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I don't doubt that they could retcon the End Times if they wanted to, they'll retcon anything if it serves their plans.

But I don't think they will- there's no need to. People can just play TOW as a "historical" game like the Horus Heresy, and there's no need for any retcon.

TOW didn't really have an advancing plot in the old days and it doesn't really need one now.

I do think a retcon is unlikely. Just because as much as there was a hold out of Old World die-hards for all these years, there will be the Age of Sigmar faithful too who will fight internally to maintain the setting/game.

It's easy to forget how bold and creative the vision for AoS was at the start too; not just in the dramatic switch in setting but trying to create a more fun, casual and social wargame! Things like no points, maintaining your own book of grudges, quaffing from the lady's goblet, growing a moustache to match your army etc.

There will be those that lament the hacking back of that initial vision, and will fight to prevent any further backsliding into "rank and flank" grognardery.

 Kroem wrote:
It's easy to forget how bold and creative the vision for AoS was at the start too; not just in the dramatic switch in setting but trying to create a more fun, casual and social wargame! Things like no points, maintaining your own book of grudges, quaffing from the lady's goblet, growing a moustache to match your army etc.

That's... certainly a take.

GW came out and said Age of Sigmar was about selling the minis for art's sake. Any 'rules' they happened to release were just a nice bonus in case you wanted to play with them. The 'game' was secondary. Keep in mind, there was a model that would get a bonus if you talked to it, but a better bonus if it talked back. Of course, they also told us the rules would be free forever, and look how long that lasted...

 BorderCountess wrote:

 Kroem wrote:
It's easy to forget how bold and creative the vision for AoS was at the start too; not just in the dramatic switch in setting but trying to create a more fun, casual and social wargame! Things like no points, maintaining your own book of grudges, quaffing from the lady's goblet, growing a moustache to match your army etc.

That's... certainly a take.

GW came out and said Age of Sigmar was about selling the minis for art's sake. Any 'rules' they happened to release were just a nice bonus in case you wanted to play with them. The 'game' was secondary. Keep in mind, there was a model that would get a bonus if you talked to it, but a better bonus if it talked back. Of course, they also told us the rules would be free forever, and look how long that lasted...

Look I'm not saying they nailed it, or even that I loved it. I'm saying they tried this big experiment, with a vision of something different and which some of their staff would have been very proud of, I don't think you just roll everything back after such a move.

 Kroem wrote:
...I don't think you just roll everything back after such a move.

Yet, here we are.

 BorderCountess wrote:

 Kroem wrote:
...I don't think you just roll everything back after such a move.

Yet, here we are.

Does that mean the grand experiment was a failure?

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:

 Kroem wrote:
...I don't think you just roll everything back after such a move.

Yet, here we are.

Does that mean the grand experiment was a failure?

I think so right? Although perfectly successful, AoS didn't bring in a whole new audience or do anything particularly revolutionary in the end. In a way that's worse, the Old World died for nothing
I haven't kept up with the editions, but I don't think there is much of a difference in terms of rules bloat between AoS and 40K is there?

 Kroem wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:

 Kroem wrote:
...I don't think you just roll everything back after such a move.

Yet, here we are.

Does that mean the grand experiment was a failure?

I think so right? Although perfectly successful, AoS didn't bring in a whole new audience or do anything particularly revolutionary in the end. In a way that's worse, the Old World died for nothing
I haven't kept up with the editions, but I don't think there is much of a difference in terms of rules bloat between AoS and 40K is there?

according to everything ive seen, AOS is still the second biggest wargame around, after 40k. it might be less popular than TOW among the niche audience, but accessibility matters for a lot for more casual players

 Kroem wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:

 Kroem wrote:
...I don't think you just roll everything back after such a move.

Yet, here we are.

Does that mean the grand experiment was a failure?

I think so right? Although perfectly successful, AoS didn't bring in a whole new audience or do anything particularly revolutionary in the end. In a way that's worse, the Old World died for nothing
I haven't kept up with the editions, but I don't think there is much of a difference in terms of rules bloat between AoS and 40K is there?

Having played a fair bit of AoS 4th and a smidge of 40k, I can say AoS has much less rules bloat currently than 40k. 40k has more stats, detachments, weird rules interactions, more general rules to keep in mind, more complicated scoring with the tactical Pariah Nexus deck, stricter terrain setup requirements etc.

That said overall yeah, I don't think it really did something super revolutionary. I wouldn't say the "grand experiment" was a failure, AoS tournaments are still (slowly) growing (per TheHonestWargamer, anyway) and we even got a form of Warhammer Fantasy back with TOW (Not strictly due to AoS, though).

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
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

Writing around it means retconning…

A lot of people nowadays don’t like the static nature that was all warhammer settings in the past, and 300 years isn’t that far back tbh. A few big narrative jumps and you’re basically at the time of Karl franz.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Idk if this technically counts as a retcon, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they advanced TOW’s timeline and it became a parallel universe to the one where the end times happened.

So we’d get back to the time of Karl franz eventually, but the end times will have also still happened, but just be a different timeline, instead of the inevitable future of TOW.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

 Kroem wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:

 Kroem wrote:
...I don't think you just roll everything back after such a move.

Yet, here we are.

Does that mean the grand experiment was a failure?

I think so right? Although perfectly successful, AoS didn't bring in a whole new audience or do anything particularly revolutionary in the end. In a way that's worse, the Old World died for nothing
I haven't kept up with the editions, but I don't think there is much of a difference in terms of rules bloat between AoS and 40K is there?

according to everything ive seen, AOS is still the second biggest wargame around, after 40k. it might be less popular than TOW among the niche audience, but accessibility matters for a lot for more casual players

Yeah, I can’t bring myself to get into AoS, but I’ve only played one game of TOW since release. Part of that is after returning to 40k post primaris being introduced the basic core rules are a lot more simple and accessible than what they were, and by extension more simple and accessible than TOW’s.

But I also might be just a bit salty from that game with how terrible my handgunners performed, how one of my cannons blew itself up T2 and how my opponent’s magic fire vortex managed to ravage my knights and great swords lol.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
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?

So long as said giant flying turtle has jets of flame where its flippers should be I'm fine with it....

They have already done "soft" retcons with the old Storm of chaos (where Grimgor beats Archaon, <never happened&gt, and they still do it (Cathay and their trading routes).

But retconning the End of Times would be too big (and it seems to be set in stone since it is the origin of AoS).

I think the end times could work, and would work better if handled differently.

How? Have Chaos lose and the Skaven win.

Nah, GW isn’t going to retcon the End Times. That was the nuke they dropped to actually end WHFB because no one was buying the game anymore. If The Old World prints money, GW will just do what they always do: sell it as a “parallel timeline” or “historical period” so you can enjoy your square bases without messing with AoS.

Why would they undo the End Times when AoS is one of their biggest success stories? WHFB was a financial corpse, AoS dragged fantasy out of the grave, and now ToW is just extra cash for people who want to relive their glory days. Retconning it would be like saying “oops, we didn’t actually want all this success we’ve had for the past decade.” Not gonna happen.

Yeah 100% I think so. the End Times was a shitshow.

They can always just do it like every bad prequel does it: Keep the overall themes, but throw out all the details, hoping only the "real fans" no corporation ever cares about will realize. So your prequel can effectively do what it wants, just as if it was a sequel, but because X (here: The End times) you can't officially make it a sequel.
The Holodeck was a new technology a hundred years after Strange New Worlds? Who cares, we'll give you a fully functional holodeck in Strange New Worlds!
Nobody knew how to build new Steam Tanks during Karl Franz's reign? Who cares, we'll give you 200 of them 250 years prior...

Nothing happens after The End Times that actually depends on the specifics of The End Times - AoS takes place so longer after that it might as well be a different timeline entirely. Retconning doesn't make sense when there is nothing after.

Rather, what will actually happen as ToW moves forwards is that an upcoming supplement will describe a battle between Dwarfs and Orcs, during which they will uncover a strange arena and a set of religious rites dedicated to a god called "Nuffle"...

Honestly AoS takes place so long after End Times its silly and most of the Realm populations should have ZERO concept of the idea of the "Old World". The only reason they do is because its a lore built on managers not on a writer so it has loads of wonky things; plus the desire to shoe-horn every Old World character they could get away with (plus cause they had the models for them)

 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.

Interesting that you mention that as Gotrek had that opportunity and decided not to take it. He decided that he would rather fix the Mortal Realms than try and save the Old World. It's the entire plot of the second audiodrama.

Yeah but wasn't that involving going back in the Warp where you can't trust anything anyway?

Or something like that its been ages since I last heard the audio drama (and sadly right now its all boxed up so I can't get to it)

Personally, to flip the narrative, I'd put the AoS universe in a bottle on the shelf of a wizard, an alternate reality entire universe fighting and dying within the WFB universe.

This is a bit Men In Black ending, crossed Terry Pratchett Round World.

But the end times being trapped inside a terrarium and being left to grow and evolve whilst the WFB world continues on is fun.

I'm sure the relegation of importance of the AoS universe would rub players the wrong way, but no more than the destruction of WFB did. So you know, turn about is fair play.

I'm sure the relegation of importance of the AoS universe would rub players the wrong way, but no more than the destruction of WFB did. So you know, turn about is fair play.

See, the difference there is that people actually play AoS and it actually makes GW money.

chaos0xomega wrote:

I'm sure the relegation of importance of the AoS universe would rub players the wrong way, but no more than the destruction of WFB did. So you know, turn about is fair play.

See, the difference there is that people actually play AoS and it actually makes GW money.

And to use some of the patronising arguments of the pro AoS people to the WFB when their game was destroyed:

You CAN still play your game!
I envy your freedom to play without the 3 year churn! Such freedom!
It will make your minis more collectable!
Embrace change, enjoy modernity, don't get hung up on the old!




As to your argument about AoS making GW money. It didn't when it started and if that's the criteria then GW would have killed it for immediately failing and done something else.

For that time AoS was 'selling', most of the kits were the same 8th edition WFB kits at the time anyway, so was selling a lot on the merit of WFB aesthetics and models.

Also it seems like they overestimate and overproduce for AoS and end up literally having to give away starter boxes in recent years.

 Hellebore wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

I'm sure the relegation of importance of the AoS universe would rub players the wrong way, but no more than the destruction of WFB did. So you know, turn about is fair play.

See, the difference there is that people actually play AoS and it actually makes GW money.

And to use some of the patronising arguments of the pro AoS people to the WFB when their game was destroyed:

You CAN still play your game!
I envy your freedom to play without the 3 year churn! Such freedom!
It will make your minis more collectable!
Embrace change, enjoy modernity, don't get hung up on the old!




As to your argument about AoS making GW money. It didn't when it started and if that's the criteria then GW would have killed it for immediately failing and done something else.

When Age of Sigmar first dropped, there was a ton of noise about the rules, WHFB ending, and the setting shift—but one thing that often gets overlooked is that Stormcast Eternals sold extremely well right out of the gate. GW themselves leaned into them as the “poster boys” of AoS for a reason.

From what’s been reported, shareholders were told that Stormcast were one of the best-selling fantasy kits GW has ever produced. That’s why they kept pushing them so hard in starter sets and expanding the line so rapidly—because the sales backed it up.

 Daba wrote:

Also it seems like they overestimate and overproduce for AoS and end up literally having to give away starter boxes in recent years.

In fairness to GW those starter sets landed right alongside the Pandemic which basically threw all of GW's previous sales data out the window. They enjoyed one of the biggest rises in popularity and market growth ever and almost without expectation. So they had very little historical data to pull from at that time to judge sales.


Also lets not forget that loss-leaders work really well and starter sets are designed to be a less profitable item to draw people in. Plus some (not all) of the sharp sales 3rd party stores have had (and this also happened recently with 30K too) is because margins are tight these days and whilst a GW boxed set has a 3 year shelf life with zero diminishing return over that period*; many stores can't afford to have that much money tied up in products not selling out fast. So its very much a hype system for a big burst of sales in a very short timeframe and sometimes stores/gw gets it wrong.


It's also an area of no-win. If GW underproduces people cry its the end of the world because GW can't produce enough and is failing to sell. If GW overproduces its also the end of the world because they are wasting resources on things that don't sell. In reality each set is nearly always going to either under or over sell with a handful landing "just right"


*and it can be argued that they have a longer shelf life as the price basically makes the book inside free and that's the only part that goes out of date when a new edition launches