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It would be really interesting to gather a bunch of GW design leads in a room and pick their brains on why they are so obssessed with making really cool models and rules for game systems that they then hamstring with insanely stupid business decisions and lack of official support / community-building. Nobody is going to rebase their entire army or buy into an entirely new army that they can't use in AoS, which would have been a big draw for armies like Skaven / Beastmen that a) exist in both games and b) desperately need a range refresh. It's going to be another Horus Heresy where they make a huge deal out of the launch and then unless you're extremely lucky or live in a giant city you will never be able to find a game, even at the actual GW stores.
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Apr 14, 2023 17:53
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At this point in time the 3rd party and 3d Printed model scene for WHFB has exceeded the quality and variety that GW had at the game's height. I suppose it is possible that GW could release whole ranges that are slightly better than what is available now, but for Empire armies, Cathay, Skaven, there are just tons of really high quality models available. And those are just the armies I look into. There are probably a bunch of others that are just as good. GW has released a few really good sculpts for Lizardmen and whatnot, but I don't think they have the oomph to release whole WHFB armies at this point. If anything, Old World seems like it would be the ideal test bed to add some STL files to Warhammer+ to make it an actual worthwhile subscription, and they can avoid the entire mess of stocking, supply, logistics, etc... Lets face it, there is not going to be a huge audience for OW. Perhaps if they timed it with any of the last Warhammer Total War releases it would have been able to get a lot of traction. But they only had a 7 year window for that, I guess too short for them.
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Apr 14, 2023 18:08
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The new base size is 100% to accommodate AoS models in sabot bases. A 25mm round base will fit in a 25mm square.
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Apr 14, 2023 18:15
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Cooked Auto posted:They are also STRONGLY hinting that something will be shown off at Warhammer Fest the weekend after next. If you follow the rumor mill, they are slated to announce the starter box for TOW at Warhammer Fest and November Is Bespoken for the release of the starter box, compendiums, etc. All rumors, so, grain of salt, we shall see. It's really interesting to see sub-factions in WHFB. I really hope that sub-factions are alternate army lists and not AoS-style sources of roll bonuses and maluses. That's fine in a skirmish game, but in a slower, army-scale game, I want... well, WHFB.
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Apr 14, 2023 18:22
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Feels weird to reveal both the starter box for 10th ed and ToW on the same event. If anything I'd say we'd get models because I don't think they want to distract too much from a new edition coming out.
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Apr 14, 2023 18:25
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Vagabong posted:I wonder if the repainted old models mean they're going to start reselling old plastic kits, or if its just an easy way to preview new paint schemes. I would do awful things to get the old empire general and huntsmen kits that went out of production. They mention "returning models" in the article, so they're going to be bringing some amount of old models back. It makes sense that they're likely not going to resculpt basic troops that were already plastic, or any of the notable iconic units for a faction (something like the TK Necrosphinx). They might even add a couple of metal characters and stuff to the rotation of Made to Order units they have on the website. Honestly, aside from the mentions of Cathay & Kislev, I seriously doubt they're going to produce many new models for this (Unless it somehow shocks everyone and EXPLODES in popularity). Any allusion of "Updated" models are likely going to mean bringing in models already updated from AoS. Desfore fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Apr 14, 2023 |
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Apr 14, 2023 18:26
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Cooked Auto posted:Feels weird to reveal both the starter box for 10th ed and ToW on the same event. If anything I'd say we'd get models because I don't think they want to distract too much from a new edition coming out. I REALLY hope that GW know that people who are interested in TOW have less than no interest in 10th edition 40K. 9th was a travesty and the details they're giving about 10th don't seem like they're intent on righting the ship for people who enjoyed older 40K editions (there's 30K for that, I suppose.) I think that it's still probable, though. I think 10th edition is supposed to release this summer and TOW is supposed to release in the fall, so even with the overlap in announcements, the releases are still staggered enough to get their due attention. (Specifically after post-launch 40K hype dies down, TOW will be released)
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Apr 14, 2023 18:30
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If it actually becomes an issue it'll probably go down like it did for 40k where you could pay $15 on Thingiverse and get 40-50 little squares that increase the base by the 5mm.
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Apr 14, 2023 18:32
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Talas posted:Make TOW the tray game. Thanks for the replies all. Im glad to see there are good trays and no issues with swapping between the two styles. I play with a great group of folk who would never hassle me over my Skaven's bases, but you try to play the game as best you can. The Last Argument Tray is interesting at least, though it may be too big for my rat folks needs. Lord knows I should be able to find a good number of movement trays on Etsy as I've grabbed some great alternate sculpts for various Ratkin over there and some really talented people do good work there. If anything, it is generating some ideas on how I can use some of the leftover clan rats I have laying about to making a square base diorama tray for a unit. I know I saw once upon a time that had Skavenslaves looking like they were emerging from underground. It looked great and did not require a ton of rats since it was the size of the tray that mattered, as the wound count was totaled to the side.
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Apr 14, 2023 18:34
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Man, I really wish I knew why GW were trying to make their games "competitive" anyway. Talking about competitive play in a WHFB article just seems so utterly wrong to me. I'm not saying that it should become a diceless narrative-focused RPG or anything, but who in their right mind would even want to watch Warhammer Fantasy as an eSport or whatever? I guess the psychos that do the same thing for 40K, but I just don't think there's an overlap there.
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Apr 14, 2023 18:43
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Crazy Ferret posted:Thanks for the replies all. Im glad to see there are good trays and no issues with swapping between the two styles. I play with a great group of folk who would never hassle me over my Skaven's bases, but you try to play the game as best you can. The Last Argument Tray is interesting at least, though it may be too big for my rat folks needs. Lord knows I should be able to find a good number of movement trays on Etsy as I've grabbed some great alternate sculpts for various Ratkin over there and some really talented people do good work there. You may be interested in Onepagerules Ratmen models. They have some Ratmen riding a ferret, with 3 different styles. Cute, mean, and bespectacled.   
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Apr 14, 2023 18:47
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Paranoid Dude posted:Man, I really wish I knew why GW were trying to make their games "competitive" anyway. Talking It's seeing what MtG players are excited to pay to be "competitive."
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Apr 14, 2023 18:47
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Paranoid Dude posted:Man, I really wish I knew why GW were trying to make their games "competitive" anyway. Talking about competitive play in a WHFB article just seems so utterly wrong to me. I'm not saying that it should become a diceless narrative-focused RPG or anything, but who in their right mind would even want to watch Warhammer Fantasy as an eSport or whatever? I guess the psychos that do the same thing for 40K, but I just don't think there's an overlap there. Somewhat related to my post above this one, one of the reasons GW is so gung-ho on competitive play is that they can control which models are used, and it is one of the ways the work to prevent the use of proxies or 3d printed armies.
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Apr 14, 2023 18:49
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IncredibleIgloo posted:You may be interested in Onepagerules Ratmen models. They have some Ratmen riding a ferret, with 3 different styles. Cute, mean, and bespectacled. Hell ya I am! I got a buddy who is into 3D Printing and he is printing me the entire lot. I even offer to pay for the materials but he wants to give it a shot. I think I'm being used as a test set for when he prints out his OPR Lizardmen. Honestly, I really love the grungy aesthetic of Skaven and the OPR rats are not a great fit in all cases. That said, I think I'm going to use a lot of the OPR rats to make a small Cities of Sigmar army of "Good Rats" based on a solid Redwall pun. With my Skaven being already Red/White (as an homage to Clan Mors from the Old World), I'm thinking a blue theme so something like "Paladins of the Azure Wall/Redoubt." Its a work in progress but I think it will be a super fun painting project. I mean, look at that ferret. He is so happy the slaughter is about to begin 
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Apr 14, 2023 18:57
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"Why are they so focused on competitive play?" I wonder in a hobby where people get very vocally upset whenever GW even so much as thinks about releasing content that isn't geared towards tournament play.
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Apr 14, 2023 19:16
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Der Waffle Mous posted:"Why are they so focused on competitive play?" I wonder in a hobby where people get very vocally upset whenever GW even so much as thinks about releasing content that isn't geared towards tournament play. I have never seen that even once. I play Blood Bowl, I play 40K (regrettably), I play 30K, and I am getting started playing AT, and I have never once seen someone upset about content that isn't geared towards perfect competitive balance. Often I've seen people upset about content that is flatly broken, which GW certainly do release all of the time (see: Night Lords RoW not allowing them to capture objectives rendering them unable to win games without completely tabling) E: Maybe twitter weirdos and people completely uncritical of GW complain about these things, I make it a policy to trawl through neither of these cess pits.
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Apr 14, 2023 19:39
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It's because people mentally deleted anything that says "narrative play."
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Apr 14, 2023 19:42
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I want games to be competitive because I want to be able to walk into my games club with an opponent, put my army down, and play without having to adjucate or rule or ban anything on my own terms. The designers at games workshop are paid to make the game functional, playable and fun, and I'm not.
The Deleter fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Apr 14, 2023 |
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Apr 14, 2023 19:43
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Now arguably if you view the balance update pdfs that happen on a regular basis as an admission of failure, and not an attempt to manage how people push at the design limits of their game, then you could argue that they aren't successful. And then we can sit down and have a long long discussion about the nature of what Balance is and whether it's a thing to strive for or an absolute state of game design or whatever.
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Apr 14, 2023 19:53
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I would merely make an AT Knight Household force because it seems funny and I really only like the Warlord Titan's design. Balance is for nerds.
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Apr 14, 2023 20:27
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I'd never play AT because the Horus Heresy is for losers.
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Apr 14, 2023 20:35
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Of course balance is something that is needed in a game to keep it engaging and fun, I think most people agree with that. I do think that part of the problem is that there can be flavorful rules and units that used in moderation add a lot of character and fun to the armies, but have a potential for abuse. Many people are ok with that because the Army composition is an extension of their hobby and creative process. People spend a lot of time preparing, assembling, painting, converting, etc... that the game can be secondary to the hobby, or just part of it in general. Then there are players who don't paint their models and just want to play the game, which is valid, but see the rules and army lists as a challenge to exploit in order to make the most powerful army. That is fine too, as long as everyone is on board. The trouble is you might not have a situation in which everyone is on board, such as playing a pick up game. That being said I have never in my life played a pickup game, and I cannot fathom driving 3 hours with all my miniatures to go to a random game store to maybe get a game that is potentially enjoyable. So all my games are with a relatively more catered audience and we are all on the same page about having fun. So for us a lot of the fun is the non competitive aspects, the growing an army/crusade style stuff. The long campaigns with the familiar characters that might not be the best choice from a gameplay standpoint, but we take anyway because it fits the story we are telling. So sometimes when they say the focus is going to be on competitive army matchups it can feel like people who are interested in odd rules, potentially sub-optimal wacky strategies, etc... might be getting sidelined.
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Apr 14, 2023 20:35
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The Deleter posted:I want games to be competitive because I want to be able to walk into my games club with an opponent, put my army down, and play without having to adjucate or rule or ban anything on my own terms. The designers at games workshop are paid to make the game functional, playable and fun, and I'm not. Exactly this! I am happy to play narrative games that are lopsided and heavily Arbitrated/games mastered, like Necromunda, with some of my friends. I also go to tournaments for Infinity where everyone is onboard with a competitive mindset and the game is played completely RAW with up to date FAQs etc. With my oldest warhammer-playing friends, although we are a long way from any competitive meta and will only play against each other in a garage setting (often we just get chatting and don't finish a game before it's time to wind up the night) we still want the games to be fair. We don't want to spend time discussing the balance and testing/adjusting, we want to turn up and play each other, and have an even game.
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Apr 14, 2023 20:36
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I'll take a step back and clarify that I absolutely understand how a more curated experience that Necromunda etc is appealing (I nearly bought a Delaque gang), and I also get there's so many different ways for people to interact with the game/hobby. Honestly the people that just paint these models and never play a game are probably getting more out of it than I am! I also don't want the flavourful rules like the Tides of Death, Ork Waaagh stuff, etc to be completely shaved off. It's part of the reason why I can't get OnePageRules to take off at my club - there's no immediate mechanical "juice" to it on the same level.IncredibleIgloo posted:That being said I have never in my life played a pickup game, and I cannot fathom driving 3 hours with all my miniatures to go to a random game store to maybe get a game that is potentially enjoyable. So all my games are with a relatively more catered audience and we are all on the same page about having fun. So for us a lot of the fun is the non competitive aspects, the growing an army/crusade style stuff. The long campaigns with the familiar characters that might not be the best choice from a gameplay standpoint, but we take anyway because it fits the story we are telling. So I have a regular games club, and what usually happens is I go "Who's up for X points of AOS" and someone will go "yeah, me" and then we turn up and play. So it's not like I'm facing off against a stranger. But I play Deepkin and my other players play Nighthaunt, various flavours of Chaos, and Stormcast, and the experience can vary a little. Nobody's ever really been up for Path to Glory or anything like that - we basically just play. We do play goofier games, like four way fights (where my Akhleian King beat Sigvald to death in one turn), but we just push out the default and the balance stuff helps us in that regard. Our Kruleboyz player is now very happy he doesn't have to roll to see if Skare Taktikz goes off anymore! I dunno if I have a greater point other than to just elaborate where I'm coming from with this.
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Apr 14, 2023 21:00
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I always look a bit askance at balance discussions with respect to GW games because GW is operating at a order of magnitude remove from most game studios balance-wise. Balance that would be bad enough to single-handedly kill off an indie game is handwaved as the baseline for GW, and when the balance gets worse than that, as it often does, the most common reaction is a shrug. GW games are very British not just in terms of their nation of origin but in the sense that the audience accepts a truly insane level of dysfunction without raising much of a fuss.
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Apr 14, 2023 21:03
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moths posted:It's because people mentally deleted anything that says "narrative play."
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Apr 14, 2023 21:16
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In may darker days I sometimes think that GW didn't walk away from "we're a minis company first and foremost" and all the jewel-like objects of wonder crap, they just learnt to shut up about it. I'll also say that there's only a handful of GW games I'd call "actively dysfunctional", but that's not a high bar to clear. Talas posted:Path to Glory campaigns are some of the most fun things I've done in AoS. People are missing out if they dismiss them. Looking at the incredibly anemic Path to Glory section of my Deepkin book and shrugging.
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Apr 14, 2023 21:16
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I think that the games have shown improvement, overall, over their various iterations. I think 9th edition 40k is really pretty good for 40k, and AoS 3 is really good as well. There are some peaks and valleys, some concepts wax and wane, but overall I see improvement over time for both spaces. I do think that their decision to reduce playtesting is odd, and the quick changes of editions don't allow a lot of time for things to settle and be looked at objectively. I do have to think they are still a minis focused company, and sometimes the rules reflect that. Power creep can be an issue, and power creep mostly appears in new army books and coincidently have new model ranges, so perhaps it is not a problem for the company, and a problem for the game designers to fix down the road. Leagues of Votann in 40k were a pretty egregious example of hot rules to sell an army that were fairly unbalanced. I mean, unbalanced enough that the entire codex was pretty much errated out before it shipped.
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Apr 14, 2023 21:25
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The Deleter posted:I'd never play AT because the Horus Heresy is for losers. I wanna try AT because managing reactors and shields sounds fun. Shooting guns? Meh
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Apr 14, 2023 21:31
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DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:I always look a bit askance at balance discussions with respect to GW games because GW is operating at a order of magnitude remove from most game studios balance-wise. Balance that would be bad enough to single-handedly kill off an indie game is handwaved as the baseline for GW, and when the balance gets worse than that, as it often does, the most common reaction is a shrug. GW games are very British not just in terms of their nation of origin but in the sense that the audience accepts a truly insane level of dysfunction without raising much of a fuss. This may have been true ten years ago but right now the balance is pretty good in both AOS and 40k. Probably about as good as can reasonably be expected of games with dozens of wildly assymetric factions. That is inter-faction balance, mind you. Every faction stíll had plenty of trash units, because most factions are just too big to give every unit a role.
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Apr 14, 2023 22:36
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Geisladisk posted:This may have been true ten years ago but right now the balance is pretty good in both AOS and 40k. Probably about as good as can reasonably be expected of games with dozens of wildly assymetric factions. It is still true relative to basically any other miniature wargame bigger than someone’s basement hobby. GW games always have two big advantages: 1) the best models in the industry 2) huge fan base means you can always get a game in Play MCP or Malifaux or even Conquest and you’ll find balance is infinitely better. Those companies have to deliver a much more finely balance-tuned experience or they just die. I do like GW games, I play ‘em, but when I want a competitive experience I play Malifaux.
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Apr 14, 2023 22:55
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I really, really like Malifaux as well. The game is a lot more well crafted, their factions are interesting and distinct, and their lore looks like it was written purposefully and not haphazardly boxing themselves into a corner. I really recommend everyone give it a try. I think their models are ok, but not as good as Warcry/AoS though.
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Apr 14, 2023 23:04
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I've always wanted to try it but getting it here in the UK is a bit of a mare, and I'd need two boxes to demo the game with.
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Apr 14, 2023 23:09
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The Deleter posted:I've always wanted to try it but getting it here in the UK is a bit of a mare, and I'd need two boxes to demo the game with. The rules are all free so you could proxy a game easily to see if would be of any interest. It has really different dynamics. No dice, everything is card draw related, unit synergy is much more important and kind of the theme of the game and armies.
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Apr 14, 2023 23:15
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IncredibleIgloo posted:I really, really like Malifaux as well. The game is a lot more well crafted, their factions are interesting and distinct, and their lore looks like it was written purposefully and not haphazardly boxing themselves into a corner. I really recommend everyone give it a try. I think their models are ok, but not as good as Warcry/AoS though. I honestly found Malifaux models a nightmare to put together and was really turned off.
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Apr 15, 2023 02:54
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It's me, I'm the person who is unreasonably hyped by square bases in formation and don't care if TOW is literally just old plastic kits with different bases in the box. The tomb kings and dark elves plastics were just about perfect anyway.
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Apr 15, 2023 03:01
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Dawgstar posted:I honestly found Malifaux models a nightmare to put together and was really turned off. They’ve gotten better about that, but depending on the faction, you’ll still find models from this edition where you have to glue a single needle onto their finger. Or a flower on a model’s head, where the correct position is just a slight divot, no slot or real keying to align it correctly. (Surprise, they’re both the same model…)
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Apr 15, 2023 03:07
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moths posted:The new base size is 100% to accommodate AoS models in sabot bases. This is probably it, especially since the other way around doesn't work. If you really want to read into it, GW is okay with you playing TOW with AoS models (especially at the start to get the ball rolling like with KT), but doesn't want you playing AoS with your Bretonnians. If you want that portability, you'll have to fork out for round bases and sabots for your Old World models.
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Apr 15, 2023 03:24
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I mean I *like* competitive Warhammer in spite of it being an unbalanced mess, and the AoS community in particular is a much better crowd than 40k (in my experience). Malifaux is a much better game in terms of both balance and depth / complexity of play, but you are simply not gonna find a miniature game that isn't from GW being played here. Every once in a while people try to start up a Malifaux league or run some historicals and it always dies out because it's never more than 2 or 3 people that are willing to branch out into a whole other mini ecosystem.
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Apr 15, 2023 03:34
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Ho boy I come back to surpraising number of posts in aos thread and it turns out its some tow garbage. Anyway malifaux is a good game and its better than most of its competition (not just gw) tho as far as balance goes I do remember unplayable masters (looking at you rasputina). Conquest that got mentioned earlier has one thing that is going for it and its minis because rules and background are big nah.
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Apr 15, 2023 08:10
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