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Hello,

Do you think GW would retcon the End Times if the Old World is a runaway success, or let it remain dead and just play around with the "past" of the setting ?

the whole point of TOW is to write around the end times as a plot point. that's why it's set in the past. they have no reason to retcon it because they already have a solution to that problem

Siegfriedfr wrote:
Hello,

Do you think GW would retcon the End Times if the Old World is a runaway success, or let it remain dead and just play around with the "past" of the setting ?

The short answer here is 'no'.

The long answer is 'hell no'.

The really long answer is: Given that they've been going out of their way to set the game centuries earlier, and have been re-tooling kits to remove End Times-era iconography (see: War Altar), they've got themselves pretty obviously committed to NOT re-visiting that time period. I think the big question is whether or not they ever actually get to the Great War Against Chaos, which would see some big names show up (Teclis, Magnus the Pious, Asavar Kul...).

The only thing that would possibly make GW change the End Times would be if Age of Sigmar's sales collapse whilst Old Worlds soar.

If they saw that happen they "might" consider advancing the storyline down an alternate timeline to allow the AoS armies to come into Old World by setting up new events after the End Times.

With Chaos they can easily handwave fragmented futures and such.

Of course there are other ways to bring the AoS armies into the game - in fact many of them would fit into the setting very easily as they are just regular Old World armies with some different models. Indeed Khadorans and Stormcast are perhaps the most tricky to bring over. The former can be argued as dwarves who broke away from the rules of the Engineers Guild; meanwhile there are likely ways to slip oversized humanoids into the setting decked out in stormcast armour and the like.


So yeah if GW wanted too they could combine both game models lines; but I would only expect that to happen with a massive divide in sales and activity on both games.

I think the ToW line will go down another path and explore stories that were never fleshed out in WHFB.

We'll never see the end times again, in ToW.

Lol they'd probably go the Marvel universe route of a Multi-Verse where chaos won in one and gets defeated in another or something dumb. Then they'd probably explain it away with The Realm of Chaos being weird or something.

Obviously they don't really need to worry about the End Times bottleneck now that they went back in time.
And yes, as long as AoS does well, it ain't likely to ever be a thing.

I think GW made one good step by making the price point much cheaper than it was in 8th, but one bad step by keeping the rules a bit obfuscating (i mean, 219 pages of rules in the main book, come on...) instead of modernizing the gameplay. That will go in the way of mass-adoption (that and unavailable models), and thus in the way of having to even seriously consider "what do we do with the future of this setting".

"Modernizing the gameplay" is specifically what they didn't want to do with a game that's going full on nostalgia and retro.
Also the number of pages isn't a problem - even One Page Rules has fleshed out considerably beyond 1 page of rules. You can't have a complex game without pages of rules.

The issue with GW rules hasn't been the number of pages; its the way its formatted; the flow of information and often the lack of things like index or page references to make quick checking info easier.

As for prices I would wager as we see new sets appearing we will see the prices creep up; potentially quite quickly.

 Overread wrote:
"Modernizing the gameplay" is specifically what they didn't want to do with a game that's going full on nostalgia and retro.
Also the number of pages isn't a problem - even One Page Rules has fleshed out considerably beyond 1 page of rules. You can't have a complex game without pages of rules.

The issue with GW rules hasn't been the number of pages; its the way its formatted; the flow of information and often the lack of things like index or page references to make quick checking info easier.

As for prices I would wager as we see new sets appearing we will see the prices creep up; potentially quite quickly.

When you have to reference rules, flipping trough pages is a problem. So the less the better.
When you look at the TOW rules section, 40% (made up number) is artwork, pictures, and quotes. They don't need 219 pages, they choose to present it that way.
Even OPR advanced rules that you mentioned, are just 48 pages.

Anyway, ofc prices will go up over time, just like 40k or AoS. For now, they are cheaper. If Horus Heresy is anything to go buy, Specialist Games remain cheaper than main studio games.

They don't need to - its why they set it in the past.

Even if they did - it can just be an alternative Warhammer universe - like Blood Bowl or arguably 40k it does not invalidate AOS

Heck if they really wanted just one timeline they could have someone from AoS (eg Gotrek) get thrown back in the warp and re-emerge in the Old World at a pivotal moment in the End Times and just smash their way through things.

Imagine if Sigmar sent his Stormcast through a Warp Rift that let them travel back through time and emerge to mark rank and file and just utterly demolish the forces of Abaddon and his allies. Halting the End Times and suddenly "Oh yeah now we have these glorious Stormcast from a time that never was.


Meanwhile some far off Slaan nods his his head with a sage nod that the Great Plan worked and they don't have to flee to continue.

And Gotrek is still grumpy at the end of it, but can at least get a proper pint of Bugmans now.

Siegfriedfr wrote:
Obviously they don't really need to worry about the End Times bottleneck now that they went back in time.
And yes, as long as AoS does well, it ain't likely to ever be a thing.

I think GW made one good step by making the price point much cheaper than it was in 8th, but one bad step by keeping the rules a bit obfuscating (i mean, 219 pages of rules in the main book, come on...) instead of modernizing the gameplay. That will go in the way of mass-adoption (that and unavailable models), and thus in the way of having to even seriously consider "what do we do with the future of this setting".

Age of Darkness says, "Hi!"

Seriously, the Horus Heresy rules are even MORE complex and complicated than Old World, and everyone seems to love that.

 BorderCountess wrote:

Siegfriedfr wrote:
Obviously they don't really need to worry about the End Times bottleneck now that they went back in time.
And yes, as long as AoS does well, it ain't likely to ever be a thing.

I think GW made one good step by making the price point much cheaper than it was in 8th, but one bad step by keeping the rules a bit obfuscating (i mean, 219 pages of rules in the main book, come on...) instead of modernizing the gameplay. That will go in the way of mass-adoption (that and unavailable models), and thus in the way of having to even seriously consider "what do we do with the future of this setting".

Age of Darkness says, "Hi!"

Seriously, the Horus Heresy rules are even MORE complex and complicated than Old World, and everyone seems to love that.

Age of Darkness feels like it's all the rules from every edition in one game.

I was having flashbacks of studying for an exam when I was trying to build an AdMech list.

Some people love rules.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Some people love rules.

I love rules, too, just in moderation.

Old World is about right for me. Age of Darkness goes over the top.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:

Siegfriedfr wrote:
Obviously they don't really need to worry about the End Times bottleneck now that they went back in time.
And yes, as long as AoS does well, it ain't likely to ever be a thing.

I think GW made one good step by making the price point much cheaper than it was in 8th, but one bad step by keeping the rules a bit obfuscating (i mean, 219 pages of rules in the main book, come on...) instead of modernizing the gameplay. That will go in the way of mass-adoption (that and unavailable models), and thus in the way of having to even seriously consider "what do we do with the future of this setting".

Age of Darkness says, "Hi!"

Seriously, the Horus Heresy rules are even MORE complex and complicated than Old World, and everyone seems to love that.

Age of Darkness feels like it's all the rules from every edition in one game.

I was having flashbacks of studying for an exam when I was trying to build an AdMech list.

Some people love rules.

30k could certainly use some pruning and updates, but "studying for an exam" is the perfect vibe that building an mechanicum list should have. that's what 40k AdMech are missing at the moment

I can't see it happening.

Even if TOW is a runaway success and dramatically outsells AOS, the two games would just trade places; TOW would occupy the main shelves - along with 40K - in the Warhammer stores while AOS becomes the specialist game. Narratively the two eras would continue as they are.

SamusDrake wrote:
I can't see it happening.

Even if TOW is a runaway success and dramatically outsells AOS, the two games would just trade places; TOW would occupy the main shelves - along with 40K - in the Warhammer stores while AOS becomes the specialist game. Narratively the two eras would continue as they are.

and i never see that happening, because AOS is the game specifically crafted to be accessible to new players, while the core audience for TOW is existing and experienced players

 Overread wrote:
Heck if they really wanted just one timeline they could have someone from AoS (eg Gotrek) get thrown back in the warp and re-emerge in the Old World at a pivotal moment in the End Times and just smash their way through things.

Imagine if Sigmar sent his Stormcast through a Warp Rift that let them travel back through time and emerge to mark rank and file and just utterly demolish the forces of Abaddon and his allies. Halting the End Times and suddenly "Oh yeah now we have these glorious Stormcast from a time that never was.


Meanwhile some far off Slaan nods his his head with a sage nod that the Great Plan worked and they don't have to flee to continue.

And Gotrek is still grumpy at the end of it, but can at least get a proper pint of Bugmans now.

That's a pretty neat way to recon the Endtimes but keep the Stormcast tbf, it would be cool to keep some of the other factions like bone marines and fish elves too.
Maybe the timelines can collide and result in the coolest parts of both settings being kept!

 Kroem wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Heck if they really wanted just one timeline they could have someone from AoS (eg Gotrek) get thrown back in the warp and re-emerge in the Old World at a pivotal moment in the End Times and just smash their way through things.

Imagine if Sigmar sent his Stormcast through a Warp Rift that let them travel back through time and emerge to mark rank and file and just utterly demolish the forces of Abaddon and his allies. Halting the End Times and suddenly "Oh yeah now we have these glorious Stormcast from a time that never was.


Meanwhile some far off Slaan nods his his head with a sage nod that the Great Plan worked and they don't have to flee to continue.

And Gotrek is still grumpy at the end of it, but can at least get a proper pint of Bugmans now.

That's a pretty neat way to recon the Endtimes but keep the Stormcast tbf, it would be cool to keep some of the other factions like bone marines and fish elves too.
Maybe the timelines can collide and result in the coolest parts of both settings being kept!

Honestly the other races come in easily. With Nagash alive once more in the Old World you can easily have him create the Ossiarchs fresh within Old World

Idoneth also fit in really easily with a "hey a group of elves hid in the deepest ocean with some super magic and all the End Times stuff messed up magic and forced them to rise up from the sea"

Lumineth would fit as a group of High Elves who followed a new pathway to greater enlightenment on the stepps of some vast mountain range who then come down with hammers and beasties and all.



Basically most of the forces are based on Old World armies and ideas and races anyway. So porting them over is simple. You find a small spot on the map and flesh it out and since its Old World you don't have to conquer much land to have a viable population to take part in the setting. Again there's nothing really where AoS super-steps out of what was possible in Old World. Even the Steam Punk elements of Cites of Sigmar and Khadorans isn't that far from what Dwarves at the height of their race could create. Plus Skaven were running around with Toys like that for AGES and didn't stand out of place or seem like they had a huge advantage that let them just auto-win against knights on horseback and so forth.
You might see magic get a bit more epic in scale and in lore* but overall it could be done.

Most would have heavily changed lore behind them, but the actual models, designs, icons, creatures and so forth would fit into the setting quite easily. Esp with the End Times causing all kinds of upheaval. I would guess there'd be the chaos of the End Times starting and then failing and then a period of time where everything would be in flux and settling down and then the story would start over with the game. Giving time for new factions to arise and settle themselves in the maps and world and for things to get moving.


*honestly when they did the new Brets novel with the relaunch - magic was already decently well developed as a backbone and Brets are a magic-light army compared to say Tombkings or High Elves.

 Kroem wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Heck if they really wanted just one timeline they could have someone from AoS (eg Gotrek) get thrown back in the warp and re-emerge in the Old World at a pivotal moment in the End Times and just smash their way through things.

Imagine if Sigmar sent his Stormcast through a Warp Rift that let them travel back through time and emerge to mark rank and file and just utterly demolish the forces of Abaddon and his allies. Halting the End Times and suddenly "Oh yeah now we have these glorious Stormcast from a time that never was.


Meanwhile some far off Slaan nods his his head with a sage nod that the Great Plan worked and they don't have to flee to continue.

And Gotrek is still grumpy at the end of it, but can at least get a proper pint of Bugmans now.

That's a pretty neat way to recon the Endtimes but keep the Stormcast tbf, it would be cool to keep some of the other factions like bone marines and fish elves too.
Maybe the timelines can collide and result in the coolest parts of both settings being kept!

So, Marvel's Battleworld?

i think the biggest problem with combining TOW and AOS, besides any financial/practical reasons GW would care about, is how players would respond. "too AOS" is used as an insult, and despite how similar the two are, the core audience of TOW is people who have strong opinions about AOS

i mean, people already complain about a flying chariot led by eagles. how would people accept a giant flying turtle?

 Overread wrote:

Honestly the other races come in easily. With Nagash alive once more in the Old World you can easily have him create the Ossiarchs fresh within Old World

Idoneth also fit in really easily with a "hey a group of elves hid in the deepest ocean with some super magic and all the End Times stuff messed up magic and forced them to rise up from the sea"

Lumineth would fit as a group of High Elves who followed a new pathway to greater enlightenment on the stepps of some vast mountain range who then come down with hammers and beasties and all.

Basically most of the forces are based on Old World armies and ideas and races anyway. So porting them over is simple. You find a small spot on the map and flesh it out and since its Old World you don't have to conquer much land to have a viable population to take part in the setting. Again there's nothing really where AoS super-steps out of what was possible in Old World. Even the Steam Punk elements of Cites of Sigmar and Khadorans isn't that far from what Dwarves at the height of their race could create. Plus Skaven were running around with Toys like that for AGES and didn't stand out of place or seem like they had a huge advantage that let them just auto-win against knights on horseback and so forth.
You might see magic get a bit more epic in scale and in lore* but overall it could be done.

Most would have heavily changed lore behind them, but the actual models, designs, icons, creatures and so forth would fit into the setting quite easily. Esp with the End Times causing all kinds of upheaval. I would guess there'd be the chaos of the End Times starting and then failing and then a period of time where everything would be in flux and settling down and then the story would start over with the game. Giving time for new factions to arise and settle themselves in the maps and world and for things to get moving.

*honestly when they did the new Brets novel with the relaunch - magic was already decently well developed as a backbone and Brets are a magic-light army compared to say Tombkings or High Elves.

I like your brainstorming ideas !

Of course all of this is pure discussion for the sake of it, there is no way AoS would collapse for any reason.

I would add that if we went with a "Chaos fails at the end time" type of scenario, i would expect a significant reorganization of the landmasses, which have always been a problem for storytelling.

Northen Chaos Wastes rift closed.
Norsca being redesigned as a non-corrupted viking faction.
Lustria breaking up from Naggaroth
Araby, Hind and kush being renamed and repurposed for the AoS factions.
Dark lands being less 100% evil and having a positive presence making it partly green again (Sylvaneth ?)

Ah well. Too bad they decided to nuke this game back then, there was so much they could have done.

Or maybe the solution lies in AoS itself : instead of having these weird elemental planes, everything gets bungled together as a unified planet once again (except chaos of course), and Old Wolrd factions get invited in the AoS party...

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
i mean, people already complain about a flying chariot led by eagles. how would people accept a giant flying turtle?

I think most players are okay with the giant flying turtles, especially in the context of the Idoneth. The Skycutters just look dumb and seem wildly impractical, even by Warhammer standards.

 BorderCountess wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
i mean, people already complain about a flying chariot led by eagles. how would people accept a giant flying turtle?

I think most players are okay with the giant flying turtles, especially in the context of the Idoneth. The Skycutters just look dumb and seem wildly impractical, even by Warhammer standards.

People who play Deathwatch in 40k, have a stealth flying turtle, they call the Corvus Blackstar.

 BorderCountess wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
i mean, people already complain about a flying chariot led by eagles. how would people accept a giant flying turtle?

I think most players are okay with the giant flying turtles, especially in the context of the Idoneth. The Skycutters just look dumb and seem wildly impractical, even by Warhammer standards.

i don't think a flying chariot is more impractical than a normal chariot, for the era WHFB represents

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:


i mean, people already complain about a flying chariot led by eagles. how would people accept a giant flying turtle?

It was not called Warhammer FANTASY Battle for nothing!

Seriously, what sadsack would complain about something so awesome as a chariot led by eagles? And for goodness sake have they not had the pleasure of the Great A'tuin from Discworld?

SamusDrake wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:


i mean, people already complain about a flying chariot led by eagles. how would people accept a giant flying turtle?

It was not called Warhammer FANTASY Battle for nothing!

Seriously, what sadsack would complain about something so awesome as a chariot led by eagles? And for goodness sake have they not had the pleasure of the Great A'tuin from Discworld?

Old World has this strange ability to be a low-magic-low fantasy setting that's insanely epic and high fantasy and high magic ALL AT ONCE

In part its because the tabletop display was fairly low magic for the most part in many armies. Brets, Empire, High Elves even Slaves to Darkness - a good number of their core models - your rank and file that makes up a majority of the stuff on the table - is just regular medieval style stuff. Spearmen, swordsmen, axes, bows, arrows and so forth. Sure every so often there'd be a small sized griffin or such and if you were lucky your army might have A dragon which was a long serpentine coiled thing that looked very "low magic era" style.

So basically the tabletop presentation was fairly on the low side. Sure you had mages with spells but they were rolling dice type spells.

IT also helped that you had armies like Brets which were built ground up from real world medieval armies as their backbone. So all those low magic elements were baked in


Now in the artwork and the lore it was almost the opposite - powerful spells; vast armies of demons; living artillery and siege weapons and all. Man O War had airships and ironships; the stories and art showed vast legions of models and fantasy elements all ripped right out of high fantasy stuff. However many people don't read the stories so for many Old World was old, dark, lowmagic. Kinda similar to things like Conan from that similar era. Potential for the odd demon to arise an army (which you'd consider high magic); but for the most part its an exception against a backdrop of regular lowmagic stuff.



YES armies like Tombkings and Lizardmen and Skaven should turn that on its head; but for many people those armies being present didn't change that first impression of low magic as a concept in the whole thing.



As time went on though and GW got more plastic casting skill and capabilities we started to see more of the highmagic stuff coming through. More dragons; bigger dragons; more eagles and sky chariots and so forth. For some this felt "Wrong" like the setting and game was changing; whilst for others it feels like the tabletop is finally catching up to the stories.

Siegfriedfr wrote:

 Overread wrote:

Honestly the other races come in easily. With Nagash alive once more in the Old World you can easily have him create the Ossiarchs fresh within Old World

Idoneth also fit in really easily with a "hey a group of elves hid in the deepest ocean with some super magic and all the End Times stuff messed up magic and forced them to rise up from the sea"

Lumineth would fit as a group of High Elves who followed a new pathway to greater enlightenment on the stepps of some vast mountain range who then come down with hammers and beasties and all.

Basically most of the forces are based on Old World armies and ideas and races anyway. So porting them over is simple. You find a small spot on the map and flesh it out and since its Old World you don't have to conquer much land to have a viable population to take part in the setting. Again there's nothing really where AoS super-steps out of what was possible in Old World. Even the Steam Punk elements of Cites of Sigmar and Khadorans isn't that far from what Dwarves at the height of their race could create. Plus Skaven were running around with Toys like that for AGES and didn't stand out of place or seem like they had a huge advantage that let them just auto-win against knights on horseback and so forth.
You might see magic get a bit more epic in scale and in lore* but overall it could be done.

Most would have heavily changed lore behind them, but the actual models, designs, icons, creatures and so forth would fit into the setting quite easily. Esp with the End Times causing all kinds of upheaval. I would guess there'd be the chaos of the End Times starting and then failing and then a period of time where everything would be in flux and settling down and then the story would start over with the game. Giving time for new factions to arise and settle themselves in the maps and world and for things to get moving.

*honestly when they did the new Brets novel with the relaunch - magic was already decently well developed as a backbone and Brets are a magic-light army compared to say Tombkings or High Elves.

I like your brainstorming ideas !

Of course all of this is pure discussion for the sake of it, there is no way AoS would collapse for any reason.

I would add that if we went with a "Chaos fails at the end time" type of scenario, i would expect a significant reorganization of the landmasses, which have always been a problem for storytelling.

Northen Chaos Wastes rift closed.
Norsca being redesigned as a non-corrupted viking faction.
Lustria breaking up from Naggaroth
Araby, Hind and kush being renamed and repurposed for the AoS factions.
Dark lands being less 100% evil and having a positive presence making it partly green again (Sylvaneth ?)

Ah well. Too bad they decided to nuke this game back then, there was so much they could have done.

Or maybe the solution lies in AoS itself : instead of having these weird elemental planes, everything gets bungled together as a unified planet once again (except chaos of course), and Old Wolrd factions get invited in the AoS party...

I had similar thoughts!!!

IMO instead of completely destroying the Warhammer world for creating AoS, it would have been better to just break it into "islands", so the narrative of any faction can go against any faction is justified (also smaller armies as the world is in a broken state, etc...).

I misread would with should.

It's been answered above but I can't see it rectonning when their other flagship game is built off the End Times actually happening...

It would be very weird for them to pull the rug out from underneath AoS like that for ToW. AoS would have to be failing pretty bad for that to happen.

UNLESS

They decide that the BloodBowl paradigm is a goer, in which case sure why not?

With the ToW setting sitting hundreds of years before the End Times, they would diverge it into a separate universe where the great war against chaos in ToW ends differently which butterfly effects the End Times so it doesn't happen, leaving this as a new continuity that can exist alongside AoS.

Would they do that? I can't see why given they are not moving the timeline from the great war wherethe End Times don't matter because they haven't happened.

But BB is specifically not WFB universe so it's the one example of a parallel universe of the same setting - and it's been around for decades so you couldn't claim GW doing it would be a new thing...