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Ever so often I lose my mind and start thinking I'd like to get into the money sink that is WHFB or 40k. Typically I lean toward Fantasy.

What's all this about Age of Sigmar? Why does everything on the starter set look like it belongs in 40k?

Now I hear that the focus is going to be on smaller games. For me that's not a bad thing, I have always though the rules structure of WHFB was more skirmish oriented anyway, plus I have a two year old so funds and time are in short supply.

Why should I be excited/enraged by this? What will this mean for someone who has a few boxes of unpainted Empire lying around and want's to get into the game?

I was never as into WH fantasy as 40k, but I invested enough to care about it.

Frankly, I was alarmed by the things I discovered while reading the free AOS rulebooks on the GW site and this HUGE thread on reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer/comments/3c1i1t/age_of_sigmar_megathread/

Some pretty shocking stuff. Now, I'm open to being talked into seeing this as a good thing, but it would be a hard sell.

I love it.

But then I'm a Kings of War fan and I expect Age of Sigmar will be as good for Mantic as D&D 4e was for Paizo.

Holy shit I kind of like it! Seems very free form. All the moaning on the reddit thread comes across like people don't realize the rules might be taking the piss some and that they must always be followed to the letter. This almost strikes me as an oldhammer approach.

It's GW trying to poach a bit of the Warmachine/Hordes cash from privateer press, not a bad idea but you know given GW's usual way of doing things they'll fuck it up somehow.

The rules aren't bad so far, but it's GW so i'm kinda cynical that they aren't going to ruin it somehow.

Looking at the models, all I can say is, "too late!"

There's one thing GW knows sells well.  Space Marines.  So they decided WFB should be about magical space marines.  The existing product line was failing them in terms of sales, so they had this massive series of books about the Warhammer world coming to an end and being rent apart.  Now the world is fractured into warp bubbles that occasionally come into contact with eachother and everything is chaotic.

It's all very calculating in terms of commercial purposes.  The lack of army rules means everyone who walks into a GW store can be sold the latest new release.  There's no more "What army do you play?" "Dwarves" "Oh... this month's new release is Chaos Warriors... you should start chaos warriors" instead, every new release will be legal for every player.

The free form game elements are also about selling as many models as possible.  The limits of army sizes are literally how many models can fit into your deployment zone on the table.  And you can even explicitly stack them with their bases overlapping eachother so you could fit more.  Want to win? buy more product.

I would highly recommend getting the miniatures you like from it online from eBay and finding better rules as it's the latest in a series of callous cash grabs from GW.

I like it, it's actually got me excited to play again.

As for "Buy more, win more"

There are 2 stops against that, one official and one unofficial.

Official: If your opponent outnumbers you by more than 30% you can choose a Sudden Death goal. They include such things as: Killing a specific unit, holding an objective after a certain number of turns, having a unit survive a certain number of turns, and a few others besides.

Unofficial: "You brought one unit of 500 orcs/stormguard/elvseses? Maybe go fuck yourself. Anyone else that's not a knob want to play?"

Went to my FLGS today and asked around about it. Everyone seems convinced that the download is just a demo version of the rules and simply cant be "really" played as is. Hopefully I come across some more open minded players.

Quote from: NathanIW;840026I would highly recommend getting the miniatures you like from it online from eBay and finding better rules as it's the latest in a series of callous cash grabs from GW.

That's been my SoP for years.
I do like the look of some of the AoS figures... but for use as giant war-golems in 15mm games of Armies of Arcana or Song of Blades and Heroes.

I like skirmish-level games... but I kind of suspect this might be bait 'n switch like Rackham tried with Confrontation. A skirmish game to get them started with the intent they'll move on to a big battle army version... and then push/shove them toward it when it turns out everyone prefers the smaller game with fewer figures.

Love me some Song of X and Y games.  I wonder if an eBay seller that does single figures will do that for this.  I think getting one of the bigger Chaos guys and four or five of the smaller ones would work out nicely.

Though really, I have enough to paint as is.

Quote from: Simlasa;840239A skirmish game to get them started with the intent they'll move on to a big battle army version... and then push/shove them toward it when it turns out everyone prefers the smaller game with fewer figures.

Ahh, the tragic demise of Necromunda... :(

I would move on to another game, but in my area if I want to have a decent chance of ever gaming with someone else I pretty well am locked into war hammer. I bought the Arthurian version of Song of Blade and Heroes or whatever and have not once drummed up any interest.

Speaking of that is there some way to do miniature wargaming online? For the most part I'm stuck playing Rally Round the King solo.

I don't know what this is but I'm pretty sure it's bullshit.

A friend sent me a picture of these miniatures and I was all like:

(http://www.gifwave.com/media/22020_shrug-shrugging-meh-married-with-children-al-bundy_200s.gif)

Quote from: The Butcher;840323I don't know what this is but I'm pretty sure it's bullshit.

A friend sent me a picture of these miniatures and I was all like:

(http://www.gifwave.com/media/22020_shrug-shrugging-meh-married-with-children-al-bundy_200s.gif)

Yeah I notice that so far everything looks like it belongs in 40k and not fantasy. In fact now that I think about it the starter set looks suspiciously like the newest 40k starter set.

Quote from: The Butcher;840323I don't know what this is but I'm pretty sure it's bullshit.

If you think those miniatures are bad, just wait until you look you at the rules...

Quote from: ArkansanSpeaking of that is there some way to do miniature wargaming online? For the most part I'm stuck playing Rally Round the King solo.

Last I heard (a long time ago) Vassal was the go-to for GW games online.

Think of all the good things that have happened in minis and board-gaming over the past few years.  Quick-start rules, simple but tactical gameplay, cheap starter games and well-defined expansion paths.

Now filter those good ideas through GW's corporate mindset - paranoid, contemptuous of its customers, inward-looking, "this can of spray paint is TOTALLY worth £17/$28".

Age of Sigmar is what plopped out the other side.

As a simple, beer and pretzels game, the (free) core rules and stats for existing armies actually look a lot of fun.  The new minis are not to my taste; others disagree.

The free "Warscrolls" (unit cards) for the existing armies have rules on them like "do a dance to get this bonus".  Or pretend to ride a horse, or have the biggest moustache at the table.  It's an epic "fuck you" to current players.

As might be expected from the company that regards marketing as "otiose", GW has handled the changeover appallingly.  Hard information is scant on the ground; contradictory rumours are all over the internet.  

We don't even know whether we have a full rulebook and army builder to come, or whether the 4-page rules and a pile of stats is all we're going to get.  Or the fate of existing models in the Fantasy range.  Or what comes next.

It's a bold move, currently rather poorly handled and it's certainly whipped the internet into a froth.  Will be interesting to see what it develops into over the summer.  Whether or not GW are going to make more money out of this than WFB - who knows?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;840418If you think those miniatures are bad, just wait until you look you at the rules...

(http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--7kp6UdSB--/18uzodohufsy4gif.gif)

You know looking over these rules I can see them as the Equivalent of 5th editions basic rules. A nice freebie for people who want to play casually but can't be bothered with memorizing more than a handful of rules and don't want to spend cash on a bunch or rule books.

Honestly it would be enough for me, at least with a little fleshing out. However I see no reason for this not to exist side by side with a full fledged version of WHFB for people interested in a meatier game.

GW doesn't operate that way though.  They used to have different rules so you could play the same universe in different formats like small skirmishes, big battles or space battles, but they cut all those games because they thought they were cannibalizing the sales of their core games.

The new big rulebook for this game is 60 euros (only the German advertising for it has been seen so far).  I'm guessing it's going to contain the same core system and just be full of tons of stories and pictures of models and some partial painting guides (given they sell complete painting guides separately).  There will be scenarios though.  And a random objective system.  I think it'll have a lot of the same content as the current version of 40k, but be for this new AoS system.

Then they'll start releasing supplements/splat books alongside new plastic kits.  And not free electronic expansions.  And lots of limited edition products.  When they make a Khorne chaos book, it'lll be $50-60, but then there will also be a limited edition version at $100+

Games Workshop has figured out how to extract as much money as possible from their 40k chumps and now they're rebooting fantasy to be able to be used in the same fashion.  They can sell everyone every release (they called it "unbound" when they did it in 40k) and spread armies across multiple supplemental books where in previous editions you'd only have to buy one codex.

You're right Nathan, GW basically wants to sell you everything, not just every model.  No more free website content, or articles on building scenery, instead they want you to buy the painting guides and fluff books and scenarios (so you're effectively paying for anything resembling balance).

Not that it's intended to be balanced - it's broken by design, with power creep built in.  Hey, but a summoner!  They can summon TONS of cool stuff during a game and help you win!  Now buy all the stuff they can summon...

I'm sure it will be fun between friends, but as a replacement for WFB... :(

Letting you start playing with a box or two of models is cool, but the underlying cost problems remain - the first batch of multipart Sigmarite kits look like they will be £30/$50 for five figures...

Quote from: NathanIW;840646GW doesn't operate that way though.  They used to have different rules so you could play the same universe in different formats like small skirmishes, big battles or space battles, but they cut all those games because they thought they were cannibalizing the sales of their core games.

The new big rulebook for this game is 60 euros (only the German advertising for it has been seen so far).  I'm guessing it's going to contain the same core system and just be full of tons of stories and pictures of models and some partial painting guides (given they sell complete painting guides separately).  There will be scenarios though.  And a random objective system.  I think it'll have a lot of the same content as the current version of 40k, but be for this new AoS system.

Then they'll start releasing supplements/splat books alongside new plastic kits.  And not free electronic expansions.  And lots of limited edition products.  When they make a Khorne chaos book, it'lll be $50-60, but then there will also be a limited edition version at $100+

Games Workshop has figured out how to extract as much money as possible from their 40k chumps and now they're rebooting fantasy to be able to be used in the same fashion.  They can sell everyone every release (they called it "unbound" when they did it in 40k) and spread armies across multiple supplemental books where in previous editions you'd only have to buy one codex.

Sadly that's likely how it will go. Honestly I would be happy to switch to using Mantic miniatures for my WHFB games so I could give GW less money but the FLGS in my area are kind of hostile to using third party miniatures.

Quote from: Arkansan;840721Sadly that's likely how it will go. Honestly I would be happy to switch to using Mantic miniatures for my WHFB games so I could give GW less money but the FLGS in my area are kind of hostile to using third party miniatures.

Well, if they don't sell them there, I could see why they are hostile.  Or if it's the player base and not the store itself, people can be dicks.  Most FLGSs can order Mantic stuff through their distributors.  I think the way to go is to buy the Mantic stuff there and paint it up and if anyone gives you any trouble you can be "hey, I bought this stuff here and I'm playing with it here."

Quote from: Arkansan;840721Honestly I would be happy to switch to using Mantic miniatures for my WHFB games so I could give GW less money but the FLGS in my area are kind of hostile to using third party miniatures.

I wish we had more gaming clubs here in the U.S. like there seem to be in the UK, where members can play whatever they want with whatever miniatures they agree on. Gaming stores nowadays seem like shitty places to play... unless you're into Magic tournaments I guess.

Quote from: Simlasa;840847I wish we had more gaming clubs here in the U.S. like there seem to be in the UK, where members can play whatever they want with whatever miniatures they agree on. Gaming stores nowadays seem like shitty places to play... unless you're into Magic tournaments I guess.

Yeah I've noticed that most FLGS seem to be very focused on MTG. There is really only one in my area that has a significant scene for non-magic gaming.

So some images of prices for followup products have been found.

5 miniatures called "Stormcast Eternals Liberators" are $50
An individual lord type character "Stormcast Eternals Lord-Celestant" is $33
A dice cup with a special logo on it is $33
A gauge to measure when you are in melee reach is $33

(http://i.imgur.com/Opx5D3d.jpg)

This is awesome.  Someone used caption generator to turn a comedy video into an interview about Age of Sigmar

http://captiongenerator.com/48861/Age-of-Sigmar-interview

Jeez at the pricing on those things, that's steep even by GW standards. Yeah I'm definitely going to see if I can find a group willing to run third party miniatures.

Quote from: NathanIW;840951This is awesome.  Someone used caption generator to turn a comedy video into an interview about Age of Sigmar

http://captiongenerator.com/48861/Age-of-Sigmar-interview

My my, that video is really getting around. I previously saw it captioned to comment on the recent reddit revolt.

4 pages of rules.
No point costs, army lists for anything.
A gauge to measure when you are in melee reach is $33

Quote from: Actual GW siteThe World Before Time is gone. Shattered. Consigned to an oblivion no-one thought possible. The metallic core of that ill-fated world was hurled through the cosmos, the God-King Sigmar clinging desperately to its sigmarite surface.

It's an elaborate rickroll.

Quote from: CRKrueger;8409864 pages of rules.
No point costs, army lists for anything.
A gauge to measure when you are in melee reach is $33



It's an elaborate rickroll.

I don't mind a lack of army lists or point costs, but damn if the pricing isn't insane. I hear rumors that they are going to be pushing more scenario based gaming with books of scenarios and victory conditions. Personally I'm cool with that because for me wargaming has always been a blurred line with roleplaying, however I feel like it is a serious misunderstanding of the player bases expectations if that's the direction they take it.

Seems like they would be better off to make this a skirmish level game that could serve as an entry to the big battles game if you decide your interested later.

Still, a $40 die shaker.  So it's not all bad... oh wait :eek:

I recommend Mordheim (http://mordheim-cityofthedamned.com/en/). Still the best game GW ever made.

Quote from: danbuter;841143I recommend Mordheim (http://mordheim-cityofthedamned.com/en/). Still the best game GW ever made.

Seconded, if you want a skirmish-level game.

For a large scale battle with large units and appropriate tactics, I recommend Warhammer Ancients 1st edition, which was basically a cleaned-up version of the 3rd edition rules.

Quote from: danbuter;841143I recommend Mordheim (http://mordheim-cityofthedamned.com/en/). Still the best game GW ever made.

Hell yeah!

I also love Necromunda. That's great fun too!

Quote from: TristramEvans;841173Seconded, if you want a skirmish-level game.

For a large scale battle with large units and appropriate tactics, I recommend Warhammer Ancients 1st edition, which was basically a cleaned-up version of the 3rd edition rules.

I was wondering when you'd show up in this thread. I'm curious to hear your opinion of this move by GW.

Quote from: SpinachcatI also love Necromunda. That's great fun too!

Three cheers for Necromunda! Played it extensively over the Xmas break and it was a blast. I wish that miniature line was still around.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;841235I was wondering when you'd show up in this thread. I'm curious to hear your opinion of this move by GW.

lol, have a lot of opinions on it, will take a long post/rant to go into it. Way too tired from work the last few days to go into it.

So first off, everyone knew fantasy was struggling. It was doing well enough for a small game company that was in it for love of the hobby, but for the large corporation that GW has become, it was lagging behind 40K. So fans expected a change. Even before the End Times there was talk about fantasy being reduced in focus, some of the less popular armies being phased out, etc.

When End Times hit, it was a deep breath of fresh air for a game that had grown a bit stagnant since 6th edition. 8th had been designed specifically to push large units, so the barrier for entry to the game had reached well into the range of $500, even the starter set for the edition being little more than a few extra models to help a person start towards buying models for a playable army. The hardcore playerbase existed, but it wasnt expanding, and as most players already had their armies, new sales were pretty low. The supplements for 8th had not been great overall, even stuff like Storm of Magic, that was a wildly unbalanced attempt to push players to buy big monster models. And then there was the Failcast distaster...

Meanwhile skirmish-level games like WarmaHordes had taken a big bite out of GW's hobby. It was clear to the fans that what fantasy lacked was an entry-level product to get new players interested in the game. The role that Mordheim and Heroquest had played in years past. Not to mention that sometimes players simply didnt want to play or didnt have the time for large 200+ model games, but 8th was designed with a baseline of 2k points, with anything under 1500 points seriously restricted. Kings of War offered a streamlined game that played much faster and combined with a better price point had established itself as worthy competition.

So, the point is, we all knew fantasy needed to change to survive. They couldn't, like they'd done with 7th and 8th, just put out a slight rules revision in fancy new packaging, arbitrarily jack up the prices again, and continue on.

None of us seriously expected End Times to be the end of Warhammer Fantasy though, despite the name. Storm of Chaos had teased the same sort of apocalyptic final battle, and it had ended with an orc sucker-punching Archaon, and Chaos whimpering back to the North to lick its wounds, while the Warhammer world was utterly unchanged. Certainly, we expected there to at least be lasting changes this time: Beastmen absorbed back into Chaos, the Lizardmen and Bretonnia gone, the elves absorbed into one army, etc. All of it made some sort of sense from the perspective of reducing the armies.

But blowing up the world? Didnt see that coming.

The Warhammer world had a very distinct identity, something pretty rare in fantasy gaming. What drew me to the game way back in the 80s was this darkly comic, Germanic renaissance setting, a precursor to Discworld (literally; Pratchett had been hired to write Warhammer novels, and then that fell through, and shortly after Discworld was introduced...), and far from the English pseudo-Tolkien fantasy that dominated. Warhmmer had gotten more generic as time went on , however, squatting off or squaring out their more unique elements.

Where once we had Bowie-inspired punk elves, Fomhoire-ish cyclopean Fimirs hiding in bogs and fens, mysterious turtle-centaur wizards enclaved deep in the forest, Aztec space frogs with lobotomied pygmy slaves and Amazon warrior women living deep in the jungles, we now had a set of armies that it was easy for Mantic to rip off, because it had become so by-the-numbers. Bretonnia started as a darkly-comic fantasy version of medieval France where the nobles played a game of high knightly romance while the commoners lived in poverty and filth, gathered into groups of "Villains, Vagabonds, and Rapscallions" when pressed into military service, to a full on Arthurian pastiche, wiped squeaky clean of any social commentary. Most of what was unique about Warhammer's orcs had long since been co-opted by World of Warcraft and its many competitors.  From the standpoint of GW's increasing concerns with fervently guarding its IP, Warhammer Fantasy simply wasnt copyright-friendly enough anymore.

All of that could easily have been dealt with. The basics were there and turning back the clock to accentuate what was unique about Warhammer wouldn't have been hard at all.

But instead they decided to go with a gimmick.

As a longtime comicbook fan, I'd seen this hackneyed approach dozens of times before. Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Death of Superman. Heroes Reborn. Zero Hour. "One More Day". The New 52.

And this time, GW through out the bath with the bathwater. Warhammer Fantasy is over. 8th was the last edition of the game that started it all. Age of Sigmar is not a new edition, its not a revision, its a completely new game that simply makes use of some of the old ideas.

So with all of that said, let me give my thoughts on this new game...

Barely any fluff has been released yet on AoS, so icant really speak as to what I think of the new setting(s), other than what little I have seen has been pretty yawn-inducing. 9 worlds/realms, each named after one of the Winds of Magic, stargates...er, sorry..."Realmgates" connecting them all. One Realm for the elves (now "Aelfs", because GW seems to think that using the old English form of the word will be easier to copyright?), one realm for the orcs, goblins and orgres (renamed...something stupid), one realm for the dwarves ("Steamhead Duardins", lol, I feel bad for the Dwarf players on that one), etc. These seem to be fantasy-fantasy worlds so far, with no hint of the Renaissance-era culture of the Empire. I'm relatively certain we're in MMORPG territory now.

The Sigmarines are what they are. It makes sense for GW to ape the success of Space Marines in 40K. I don't begrudge them that. Its not an army that holds any appeal for me, but the models arent horrible looking, for fantasy-superheroes.

So on to the system itself, since thats all that really matters. I'm a veteran RPG player, I can twist any game system to any setting I choose, so the Age of Sigmar fluff is ultimately all dross; something to bitch about, but of little consequence.

Let me start with saying I was pleasantly shocked that GW released the rules for free online. I never would have anticipated that in a million years. And then all the Battlescrolls as well? Ignoring the content, this was an amazing thing, and at the very least GW should be given kudos for that. Its not that many other companies dont do the same - in fact, most fantasy wargame companies these days, from Mantic to Tor - its that its frankly so out of character for modern GW. It makes me wonder how much of this is based on internal changes of the company with the firing of the last CEO, Mr. "We don't do market research and we're proud!", to the new CEO.

And thats not the only thing. For the first time since 6th edition GW is going to have a presence at gaming conventions and tournaments.

At the very least, I see all those as hugely positive steps.

HOWever, and here's where the giant "BUT" comes in...people should be aware that GW is also in the process of taking the final steps to kill off any independent retailers stocking their stuff. For anyone who doesnt know about that, well, that would take a whole nother very long series of posts to explain, but suffice to say, expect to see more and more "limited edition GW website only" releases of stuff, and less and less incentives for your LGS to stock any GW, except maybe copies of the starter box. Pretty soon, the only place to buy any GW miniatres will be from GW stores and the GW online catalogue (I refuse to call it a website anymore, as its now got even less content than the revised White "lets get people to pay us for our product advertisements" Dwarf).

But this is all still just ranting preamble....what about the game itself?

4 pages of rules. And you know what? They're OK.

Nothing really surprising, nothing shockingly bad, nothing incredibly good. Obviously to make it fit four pages, they sacrificed clarity in a few important cases, but I imagine that affects people who play in tournaments against win-at-all-cost R.A.W. opponents and/or against nosebreathers who hang out at the gaming store more than those of us who play casually with friends.

The toHit and toWound rolls are no longer modified by the target's attributes, which makes me wonder why bother having 2 rolls at all? Be faster with one player rolls to hit, the other player rolls to save. I like that magic has been de-emphasized. I never liked it when magic dominated the games. The reward-risk of rolling winds of magic with chances of getting sucked into the abyss or exploding are gone, though, and I will miss that a bit. To dispel, you have to place yourself in a vulnerable position, which means largely wizards will probably be sitting off on their lonesomes on either side of the board, occasionally picking off D3 infantry models a turn.

Shooting is a bloody free-for-all now. You can shoot into combat. You can shoot while you're in melee combat. You can shoot another unit while your in melee with someone else. Its basically just an extra round of attacks. I expect this, of anything, to get revised/errated first.

No Initiative doesnt bother me much. Dont know what I think of rolling each turn to see which player goes first. Means any player that goes second has a 50/50 chance of getting two turns in a row. Much prefer the systems that use a roll to activate units during a turn to represent Fog of War an the breakdown of leadership in large-scale combats.

Much to-do was had over the round bases. I never really cared that much either way. At some point I expect we'll see movement trays akin to War of the Ring to make round bases square for unit formations. In the meantime, you can use square or circle bases for the game and its not that big a deal.

But that does bring me to the lack of units/formations and flanking, etc rules. I completely expect to see these in a later supplement. But as it stands right now, they're sorely missed. Warhammer Fantasy had a niche as the game to play when you wanted a large battle between fantasy armies. Skirmish games are a dime a dozen, and I played Warhammer because I liked the feeling of a general leading a big army to war. Its not that having the option to play skirmish-level games wasnt highly desirable, as I mentioned before, but as an established player who has already sank a few grand into a few decent-sized armies, I want to be able to use those. So I'm still waiting for the game to catch up with me in that regard.

But I havent talked about the BIG ISSUES yet, have I? The new War Scrolls and...points. Points, points, points. I need some coffee, so this is going to take one more post...

The no points thing is insane. Baffling.

I've heard the excuses...

"well, it was hardly balanced before and it had points"
"a good opponent will play fair and you can see across a table if forces are generally comparable"
"Sudden Death rules compensate for this"

BULLSHIT.

That's a fucking bullshit taco, smothered in shit, with some shit sauce on top.

As it stands, there is no basis provided for creating an army. "Take whatever you want" is just frustrating and needlessly obscure. What am I supposed to sit down and work out with my opponent everything we both are taking before a game? What if I show up with 10 heroes and 2 units and he brought 1 hero and 10 units? How many skavenslaves equal a dragon? or an elf?

No, the only thing that's "balanced" is the two forces that come prepackaged in the AoS boxed set. Because that is Age of Sigmar. And other releases will be balanced around those. And GW will sell books full of Warscrolls that depict specific engagements with specific troop types, and those will be balanced. Because AoS is not a game about list-building, or using your own, outdated models, or any sort of customization.

You know, the reason I loved Oldhammer moreso than the later editions, even though they were more streamlined and in some cases just provided a better tactical gaming experience (6th), is because in 3rd edition and before, you made your own armies. You made your own characters, you calculated your own point costs, the entire system of balancing was laid bare for you to do what you wanted with it. Want to make a new Skaven clan Skryre war machine that looks like a tank crossed with a drill? Sure, here's how you calculate its value...The system was a wonderful toolbox for you to create the army and characters you wanted.

The dumbing-down of 4th edition stripped that away. GW went after a younger audience, and to keep them from getting confused, GW decided to take all those decisions away from players. "Here's your army list. These are the troops you can take. And, look, here's some official "Special Characters", because you ont need to worry about making your own characters any more. What do you think this is, some kind of RPG?"

But still, you could take those army books, and make your own lists, customize the generic characters with magic items and scavenge pile armourments, give characters mounts or run them on foot, make them wizards or optimize them for combat. There was some level of creativity involved. You put some effort into making your army list your own.

That aspect of the game doesnt exist in AoS. You pick your battlescrolls, which tell you what weapons and armour your troops have, what they can do, and thats it. Want a dwarf with a gold sigil sword that strikes like a mongoose and a flying carpet to ride on? Too bad. Not an option anymore. You take your battleaxe and chainmail and you like it, goddamn it. A custom-modelled Skaven warlord on a Rat Ogre Bonebreaker mount wielding weeping blades in both claws and one in his tail? Sorry, no can do.

That's an element of another game system. A dead game. Age of Sigmar is for an audience who wants to put even less creativity and thought into an army than that.

And as for the battlescrolls themselves? The free ones they released for all the old armies?

Well, it was very nice of GW to give a send-off to the old fans. To try and make them feel included and not just forgotten about. To provide a patch for people to actually do something with AoS while waiting for GW to release their gaming products for the new game.

Thats said...

somebody was taking the fucking piss.

Quote from: TristramEvans;841252its that its frankly so out of character for modern GW. It makes me wonder how much of this is based on internal changes of the company with the firing of the last CEO, Mr. "We don't do market research and we're proud!", to the new CEO.

The last CEO was certainly not fired.  He's still on the board as Chairman and is just semiretired.  Furthermore, the current CEO was the former one's right hand man.  He was both the chief operating officer and chief financial officer during the tenure of the previous CEO.  As well the current CEO has been with the company since 1998.

There's no big cultural change happening at GW.  The reason the rules are free is to get people with existing WHFB collections to keep playing and hopefully buy the new rulebook.  GW has made it a pretty standard practice going back to the nineties to release free army lists whenever an edition change was sufficiently different to merit it.  For example, 5th edition WHFB was not that different from 4th so it did not come with a free update, but 6th was add they made a " Ravening Hordes" booklet and PDF available for free.  7th was not that different and did not.

This isn't GW turning over a new leaf or something.  It's business as usually from the exact same people.  Once a few factions for Age Of Sigmar are developed and have army books you can buy expect to see the warscrolls vanish without comment just like the hundreds of other free articles and painting guides that used to be on their website.

The $74 rulebook is 264 pages long.  Giving away a 4 page document is hardly giving away "the rules" for free.  Given some of the leaked pictures of scenario pages and what's been said about the new rulebook, there's going to be so much more actual rules content in there as well.  Warscrolls for the actual Age of Sigmar factions, for a starter.  And one of their reps at a recent trade show has stated that there will be no joke entries in the actual product like there is in the free stuff.  The scenarios will also be very specific models focused.  While the four pages do outline the core mechanics, I think we're going to see tons of for money rules contnet that will contain the actual procedures of play for the full game.  And they are going to likely be more like the rules content in the game box and less like the free PDFs.  With scenarios focusing on selling the latest releases and super powered warscrolls sold just like 40k supplemental rules dataslates.  It's quite likely that if you want to see what "warscrolls" are likely going to be about going forward, look at what they are already doing with their 40k equivalent called "dataslates."

Quote from: TristramEvans;841260The no points thing is insane. Baffling.

Points exist, but they only hand that page of the rules out to store managers.

AH HAHAHAHAHA Games Workshop are a bunch of out of touch sleazy fuckers: 57.99 CAD for an ebook edition of the rules.

I sincerely hope that GW finally crashes and burns.

While Privateer Press must be wanking so hard they're in danger of breaking it off, I am excited about two aspects of Age of Sigmar.

1) Sigmarines!!

2) Player silliness in the gameplay. I thought the interactive elements on the warscrolls would be great fun.

I've played lots of Fantasy, but FOR ME it became utterly blah compared to 40k a long time ago. I might actually play Age of Sigmar because I think there's some value in a more casual Warhammer - of course, that depends on what we learn when the core book hits the shelves.

Quote from: TristramEvans;841249Where once we had Bowie-inspired punk elves, Fomhoire-ish cyclopean Fimirs hiding in bogs and fens, mysterious turtle-centaur wizards enclaved deep in the forest, Aztec space frogs with lobotomied pygmy slaves and Amazon warrior women living deep in the jungles, we now had a set of armies that it was easy for Mantic to rip off, because it had become so by-the-numbers.

Damn.

You nailed it.

Quote from: TristramEvans;841260That's a fucking bullshit taco, smothered in shit, with some shit sauce on top.

GW has been serving that delicious meal to fans for decades.

Quote from: TristramEvans;841260Age of Sigmar is for an audience who wants to put even less creativity and thought into an army than that.

You are probably right. Trying to make it more like a casual boardgame.

Quote from: NathanIW;841271And one of their reps at a recent trade show has stated that there will be no joke entries in the actual product like there is in the free stuff.

That would utterly suck. That's the one aspect that's got me interested in FLGS play.

I can't help but think that the silly rules are in direct response to the flying monkey ritual in Fantacide by Rick Priestly, Alessio Calvatore, and Andy Chambers.

Oook Oook Oook indeed.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CJyOMSwUkAAn-C2.jpg)

Counting the army lists, it looks like more than half of the book is game related text.  I think those Battle plan entries are scenarios.  It's strange how they chose to intersperse them acrosss chapters.

Thank you for your comments TristramEvans, they were amusing and enlightening (didn't know that bit about Terry Pratchett for instance).

I started Fantasy around the time of the boxed set that came with a cardboard stand-in for Grom the Paunch, so lore of the before-time is especially fascinating.

If you're curious about Warhammer prehistory, you should check out the Oldhammer community, expecially the blogs Realm of Chaos 80s and Realm of Zhu.

Quote from: TristramEvans;842058If you're curious about Warhammer prehistory, you should check out the Oldhammer community, expecially the blogs Realm of Chaos 80s and Realm of Zhu.

Is anything much coming of the Oldhammer movement? Seems like I recall that there was an attempt at a rules clone at some point but I haven't heard anything about it in ages.

Quote from: Arkansan;842061Is anything much coming of the Oldhammer movement? Seems like I recall that there was an attempt at a rules clone at some point but I haven't heard anything about it in ages.

From what I can tell, that project was eventually abandoned when they realized 1) everybody already had a copy of the third edition rulebook, and you could get one on ebay for half the price of the latest edition's rulebook; and 2) that Oldhammer was more about the spirit of gaming at that time, and not a specific rules-set.

Unlike, say, the OSR, Oldhammer is more focused on pretty pictures of painted lead and guys getting together for beers and some light-hearted entertainment while they reminisce about the 80s.

All that said, I personally have something up my sleeve in regards to the retroclone project...

Quote from: TristramEvans;842094Unlike, say, the OSR, Oldhammer is more focused on pretty pictures of painted lead and guys getting together for beers and some light-hearted entertainment while they reminisce about the 80s.

From what I have heard, there actually more Oldhammer going on at the local wargame club than any other edition. It does seem to be quite a force right now.

Quote from: TristramEvans;842094From what I can tell, that project was eventually abandoned when they realized 1) everybody already had a copy of the third edition rulebook, and you could get one on ebay for half the price of the latest edition's rulebook; and 2) that Oldhammer was more about the spirit of gaming at that time, and not a specific rules-set.

Unlike, say, the OSR, Oldhammer is more focused on pretty pictures of painted lead and guys getting together for beers and some light-hearted entertainment while they reminisce about the 80s.

All that said, I personally have something up my sleeve in regards to the retroclone project...

Makes sense. I would be very interested to see what you come up with in regards to a retroclone project.

Nathan has it - GW gave us the game mechanics for free and the stats for current models to tide us over.  The actual Age of Sigmar GAME - unit stats, scenarios, worlds and background, maybe even army comp, is going to be sold to us £50 book by £50 book.

I don't actually mind what we have at the moment - getting people to start playing with free rules and the stats in a couple of boxes isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Just that so many other companies start you off with their games so much better.

The new models - some good, some bad, just like everyone else.  I've said for ages that the Skaven Stormfiends were a taste of what was to come - cartoony (over) powerful units with a ton of special abilities.  The lack of army comp and points, overpowered units and wild synergy is entirely intentional.  Just been tabled by a dick move?  Buy the models and do it yourself!

I can see why a lot of WFB players see it as a kick in the teeth - the new game is an entirely new direction for GW, not a replacement.  And GW has handled the change appallingly badly.  The worst communication I've ever seen on a project.

Ah well, my copy of 8th edition cost £5 off eBay, and I got a copy of 6th+Ravening Hordes (basic army lists) for £2.  And plenty of other games for us to try - Kings of War 2 is looking OK.

I don't see it as a kick in the teeth. I just lament the death of the game Ive loved most of my life. GW has every right to no longer make that game, but if they wanted to keep the older audience then they made a lot of mistakes in that regard.

So far I've come up with a comp system that everyone in my group agrees is fair, and Ive tried AoS twice, and after the second game I was ready to go back to 8th. Its not a "bad" game, but I just want to play Warhammer.

GW could have done this differently. It would not have been that hard for them to have their cake and eat it too. As such, I dont entirely understand the decision processes at work here, but I hope this gets Mantic a lot of business, because they deserve it. They're a great company run by fans for fans. Exactly what GW used to be when I started. Mantic just needs a nifty "White Dwarf-esque" magazine, and for someone to take a second pass at those elf sculpts...

Quote from: TristramEvans;842306I don't see it as a kick in the teeth. I just lament the death of the game Ive loved most of my life. GW has every right to no longer make that game, but if they wanted to keep the older audience then they made a lot of mistakes in that regard.

So far I've come up with a comp system that everyone in my group agrees is fair, and Ive tried AoS twice, and after the second game I was ready to go back to 8th. Its not a "bad" game, but I just want to play Warhammer.

GW could have done this differently. It would not have been that hard for them to have their cake and eat it too. As such, I dont entirely understand the decision processes at work here, but I hope this gets Mantic a lot of business, because they deserve it. They're a great company run by fans for fans. Exactly what GW used to be when I started. Mantic just needs a nifty "White Dwarf-esque" magazine, and for someone to take a second pass at those elf sculpts...

I really think they would have been better off investing in doing a really well done skirmish game. Particularly if they kept the rules cheap, or free. It would serve as a nice intro and stepping stone into the larger game. It would also be a way for people who simply can't invest in large armies to be involved in the game.

Quote from: Arkansan;842321I really think they would have been better off investing in doing a really well done skirmish game. Particularly if they kept the rules cheap, or free. It would serve as a nice intro and stepping stone into the larger game. It would also be a way for people who simply can't invest in large armies to be involved in the game.

For the months leading up to it, thats what we all thought [what turned out to be] AoS was. A skirmish level introduction to the game. And then it comes out and GW's like "Nope, this is it, no 9th edition". It was a bit of a rug-pull for me.

Quote from: TristramEvans;842325For the months leading up to it, thats what we all thought [what turned out to be] AoS was. A skirmish level introduction to the game. And then it comes out and GW's like "Nope, this is it, no 9th edition". It was a bit of a rug-pull for me.

Yeah I can see that being a big shock. A quick question since you seem to be a Warhammer buff, is it worth it trying to get into fantasy at this point or should I just go ahead with 40k? I mean it seems like everything with Fantasy is really up in the air at this point.

I like 40k, and wouldn't mind starting up a chaos army based around what comes in the Dark Vengeance set. I actually want to do a cultist army if that's doable. I already have the rulebook from the set so I could just pick up the Chaos half from ebay or something.

Quote from: Arkansan;842326Yeah I can see that being a big shock. A quick question since you seem to be a Warhammer buff, is it worth it trying to get into fantasy at this point or should I just go ahead with 40k? I mean it seems like everything with Fantasy is really up in the air at this point.

I like 40k, and wouldn't mind starting up a chaos army based around what comes in the Dark Vengeance set. I actually want to do a cultist army if that's doable. I already have the rulebook from the set so I could just pick up the Chaos half from ebay or something.

I know of 40k. I have a small necron force modded up to look like Cybermen from Dr Who, but Ive yet to take them out for a test spin. WHF remains me first love on the miniatures games front. Is it a good time to get into it? That really depends on a couple of factors.

The first, and most important, is if you play with friends primarily or you'd be relying on your FLGS for pick-up games. If the latter, then I'd say no, its not a great time for it unless you really do enjoy AoS. Thats what most games stores will be pushing, hard, for the time being. But if the former, then you have the luxury of playing any edition, in which case yes, its a great time for it, for reasons Ill come back to in a sec.

The second is the question of disposable income. It is very easy to do Cheaphammer; depending on the army, finding alternate models of decent price isnt hard these days. If orcs or dwarves are your thing, EM4 minis selss them in bags of 50 for peanuts. But even if you want to stick with *official* miniatures, the reason this is a great time to get into WH is that so many older players are disillusioned with AoS that they are selling off their armies cheap as can be. The Craigslist in my area filled up with over ten pages of WH armies for sale in the last month. Ebay isnt as good as it was 10 years ago, but you can still find deals. And the secondhand market on Facebook is thriving these days.

Thirdly,it really depends on your taste in games. What Warhammer did well was massive battles with units of 30-40 troops (more if they're slaves) and huge monsters and war machines. If thats something that pushes your buttons, well, no one has done it better (I like KoW, but its very simplified and streamlined. Warhammer was full of character and options).

The nicest thing about playing older editions is that they are "complete" games, whereas new editions tend to have long periods between the updating of army books for certain armies. In the 4 or 5 years since 8th was introduced, 3 major armies never got on update. Whereas I can go back and play 6th, buy the old rulebooks for $5-10 a piece on the secondary market, and its pretty much a complete edition. Even better, 3rd edition has all the rules needed in one book.

Warhammer is a great game I'll continue to play even without GW's support. There are massive fan communities online devoted to every edition (except, seemingly, 7th. I don't think anyone liked that edition), and GW does at the very least make some very beautiful minis.

See I'd be relying on my FLGS to get pickup games, so that might be an issue. Of course I'm used to wargaming solo so that isn't a too large a problem and I'm sure if I turn enough stones I could find some folks willing to play with unofficial models.

It seems like my best bet may be to pick up an older edition of the game and find a line of unofficial models I like. Is there a particular edition you recommend? My step dad has an old 1st edition box I could use but he's pretty guarded with his old gaming stuff.

Quote from: Arkansan;842363See I'd be relying on my FLGS to get pickup games, so that might be an issue. Of course I'm used to wargaming solo so that isn't a too large a problem and I'm sure if I turn enough stones I could find some folks willing to play with unofficial models.

It seems like my best bet may be to pick up an older edition of the game and find a line of unofficial models I like. Is there a particular edition you recommend? My step dad has an old 1st edition box I could use but he's pretty guarded with his old gaming stuff.

They each have different virtues. I've never played 1st or 2nd edition myself, only read about them. Third was the beginning for me, as it was written in conjunction with the first edition of the rpg, and those two books combined formed my initial and lingering impression of The Old World. 3rd edition is great because it gives a lot of options and you only really need the main rulebook to play (although Warhammer Armies is recommended for tournament/competative play), but it is also the most complex version of the rules. Many fiddly bits. I don't mind that because they mostly contribute to the feeling of realism in the game, but I do appreciate the streamlining of later editions.

4th and especially 5th edition are known as "Herohammer" online , because the focus was more on characters than units. This is when the game first started towards streamlining, and three of the stats were dropped : Intelligence, Cool, and Willpower. I have the least experiences with these editions. The card-based magic system I found a bit unwieldy. From what I hear, several of the army books were wildly overpowered.

6th edition was a reaction to Herohammer, and is personally, after 3rd, my favourite edition. It received an incredible amount of support, from The General's Compendium and Warhammer:Skirmish to campaigns based around Lustria and Kislev. This was the edition tied directly to Mordheim as well. Characters were de-emphasized in favour of units. The rules were streamlined yet again, pretty much into what would be recognized as the modern form. Magic got an overhaul, returning it to a dice-based system.

8th edition I liked, but it very much favoured big blocks of infantry over anything else. It was never fully supported either, which is a shame, because the army books they did produce for it were gorgeous. But the supplements were trash. The rules were only slightly tweaked from those of 6th. The starter sets are probably still at this point relatively easy to find, a good deal if you're considering Elves or Skaven armies, but otherwise I'd skip it.

Mordheim is also worth considering. It focuses on skirmishing rules, around forces of around 10 models, that grow and improve as you gain experience and wealth. To this day it's incredibly well-regarded among fans, and there's a living rulebook that is available free online providing all the info you need. Only downside is you need quite a bit of terrain to really make it worthwhile. I recommend finding a scan online of the old Warhammer: Townscape, and printing the buildings up on cardstock.

Any idea what army you're interested in?

I'm pretty interested in either a Chaos, or Ork army. But honestly I find enough interesting stuff in nearly all of them fluff wise to enjoy painting any of them. For the most part I enjoy a bit or role playing in my war games in that I'm far more likely to be interested in an army from a lore stand point than a mechanical one.

Mordheim sounds pretty cool, and I'm fairly certain I could actually get some non war gamer friends and family to play something like that.

Here's the online "living rulebook" for Mordheim (http://gurth.home.xs4all.nl/mordheim/Mordheim%20Living%20Rulebook.pdf)

There's a pretty cool Chaos cult warband featured in the game.
(http://www.solegends.com/citcat2004/P1012-01.jpg)

I've been thinking of painting up one using Malifaux miniatures as proxies.

Cool, thanks for all the help. Mordheim looks like a good way to scratch the itch while I see how AoS pans out.

I've got a set of the Island of Blood Skaven as well as a few boxes of Empire including Free Company, seems like I could get a couple of warbands painted up with just what I have laying around then build what I want later.

The Empire Free Company were originally made for Mordheim :)

Couple of resources for Mordheim, I'm sure you can track them down :)

Empire in Flames is the official supplement
Border Town Burning is a fan-made supplement

Both have new scenarios, warbands and rules.

If you're looking for a quick start to the mass-battles game, 6th edition had a little pamphlet published for it called "Ravening Hordes", with short "get you by" lists for all the armies.  They actually work pretty well agains each other.  

6th also includes a skirmish version of the game, and there are some resources for smaller games that may be useful alongside Mordheim:

Warhammer Skirmish is an eclectic booklet of scenarios for skirmish games in 6th edition;
Path to Glory is a mini-game centring around raising your chaos warband to power;
Warhammer Warbands has suggestions for playing small-ish mass-battle games up to 500 points.

Ravening Hordes and the 6th edition rulebook are still freely available on eBay, and pretty cheap if you want to test the waters before investing in the codices.  As always though, it's finding the players...

I owned and played first edition a little but only as a "mass combat roleplaying" game.  I'm still in love with that concept but nobody has ever really delivered on it.  We didn't have any army lists and I've only seen one copy of the supplement that had them.  Nor did we have anywhere nearly enough miniatures.

The next time I ever heard anything about Warhammer was third edition.

I didn't really get into it until fifth edition where I played Lizardmen and Empire.  Empire was a really weak list in fifth that had to rely heavily on volley guns.

Sixth kept me in the game.  Seventh was okay but tended to be a little blander than sixth as it continued the trend towards a balanced game.  Kings of War is a natural extension of the thinking that lead to Warmaster.  It's sleak and lean and pretty well balanced but can feel dry and soulless.

Eighth is where I left Warhammer.  I appreciate the turn back towards a gonzo fantasy universe but it seemed like every time they fixed or cleaned something up they introduced two things that slowed the game down or made a mess of the sequence.  Warhammer had always suffered from a nitpicky sequence where an inexperienced player could lose the game by "frothing" missing vital steps in the convoluted sequence of play.  And eighth is where it peaked.  Did you roll to see how the terrain your troops entered killed them?  Did your wizards cast their spells in the right order to maximize the effective application of their power dice?

I'm not saying you didn't have fun, but I sure didn't.

While I strongly believe the game needed a clean-up that turfed existing army books to level the playing field again and I think a shake up of the setting could have been a good thing.  Age of Sigmar won't bring me back.  I recognize that the competition is at GW's heels but I'm guessing this will be a tremendous flop that people will pick up years later and say "hey, this wasn't so bad as its own thing and now that the standard gaming scale is 1:12 it doesn't seem like such a ridiculous leap anyhow."

Quote from: TristramEvans;842094Unlike, say, the OSR, Oldhammer is more focused on pretty pictures of painted lead and guys getting together for beers and some light-hearted entertainment while they reminisce about the 80s.

There's an element of that... but then there are folks like me and mine, who never played Warhammer 'back in the day'. 3rd edition is a brand new thing to me (and I've never played the later ones).
To my eyes it's like the OSR in that it's a much more DIY approach to the game. Use what miniatures you have, build up lots of cool terrain, design fun scenarios... much less competitive. It's seems more of a full-on hobby than mainstream Warhammer is nowadays.
Of course, it's not going to appeal to the masses... a dead game that involves creating a lot of your own components and scenarios and plays much slower than is popular these days.

I'm actually kind of surprised that AoS didn't introduce pre-painted miniatures... I guess GW is still making good dough off their paint sales.

So, how is Age of Sigmar doing out there in the wild?

I was listening to a recent GarageHammer podcast episode where the host (pro-AOS) read a very sobering email from a former fan taking him to task for "forcing himself" to enjoy a dying game while it is "clear to everyone else" that fantasy is dead.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;876043So, how is Age of Sigmar doing out there in the wild?

I was listening to a recent GarageHammer podcast episode where the host (pro-AOS) read a very sobering email from a former fan taking him to task for "forcing himself" to enjoy a dying game while it is "clear to everyone else" that fantasy is dead.

It looks pretty fucking horrible.  None of the folks at the LGS in my area are playing it, they all moved on to something else.

Its going pretty strong at one of the FLGS in town

Quote from: TristramEvans;876055Its going pretty strong at one of the FLGS in town

"5e D&D ascending" strong or "4e D&D doesn't know it's already dead" strong?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;876061"5e D&D ascending" strong or "4e D&D doesn't know it's already dead" strong?

Fuck if I know, but they've had weekly AoS nights that are just as busy as the Xwing nights and they have a paid entry AoS tournament every month that sells out. But there's another game store in town where everyone either still plays 8th or have switched to KoW so I can't really extrapolate beyond that. GWs half year financials from last month indicated they've made good sales but lost a hefty percentage of market share.

I still don't understand how it wouldn't have been more profitable to support both systems, have AoS for entry level gamers and casual players who want a narrative skirmish game and keep 8th in print for the hardcore fans. They only needed to do, what, 3 more army books for a complete edition?

What they've done is fracture the community. Some are sticking with 8th, some are going with the fan-based 85, some with 9th Age, and quite a few with Kings of War, and some have just fucked off to various Skirmish games. I think AoS was indicative of something they needed -a low cost entry level game like Mordheim or Heroquest before it. But AoS isn't an entry to anything more now.

GW has also issued a profit warning after some disappointing Christmas sales.

QuoteShares in Games Workshop, the high street store selling fantasy model games such as Lord of the Rings and Warhammer, fell 12 per cent in early trading on Friday, after the company warned that full-year profits would drop after disappointing Christmas sales.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a707e928-b5f2-11e5-b147-e5e5bba42e51.html

If GW thought Age of Sigmar was going to return Warhammer Fantasy to prominence and undo the years of falling sales, they must certainly be disappointed by it.  It hasn't done anything to stop GW's revenues from continuing to decline.  Well, perhaps it caused them to fall more slowly.

Also released during the last reporting period was a Warhammer 30k/Horus Heresy game and a Codex: Space Marine release.  Space Marines are GW's most popular products and even making a new army book and related kits for them didn't generate any new business or result in growth.  It also wasn't too long ago that they released a new version of 40k and revenue was still down for that period.

GW is frankly a bizarre company, that's all I can say. Everything they do is counter to common wisdom on good ways to run a business, and they aren't ignorant of that, they take pride in it and pat themselves on the back for it. No marketing, no consumer research, the hostilty to retailers of their products, destroying an entire line of revenue with online sellers, and the overall "burning bridges" approach to throwing away all fan loyalty in the hope of constantly capturing a new audience. And that new audience is 1000x more likely to buy a licensed videogame based on their properties than one of their own products. I watch their antics with a complete sense of beffudled wonder.

Then, out of left field, they come out with something like this:
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2016/01/bombshell-gw-moving-into-toymodel-stores.html

Could be that they are flailing at this point.  That they are going to start doing a variety of strange things to see what sticks.  This is the company that destroyed Warhammer.  A brand that was profitable for them for decades.  So they could replace it with Age of Sigmar.

They're going to flail about trying things like pushing model kits into toy stores and expanding video game revenue all while continuing to do the exact same thing with Age of Sigmar and 40k that caused Warhammer Fantasy to be no longer viable as a product.  Worse rules, higher prices, taking their customers for granted.

I don't know WTF Games Workshop doesn't put out actual toys.

Fuck this paint shit. Put out action figs for kids. 40k Legos. Chaos Barbie.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;876061"5e D&D ascending" strong or "4e D&D doesn't know it's already dead" strong?

LOL! Edition wars strong is the strongy-est!

AoS is getting some play at my FLGS, but that FLGS has been a heavily 40k hub since forever, so I can't compare how AoS is doing at a fantasy heavy store. The fantasy players at that FLGS play Warmachine mostly, also since forever.

Quote from: Spinachcat;876308LOL! Edition wars strong is the strongy-est!

I played 4e D&D avidly for most of its brief life and enjoyed it, so don't accuse me of edition warring. I'm simply realistic and honest in assessing its run in hindsight.

Two of my Local FLGS carry GW products. At one of them it's a mixed bag, some folks playing AoS other sticking to 8th or bugging off to 40k. At the other AoS has been really popular and the game is getting a lot of people who had put fantasy down to pick it back up.

Rules wise I like what I see of AoS so far, and I like the focus on scenario driven play. However I don't care for the aesthetic of the new miniatures as much, it looks to close to 40k.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;876351I played 4e D&D avidly for most of its brief life and enjoyed it, so don't accuse me of edition warring.

Not at all! I was commenting on how between 5e Ascending and 4e Descending, whether one or the other looked "strong" depended so much on where the observer stood in the edition wars (or even the nature of that particular FLGS).

AKA, while I saw 4e Descend slowly at our FLGS, I haven't seen the supposed major 5e Ascent at the FLGS. It's played, but not notably more than Pathfinder while 13th Age keeps chugging along (but maybe that's just a local fanbase, I don't know).

I wasn't clear enough obviously.

Sorry for the confusion.

Quote from: SpinachcatI wasn't clear enough obviously.

Sorry for the confusion.

It's alright, I'm sorry I got so defensive. As you can see, the edition wars took their toll *looks grimly at the horizon.*

Quote from: Arkansan;876370However I don't care for the aesthetic of the new miniatures as much, it looks to close to 40k.

I think that's their attempt to make their fantasy property more distinct from others, right? I grew up on the look of old Warhammer so I love it of course, but I have to admit a lot of it is quite generic despite its excellent execution.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;876408I think that's their attempt to make their fantasy property more distinct from others, right? I grew up on the look of old Warhammer so I love it of course, but I have to admit a lot of it is quite generic despite its excellent execution.

Can it perhaps be so, that WHFB seems generic for the same reason D&D may seem generic, i.e., it is THE GAME that others are mimicking, and/or trying to compete with, and it have also been around longer than some who plays it?

If one looks at it closer, it is just as generic as D&D, that is, not at all.

Quote from: Spinachcat;876308Chaos Barbie.

Slaanesh Barbie?  A few beers and I'd jack off to that.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;840276Ahh, the tragic demise of Necromunda... :(

That is not dead which may eternal lie
And with strange aeons, even death may die (https://yaktribe.org/community/vault/categories/rulebook-editions.3/)

I simply can't afford GW. Heck, for the price of a GW platoon box, I can get two 6mm armies and a bit of landscape - and even paint and prep them in about the same time it would take me to do the 28mm platoon. :/

GW reminds me of this scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMLa4IeFKHM) from an earlier season of Game of Thrones, and Varys's lesson about power.

GW is a major miniatures wargame company because people believe to be, and for no other reason. It's a very shit company casting a very long shadow.

Quote from: Premier;908226GW reminds me of this scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMLa4IeFKHM) from an earlier season of Game of Thrones, and Varys's lesson about power.

GW is a major miniatures wargame company because people believe to be, and for no other reason. It's a very shit company casting a very long shadow.

I don't think that's true, and I say that as someone who hopes that GW goes under.

Sure, part of GW's success is market presence, which has a lot to do with people believing that GW is a big deal.  They also have a lot of money, and while you could argue that the monetary system is based on what people believe, I doubt that's what you meant.

Having dedicated game stores all over the place is a big part of GW's success.  Their marketing is very good, even if it could obviously be so much better in so many cases.  They are, hands down, better at recruiting new people into miniatures wargaming than the rest of the industry combined.

They've even started to smarten up recently, releasing stand-alone board games with loads of plastic minis that can be used in their flagship games, at a discount from buying those same models separately.  How many people got into 40k or Fantasy through games like Space Hulk or Warhammer Quest?  Because now they're doing that again, only in a much more intelligent way.

Their IP is worth a lot, too - they've gotten much smarter about how they handle electronic entertainment and novels, and there are more and more books and games coming out all the time.  The 40k universe has an undeniable appeal (as much as I want to deny it).  You should have seen how my 6-year-old son reacted when he saw the 40k display at the shopping mall.  He wants to learn how to paint miniatures and play 40k, even though I've tried to tell him that the game is shit and that we can't afford to remortgage our house to buy another 40k army anyway.

GW would be a lot less irritating if they actually were a shit company.  The fact is, they're still pretty successful even though they've managed to alienate a huge portion of their former customers.

I almost jumped into Age of Sigmar recently because I had purchased and been playing Warhammer Quest: The Silver Tower.  I've also toyed with the idea of getting into 40K for years.

But ultimately, I'm not interested in the hobby part of GW's equation.  I just want to play games.  Plus, I don't have any love for the communities surrounding the games.

I might be able to enjoy assembling and painting figures.  I could perhaps get into that investment.  However, the financial investment is simply too much for me to consider worth it.  There are other hobbies I'd rather spend my money on and I'd enjoy more.

Still, I love Space Hulk and Warhammer Quest: The Silver Tower.  I'm trying to decide if I want to pick up The Lost Patrol.

Please tell us more about Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower!!

Quote from: Ddogwood;908499I don't think that's true, and I say that as someone who hopes that GW goes under.

Sure, part of GW's success is market presence, which has a lot to do with people believing that GW is a big deal.  They also have a lot of money, and while you could argue that the monetary system is based on what people believe, I doubt that's what you meant.

Having dedicated game stores all over the place is a big part of GW's success.  Their marketing is very good, even if it could obviously be so much better in so many cases.  They are, hands down, better at recruiting new people into miniatures wargaming than the rest of the industry combined.

They've even started to smarten up recently, releasing stand-alone board games with loads of plastic minis that can be used in their flagship games, at a discount from buying those same models separately.  How many people got into 40k or Fantasy through games like Space Hulk or Warhammer Quest?  Because now they're doing that again, only in a much more intelligent way.

Their IP is worth a lot, too - they've gotten much smarter about how they handle electronic entertainment and novels, and there are more and more books and games coming out all the time.  The 40k universe has an undeniable appeal (as much as I want to deny it).  You should have seen how my 6-year-old son reacted when he saw the 40k display at the shopping mall.  He wants to learn how to paint miniatures and play 40k, even though I've tried to tell him that the game is shit and that we can't afford to remortgage our house to buy another 40k army anyway.

GW would be a lot less irritating if they actually were a shit company.  The fact is, they're still pretty successful even though they've managed to alienate a huge portion of their former customers.

The other big draw that Warhammer and WH40K have always had is this: It's where the network of players are. Well, were in the case of Fantasy. You can go into any game store that has space for miniatures and you'll find SOMEONE that'll play 40K or WHFB/AoS. The only comparable game is Warmachine/Hordes and Privateer put a LOT of effort in to building up that player network (In Germany, it seems to be Battletech that has the other big player network). Want to play Malifaux? Good luck. You might find one or two players. Flames of War, again a few players. Infinity? Battletech? You CAN find them but it's a very shallow pool to pull from.

And if they're NEW players how long do they stick with it? In my experience, not long.

And these are all games that are either cheaper, better, or BOTH than WH40K or WHFB. But no one plays. It's like trying to find a game of Rolemaster versus trying to find a game of 5E or Pathfinder. Sure, anecdotally you know a guy that runs a game. But in aggregate? Everyone plays D&D.

Quote from: Spinachcat;908741Please tell us more about Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower!!

About WQ: The Silver Tower...

I'll say mostly what everyone else does.  The models are of extremely high quality and detail, but the assembly of some of them is far more complicated than it needed to be.  The tiles are extremely nice.  They're not as good as the Space Hulk tiles, but head and shoulders above the thickness, gloss, and art quality of any other dungeon crawl boardgame currently available.  Also, the fluff in the Adventure Book is outstanding.

But there's bad too.  The game feels more than a bit light for $150 from a boardgaming perspective.  It's clear that GW is selling to people who want a model kit first and a cool game as a bonus.  Outside the miniatures, there are nowhere near the number of components this kind of game has been known for during the past decade.  The cards are not high quality, and are on borderline cheap stock.  The only cards with graphics are the character cards and the exploration cards.  To top it off, the game doesn't even provide reference cards, forcing flipping through the rulebook for monster info.  Bonus heroes are provided, but no character cards are supplied for them as the game once again asks players to simply flip through the rulebook.  It's just a lack of understanding what boardgamers expect.

The lack of components does have a silver lining.  The Silver Tower is remarkably free of sprawl, and that is extremely odd for this kind of game.  There are no components for the sake of components.  The board doesn't get drowned in chits.  It's very easy to set up and clean up afterwards, meaning it gets played more often.

To play you choose a quest from the Adventure Book.  An entry will tell you how to build the Exploration Deck for the scenario.

At the beginning of each player's turn they roll 4 dice.  Each die represents a potential action.  What actions the character can perform depend on the values of the individual dice.  Players spend the dice to perform those actions, such as moving, attacking, healing, etc.

Then the monsters go.  Each monster has a behaviour chart.  The player controlling the monsters rolls on the behaviour chart for each monster group to see what they will do.  This is really nice and makes the monsters feel different instead of all of them always bum rushing the characters for the same melee attacks round after round.

As characters kill monsters they earn XP.  Once you've earned enough XP in a scenario you can earn a Skill.  These are effectively the only advancement or growth characters get in the game.

The game self balances.  The more Skills characters have, the fewer rests they'll be able to take during quests.  Ambushes become more common as do random events in The Silver Tower.

The flavor of The Silver Tower is provided by the Adventure Book, which has tons of numbered entries which are read while exploring and encountering rooms or random events.  This is probably the best part about the game, because it makes things feel varied and definitely not just another room tile.  The Silver Tower is probably the most atmospheric of these types of games I've ever seen or played.

Sadly, The Silver Tower isn't a campaign system.  The game is simply a series of quests in the singular Tower location.  There are nine adventures to play here.  And, as previously mentioned, there isn't much real character growth, only skills to acquire.  Even equipment found in the tower is almost entirely disposable items and they disappear after adventures anyway.

It delivers a similar experience to the pre-Temple of Elemental Evil Dungeons & Dragons Adventure System games.  The differences are the flavor of the setting is vastly better and the price is three times as high.

It's definitely not the original Warhammer Quest.  It's its own thing.  It definitely leans harder to the boardgame end of the spectrum than say Heroquest or Advanced Heroquest.

Thank you!

Is it better, equal, worse or just vastly different from the original Warhammer Quest?

Quote from: Spinachcat;909059Thank you!

Is it better, equal, worse or just vastly different from the original Warhammer Quest?

It's vastly different.

I don't own the original WQ.  I foolishly thought it was nothing more than a reprint of Advanced Heroquest back in the day.  But from what I understand, the original WQ had extremely robust campaign play and a metric assload of content.

The Silver Tower is not a campaign system.  It's a single multi-part dungeon scenario.  I'm pretty sure there are no shared mechanics whatsoever.  There also aren't any rules for what happens outside of a dungeon adventure/in between quests like what the original had.

The only similarity between them is that they are dungeon crawling games.

Quote from: Spinachcat;909059Thank you!

Is it better, equal, worse or just vastly different from the original Warhammer Quest?

Inferior in gameplay overall. Its essentially the "basic" rules, the core of WHQ and little else. None of the wacky random random random of the outside the dungeon that WHQ has. So in that respect Silver Tower feels very lacking. Though its not as huge a loss if having everything dictated by a random table didnt interest you.

Also its lacking in out of the box diversity. The original had minis for orcs and skaven and various critters, not to mention archways to link the tiles which was a nice little embellishment. Silver Tower has mostly just Chaos units and no critters other than a familliar. Does though look like its exmandable with the existing minis. Though I quit out of the discussions so dont know how much.

It's a free skirmish game using the Warhammer fantasy miniatures.  That's it.

My wife and daughters purchased me the starter box of AoS at the local games workshop shop this past weekend for me as a birthday present. This came about because I brought back my copies of Hero Quest, Advance Hero Quest, Battle Masters, and my copy of the first Warhammer Quest that had that awesome campaign book right in the box. So, my loving family went to the shop and the guy sold them this box. The game seems fun. I looked at the new WarhammerQuest but I hate dungeon tiles. I like just fixed board.

It's actually kind of remarkable how much GW has already changed under the new CEO.  A few well thought out supplemental products (Age of Sigmar: Skirmish) and pricing strategies (bundles at an actual discount) and the game has changed from something I decided to something I'd recommend (and have gotten into myself).

The Skirmish supplement drastically reduces the model count of the game and is actually fun.  There's also a full renown PDF on The Grand Alliance forum.  I'd definitely recommend the Skirmish book 100%.  I don't actually play the normal version of the game I like the skirmish version so much.

First GW ripped off Law and Chaos from Michael Moorcock (he thinks so anyways :D) now they are pilfering the Eternal Champion.

Poor fucker.

There is no question that GW's Chaos is inspired by Moorcock. Back in the early days of Warhammer, there was more focus on Law opposing Chaos, instead of the Man vs. Chaos which it has become.  As for the Eternal Champion, there's always was the question if Sigmar is the 40k Emperor. Back in the day, you saw more crossover between fantasy and 40k and stuff was teased, but not made canon.

This has been an odd thread, in that the first 9 pages were more beefs about GW (as legitimate as most of those are) than "what is AoS."  I've been a role-player and boardgamer for the past 40 years and I'd never done miniatures gaming at all.  But I have a friend who has the desire, resources, and artistic skill to do 90% of the heavy lifting in acquiring and painting minis for AoS, so we starting playing about 8 months ago, and have gotten more serious about it in the past 3 months.  We just came back from our first minis con and there were several dozen tables playing AoS (only 40K had more - a lot more).

We tried 40K before AoS (7th edition 40K) and, while I love space marines fighting monsters, I *hated* the rules with a passion.  I endured them and was never enthusiastic to play.  When my friend told me that AoS was more streamlined, I was interested.  We tried it and I thought it so much better.  So maybe my appreciation of AoS is born of a) lack of knowledge of other minis games and b) comparison to a worse rules set.  But I really like the game.

As for the fluff, I think it's pretty cool and more interesting to me than old WHF stuff, which I know from the role-playing side of things.  It is very well-suited for fantasy army battles forever at war and it re-dresses some old stereotypes in some interesting ways.

So I like the game a lot and am happy to be playing it, but I had to do almost none of the heavy lifting to be able to do so, so I'm lucky that way.