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I'm not entirely convinced it was the rules which sealed the fate of Aeronautica. At the end of the day it was yet another GW skirmish game released in an era of so many other GW skirmish games. Market saturation was probably a bigger deal.
However Warcry, Kill Team, and in some cases Necromunda products all had the advantage of crossover potential with the AOS & 40k ranges. Xenos AI models had no such avenue into Heresy-era Titanicus. Asking players to learn a new ruleset and paint a bunch of new models in isolation makes it difficult to grow a community for a game system.

Personally I picked up Wings of Vengeance solely because I had a chance to get it for half price, and assumed the models would eventually be useful for Epic in future (and I'm actually painting the Imperial planes this week). I even bought a Thunderhawk just to paint & use as terrain in games of Titanicus. Never played AI once.

 xttz wrote:
Looking at the contents of the boxed sets and assuming the pastebin info is accurate, it seems reasonable to assume a standard game of LI is going to be comparable to some of the early 90's Space Marine battle reports.

These 4000pt WD games all fielded a similar number of equivalent units to what we'd see with a 3000pt LI army:

Spoiler:

Just a gut feeling, but i would not rule out the possibility of GW planning something for once, and deliberately releasing a version of the game that's oriented more towards smaller forces (and thus modelled after Space Marine) at first to get people to buy into the scale, and then, later on, doing a hypothetical second edition of LI that's more geared towards Epic 40k or whatever, with more models, to somewhat soften sticker shock for people deliberating to get into a new scale at first. Basically doing a two-step towards 'real Epic'.

Im again not sure I can agree.

X-Wing sold a lot early on, sure. But I and more than a few others found it a near impenetrable game system because the learning curve was steep.

Without someone willing to coach you through your first few flights? You’d take such a comprehensive thrashing you never really learned how your opponent did it.

Rules entirely aside, what killed it for me was the big old price jump. When I first got started (around the time the TIE Defender was released) I could get a single fighter for around £10. Now it’s £18. And when they decided to patch ships with more cards, but lock those cards behind purchase of an Epic Ship? I bailed.

Now the rules side wouldn’t be a universal experience. If you had folks willing to coach you and provide hints and tips without actually backseat gaming, that largely goes away. Sadly I lacked that.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
X-Wing sold a lot early on, sure.

And a lot later on. TBH even with X-Wing in its current post-AMG state it's still probably bigger than AI 2.0 at its peak. Whatever you or I liked or disliked about the game it was clearly a big seller, up at the top of the best seller lists for independent stores and sustaining both strong local communities and high-level tournament play.

I personally went all in on AI and then realized it was GW's experiment on what is the absolute minimum effort pile of dreck ruleset they can get away with and still sell. No offense to anyone who enjoyed it. It is the fact AI failed that gives me hope for other games. If AI had succeeded, everything that came later would be just as bad.

Tsagualsa wrote:

 xttz wrote:
Looking at the contents of the boxed sets and assuming the pastebin info is accurate, it seems reasonable to assume a standard game of LI is going to be comparable to some of the early 90's Space Marine battle reports.

These 4000pt WD games all fielded a similar number of equivalent units to what we'd see with a 3000pt LI army:

Spoiler:

Just a gut feeling, but i would not rule out the possibility of GW planning something for once, and deliberately releasing a version of the game that's oriented more towards smaller forces (and thus modelled after Space Marine) at first to get people to buy into the scale, and then, later on, doing a hypothetical second edition of LI that's more geared towards Epic 40k or whatever, with more models, to somewhat soften sticker shock for people deliberating to get into a new scale at first. Basically doing a two-step towards 'real Epic'.

Oh I absolutely agree. That was their plan for Titanicus too; the game was deliberately designed around being viable with just 1-2 titans per player while also scaling to 5+ as people grew their collections.

Also a lot of people forget that old Epic was hugely distorted by the release of Titan Legions. It went from being a game you'd commonly play at around 4000pts with just 1-2 ~500pt titans in your army, to suddenly having rules for 1500-2000pt single models that forced game sizes up dramatically. What's more the same release also added Titan & Gargant battlegroup cards, giving you three war engines for the same points cost as two.

This of course all happened after Epic had enjoyed several years to grow the model range and players built up their armies. 6000pt+ games of Titan Legions would not have worked from day one.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I personally went all in on AI and then realized it was GW's experiment on what is the absolute minimum effort pile of dreck ruleset they can get away with and still sell. No offense to anyone who enjoyed it. It is the fact AI failed that gives me hope for other games. If AI had succeeded, everything that came later would be just as bad.

If you haven't already find a copy of the AI 1.0 books and give that game try. It's not a game that will blow you away with its brilliance but it's a solid enough example of the air combat genre and amazingly concise for a GW game. And there's no sense in letting all the models you bought go to waste.

 xttz wrote:
I'm not entirely convinced it was the rules which sealed the fate of Aeronautica. At the end of the day it was yet another GW skirmish game released in an era of so many other GW skirmish games. Market saturation was probably a bigger deal.
However Warcry, Kill Team, and in some cases Necromunda products all had the advantage of crossover potential with the AOS & 40k ranges. Xenos AI models had no such avenue into Heresy-era Titanicus. Asking players to learn a new ruleset and paint a bunch of new models in isolation makes it difficult to grow a community for a game system.

Personally I picked up Wings of Vengeance solely because I had a chance to get it for half price, and assumed the models would eventually be useful for Epic in future (and I'm actually painting the Imperial planes this week). I even bought a Thunderhawk just to paint & use as terrain in games of Titanicus. Never played AI once.

I can tell you that it was absolutely the reason here. There's a very sizable XWing community here still, most of which also play GW games... and the game flopped like a wet towel. It was universally derided as "crap". Some used the AI planes to play XWing, though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Im again not sure I can agree.

X-Wing sold a lot early on, sure. But I and more than a few others found it a near impenetrable game system because the learning curve was steep.

Without someone willing to coach you through your first few flights? You’d take such a comprehensive thrashing you never really learned how your opponent did it.

Rules entirely aside, what killed it for me was the big old price jump. When I first got started (around the time the TIE Defender was released) I could get a single fighter for around £10. Now it’s £18. And when they decided to patch ships with more cards, but lock those cards behind purchase of an Epic Ship? I bailed.

Now the rules side wouldn’t be a universal experience. If you had folks willing to coach you and provide hints and tips without actually backseat gaming, that largely goes away. Sadly I lacked that.

My local evidence (by "local" here I mean "Spain", as I work with the company that produces it for the spanish market) is that XWing was HUGE, and still is pretty big. Dozens to hundreds of tournaments, all the products always OOS waiting for reprints... they literally couldn't get enough of it to meet the demand.

And not early on during the whole life of the game, up to second edition which snagged a bit.

As a side note, all Knights and Dire Wolves have disappeared fron the Forgeworld site as has the Warhound Volkite, Ursus Claw and Shock Lance weapons.

Incoming plastic Mechanicum Knights?

I know a lot of the community got the AI aircraft for use in Epic, as either units or terrain, I was one of them! Love the Valkyrie miniatures, and the Ork bombers are brilliantly characterful miniatures.

 xttz wrote:
I'm not entirely convinced it was the rules which sealed the fate of Aeronautica. At the end of the day it was yet another GW skirmish game released in an era of so many other GW skirmish games. Market saturation was probably a bigger deal.
However Warcry, Kill Team, and in some cases Necromunda products all had the advantage of crossover potential with the AOS & 40k ranges. Xenos AI models had no such avenue into Heresy-era Titanicus. Asking players to learn a new ruleset and paint a bunch of new models in isolation makes it difficult to grow a community for a game system.

Personally I picked up Wings of Vengeance solely because I had a chance to get it for half price, and assumed the models would eventually be useful for Epic in future (and I'm actually painting the Imperial planes this week). I even bought a Thunderhawk just to paint & use as terrain in games of Titanicus. Never played AI once.

I absolutely blame the rules. If the rules are solid, the game will have a broad audience. If the rules suck, it will be limited to people like me who just love the tiny planes to the point where I'll write my own damned rules to justify buying them

I wanted AI to be the game where I could suggest to friends they buy a couple of boxes and a book so we can have some fun games... instead I really struggled to recommend the game to friends because I myself wasn't struggling to enjoy the game.

AI1.0 was a great game (with some flaws) for squadron-level aerial combat that was hampered by people not knowing it existed and the entire range being Forge World. AI2.0 had awesome models but was hampered by not being a solid game.

If a game has good rules, it makes less difference if it's a skirmish game or a ship game or an aircraft game, people will enjoy playing it and then want to get their friends into it.

It didn't help that they broke up the rules releases like they did. If Epic breaks up the rules like AI did then I reckon there's a good chance it'll turn people off.

For whatever reason, 40k seems to be immune to failing due to bad rules, people just buy it anyway But most other games struggle if their rules suck.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


For whatever reason, 40k seems to be immune to failing due to bad rules, people just buy it anyway But most other games struggle if their rules suck.

They struggle even if they don't suck. The Suck Coefficient of a game does depend a lot on personal taste, for sure, but my locality can't be the only one that saw a lot of Star Wars Legion purchases last year due to the generous deals, only for almost none of that transpose to games played as everyone just sticks to the familiar and keeps going with 40k.

40k has enough inertia to keep going, people have spent enough on the game to keep playing it

and because people like broken stuff no side effort for an alternative set of actually working rules has a chance

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 kodos wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
But yeah. You think GW hates money and doesnt' want it. Right. I get it. Rest of us know they want money and thus are only losing out on discount.

or you could stop making up stuff no one said and just write nothing if you don't have anything to say

In return, it would be nice if certain posters would stop proclaiming everything GW does DOA before it’s even released, especially based on prices they made up to offend themselves.
Because it’s terribly tiresome.

as this reads as you mean me and not just a general statement, show me were I have written that (as I never made up a price or said it is DAO)
if this is a general statement I have some trouble to follow the wording (as non native speaker)

It was in reference to TalonZahn. Who’s post is just Pearl Clutching caused by their own fevered imaginings on prices.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It was in reference to TalonZahn. Who’s post is just Pearl Clutching caused by their own fevered imaginings on prices.

The prices will be higher than you think after the release box "deal" as usual.

As far as xttz and his "Schrodinger" comment... almost everything that's NOT 40k is FOMO and sells out on launch, then put on IV drip of crap for 12-18 months. So yes, it *can* sell out because of FOMO then slowly die a drip fed death. Just look at the items I listed and you see the pattern.

Blame whatever you want; COVID, Shipping, bad rules, print delays, manufacturing queue, there's always an excuse.

The launch will be a bargain of some type, sell out, get parted out, and then over-priced follow up boxes will be released. Then players will find that they need/want X or Y unit that may come 6-12 months down the road, and then drip feed into oblivion.

HH: AoD is a great example. Awesome deal, lots of dual use (expensive kits) right off the bat. Then, months of heads and shoulder pads, a couple 1 off models, and then... oh those dual use kits all no good for 40k anymore so people are dumping them. The players wanted more Troops, still no new troops, but on the horizon? Another big FOMO bargain box.

Epic may be unique in the fact that there's a fairly decent sized following, which is why GW wants to get their nickels, but in the end that community will be disappointed in the long run (12-18 months) by GW's offerings and prices and go right back to doing what they are/have been.

3D printing what they want for cheaper and faster as well as adding in rules for all the other stuff, specifically Xenos.

Mmmhmm.

OK.

The prices you’ve invented purely to upset yourself would indeed be a deal breaker for many.

Indeed, you can find my entirely hypothetical “it really depends” price tolerances elsewhere in this very thread. And those of other posters.

But you’re the only person so far to have pulled a figure out their fundament and then been upset by it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Mmmhmm.

OK.

The prices you’ve invented purely to upset yourself would indeed be a deal breaker for many.

Indeed, you can find my entirely hypothetical “it really depends” price tolerances elsewhere in this very thread. And those of other posters.

But you’re the only person so far to have pulled a figure out their fundament and then been upset by it.

Who said I was "upset"?

I'm just making a statement about what is most likely to be/happen based on GW track record.

No. You presented figures absolutely nobody else got anywhere near, and declared a game we don’t even know the rules yet DOA on the basis of those wild figures.

Hence you’ve been upset by your own imagination, for reasons entirely best known unto yourself.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
No. You presented figures absolutely nobody else got anywhere near, and declared a game we don’t even know the rules yet DOA on the basis of those wild figures.

Hence you’ve been upset by your own imagination, for reasons entirely best known unto yourself.

Oh, I see where you're getting this from..... you didn't read any of the follow on posts, and if you did.... well reading comprehension isn't your strong suit.

I'm sure we will all have time to be happy, non plussed and/or outraged by the prices in the coming months.

There are a lot of factors that will help decide whether the game will be a success. It's almost a tick-box list, and the more that GW hit will decide if this thread gets to 100 pages plus, or if in three years time it's just a few of us back down in the Specialist Games section basement. Think you can apply this to any new wargame:

- Existing Customer-base size
- Attractive/Evocative setting
- Quality of miniatures
- Quality of game/rules
- Pricing
- Availability/supply chain
- Steady/comprehensive release schedule & marketing

I am sure there are other factors to consider but these were the ones that sprang to mind. I would say LI has the first three items confirmed there. Where it falls on the other four items will determine the level of success.

If the setting is HH only, which it seems so far, I would'nt count on #2 or #1 too much.

A large portion of the current community/customer base isn't HH focused, or even Imperium focused.

 TalonZahn wrote:
If the setting is HH only, which it seems so far, I would'nt count on #2 or #1 too much.

A large portion of the current community/customer base isn't HH focused, or even Imperium focused.

No offense, but any real data for that?

AI had another issue that I haven't seen mentioned - market saturation. X-Wing has been mentioned repeatedly, but X-Wing wasn't the only game. There was a Star Trek version (Attack Wing). There was a D&D version. And of course there was the original Wings of Glory that X-Wing is clearly modeled after. I don't know what things were like elsewhere, but at my FLGS Attack Wing had risen for a bit, and then vanished. I never saw the D&D game get played. Wings of Glory got played occasionally, but only sporadically (and historicals have their own attractions separate from sci-fi/fantasy games).

By the time AI arrived, multiple games all seemingly covering the same ground had come and gone, with only the massively dominant X-Wing lasting. GW games are popular at that store. Even AT product moved despite the fact that there were no consistent game nights for it at the store. But the store owner (who was a good friend of mine) told me that not one person had asked about AI when it launched. There was apparently zero interest in what appeared to be a new dogfighting game, even if it had a 40K skin.

Voss wrote:

 TalonZahn wrote:
If the setting is HH only, which it seems so far, I would'nt count on #2 or #1 too much.

A large portion of the current community/customer base isn't HH focused, or even Imperium focused.

No offense, but any real data for that?

Uh, for example, none of the Epic communities are Marines only?

Voss wrote:

 TalonZahn wrote:
If the setting is HH only, which it seems so far, I would'nt count on #2 or #1 too much.

A large portion of the current community/customer base isn't HH focused, or even Imperium focused.

No offense, but any real data for that?

Yea, I'd have to tell you to join just about *any* of the Epic communities.

Hell the 3 I belong to on Facebook alone are constantly swamped with Tau, Eldar, Orks, actual Chaos, and Tyranids.

Then of course, God forbid, you get into any of the 3D printing (specifically for Epic or just anything GW) and people aren't pumping out Marines or AM.

Those can easily be bought or proxied from 1 of a dozen other companies.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Voss wrote:

 TalonZahn wrote:
If the setting is HH only, which it seems so far, I would'nt count on #2 or #1 too much.

A large portion of the current community/customer base isn't HH focused, or even Imperium focused.

No offense, but any real data for that?

Uh, for example, none of the Epic communities are Marines only?

Great!

I don't see the relevance of that anecdote to 'current communities and customer base aren't HH or Imperium focused.

If they had a customer base, outside of the current communities, the game would have been supported.

Right?

This is just GW trying to cash grab a wildly supported 3rd party community.

In their fashion, their offering stuff that community isn't really clamoring for.

 Pacific wrote:
There are a lot of factors that will help decide whether the game will be a success. It's almost a tick-box list, and the more that GW hit will decide if this thread gets to 100 pages plus, or if in three years time it's just a few of us back down in the Specialist Games section basement. Think you can apply this to any new wargame:

- Existing Customer-base size
- Attractive/Evocative setting
- Quality of miniatures
- Quality of game/rules
- Pricing
- Availability/supply chain
- Steady/comprehensive release schedule & marketing

I am sure there are other factors to consider but these were the ones that sprang to mind. I would say LI has the first three items confirmed there. Where it falls on the other four items will determine the level of success.

Love this list.

I would just add Community Engagement to this list. If people are actively discussing it online and posting their models/games, and reviewers/influencers take it up, that also helps a great deal.