The End Times Vs AoS :O

[SuperHappyTime]

On 6/3/2017 at 8:32 AM, BloodTithe said:

Who here loved WHFB? 

I did, particularly the fluff. Would have loved to have had a better community to play with but, eh.

Anyone want to share their experiences of this transition? I'm sure lots of you can tell me a lot about what the end times were like as a collector/gamer  (lots of new story and models? heartbroken or pleased it ended? etc).

I did hear complaints that the 8th edition game was in a real state with its balancing. Any truth to this?

Sure!

ET:Nagash was a hit. Just to have some attention from GW was mind blowing, because we'd been about six months from Wood Elves, and the plot was finally moving forward. Looking back, it moved too quickly, and we never got the much needed update to Bretonnia.

8th was in a shody state of affairs regarding balancing. Banner of the World Dragon, HE, DE, and WoC dominated tournaments. Swedish Comp was a big deal as a balancing mechanism. 

If you were on the Warseer echo-chamber you knew about Age of Sigmar and how the End Times were going to end around the end of 2014 (that long ago, wow). Everything rumored about the game was an intense diversion from the game we were playing. Models on rounds, no more blocks, rumors of only six armies, some kind of post-ET setting.

When the last page of Archaon dropped, every one of those rumors we took as "GW couldn't possibly be this stupid to kill a Golden Goose" was confirmed. The nerdrage was epic, everyone lost their ******* mind. Half the community ran off to start their own project, The 9th Age (which screwed over Kings of War, who would have been poised to gain massively being the only fantasy block army game).

Initial opinion of the rules being unplayable garbage got shut down pretty quickly once people actually stated playing; It was the lack of points that made AoS unplayable. People came up with their own points though, and everything changed with the GHB and AoS has begun to gain in popularity since.

The Mortal Realms still have a lack of fluff compared to the Old World though, that's the real casualty in all of this. On the other hand, Total War: Warhammer is pretty awesome and if you even pretended to like the fluff you should put your money here before any new models. Honestly, we all probably would have been better off if they had just gone post-apocalyptic with the Old World instead.

[Captain Marius]

I liked the End Times but damn it was depressing. Nagash and Glottkin shook things up massively but still left room for a future. When Khaine came out (with no new models which bugged me no end!) things started to look grim. Then Thanquol arrived which brutalised half the setting and it dawned that they were really going for it. Archaon was cool with the Avengers/Incarnates, but it felt a lot like watching a bad end to a car crash. Then gw went radio silent for several months, leaving their entire wfb playerbase in limbo (also 70 pound bloodthirster put me off buying anything for more than 6 months...).

The AoS launch was a shambles, but it achieved what i believe was gws objective. It deliberately estranged the points players to the extent that we had some guy setting his dark elves on fire on youtube... The SCE and KBB limited editions never sold all their copies (this was widely documented as an indicator of the games total failure...)

But the game was fun. Non competitive players embraced it and many players jumped at the chance to create house rules for balancing, ultimately leading to the GHB and the thriving hobby aos is today. Have a look at Mongoose Matt's blog for the best promotion gw will ever get for pure aos.

In that time someone at gw also apparently discovered the power of actually talking to your customers, and the rest is history! I mean seriously compare the launch of nu 40k with AoS, with multiple daily updates... the only thing annoying me with this release is its still 2 weeks away!

Sorry for long post, you could have read an end times novel in that time (they are all fantastic and add a lot to the main narrative!)

[Menkeroth]

3 hours ago, SuperHappyTime said:

It was the lack of points that made AoS unplayable.

Of course not. 

[karch]

23 minutes ago, Menkeroth said:

Of course not. 

Exactly. Lack of points is precisely the thing that made us really look inwards and ask ourselves "are we really playing this game right?"

We play AoS as conceived and initially intended: a narrative game where you can shove your models through the table and throw some dice while drinking some beer and creating a story together.

For points-effectivity, frontage/attacks ratio and crunching numbers to get the best out of every point in your list there's 9th age (or keep playing 8th, nothing wrong with that)

AoS went so far changing everything that it doesn't really occupy the same gaming space in our heads as 8th/9th/KoW do.

 

[Menkeroth]

Agree, and that's what really matters. If you play with good people you know and who shares your interests, it's easy to create a story and decide which forces to use. After all, it's a game to be played with and not against one another.