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We'll see what exactly the plan is, but if they really just Oldworldslop the setting, I'd lose all interest in it finally. The mythological, not-quite-material setting was the only really interesting aspect of an otherwise typical GW fare.

 YodhrinsForge wrote:
"It is fact", followed by assertion, supposition, and the genuinely comical notion that GW has never made a bafflingly silly and counterproductive decision. I'm sure one day someone making this claim will have actual evidence, but once again it isn't today.

Does the bit ClockworkZion mentioned where it wasn't even in the top 10 according to independent stockist sales data count?

Again, for reference, I believe AoS is #3 right now.

Or is everything "supposition"?

(Also, again, while GW sometimes makes questionable choices, them outright killing off thriving product lines is definitely not their MO, and while I have much criticism for them, this is one that I'd present as unfair).

 lord_blackfang wrote:
If they blow up AoS I'm burning my Necrons

Don't forget the 10 minutes of profanity filled diatribe before hand.

The guy that torched his Dark Elves was one of my locals at the time, so trust me, you need the profanity filled monolog.

As an outsider to playing GW games (but not painting or the lore), iv been sort of expecting a soft reboot or relaunch of the 40K universe for a while. Just with the move toward more mainstream vibes, moving away from grimdark etc they are going to have to do some sort of "that was then, this is now" break.

The cynic in me wonders if any AoS Reboot or relaunch is a dry run for that.

A good product manager does not wait until sales fall off a cliff before making adjustment.
So even if the revenue of AoS is stable, there could be other metrics that would warrant major changes.
For example, flat revenue while prices increase means fewer products get sold. So the current player base could be shrinking and/or buying less. Also, a not insignificant portion of sales in the last two years could be cross sales for TOW (e.g. Squigs) which would further aggreviate the situation.
Let’s also assume that fewer players join the AoS system, e.g. because of poor starter set sales, and suddenly that 3rd place in revenue does not represent a healthy player base for the system but would actually hide a declining player base with little potential for future sales.

Again, we don‘t know all the details.
So even without crazy expectations of GW for the ROI of AoS, a major shake up could be viewed as a necessary step to reinvigorate the system and would be an opportunity to streamline the product line.

Sunno wrote:
As an outsider to playing GW games (but not painting or the lore), iv been sort of expecting a soft reboot or relaunch of the 40K universe for a while. Just with the move toward more mainstream vibes, moving away from grimdark etc they are going to have to do some sort of "that was then, this is now" break.

And that would achieve what exactly? Other than making New Coke look like an inspired idea?

Not to rehash the End Times thing but I think GW really should have paid more attention to the game side.

And btw I don't buy the "toxic online community" thing at all, I think that's quite mean spirited. You can go read posts about WFB on Dakkadakka and it's generally a very civil discussion.

Warhammer 6th edition was a boom for the game, it was really popular especially in Europe, where it was in many places bigger than 40k. I understand that has never been the case in North America, but Europe is a bigger market in any case.

7th edition was generally well received at first with some grumbling about the 5 wide rule, but what really caused a problem were the later army books. The Dark Elves, Vampire Counts and Daemons were really bad. If you weren't there at the time it's hard to understand how oppressive that Daemon book was to play against, and what it turned tournament WFB (which was up to then a pretty fun, generally pretty chill time) into.

A lot of people turned away from the game in disgust in this period, and that's 100% game design issues. Matt Ward wrote that army book and he's just not a very good game designer.

So what did they do? They gave him the entire next edition to write. I know that 8th edition has it's die hard fans, but it was very unpopular. And again, it was the game rules that made it so. Unlike 6th or 7th you needed nearly double the number of models to play and this was at a time when they also halved the models in a box for nearly double the price.

The rules of 8th pushed game toward massive death star units and then crazy mega-spells to kill them off. Paint your 50 models, put them all on a movement tray, then pack them away after moving them once because a massive vortex spell wiped them on turn 2. The terrain rules were ridiculous as well, with every piece of terrain being a haunted forest or a river of blood or some other nonsense.

And then they continued to neglect armies which were in dire need of an update and favour studio favourites as always.

8th ed drove away long time players in droves and was not very appealing to new players at all - before you start, you've got to plan your list, make movement trays, and then paint 50 of the same dude which will cost you a massive amount of money.

The lesson for GW should have been that the game rules really matter. I think to an extent they have learned that lesson, and a bunch of others from that whole debacle. (One I've learned with them is the community's apparently endless tolerance for rebasing, something I absolutely do not share!).

There is a trend of AoS fans making statements like "the WFB community was full of toxic grognards and needed to die" and it doesn't make me feel particularly sympathetic toward them getting a taste of their own medicine, I must say.

But that aside, I have heard that 4th edition AoS is leaning a bit too much into technical, competitive play and losing some of the sense of fun and breeziness that made earlier versions popular. So perhaps there is again a rule related problem?

 Da Boss wrote:
But that aside, I have heard that 4th edition AoS is leaning a bit too much into technical, competitive play and losing some of the sense of fun and breeziness that made earlier versions popular. So perhaps there is again a rule related problem?

This is definitely part of why I am not playing AoS4. AoS3 was very very simple, there wasn't really much of any room at all to make your Chaos Lord feel different. Instead of expanding on it a bit, AoS4 simplified the game further.

Which tournament players seemed to like, but it's definitely part of why I returned to 30k instead. I still intend to paint some AoS, but much like modern 40k, it'll only really be for the painting, not nearly so deep as investment as my actual played games.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Does the bit ClockworkZion mentioned where it wasn't even in the top 10 according to independent stockist sales data count?.

no, because first independent stores are only ~50% of GW sales and those are North America only from stores that add their data, not all of them
given that Fantasy in general sells worse than SciFi in the US, those numbers are meaningless for everything regarding GW

The only information we ever got that was somehow reliable was from ex designers who where there at the point saying that the reason was that WHFB wasn't selling as well as 40k and the management thought if they make it "40k but in Fantasy" it will sell equal numbers (and this was a rather short term change and not how it was planned)

And AoS tanked hard at the beginning, it only started selling after important changes to the game were made, the same changes community was asking for WHFB since 7th edition but were ignored (or even moked given that obvious oversights in Army Books were answered with "we don't make mistakes", eg Beastman still ranking up 4 wide instead of 5 with 7th)
And with that, WHFB would have sold as well as AoS did if GW would have made said changed they did for AoS already during 7th Edition instead of doubling down on milking those who were left

 kodos wrote:
And AoS tanked hard at the beginning, it only started selling after important changes to the game were made, the same changes community was asking for WHFB since 7th edition but were ignored.

Are they really the same changes?

AoS ascended to proper popularity by jettisoning "Kurt Helborg gives you a reroll if your moustache is bigger than your opponent's" style rules and introducing a somewhat balanceable game format via the General's Handbook, which further coalesced with AoS second edition into a proper game.

WHFB, as I understand it, had no issue with any of this. WHFB was unwieldy and difficult to get into, which seems the exact opposite of AoS1.0, which in its launch state was practically Warhammer Munchkin and barely recognisable as a Warhammer game.

6th edition - game encouraged infantry units of 16 - 20, Cav was generally 4-8
7th edition - game encouraged infantry units of 20-25, Cav was generally 5-10.
8th edition - game encouraged infantry units of 40+, cavalry units of at least 10.

That x2.5 increase in the number of infantry in a basic unit (and how it decoupled from "just buying a box" to add a unit to your army into "buy 3-4 boxes" to add a unit) was what made the game so unwelcoming to new players.

And I'll say again, the combination of massive, expensive, and hard to paint infantry units with irresistible force mega spellls that had you packing them away before they got to do anything was an absolute "bad feels" machine.

Fantasy was basically dead with 7th Edition after GW refused to add balance updates for Daemons, Vampires and Dark Elves, with 8th just being there to milk those that still bought it as much as possible by increasing prices and number if models

 Ashiraya wrote:
Are they really the same changes?

yearly points adjustments, proper FAQ, regular Errata and correction of mistakes right after the book release, regular update of model lines, actual interaction with the community
Hence AoS didn't sell at all until those changes were made and was a dead game in the first year

Just compare how many times the core skeleton infantry for AoS was updated by now, while Khemri still runs with the same infantry models Undead already used in 5th Edition.
If Cities of Sigmar would just have gotten new heroes while still using the 5th Edition infantry in 2025 in addition to the Errata writing "everything in the printed book is 100% correct" I doubt it would sell well

GW changed a lot how they interact with the community and how fast they update the rules if there are changed needed.
And Warhammer Fantasy not selling as well as 40k was not because it was not a skirmish missing Space Marine, but because 40k was simply the better game with the better support during that time

 Da Boss wrote:
6th edition - game encouraged infantry units of 16 - 20, Cav was generally 4-8
7th edition - game encouraged infantry units of 20-25, Cav was generally 5-10.
8th edition - game encouraged infantry units of 40+, cavalry units of at least 10.

That x2.5 increase in the number of infantry in a basic unit (and how it decoupled from "just buying a box" to add a unit to your army into "buy 3-4 boxes" to add a unit) was what made the game so unwelcoming to new players.

And I'll say again, the combination of massive, expensive, and hard to paint infantry units with irresistible force mega spellls that had you packing them away before they got to do anything was an absolute "bad feels" machine.

Props to the sigmar team that they have learned this lesson largely, 40k is far worse for shrinkflation currently, whereas AoS points and hence box sets seem far more reasonable.

 Da Boss wrote:
6th edition - game encouraged infantry units of 16 - 20, Cav was generally 4-8
7th edition - game encouraged infantry units of 20-25, Cav was generally 5-10.
8th edition - game encouraged infantry units of 40+, cavalry units of at least 10.

That x2.5 increase in the number of infantry in a basic unit (and how it decoupled from "just buying a box" to add a unit to your army into "buy 3-4 boxes" to add a unit) was what made the game so unwelcoming to new players.

And I'll say again, the combination of massive, expensive, and hard to paint infantry units with irresistible force mega spellls that had you packing them away before they got to do anything was an absolute "bad feels" machine.

I remember that 8th edition was the first time my local group genuinely considered going back to an earlier edition, it was so generally unpopular. That sort of thing is a lot more common these days with social media groups for any game you care to mention, but I think until that point new releases had just been accepted and played so that really shows how the game was received. As you say, nearly all of the changes just seemed to be motivated by 'buy more stuff' at the expense of the game.

 Da Boss wrote:
6th edition - game encouraged infantry units of 16 - 20, Cav was generally 4-8
7th edition - game encouraged infantry units of 20-25, Cav was generally 5-10.
8th edition - game encouraged infantry units of 40+, cavalry units of at least 10.

That x2.5 increase in the number of infantry in a basic unit (and how it decoupled from "just buying a box" to add a unit to your army into "buy 3-4 boxes" to add a unit) was what made the game so unwelcoming to new players.

And I'll say again, the combination of massive, expensive, and hard to paint infantry units with irresistible force mega spellls that had you packing them away before they got to do anything was an absolute "bad feels" machine.

Also? The game just didn’t play right at lower points. 1,000 was pretty much the minimum, and for me never really satisfied.

Big Honking Units could be fun, but weren’t just cash intensive, but required significant spend on models which would never fight, and so were essentially just glorified wound markers.

Furthermore, once most infantry units were hitting maximum static combat resolution, you lost design space. For instance, Goblins and other Weedy By Intent units lost their advantage in Static Res against hittier units which, before 6th Ed might only be bringing +1 Rank and Banner as their static res, compared to +3 ranks, Banner and Outnumber for the Gobbos.

8th Ed swung that too far back, as provided I had more ranks than you, I suffered no negative leadership modifier. Keep them in touch with the General for boosted Ld, and a Battle Standard Bearer for re-rolling failed rout tests? And the elite infantry could be so easily tarpitted. Especially the boredom of Conga Line Skaven Slaves, which could easily have way more ranks, and Ld10 if the general was in range. Add in the BSB re-roll? And a super cheap unit become an unfair tar pit. Even getting a cheeky flank charge in didn’t remove ranks for the purposes of Stubborn, seemingly because reasons.

So, even if I played the game “properly”, and manoeuvred for multiple charges front and flank? I was just bogging down two units against one my opponent essentially paid Sod All For. And, Skaven being Skaven, I think they could still shoot into that combat with randomised hit allocation between those partaking in that pagga. And it didn’t take much other than “I am bring two big Conga Lines of Skaven Slaves” for my opponent to arrange that.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
But that aside, I have heard that 4th edition AoS is leaning a bit too much into technical, competitive play and losing some of the sense of fun and breeziness that made earlier versions popular. So perhaps there is again a rule related problem?

This is definitely part of why I am not playing AoS4. AoS3 was very very simple, there wasn't really much of any room at all to make your Chaos Lord feel different. Instead of expanding on it a bit, AoS4 simplified the game further.

Which tournament players seemed to like, but it's definitely part of why I returned to 30k instead. I still intend to paint some AoS, but much like modern 40k, it'll only really be for the painting, not nearly so deep as investment as my actual played games.

My general problem with AoS has always been that its too simple and feels more like an exercise in resolving combat than making interesting decisions, but at the same time every attempt to add complexity has just made the game feel overcomplicated. Which is weirdly the opposite of how I've felt about 40k.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Also? The game just didn’t play right at lower points. 1,000 was pretty much the minimum, and for me never really satisfied.

Big Honking Units could be fun, but weren’t just cash intensive, but required significant spend on models which would never fight, and so were essentially just glorified wound markers.

funnily enough, the local scene considered anything but 3000 points to be "unplayable" because they wanted to maximize on those big units and Lords on Dragons, basically pushing any new player out by refusing to play at lower points

Interesting to see that Doomfire Warlocks are being removed from Daughters of Khaine. I'm putting that down to the duel kit they come from going with the rest of the Dark Elves either into Legends or Old World en-mass.

Also a unit I expect to see return for the DoK as that leaves them without any cavalry at all.

 Overread wrote:
Interesting to see that Doomfire Warlocks are being removed from Daughters of Khaine. I'm putting that down to the duel kit they come from going with the rest of the Dark Elves either into Legends or Old World en-mass.

Also a unit I expect to see return for the DoK as that leaves them without any cavalry at all.

No, we need SNAKE CAVALRY.

Not a mod, so feel free to ignore, but rehashing why they killed WHFB 10+ years ago isn't really News or Rumors.

We got the Adepticon reveals coming up in a few hours!

 Ashiraya wrote:

 YodhrinsForge wrote:
"It is fact", followed by assertion, supposition, and the genuinely comical notion that GW has never made a bafflingly silly and counterproductive decision. I'm sure one day someone making this claim will have actual evidence, but once again it isn't today.

Does the bit ClockworkZion mentioned where it wasn't even in the top 10 according to independent stockist sales data count?

Again, for reference, I believe AoS is #3 right now.

Or is everything "supposition"?

(Also, again, while GW sometimes makes questionable choices, them outright killing off thriving product lines is definitely not their MO, and while I have much criticism for them, this is one that I'd present as unfair).

Which seems like total BS, since ICV2 had WHFB in the top 5 every years bar 2014. But hey, dont let facts go against the narrative you're trying to create..

 nels1031 wrote:
Not a mod, so feel free to ignore, but rehashing why they killed WHFB 10+ years ago isn't really News or Rumors.

We got the Adepticon reveals coming up in a few hours!

You're quite right - pardon me, I find myself easily baited by this sort of thing. It's something I need to work on to this day, but it's definitely gone on enough.

The reveals begin at 2am my time, so I suppose I will find out after the fact depending on how late today gets.

Sorry. The forum is quiet these days so the temptation to go off topic is a little stronger, because you sort of take conversation where you can find it.

 Shakalooloo wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Interesting to see that Doomfire Warlocks are being removed from Daughters of Khaine. I'm putting that down to the duel kit they come from going with the rest of the Dark Elves either into Legends or Old World en-mass.

Also a unit I expect to see return for the DoK as that leaves them without any cavalry at all.

No, we need SNAKE CAVALRY.

We have sneks we need horses

Unless you mean sneks riding horses?!

ICV2 is inherently unreliable for GW stuff, as GW themselves don’t give them any sales data.

So the best you can do is assume every North American FLGS reports to ICV2. Then use GW’s own annual report to figure out what percentage of its overall sales that’s covers.

Here’s a hint. It’s lower than you might think.

Example. The 2024/2025 Annual Report shows a core revenue of £565,000,000.00. Trade is the largest chunk of that, coming in at £351,700,000, or approx 61%.

Sadly on that specific report I can’t seem to see that then broken down by territory, so we can’t really break it down further. But we know GW has trade accounts all over the world, so we can’t make the claim that ICV2 receives reports on 61% of GW’s sales.

But, even if North America accounted for a big chunk of that, let’s say 60% of all Trade Sales? ICV2 is then only getting info on a maximum of 36% of all GW’s sales. And again, that’s assuming every North America trade account reports to ICV2.

Hence, for getting an idea of how GW is selling compared to other companies? ICV2 just doesn’t offer any really worthwhile data.

Maybe spin it off into its own thread, both the AoS and ToW subforums could do with some activity if you wanted to put it there. Its definitely a fun topic, and kind of impressive that folks still have rage boners lasting longer than 10 years lol..

But like I said, feel free to ignore me. I just look for new models or substantial news to update the thread title.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
ICV2 is inherently unreliable for GW stuff, as GW themselves don’t give them any sales data.

So the best you can do is assume every North American FLGS reports to ICV2. Then use GW’s own annual report to figure out what percentage of its overall sales that’s covers.

Here’s a hint. It’s lower than you might think.

Example. The 2024/2025 Annual Report shows a core revenue of £565,000,000.00. Trade is the largest chunk of that, coming in at £351,700,000, or approx 61%.

Sadly on that specific report I can’t seem to see that then broken down by territory, so we can’t really break it down further. But we know GW has trade accounts all over the world, so we can’t make the claim that ICV2 receives reports on 61% of GW’s sales.

But, even if North America accounted for a big chunk of that, let’s say 60% of all Trade Sales? ICV2 is then only getting info on a maximum of 36% of all GW’s sales. And again, that’s assuming every North America trade account reports to ICV2.

Hence, for getting an idea of how GW is selling compared to other companies? ICV2 just doesn’t offer any really worthwhile data.

Yes we all know the limitations of the ICV2 data. Still, they are a pretty much the best indicators we have of GW relative sales. At the very least, it's a much better proxy than "trust me, bro" commments on the internet.


And there's no need to have the sales of all independant retailers to have a very good idea of the state of the market. There's such a thing as a sample in statistic. And yes, I agree, the methodology of ICV2 is pretty nebuluous, but its by far the more reliable data we have


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 nels1031 wrote:
Maybe spin it off into its own thread, both the AoS and ToW subforums could do with some activity if you wanted to put it there. Its definitely a fun topic, and kind of impressive that folks still have rage boners lasting longer than 10 years lol..

But like I said, feel free to ignore me[u]. I just look for new models or substantial news to update the thread title.

Yes, that's what e will do lol . But more seriously I think that this discussion is related to News and Rumours, since it shows that GW could scrap a game even though the sales are not abysimal

It’s not really though, not when it’s objectively missing significant amounts of data. And, at least the versions I’ve seen, don’t offer the numbers behind the rankings.

For instance, when X-Wing overtook 40K? What was the reported difference there? Are we talking a few thousand dollars, or millions? What overall percentage of X-Wing sales does that represent overall? What percentage of those partaking in the survey stock all the games? Is anyone vetting the figures given, or are they potentially also “trust me bro”?

The other issue is do the non-GW games also have direct sales which might not be reported in the first place? If so, what sort of percentage?

Hence, and I don’t say this lightly or to be controversial, but as a data set ICV2 is frankly worthless.

GW aren’t much more help. Whilst their financials, like all businesses in the UK are independently verified, it doesn’t and has never offered a per system breakdown. Only by channel, and sometimes by territory. So the most we can do is say “GW had a core income, not including Licensing of £X at constant currency in a given year”, and see how that breaks down against retail (their own stores), online (its own website) and trade (pretty much everything else, including direct to FLGS and Distributors.

 nels1031 wrote:
Maybe spin it off into its own thread, both the AoS and ToW subforums could do with some activity if you wanted to put it there. Its definitely a fun topic, and kind of impressive that folks still have rage boners lasting longer than 10 years lol..

But like I said, feel free to ignore me. I just look for new models or substantial news to update the thread title.

Here's one piece of news: It was mentioned earlier here by Overread (but sort of drowned out in the other topics), but Doomfire Warlocks are getting binned.

While the writing was on the wall for the unit as an old WHFB relic, it's also been in a lot of fairly recent value boxes, so it's likely to hurt for most DoK players. Always sad to see stuff squatted instead of being refreshed (ideally in ways that leave the old thing still usable, though of course GW has financial incentive to not do it that way).

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s not really though, not when it’s objectively missing significant amounts of data. And, at least the versions I’ve seen, don’t offer the numbers behind the rankings.

For instance, when X-Wing overtook 40K? What was the reported difference there? Are we talking a few thousand dollars, or millions? What overall percentage of X-Wing sales does that represent overall? What percentage of those partaking in the survey stock all the games? Is anyone vetting the figures given, or are they potentially also “trust me bro”?

The other issue is do the non-GW games also have direct sales which might not be reported in the first place? If so, what sort of percentage?

Hence, and I don’t say this lightly or to be controversial, but as a data set ICV2 is frankly worthless.

GW aren’t much more help. Whilst their financials, like all businesses in the UK are independently verified, it doesn’t and has never offered a per system breakdown. Only by channel, and sometimes by territory. So the most we can do is say “GW had a core income, not including Licensing of £X at constant currency in a given year”, and see how that breaks down against retail (their own stores), online (its own website) and trade (pretty much everything else, including direct to FLGS and Distributors.

They clearly are not worthless. They are what they say they are. An indicator of the relative sales of different games made by independant stores in NA. Does the data have some limitations? Yes, of course, there's a ton of them. But as I said, they are by far the better indicator we have.

And my original comment was made relative to the claim that WHFB supposedly wasnt in the top 10 games of independant games stockist. If there's more reliable data than the ICV2 to support this claim, i'll have no problem retracting my comment that it sounds like BS, but it doesnt seems like it is the case