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Well im sitting and talking with my friend about magic online the other day and we start talkin about how they could do warhammer online.  I mean just like they do with magic, buy your mini's use an online painter, then play in ranked games and tournaments till your heart is content!  I truly dont know why this hasn't been done yet.  I know it would cost alot to buy your army over again but to be able to get a game whenever you want against whatever type of opponent you wanted at whatever points cost, terrain, scenario....well I think it could be amazing if done right and I would definitely play.  Would anyone else play?

If it involved buying all my minis again to get digital copies? Not just no, but hell no.

I've heard various people tossing around ways to do this in kind of thing with flash, but it's always proved too complex a project to be undertaken.

There aren't any commercial products for this, and I don't expect that there will be anytime soon. Computer games are already a big competitor to hobby games like WH; why would GW want to give the computer gamer market their game and hence even more of your money?

That said, some people have come up with cool homebrew non-for-profit options, allowing them to play online, with friends overseas, etc.

http://warhammer.org.uk/PhP/viewtopic.php?t=26495

http://warhammer.org.uk/PhP/viewtopic.php?t=21001

http://warhammer.org.uk/PhP/viewtopic.php?t=14216&highlight=interactive

This is the reason you play dawn of war, Vult. So you wont have to buy another army/ies.

This idea only works with collectible games. MTGO was the first success, now Wizkids has ported its Pirates games to the same idea with a nominal amount of success as well as the LOTR card games from Cipher, to name a few. All of these revolve around the collectibility aspect of rarity concerning blind draws in purchases.

No one is going to pay $35 for a squad of digital space marines, or several hundred dollars for a digital army. Its just simply a horrendous idea.

Dawn of war was fun, but as a competitive game it just becomes who can make a small group fast enough to go stop the other person from making any defense/offense.  I originally thought that Magic online would be a flop, but to hear people talk about it...it is absolutely amazing and doing great.  I mean some people cant get games whenever they want so to be able just to log on and start playing would be awesome.  And unlike DoW it would be points and turn based so it would be just like playing the table top game only over your computer.  *shrug* I guess it would only be my friends and I around here that would play.  I would love to get on and see some of the competition from other countries and things like that. 

Online Warhammer could be done with a simple flash program with online modes. I don't know anything about flash programming but I know all sorts of cool things can be done with them! But sadly, a pay-for-army system wouldn't work. Unlike cards which have random booster packs, you buy your army and you're done. You also can't give out "digital packs" as prizes and I think GW's still adamant about not having money as prizes for tourneys. So I can't see how it would work. Plus the whole thing about personalizing your army and painting them and all that.

And DOW's just been one big zerg rush competition. It would be great if the mechanics made you work for your better units before rushing them, but a Necron rush with the rezzing Lord can just screw up your base permanently. But it's fun using your Kroot to do the same thing while you research for Krootoxen tanks. Then you can have an unstoppable tank with a stomping interrupt ability. Maybe they fixed that with a later patch, but when it came out one Krootox could take a pounding from the giant IG tank for a few minutes.

Allow me to further elaborate.

Buying a new digital army is not a good idea.

Playing 40K online isnt a bad idea as far as having the same mechanics (basically identical to tabletop) but as Ragnar stated earlier, it wont happen due to competing with themselves IRL. It would devalue their IP for them to make a digital game, as the online bame would become stronger than the real life game it was based upon. Eventually, people would forget about the real game (after a few years) and then the game the online game was based upon will become a faded memory. Thus making the online game devalued.

Some people may buy $35 space marine tactical squads digitally but on the whole I really doubt gW woulfd go through such lengths.

It may seem steep to buy the digital squads, but if you investigate further, it is alot cheaper for complete army than it is to play truly competitively on MTGO, Pirates online, etc because of collectibility.


I have spent thousands, on both MTGO and Pirates online. But it doesnt stop there because the sets keep coming. Atleast with 40K online, it would cost several hundred dollars (assuming you pay as much for a digital squad as you do IRL) for a complete single army.

Even if it is cheaper than online CCG's, I still would not patronize such a venture from GW.

Unless there was someway of increasing your Digital Horde with purchases of the real life plastic variants I'll keep to my tangible equivalents.

Digital hordes are less baggage.

Unless you're an ultra rare whore

Posted By Thanatos_elNyx on 03/12/2007 11:58 AM
Unless there was someway of increasing your Digital Horde with purchases of the real life plastic variants I'll keep to my tangible equivalents.

Like a unique serial number insert in every physical box or blister that could be entered on the website to add the same unit to your collection?

Gaaargh: That would be awesome.

Patent pending.