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Warhammer - Age of Sigmar
VonTush wrote: I've said it before, but snag Chaos in the Old World while you can. That IP is now null and void.
The new (and harder to copy/proxy) IP is here to stay and CitOW might fade away along with the old Old World.
Definitely. Gotta grab that expansion for myself...
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What I didn't know about was that Space Marine statue. I had to look it up on Google Earth, though what I found was deeply troubling.
How the fuck is anyone supposed to sit on that bench? GW apparently treats their landscapers as poorly as they do their customers!
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They have:
1. Destroyed their old setting
2. Introduced some of the most intricate and well designed models ever (if you like the GW aesthetic)
3. Launched a new very, very simple new skirmish game
4. Released ALL the rules for free as downloadable PDFs
It seems clear to me that their strategy is that to get new people (especially kids) into Warhammer, the game is the least important thing. It's nice to have something to do with your models, but ultimately GW, especially fantasy, is about collecting the models.
The new AoS rules are dirt simple, and make absolutely no nod towards being balanced, or deep, or tactical. It literally says to just field an army with whatever models you want'. There are no points, no restrictions on what you take, very few options in equipment, etc. It's all about putting some nicely painted guys on the table and chucking some dice and not worrying about the results.
To underscore this, they include a variety of rules like this one for existing units:
It's going to be very interesting to see if this strategy - focus on the models, and the game is just a non-competitive sideline - will bring in new blood, or be the death knell.
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- Jackwraith
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Fantasy has been dying for years, largely because of the model requirement. 40K surpassed it and has continued to bring in revenue. GW has dropped support for every other game (BFG, Mordheim, Necromunda, Epic, Warmaster, Blood Bowl) and dissolved the Black LIbrary because all of them weren't profitable at the level they felt was necessary to maintain share price (let's say nothing about the massive distribution infrastructure expansion into American shopping malls.) 40K still makes money and they finally got out from under the enormous cinderblock that was the ill-advised contract with the Tolkien estate for LotR, but they can't just cut off the founding game of the company, especially since the writedown would be a lot more than just a couple thousand units of BFG and the sacrifice of IP would be enormous. So this is the latest master plan, which still looks like it was drawn up on a napkin by people who bring the same attitude toward running a business that they do to a couple hours of beer-and-pretzels Warhammer. Remember that this is the company that backstabbed its independent sellers like The Warstore when it decided that it wasn't making enough money through its own shoddily-designed website, to say nothing of the fact that it was still insisting that criticism of its rulesets was coming from "Internet crazies" and not its "real fans"... in 2005. Their first venture into PDFs of rules is the one where they trash the entire ruleset and say: "Just do whatever you want"? Not a plan for success, IMO.
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I mean, look at Warhammer Total War. I haven't played a Total War game in years. But I am planning on playing that one. Why? Because original Warhammer Lore is really cool!
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This is a pretty high risk gamble, but considering WFB has been in decline, maybe something risky like this will make it relevant again. After all, it's insanity to continue to throw good money after bad. And to be honest, I think it is a little forward thinking. GW has always been hampered by rule revisions, rules and points imbalances, army books becoming obsolete...In GW's futile attempt to create balance the feedback is always negative as players shout about cash grabs and pine over their units that are no longer usable.
Here GW just says "Here you go, do with it as you will". I see all sorts of communities that could pop up over this. You'll see players try to assign points to units or tier the armies like in Blood Bowl. You'll see those that enjoy creating scenarios putting together situations that simulate events, be they major battles or skirmishes, from the thousands of pages of fluff. The system is open enough to all RPG elements and do a bit of gaming on the fly letting the players create the game as they play. Myself, I'm already thinking about how easier it would be to incorporate some of the old Mighty Empires stuff (cardboard tiles not the plastic) that I have and how much easier it'd be with a rule set that's as open as this.
I'm interested to see what types of communities develop around this system. And I also like how GW basically bites their thumb at the mindset that a game requires perfect balance, casts aside the point salad type games so mathed out that everyone ends within a few points of each other. I won't buy any new minis for the game, but I now have a reason to pull out the hodge-podge of misc stuff that's been sitting around.
EDIT: I'm becoming to see point systems as shackles to games, that it creates this mindset in the player that there is a right way and a wrong way to play a game and that any deviation mars and distorts the designer's vision. Point systems are partially to blame for the resistance to variants and the drawing out of a person's inner esquire as people launch into monologues about the emphasis and punctuation in a sentence and how their reading supports their desired results. This revision is a bit refreshing.
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Its no secret that Warhammer fantasy struggles to turn a profit and that the vast majority of GWs income comes from Space Marines alone, so creating a game around fantasy space marines makes sense. Second GW will be aware that 40k with its simpler rules gets more newbies in and fantasy is a game for the old guard who don't spend much. Third, they will have noticed the rise in games like Warmachine and want to meet this competition. Will it work? Don't know. I'm a little surprised they have done away with fantasy wholesale and not introduced a new game and allowed the older game to go into slow decline. I do think the internet outcry is sort of unwarranted. Its difficult to say that GW have radically improved their ruleset over the past 5 editions and old school players can keep playing their game, though I appreciate that they will be banned from using the game tables in GW stores.
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- Jackwraith
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VonTush wrote: I'm interested to see what types of communities develop around this system. And I also like how GW basically bites their thumb at the mindset that a game requires perfect balance, casts aside the point salad type games so mathed out that everyone ends within a few points of each other. I won't buy any new minis for the game, but I now have a reason to pull out the hodge-podge of misc stuff that's been sitting around.
I'm in a similar boat, in that I'm thinking of dragging an army out... but to play 8th Ed., which I haven't in a couple years. What they're basically encouraging here is the same thing that happened with Epic. They gave up on it, but the community hasn't (can't link from the office, but look for Tactical Command.) In fact, once GW bowed out, the Epic community rewrote the rulebook, adding in all kinds of community-agreed-upon changes, tweaking point costs, designing new lists, etc. It's still a viable, if small, community (and Epic is the best game GW ever made, IMO.) Maybe their freewheeling approach will have the same effect, in that the WHFB community will band together to make their own ruleset. But I'm betting that most will just try to continue with 8th and adjust it to suit what experience determines. But I don't see GW's games as any different from Privateer's or FFG's (X-Wing.) Points are a way to make a game, rather than just tossing models on the table, which is what some at GW always wanted.
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Also, it sounds like they are going to support with a lot of scenarios moving forward and I'm trying to find out some info on the handful that come in the 96 page book in the box set. I was also happy to read that the goofy rules are only there in the older armies and that new armies moving forward won't have the things like "Yell WAAGGHH" or "ride an imaginary horse". Personally I think it's pretty amusing and I'd play by those rules, but I know not everyone would enjoy that.
In any case though, I'll very much be following the evolution of the game over the next few months to a year because right now we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg. My interest in WFB is higher than it has been in a long while...Not since years back when the game was Character-Hammer.
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VonTush wrote: I'm guessing you're not in the Kansas City area?
Kansas?
Maybe it's time to break those Chaos Dwarves out of their cryogenic freeze...
wppl.obblm.com/ecc/
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That'd be awesome to do. The problem is Wichita is about a 3+ hr drive from where I'm at. There's been some talk in my area about getting a Blood Bowl League going and I may have to borrow some of their rules. I like the one day tourney idea because that's a lot more realistic to make happen compared to a league.
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The guys who put these on host great BB events. Each tourney has its own set of rules and doing two toruneys back to back means that if you do poorly on day one, you start fresh on day two. There were a little over 30 coaches this year (from all over the country), and with next year being the 5th anniversary we're hoping to crack 50.
Next year's date isn't in stone yet, but below is the site with this year's information. Be great to game face-to-face with another F:ATtie.
orclahomabowl.com/
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Very, very interesting. Thanks for the info on these.
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