was pretty solid.

> Isn't losing IP a risk you take whenever you get into a game with IP? No matter the holder?

Eh... sort of. With a "one and done" situation, such as a boardgame with only a few expansions, or maybe a one-shot set of miniatures, it's no big deal. Frex, with the FFG Fallout boardgame, boardgamers may be fine with just two or three expansions, and that's it. Or, with some DOOM miniatures, you were expected to buy the miniatures when they came out, and that's it. Other than, maybe some errata, there's no expectation for continued product release with these sort of games. You buy the game and its expansions, or the miniatures line, and you're done. You don't care if the license holder loses the license, since you're not going to buy more of the licensed product, anyway. You might find some sort of gripe from a latecomer who can't get a copy because the license has expired, but that's about it.

It's different than, say, a lifestyle game where you're expected to drop hundreds of dollars on the game -- and often expected to find another player who has done likewise -- only for the company to no longer continue to produce content for it. As M says, some players are fine with a "dead" CCG or RPG without additional product, some aren't. With FFG, though, it got to the point where customers didn't expect the company to support a lifestyle game, such as Runewars, and adopted a Catch-22 situation where they wouldn't buy Runewars until they saw others buying it, resulting in self-fulfilling prophecy of not enough sales, and FFG dropping the game. Do this enough times, which FFG did, and you get to the point where nobody trusts the company when it releases a new lifestyle game.

This may only be an odd coincidence, (and I can't link to prove it) but earlier this week both GameNerdz and Miniature Market were selling the Arkham Horror LCG Core Box as their Deal of the Day at nearly 50% off. The next day GameNerdz was selling an Armada product as the DotD. Perhaps they have some concerns about the recent changes with Asmodee/FFG/AMG.

Of course, both stores might just need to clear stock. Based on pre-Covid anecdotal evidence among my game group, the only Arkham Horror LCG product readily available was the Core Set. Getting anything other than the current adventure cycle was impossible unless you wanted to pay scalper's prices. And that is my own experience with the LotR LCG: Core easily available any time, but good luck getting anything but the newest cycle. However, whenever FFG does a reprint of an older cycle, it will sell quickly, so the demand is still there despite the LCG being nine years old at this point.

I think it's a valid concern. From the comments we've seen AMG make it does appear they want to make new versions with new rules. If you take the rumor on the previous page with any grain of salt that AMG didn't want any of the old designers that pretty much solidifies that those games will end or new versions will come out.

I don't give much weight to the rumors about that but I do know that egos are real and I'm sure the Wills have very good contracts/partial ownership that would give them some control over this kind of stuff.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Isn't losing IP a risk you take whenever you get into a game with IP? No matter the holder?

Yes, definitely. But generally speaking you have a decent idea of when the license might become an issue - in this case FFG/Asmodee just renewed the license for another 5 years and had a content roadmap approved via Lucasfilm for all three games out through 2023. There was no reason for anyone to expect that something like this would occur right now. You can also usually read the tea leaves a bit if you follow a games development, so if it were 2023 and there were suddenly people leaving FFG for various reasons and there was no discussion of upcoming product, etc. you could reasonably interpret the period of silence to indicate that the license was probably not being renewed well before an announcement was made (as was the case when FFG lost the GW license).

I think it's a valid concern. From the comments we've seen AMG make it does appear they want to make new versions with new rules. If you take the rumor on the previous page with any grain of salt that AMG didn't want any of the old designers that pretty much solidifies that those games will end or new versions will come out.

I don't give much weight to the rumors about that but I do know that egos are real and I'm sure the Wills have very good contracts/partial ownership that would give them some control over this kind of stuff.

I don't know Pagani, but I've met and interacted with Will multiple times - hes a nice enough guy, friendly, etc. but he's also a bit arrogant and has a definite and obvious ego and pride about his work, so I totally believe what I've heard about the situation with AMG taking on FFG folks.

As for what comes next, I think Legion, Armada, and X-Wing as brands will continue - those names mean a lot and they aren't going to throw them away like what has happened in the past when the licenses passed from one holder to another. They still have active and invested communities that Asmodee will not only want to keep but also grow. Likewise the molds and production assets for these games already exist and theres been a lot of investment into that that Asmodee isn't going to allow a gamedev to just throw away and not use because they think they can do better, so the minis aren't going to become obsolete (and they told us as much anyway). But, I think theres a good possibility that the rulesets behind the names that those minis are used with will change pretty dramatically.

I see Legion becoming much more crunchy and character driven in keeping with AMG's design pedigree - the character implementation in Legion thus far has been somewhat subtle and subdued IMO, functioning as a bit of a cog at the center of a machine rather than the driving force behind the army. Between WarmaHordes (via their PP background) and MCP, I think you see that AMG has a penchant for putting characters as the players central and somewhat cinematic focus. In terms of game scope, I think we will see game sizes continue with where they are now as its "battle" scaled but feels a lot like a skirmish so it kind of hits that sweetspot.

Armada I'm less sure of, naval combat is generally seen more as a "thinking mans game" rather than the violent action that AMGs designers have worked around in the past. I suspect that, in keeping with the name Armada, we will see the game rules streamlined and game sizes increased. The game community has gone HAM and collected far larger forces than FFG ever thought people would be willing to, even though the ships were priced with the expectation that people would keep smaller forces. I think AMG will want to capitalize on that and try to drive sales by expanding game sizes so that people are putting more ships down on the table rather than fighting small actions between a handful of ships on each side. This I wouldn't entirely mind though I worry the game would lose some flavor alongside the mechanical balance I enjoy in it.

X-Wing I think is relatively safe just by virtue of having been recently re-released. The game is on a fairly solid footing mechanically - I'm sure there will be tweaks made to it but I don't see any major changes

I wonder about X-Wing. The 2.0 version upset a lot of people. I’m not sure the community would be all that welcoming of a 3.0 in the short term. My anecdotal local evidence is basically no one plays Legion or Armada, and X-Wing is much less popular than it was a few years ago, but still has players.

 Ancestral Hamster wrote:
This may only be an odd coincidence, (and I can't link to prove it) but earlier this week both GameNerdz and Miniature Market were selling the Arkham Horror LCG Core Box as their Deal of the Day at nearly 50% off. The next day GameNerdz was selling an Armada product as the DotD. Perhaps they have some concerns about the recent changes with Asmodee/FFG/AMG.

FFG/ANA is currently having a MAP amnesty, protected titles can be sold at whatever discount you feel like.

 Robert Facepalmer wrote:
FFG/ANA is currently having a MAP amnesty, protected titles can be sold at whatever discount you feel like.

So this is a good time to clear excess stock that is normally covered by MAP, got it.

 Monkeysloth wrote:
I think it's a valid concern. From the comments we've seen AMG make it does appear they want to make new versions with new rules. If you take the rumor on the previous page with any grain of salt that AMG didn't want any of the old designers that pretty much solidifies that those games will end or new versions will come out.

I don't give much weight to the rumors about that but I do know that egos are real and I'm sure the Wills have very good contracts/partial ownership that would give them some control over this kind of stuff.

See, I'm not sure how to feel about that kind of thing. On the one hand, if they do make a new version of Legion with a different approach to the rules, that sucks for people who're into "FFG games". On the other hand, from a purely selfish perspective and as someone who doesn't care for "FFG games" much at all, the prospect of a modern SW skirmish game that isn't drowning in cards and tokens and assorted other plastic doodads is very appealing. But on the other other hand, any kind of major shakeup could result in them hemorrhaging players like Warmachine did, and that would see the flow of pretty pretty miniatures slowed down or even cut off entirely.

Bah, and since Asmodee are still the distributor, it's not like the stock issues are going to be fixed either.

MCP absolutely suffers from Cards and tokens, so yeah.....that is still gonna happen no matter what.

I’ve kept an eye on MCP because I’m interested in it, but haven’t played it yet because of the plague. I do constantly see people asking on the Facebook about which tokens are which and showing off sheets of tokens that come with every box. Also asking which of the best upgrade cards come in which box. So yeah, it’s still an “FFG game”.

The biggest problem is that some of the card effects have tokens that go with it. not telling you which is which.
Me and friends have taken to just......writing it on a scrap piece of paper.

There's a lot of highly unnecessary tokens overall. The main one is just the objectives, which are technically unique for every single card, but realistically there's only like 3-4 of them.

Similarly there's a lot of "resource" tokens that aren't in any way unique. Hela has soul tokens she gets when models die she can spend to boost her attacks. Punisher has punishment tokens he gets when models die that he can spend to boost his attacks. Stuff like that.

> This may only be an odd coincidence, (and I can't link to prove it) but earlier this week both GameNerdz and Miniature Market were selling the Arkham Horror LCG Core Box as their Deal of the Day at nearly 50% off. The next day GameNerdz was selling an Armada product as the DotD. Perhaps they have some concerns about the recent changes with Asmodee/FFG/AMG.

Eh, I wouldn't read much into it. As said, there's that MAP amnesty that happens every whenever. Amazon's been carrying FFG games, and having holiday discounts for various FFG games, so mebbe that has something to do with the games on sale at the OLGS. And, of of course, by lowering the prices of *core* sets, you get in the customers who didn't buy the base game earlier because of price, then hook 'em in for the expansions.

> If you take the rumor on the previous page with any grain of salt that AMG didn't want any of the old designers that pretty much solidifies that those games will end or new versions will come out.

Good point. So I guess, for some, it'll be a case of "wait and see" and hold back on purchases of current FFG SW miniatures products...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Monkeysloth wrote:
This one is hard as they pretty much lost the license. We really don't know if it was FFG not wanting to renew, not being able to afford or if GW killed it on their end.

It was diminishing returns. GW didn't drop FFG, and FFG didn't drop GW. It was a "meet in the middle" situation. Everyone packed up and went home.

Got a source for that?

I’m not sure I believe that it wasn’t simply GW taking back the IP. FFG had just released an LCG (Warhammer conquest, I think?) and had a couple successful and excellent board games with planned expansions (forbidden stars and Warhammer quest card game) that got axed because of it.

It’s a real shame, as FFGs original design Warhammer themed games were really, really good. If you like area control/pseudo 4x games you should really seek out Forbidden Stars if you can find a copy cheap enough to justify. It’s one of my favorites that I play whenever I want an experience like twilight imperium but in half the time.

Back to the original topic- I know people are worried about the miniature games, but I feel FFG wasn’t doing them the most favors anyway. They struck gold by accident with X-wing and never really figured out how to manage it properly. They treated it more like an LCG. No idea how legion is doing since I don’t really like the aesthetic of Star Wars universe ground combat outside the walkers or bounty hunters and mandalorians.

Now I hope that they can put more focus on awesome, original board/card games.

Quasistellar wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Monkeysloth wrote:
This one is hard as they pretty much lost the license. We really don't know if it was FFG not wanting to renew, not being able to afford or if GW killed it on their end.

It was diminishing returns. GW didn't drop FFG, and FFG didn't drop GW. It was a "meet in the middle" situation. Everyone packed up and went home.

Got a source for that?

H.B.M.C. was a writer on the 40k RPG line for FFG.

I saw this and thought it could go really good or really bad. AMG's miniatures are top notch in detail and assemble well.

The problem I see is that SW Legion is super affordable for a unit where MCP is very expensive for 2 models.

I just hope they don't raise the SWL prices to that of GW units or else I might have to really limit my future collecting.

 Monkeysloth wrote:

Quasistellar wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Monkeysloth wrote:
This one is hard as they pretty much lost the license. We really don't know if it was FFG not wanting to renew, not being able to afford or if GW killed it on their end.

It was diminishing returns. GW didn't drop FFG, and FFG didn't drop GW. It was a "meet in the middle" situation. Everyone packed up and went home.

Got a source for that?

H.B.M.C. was a writer on the 40k RPG line for FFG.

Gotcha. Probably just poor timing for FFG then with Conquest releasing when it did (lead times and all that). I think they had only just had it out long enough for one expansion cycle? I can’t remember exactly, but I know I wanted to grab some and couldn’t due to it selling out as soon as the announcement was made.

angel of death 007 wrote:
I saw this and thought it could go really good or really bad. AMG's miniatures are top notch in detail and assemble well.

The problem I see is that SW Legion is super affordable for a unit where MCP is very expensive for 2 models.

I just hope they don't raise the SWL prices to that of GW units or else I might have to really limit my future collecting.

I would argue that Legion is vastly more expensive. MCP probably averages out to 15 dollars for a model, maybe less. But that one model is 10% of your tournament list, or more realistically, 20-33% of any given game. It's one of the most affordable mini games you could get in to.

The core set alone is probably the best value in all of gaming right now

I have to wonder what percentage of the market actually buys minis like that, only as needed for minimum game size. I’ve never met a single person like that.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I have to wonder what percentage of the market actually buys minis like that, only as needed for minimum game size. I’ve never met a single person like that.

Most of the people I gamed with in the 2000s did. The real fanatics (as well as the generally older players with larger collections) didn't, but a lot of the Warhammer and Warmachine players I knew just from LGS gaming tables did exactly that.
They bought to the point value and stopped. This was true of both the newbies and the flavor of the month crowd that would sell/trade when whatever netlist they were aiming for fell out of favor.

WUWU wrote:
I would argue that Legion is vastly more expensive. MCP probably averages out to 15 dollars for a model, maybe less. But that one model is 10% of your tournament list, or more realistically, 20-33% of any given game. It's one of the most affordable mini games you could get in to.

The core set alone is probably the best value in all of gaming right now

MCP is pretty much standard for a starter box and on the expensive end of Skirmish games

Legion is cheap as well if you know what you want and just buy your list (specially if it includes the starter set models)
MCP is liked because it plays fast and does not require lot of models to paint while havin a currently hyped background

Legion is liked because it is the most up to date modern platoon level Skirmish you can get with a decent player base
better games are out there but not in that scale or with harder to find people to play against

BobtheInquisitor wrote:I have to wonder what percentage of the market actually buys minis like that, only as needed for minimum game size. I’ve never met a single person like that.

a lot, hence why small games are so popular, buy an army to play and be done, while stuff like 40k wants you to buy everything and needs you to buy more with ongoing changes
also a reason why people have waited to start Legion or aSoIaF as they want the complete army to be available before they start playing

Quasistellar wrote:
Got a source for that?

The people I worked with at FFG.

Quasistellar wrote:
Probably just poor timing for FFG then with Conquest releasing when it did (lead times and all that). I think they had only just had it out long enough for one expansion cycle? I can’t remember exactly, but I know I wanted to grab some and couldn’t due to it selling out as soon as the announcement was made.

It was poor timing on a lot of things. Those last Dark Heresy and Black Crusade books go for a mint on eBay, as they only ever did one (maybe two) print runs.

The thing I lament the most, other than not being able to write new expansions for the RPGs (obviously!), is the loss of all that artwork. FFG made tons of artwork for the RPGs, and even more for the card games. I wish they'd been able to release that.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Quasistellar wrote:
Got a source for that?

The people I worked with at FFG.

Quasistellar wrote:
Probably just poor timing for FFG then with Conquest releasing when it did (lead times and all that). I think they had only just had it out long enough for one expansion cycle? I can’t remember exactly, but I know I wanted to grab some and couldn’t due to it selling out as soon as the announcement was made.

It was poor timing on a lot of things. Those last Dark Heresy and Black Crusade books go for a mint on eBay, as they only ever did one (maybe two) print runs.

The thing I lament the most, other than not being able to write new expansions for the RPGs (obviously!), is the loss of all that artwork. FFG made tons of artwork for the RPGs, and even more for the card games. I wish they'd been able to release that.

A true shame. You and the other folks at FFG were doing a great job.

I dunno. I really want to see the new studio succeed, but I am definitely going to grab the last couple of Armada ships I want to get before anything drastic changes.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:


The thing I lament the most, other than not being able to write new expansions for the RPGs (obviously!), is the loss of all that artwork. FFG made tons of artwork for the RPGs, and even more for the card games. I wish they'd been able to release that.

I never cared much for 40k until the FFG RPG line and a big part of that was the art. The art in Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy, in my opinion, is better then anything I'd ever seen GW do.

WUWU wrote:

angel of death 007 wrote:
I saw this and thought it could go really good or really bad. AMG's miniatures are top notch in detail and assemble well.

The problem I see is that SW Legion is super affordable for a unit where MCP is very expensive for 2 models.

I just hope they don't raise the SWL prices to that of GW units or else I might have to really limit my future collecting.

I would argue that Legion is vastly more expensive. MCP probably averages out to 15 dollars for a model, maybe less. But that one model is 10% of your tournament list, or more realistically, 20-33% of any given game. It's one of the most affordable mini games you could get in to.

The core set alone is probably the best value in all of gaming right now

I am not overly concerned with either at their current price point. My concern is that they would jack up the price of Legion units as they sit right now they are the most complete units you can buy in any or almost any game system. (meaning comes with everything they need, cards, tokens, rules, and squad options). I just don't want the well we can get $40 for 2 models why are we selling 7-10 models for less. I think that Legion and ASOIF both have excellent model/ unit prices that blow GW out of the water. I like MCP as well but their cost is high if you are a collector.

I do not like the style of FFG or Atomic Mass games where they design the mechanics themselves for maximum monetization with tons of counters, special measuring devices, cards, and custom dice. Just not my taste, but I do not blame the companies for trying and it is a "trend" in the industry.

Do I think the switch to AMG will change this approach? No. I expect them to try and accelerate it.