All discussions related to games of fantasy battles such as AoS, T9A, KoW, MESBG, WAP, Warmaster, etc go here, including army construction, comp creation, campaign and scenarios design, etc...
Andrew_uk wrote:
GWs job is to provide a rules system which is fun, unambiguous, balanced, easy to follow and accurately models warfare (as much as its plausible to talk of accuracy in a fantasy setting). That's it.
Actually, GW job is to provide a game that's fun. Or rather GW's aim should be. The rest is pretty much irrelevant or follows from that aim. For me accuracy doesn't come into it for instance. It's a game with dragons and mages after all.
I agree that some of the rules are too much. The silly sounds and moves took it too far. However, I can actually see the fun of a rulesset that shows what happens if you roll 13 on a 2D6. Better then some of the over the top serious grimdark in some fantasy releases...
Rod
For Nagarythe: Come to the dark side.
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Talking of Cleese though that's the only real way to enjoy AoS isn't it? "Don't mention the war(game), I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it)
Bring me my bow of burning gold, bring me my arrows of desire, bring me my spear O' Clouds unfold, bring me my chariot of FIRE!
I've been having a look around a few forums with the release of AoS and this seemed an interesting discussion so thought I'd throw my tuppence-worth in.
I can sort of see both sides of this one. I've been playing fantasy for about 20 years now, and I'm mildly furious about the destruction of the Warhammer World and the loss of a game that I loved. WFB wasn't meeting the profit targets set for it, and the decision was made some time ago that the only solution to the decline it was experiencing was radical overhaul. I've had conversations with people at GW for god-knows how long about the need for a revamp and possible solutions, but this goes well beyond anything I expected. WFB is dead. We have been given a way to use the defunct minis we have in our collections for the new game, but it is a new game in an entirely new universe. The pdfs that were released represent factions and characters that no longer have anything to do with Warhammer going forward.
A lot has been made of the silly rules, but those were basically tagged on as a sort of farewell tribute to the old, humorous Warhammer World. The new armies have no such odd rules, and future releases won't either - because now GW doesn't do humour. Warhammer (not counting Reaper) was born in the 80s and had a very British 'feel' to it - it was zany and daft and fun. Over the years styles changed and so did markets, and the original daftness wasn't as welcome. The attempt at a nod to veteran gamers was crass (and not funny), but there you go. It was, I think, well meant - if not well judged.
The only way to judge AoS is to completely ignore the pdfs for 8th edition armies and look at the two factions in the box. How do they work with the game mechanics and how do they feel in the fluff setting? More rules will come out to give a rounder experience and new factions will come out too. They will have ties to WFB factions, but the art direction and feel is likely to be very different - from what I understand, anyway.
AoS is its own game. The Duarden, Aelfs, Ooruks (I have no idea if I'm spelling these correctly) will likewise be their own factions, to be judged as is, and not next to those factions that are now consigned to the dustbin. GW is doing this for many reasons, and only one of them is because fantasy wasn't making enough money - there were other suggested ways to fix the gateway, lead and other problems WFB had as a game. A major issue here is IP. GW has, for some time, been annoyed at rivals offering miniatures for their game (as they see it) - AoS will have much tighter protections afforded it with the new factions, and it will be more difficult for people to go outside of GW's retail sphere to build armies that fit (and easier for GW to sue manufacturers who try to make products for that purpose). A simplified game should also, in theory, be cheaper to update and fix - and it will allow them to issue more regular major updates, and keep everyone's attention. WFB went several years between editions, I doubt AoS will see so few releases.
What we have is a bare bones gaming system which takes people who don't play tabletop miniature games and gives them an easy way to get into it. It has Space Marines (basically), which GW assume will sell like hot cakes. It has unique IP (if derivative stuff from Norse myth counts). It allows for near a constant release schedule. It is very, very modern GW.
So yes, veterans have every right to be upset and angry. In fact, new players who have recently sunk hundreds or thousands into the game probably have even more right to be so - as I've at least had 20 years of a good thing. And, if you are so upset and angry that you will never again give GW a penny piece, then that's fair enough.
I will keep my models, and keep building, converting and painting the little buggers - because that's always been the main part of the hobby for me. Hopefully I can still find people to play WFB with very so often. I hate the new Sigmarite models, and I am seriously unsure of whether the art design for AoS is going to be something I want to work with (and with GW sticking to their guns on price, I may be put off there too). However, I'll give that a look once more stuff is out. What I'm not too hung up on, yet, is the rule set. I fully expect things to change with future releases. My main worry is that the melee weapon range, if it stays in the game, is going to mean no scenic bases and very limited modelling options for riders of big monsters - but we'll see.
Feel free to take a deep breath....and if you then want to release that breath as an expletive-riddled rant at GW for killing your hobby, then I feel you.
Last edited by AD8899 on Wed Jul 08, 2015 11:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
I have to say that part about the model range being phased out completely, really brought home the finality of this for me. I discovered the game when I was eleven, and would not have become a wargamer without it. The Warhammer world was to me what Star Wars was to many people, that most beloved fictional universe at the center of someone's geekhood. There is going to be a hole in my wargamer's heart that other worlds and model ranges can't fill. As long as those pdf's stay legal, I'm going to enjoy beating up the Sigmarites, New Chaos, Knockoff Tyrannids, and whatever else comes out of those realm gates with my good old High Elves from Ulthuan, a faraway land from a better time.
Warhammer, at it's core, is a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. As long as all choices in an army book fall under these categories, with their inherent strengths and weaknesses, there is balance. Imbalance occurs when the designers make a Rock that is immune to Paper. Daemon Princes, Ironblasters, etc.
Am I the only one who thinks affordability of their models would have gone a long way to incresing interest/sales of FB?
Affordability is what they have supposedly tried doing with AoS by allowing smaller armies to begin with. Yet that is totally cancelled out by making it pay to win.
muz wrote:Am I the only one who thinks affordability of their models would have gone a long way to incresing interest/sales of FB?
Fair point.
I believe a lot of potential customers just bought second hand off the net or from discounters (or other manufacturers). Whether there was a way of keeping the figure prices down in the shops while still making money is the issue I guess.
I wonder who will the new players play against if the WHFB veterans are missing: Stormcast Eternals vs Daemons again and again, fun. They should release all the new races at once, like a new WHFB game, if they want to attract broader new players. With the current release, they are still dependent on the old players for some time. So, GW should support the old minis to be fully usable in the new system.
GW should flesh out/fix the rules, give more explanation, pictures and FAQs. I agree that we need some kind of point system to make army building and playing more challenging and interesting. This way, maybe the old players will still be interested to play.
If GW don't do these, I'm afraid the old players will leave the game before their favorite Aelfs come and the new players will be discouraged to enter the game.
Hoping for the best but expecting the worst. Cheers!
[i]"Give no thought to failure, nor defeat - we are the Children of Ulthuan and we shall prevail." - Aenarion the Defender[/i]
AJ21st wrote:I wonder who will the new players play against if the WHFB veterans are missing
That's already happened round where I live. There's no vets left in the hobby
I would break GWs customer base down into 2 groups. Life long gamers and those who are in it as a phase.
Now GW ploughs a lot of effort in to looking after their customers; allowing them to game in the stores, creating a whole alternate world for people to get involved with and running things like painting competitions. All this costs GW. I'd guestimate that two thirds of the time these "services" are consumed by vets, but for the most part we have existing armies and tend to spend less (many of us even pride ourselves on the uniqueness and OOP models within our armies - we tend to make fewer fresh transactions for off the shelf kits).
By contrast there are those players who dip into it because their friends/family are into it. They maybe build an army but might only hang around for 18 months or so... Easy money for GW, little support required. Win.
Now GW have clearly tried with this edition to make it easier for those players to enter the game; lower cost, fewer rules, smaller armies (so less to paint)... the problem I think is that they are not recognising that they NEED those life long gamers in order to sell the hobby. We are a walking advert for GW and if we are telling everyone it's great then they will get their phase gamers through that revolving door - if we all leave and grumble about GW then they will collapse.
I think it would have been better for GW to start charging a small cost for table space in store - just enough to cover their costs - then make a game which supported 3,000 points battles but was still brilliant at 500 points (I loved the old border patrol rules)
Bring me my bow of burning gold, bring me my arrows of desire, bring me my spear O' Clouds unfold, bring me my chariot of FIRE!
Is it really lower cost though? Gaming is for fun and isn't all about winning but losing all the time because someone has a bigger army is no fun either. It makes it pay to win. So these players quickly build up larger armies. The friends they play against do likewise and so it keeps on going. At least before I could come in with 1500 points of HE and know the person I'm playing will have the same. GW really stressed the fact that you could just keep placing units so people are already wanting a larger army from the get go. The rules etc I can work around, balance is the main gripe.
Andrew_uk wrote:
AJ21st wrote:I wonder who will the new players play against if the WHFB veterans are missing
That's already happened round where I live. There's no vets left in the hobby
I would break GWs customer base down into 2 groups. Life long gamers and those who are in it as a phase.
Now GW ploughs a lot of effort in to looking after their customers; allowing them to game in the stores, creating a whole alternate world for people to get involved with and running things like painting competitions. All this costs GW. I'd guestimate that two thirds of the time these "services" are consumed by vets, but for the most part we have existing armies and tend to spend less (many of us even pride ourselves on the uniqueness and OOP models within our armies - we tend to make fewer fresh transactions for off the shelf kits).
By contrast there are those players who dip into it because their friends/family are into it. They maybe build an army but might only hang around for 18 months or so... Easy money for GW, little support required. Win.
Now GW have clearly tried with this edition to make it easier for those players to enter the game; lower cost, fewer rules, smaller armies (so less to paint)... the problem I think is that they are not recognising that they NEED those life long gamers in order to sell the hobby. We are a walking advert for GW and if we are telling everyone it's great then they will get their phase gamers through that revolving door - if we all leave and grumble about GW then they will collapse.
I think it would have been better for GW to start charging a small cost for table space in store - just enough to cover their costs - then make a game which supported 3,000 points battles but was still brilliant at 500 points (I loved the old border patrol rules)
