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After a few conversations, I put on the ol' thinking cap (read: downed an energy drink cocktail and ate a mountain of pancakes) and considered something a little important for the future of GW's release schedule.

It is imperative that Psychic Awakening is a success. At the very least we know there are going to be 4 books, coupled with models here and there depending on the nature of the campaign, alongside all of the other things GW intends to release over the next year for 40k.

If the first book is 'meh' (like Vigilus 1 was), that is going to set the tone for the rest of the Psychic Awakening. Through their community site and teaser videos they are painting a dire picture:

A. This event is bigger than Cadia falling.
B. This event is bigger than the Horus Heresy.
C. This event is bigger than the Fall of the Eldar.

And yet the consensus from those I've talked to is... that somehow, all of this hype will lead to some fluff in a book, a few detachments, a couple new models, and little else. Maybe we'll get a primarch, maybe a few characters will die off, but at the end of the day all that'll mean is more complaints from salty players (they killed off X! I want my own primarch, but instead they gave us Y!).

If GW does exactly that, gives us a series of books like Vigilus 1 (in which, by the way, several space marine formations are already pointless), then the entire Psychic Awakening campaign will be a wash, forgettable, and the community trust for GW's hype will be at an all time low.

Under such an event, you can expect even GW managers to struggle to drum up hype for any future campaign books and for the 40k story as a whole to simply... stagnate, kind of like before 8th edition, when we were always on the cusp of the 13th black crusade but not quite there yet.

On the flip side, if GW does make some big changes, brings us more than we're expecting, shakes up the lore in interesting and daring ways, then we might be headed into a golden age of GW lore. They've promised to wrap up plot points, to resolve certain conflicts, to fill some holes and reveal some secrets. The feeling, though, is that the biggest secret we might get revealed might be, "The Emperor's hair was actually dark brown, not black." Let's hope we get more than that.

Anyone else feeling a bit... pessimistic about this Psychic Awakening stuff? That it's not going to be all they've hyped, not even close?

Pessimistic? Sure.
There's been more posts about mehreen supplements than the "Biggest thing yet" aka, psychic awakening.

And frankly it's a damned shame.

I guess it all depends on what you're looking for. I get use out of the Vigilus books and like both of them. I expect I will like the new PA books and don't need a catastrophic event to occur to further than enjoyment. I also don't think GW are pushing it to the levels you describe in the OP.

This post is IMHO evidance that the useal suspects are prepared to whine over PA. claiming "faction X didn't get eneugh" I mean let's assume PA is designed to operate over a year, and the stuff previewed is it. 4 new kits, 1 "unit kit" and 1 character kit. for elder and dark eldar each, assuming GW does this for every faction in the game in a years time that's a giant release. with 22 armies in the game. that's 44 new units. that kinda release would be massive indeed. but you know damn well we'd get complaints from the useal suspects about not getting eneugh, with harping about how aweful GW was for putting out a Grimdarius mini instead of "another xenos mini"

BrianDavion wrote:
This post is IMHO evidance that the useal suspects are prepared to whine over PA. claiming "faction X didn't get eneugh" I mean let's assume PA is designed to operate over a year, and the stuff previewed is it. 4 new kits, 1 "unit kit" and 1 character kit. for elder and dark eldar each, assuming GW does this for every faction in the game in a years time that's a giant release. with 22 armies in the game. that's 44 new units. that kinda release would be massive indeed. but you know damn well we'd get complaints from the useal suspects about not getting eneugh, with harping about how aweful GW was for putting out a Grimdarius mini instead of "another xenos mini"

22 armies?

Space mehrines
Imperial peopel
elves
edgy elves
green dudes
robot people
metachaser knights
fishppl
edgy spesh mahrines
t800's

what other ones have I missed?

drbored wrote:

Anyone else feeling a bit... pessimistic about this Psychic Awakening stuff? That it's not going to be all they've hyped, not even close?

Not pessimistic, just apathetic.
I mean, I don't really care what they do lore wise. I stopped caring long ago. Sometime during 4th I think. So it's all about cool models & the rules to field them for me.

 Eonfuzz wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
This post is IMHO evidance that the useal suspects are prepared to whine over PA. claiming "faction X didn't get eneugh" I mean let's assume PA is designed to operate over a year, and the stuff previewed is it. 4 new kits, 1 "unit kit" and 1 character kit. for elder and dark eldar each, assuming GW does this for every faction in the game in a years time that's a giant release. with 22 armies in the game. that's 44 new units. that kinda release would be massive indeed. but you know damn well we'd get complaints from the useal suspects about not getting eneugh, with harping about how aweful GW was for putting out a Grimdarius mini instead of "another xenos mini"

22 armies?

Space mehrines
Imperial peopel
elves
edgy elves
green dudes
robot people
metachaser knights
fishppl
edgy spesh mahrines
t800's

what other ones have I missed?

Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Grey Knights, Custodes, Death watchm death Guard, 1 thouand sons. Chaos Knights,

BrianDavion wrote:
This post is IMHO evidance that the useal suspects are prepared to whine over PA. claiming "faction X didn't get eneugh" I mean let's assume PA is designed to operate over a year, and the stuff previewed is it. 4 new kits, 1 "unit kit" and 1 character kit. for elder and dark eldar each, assuming GW does this for every faction in the game in a years time that's a giant release. with 22 armies in the game. that's 44 new units. that kinda release would be massive indeed. but you know damn well we'd get complaints from the useal suspects about not getting eneugh, with harping about how aweful GW was for putting out a Grimdarius mini instead of "another xenos mini"

Classic Marine player response.

The 'usual suspects' are any players that aren't using Marines, then?

Marines don't need any new units given the release we're currently in the middle of , but no doubt they'll get at least new characters. GW can't keep their hands off their poster boys for too long.

Meanwhile you believe that craft world players should be happy with 30 year old miniatures that look like dog vomit because they're getting one unit and one special character updated. Unbelievable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eonfuzz wrote:
Pessimistic? Sure.
There's been more posts about mehreen supplements than the "Biggest thing yet" aka, psychic awakening.

And frankly it's a damned shame.

This is also my take. Add that nothing changed from the last 'lore shattering event' in Vigilus and its not hard to see why such pessimism exists.

BrianDavion wrote:
This post is IMHO evidance that the useal suspects are prepared to whine over PA. claiming "faction X didn't get eneugh" I mean let's assume PA is designed to operate over a year, and the stuff previewed is it. 4 new kits, 1 "unit kit" and 1 character kit. for elder and dark eldar each, assuming GW does this for every faction in the game in a years time that's a giant release. with 22 armies in the game. that's 44 new units. that kinda release would be massive indeed. but you know damn well we'd get complaints from the useal suspects about not getting eneugh, with harping about how aweful GW was for putting out a Grimdarius mini instead of "another xenos mini"

But it is 44 units only if you play every army, plus with 22 armies, and GW probably alternating stuff and not puting out things for christmans we are looking at some faction getting their stuff in more then 2 years time. And if their codex also happen to come in 2 years time, then the faction better have real good rules, because 2 years of playing vs other people update stuff, may not be very fun to do.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
This post is IMHO evidance that the useal suspects are prepared to whine over PA. claiming "faction X didn't get eneugh" I mean let's assume PA is designed to operate over a year, and the stuff previewed is it. 4 new kits, 1 "unit kit" and 1 character kit. for elder and dark eldar each, assuming GW does this for every faction in the game in a years time that's a giant release. with 22 armies in the game. that's 44 new units. that kinda release would be massive indeed. but you know damn well we'd get complaints from the useal suspects about not getting eneugh, with harping about how aweful GW was for putting out a Grimdarius mini instead of "another xenos mini"

Classic Marine player response.

The 'usual suspects' are any players that aren't using Marines, then?

Marines don't need any new units given the release we're currently in the middle of , but no doubt they'll get at least new characters. GW can't keep their hands off their poster boys for too long.

Meanwhile you believe that craft world players should be happy with 30 year old miniatures that look like dog vomit because they're getting one unit and one special character updated. Unbelievable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eonfuzz wrote:
Pessimistic? Sure.
There's been more posts about mehreen supplements than the "Biggest thing yet" aka, psychic awakening.

And frankly it's a damned shame.

This is also my take. Add that nothing changed from the last 'lore shattering event' in Vigilus and its not hard to see why such pessimism exists.

I don't think anyone said Eldar should be content with the ancient sculpts, simply they should be thankful to have new ones and that every faction might get something new hopefully. Yes there are plenty of marine factions, which means more marine models, but view them as a mechanism for the release of other factiosn stuff. I.E. you can have a rumoured black templar v orks box with new stuff for both.

The Eldar range like the chaos range was due for an update years ago. Why should they be thankfull?

drbored wrote:

Under such an event, you can expect even GW managers to struggle to drum up hype for any future campaign books and for the 40k story as a whole to simply... stagnate, kind of like before 8th edition, when we were always on the cusp of the 13th black crusade but not quite there yet.

Exactly which 13th black Crusade would you like to discuss
13.0 Failed
13.1 It's the same crusade honest
13.2 what are you talking about this is the 13 black crusade no other 13 black crusade has happend
13.3 just shut it Failbadon wins because we say so.
GW have tried this sort of thing before they were just honest about letting events drive the story and it went the opposite direction than they planned and rather than change masses of lore they just did the same story points over again or retconned the results.

drbored wrote:
After a few conversations, I put on the ol' thinking cap (read: downed an energy drink cocktail and ate a mountain of pancakes) and considered something a little important for the future of GW's release schedule.

It is imperative that Psychic Awakening is a success. At the very least we know there are going to be 4 books, coupled with models here and there depending on the nature of the campaign, alongside all of the other things GW intends to release over the next year for 40k.

If the first book is 'meh' (like Vigilus 1 was), that is going to set the tone for the rest of the Psychic Awakening. Through their community site and teaser videos they are painting a dire picture:

A. This event is bigger than Cadia falling.
B. This event is bigger than the Horus Heresy.
C. This event is bigger than the Fall of the Eldar.

And yet the consensus from those I've talked to is... that somehow, all of this hype will lead to some fluff in a book, a few detachments, a couple new models, and little else. Maybe we'll get a primarch, maybe a few characters will die off, but at the end of the day all that'll mean is more complaints from salty players (they killed off X! I want my own primarch, but instead they gave us Y!).

If GW does exactly that, gives us a series of books like Vigilus 1 (in which, by the way, several space marine formations are already pointless), then the entire Psychic Awakening campaign will be a wash, forgettable, and the community trust for GW's hype will be at an all time low.

Under such an event, you can expect even GW managers to struggle to drum up hype for any future campaign books and for the 40k story as a whole to simply... stagnate, kind of like before 8th edition, when we were always on the cusp of the 13th black crusade but not quite there yet.



On the flip side, if GW does make some big changes, brings us more than we're expecting, shakes up the lore in interesting and daring ways, then we might be headed into a golden age of GW lore. They've promised to wrap up plot points, to resolve certain conflicts, to fill some holes and reveal some secrets. The feeling, though, is that the biggest secret we might get revealed might be, "The Emperor's hair was actually dark brown, not black." Let's hope we get more than that.

Let's hope we don't get more than that. Nothing ruins a good story better than removing mystery and over-explaining. Part of being engaged with a movie, tv series, book, or game, is wondering about the things the powers that be haven't told you.

Anyone else feeling a bit... pessimistic about this Psychic Awakening stuff? That it's not going to be all they've hyped, not even close?

It's GW. Of course this is over-hyped, poised to underwhelm most. It will probably be a success despite that, too. Even if it were a big shakeup, it'd be like the launch of AOS. An effectively new setting, and flanderized replacements for existing armies.

Most likely, anyway.

I have no idea why GW is slow-dripping the Psychic Awakening stuff. They haven't even shown a single photo of the Incubi as a unit, just the Klaivex by himself as if he's some kind of bigshot important character. Showing Banshees + Jain Zar one week and Incubi + Drazhar another would have been a far more impressive reveal.

I would also doubt very much every army gets an equal amount of kits. They're not going to give a unique 5-man unit box for each variety of Marine, or for some of the more niche armies like Custodes. To say nothing of how that'd work with Knights.

 Eonfuzz wrote:
Pessimistic? Sure.
There's been more posts about mehreen supplements than the "Biggest thing yet" aka, psychic awakening.

And frankly it's a damned shame.

Just telling us it's "the biggest thing yet" is not enough for hype I'm afraid. It needs some actual meat to it. Juicy details about how it will actually affect the game.

In this way it makes total sense that there's more hype for Marine supplements right now - we know this are huge for Marine players, who make up the biggest fraction of the player base.

By contrast all we have about Psychic Awakening is some Eldar sculpts (which is cool, don't get me wrong, but nothing earth shattering) and a promise that it's the biggest thing yet.

They need to deliver on that promise to some extent before you can expect anyone to really care.

drbored wrote:
They've threatened to wrap up plot points, to resolve certain conflicts, to fill some holes and reveal some secrets.

Fixed that for you.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
I have no idea why GW is slow-dripping the Psychic Awakening stuff. They haven't even shown a single photo of the Incubi as a unit, just the Klaivex by himself as if he's some kind of bigshot important character. Showing Banshees + Jain Zar one week and Incubi + Drazhar another would have been a far more impressive reveal.

As I've said before, the reason for the slow burn is because there's so little content.

They had to spread the models out over 5 weeks (including the initial announcement) because there were so few of them to preview. Wow, so Craftworlders get 2 of their 30 ancient kits updated, and Dark Eldar (the army that has had their codex repeatedly gutted) gets 0 of their units back and instead only gets updated models for 1 old special character and one unit that already had perfectly serviceable models. And even then, all they did was stick a bunch of tassels on everything. And then they gave the Klaivex a soulstone necklace and a piece of scenery to stand on and called it 'Drazhar'. Who cares if it's completely antithetical to his fluff, we've got more marines to make!

At this point I would be shocked if Psychic Awakening was anything but a total letdown.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
I have no idea why GW is slow-dripping the Psychic Awakening stuff. They haven't even shown a single photo of the Incubi as a unit, just the Klaivex by himself as if he's some kind of bigshot important character. Showing Banshees + Jain Zar one week and Incubi + Drazhar another would have been a far more impressive reveal..

Would 2 weeks of reveals and 2 weeks of nothing been more impressive then?

Well I suspect the psychich phase may be expanded a bit- possibly with persistent effects, but possibly just more psychic disciplines or strategems that affect the phase; perhaps a combination of all three. And that's a fairly decent change.

I don't think every army will get models. Many will, but some are likely to just get rules. Some factions will get both.

If the Inquisition made a serious return, that would be another game changer.

Finally, while the Eldar/ DE release was resculpts of existing units, some factions are likely to get something new- which could also be a game changer.

The other thing is that a "big event" is kind of subjective. It might help to define what we mean by big event so that we're all talking about the same thing. Because someone earlier mentioned that they thought another primarch waking up wouldn't be that big of a deal.

But I personally believe that would be HUGE! Guilliman would no longer be THE voice of command; he would merely be A voice of command. It would also tell us for sure that there could be additional primarchs coming.

The Primaris/Old Marine divide is the next Horus Heresy waiting in the wings. Of a primarch who doesn't like primaris wakes up, Guilliman could be in trouble, especially if the new Primarch has a bit of Psyker going on.

Not Online!!! wrote:
The Eldar range like the chaos range was due for an update years ago. Why should they be thankfull?

This post I think sums up entitlement perfectly.

 Sentineil wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
The Eldar range like the chaos range was due for an update years ago. Why should they be thankfull?

This post I think sums up entitlement perfectly.

Oh I'm sorry, of course we should be thankful that we have the oldest and worst model range in the game.

tneva82 wrote:

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
I have no idea why GW is slow-dripping the Psychic Awakening stuff. They haven't even shown a single photo of the Incubi as a unit, just the Klaivex by himself as if he's some kind of bigshot important character. Showing Banshees + Jain Zar one week and Incubi + Drazhar another would have been a far more impressive reveal..

Would 2 weeks of reveals and 2 weeks of nothing been more impressive then?

Two meatier content drops and 2 weeks of no PsA related announcements on Warhammer-Community would have been preferable, yes. Especially when the Space Marine release cycle still hasn't concluded. Also, this is a personal preference, but I'm peeved about the lack of specificity. We don't know what it is that's being "Awakened", or why the repercussions of the event are supposed to be such a big deal. We've gotten snippets of Eldar prophecy related to the Ynnari, but precious little concrete plot points.

I think Psychic Awakening started being teased too early, and has therefore been dilute too much, at least so far.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Eonfuzz wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
This post is IMHO evidance that the useal suspects are prepared to whine over PA. claiming "faction X didn't get eneugh" I mean let's assume PA is designed to operate over a year, and the stuff previewed is it. 4 new kits, 1 "unit kit" and 1 character kit. for elder and dark eldar each, assuming GW does this for every faction in the game in a years time that's a giant release. with 22 armies in the game. that's 44 new units. that kinda release would be massive indeed. but you know damn well we'd get complaints from the useal suspects about not getting eneugh, with harping about how aweful GW was for putting out a Grimdarius mini instead of "another xenos mini"

22 armies?

Space mehrines
Imperial peopel
elves
edgy elves
green dudes
robot people
metachaser knights
fishppl
edgy spesh mahrines
t800's

what other ones have I missed?

Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Grey Knights, Custodes, Death watchm death Guard, 1 thouand sons. Chaos Knights,

I already mentioned Mehreens, Edgy mahreens and metachaser knights.
Unless you mean to imply they are different factions, in which case you would be wrong.

 Imateria wrote:

 Sentineil wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
The Eldar range like the chaos range was due for an update years ago. Why should they be thankfull?

This post I think sums up entitlement perfectly.

Oh I'm sorry, of course we should be thankful that we have the oldest and worst model range in the game.

You should be thankful that you're getting new models. You aren't owed anything by GW. That Eldar are getting new models is a good thing. We're all happy for you, but the attitude that you shouldn't be thankful is just petty.

The attitude that a customer should be thankful to a corporation for being presented a new product to buy is a bizarre and offputting one. Do you praise Burger King every time there's a new seasonal Whopper? Do you give thanks to your lord and savior Chevrolet for the new options package for this year's Camaro?

If you want to buy the new Eldar, fine. But the company's already taking your money so at least keep your dignity instead of becoming their fawning sycophant.

drbored wrote:
That it's not going to be all they've hyped, not even close?

Of course it will be the case that it is over-hyped, it's marketing, what are the realistic options?

Since it is unknown (and likely undiscoverable in any realistic time frame or deterministic sense) just what, exactly, is the optimal hype level, the marketers are left with two options. Go with little to no hype, or go over the top with absurd hype. Under-hyping likely "costs" one more sales though, since no one is likely to buy something they don't know exists (or simply have been given no reason to care). Over-hype generates some feel bads in cases where people feel they were over-promised, but it likely costs one less sales in the short and long run though, since feelings of under-delivery are still an awareness of the product and not always reason to not purchase.

What can one do, as a consumer, then? Apply your own "filter" to any marketing hype you encounter, so as to not find yourself caught up in the "advertising hyper-reality" that is presented. Once you recognize the (generally) clear clarion calls of hyper-reality in marketing, engage your inner skeptic and temper your expectations on the knowledge that marketing is marketing and is not, specifically, reality in-itself.

Then again, what do I know?

 Sentineil wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

 Sentineil wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
The Eldar range like the chaos range was due for an update years ago. Why should they be thankfull?

This post I think sums up entitlement perfectly.

Oh I'm sorry, of course we should be thankful that we have the oldest and worst model range in the game.

You should be thankful that you're getting new models. You aren't owed anything by GW. That Eldar are getting new models is a good thing. We're all happy for you, but the attitude that you shouldn't be thankful is just petty.

Why? Its the customer's money, GW isn't giving them the models for free. The customer doesn't owe GW anything either, in fact I dare say GW should be thanking their customers for keeping them in business for 30 years.
I don't see why one should not be allowed to criticize a company for not updating several ranges when they are instead pooling resources into one or two armies. Granted, Primaris did need to be expanded upon, but there are xenos armies still waiting for their finecasts to be released in plastic, and that should have been the priority.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
The attitude that a customer should be thankful to a corporation for being presented a new product to buy is a bizarre and offputting one. Do you praise Burger King every time there's a new seasonal Whopper? Do you give thanks to your lord and savior Chevrolet for the new options package for this year's Camaro?

If you want to buy the new Eldar, fine. But the company's already taking your money so at least keep your dignity instead of becoming their fawning sycophant.

This.
Sentineil, thankfull is someone that got a Gift.

 Sentineil wrote:


You should be thankful that you're getting new models. You aren't owed anything by GW. That Eldar are getting new models is a good thing. We're all happy for you, but the attitude that you shouldn't be thankful is just petty.

I don't know much about being a big company, but don't even the really large ones kind of have to make products that satisfie they customers, or at least function? I mean VW got in to trouble again over producing stuff that does not work.

Do you give thanks to your lord and savior Chevrolet for the new options package for this year's Camaro?

well why not? it is not like there is any law that forces them to make new ones. The problems start, when they make a engine upgrade kit and blows the engine you have in your car, or makes it teat itself apart if you actualy drive it. Of course eldar players should be thankful that they are getting new models, but the idea that because of a single new box and a single new HQ, they are suddenly should be happy for another 20+years is probably false. But I maybe wrong, have zero idea how the western market works. For example here big companies like P&G officialy stated that people in my part of the world should be happy that they are being sold any products at all, and the fact that the stuff in our versions of a washing detergent or chocolate is different from what is sold in germany, should not bother us the customers. Maybe GW thinks like that too. only people that work for GW know for sure.

 Sentineil wrote:

You should be thankful that you're getting new models. You aren't owed anything by GW. That Eldar are getting new models is a good thing. We're all happy for you, but the attitude that you shouldn't be thankful is just petty.

And GW isnt owed anything by its customers. If they put out a good product that I want, support it and do right by me? Yeah I'll give them a tip of the hat in addition to my money. Doesnt for a second mean I'm going to not call them out when they do something stupid.

The ideal is a symbiotic relationship, not a cult. You appear to want the latter.

Karol wrote:

The problems start, when they make a engine upgrade kit and blows the engine you have in your car, or makes it teat itself apart if you actualy drive it.

And then no one buys their defective product and they get sued into oblivion. That's the Free Market.