The big step into 8th edition 40k

[WoollyMammoth]

We've all been bombarded with the 40k hype for weeks. With all the similarities to AoS, it seems like they are trying to get everyone on board with this the new edition of 40k. I find myself looking at the awesome new releases, and its hard not to get drawn in.

Many of us, for one reason or another, choose to focus only on AoS. A lot of the reasons against this are seemingly going away; there is no reason to debate rules for hours, and (hopefully) you can be more competitive with fun lists rather than having to copy netlists and stack the most powerful models only, having to ignore 90% of the model range.

But already I can see, its not without its problems. Instead of giving you a free set of core rules, you have to buy the $60 tome. Instead of having the model rules free online or in an app, you have to buy them in $25 books. Most likely the just know that they have a big enough fan base and they can get money out of it, so why throw away some profits? Because they have already set the precedent, that's why.  Going from a $0 price of entry to a $85 between game systems makes me feel like this "new" games workshop is relapsing back to their old ways. 

The big new thing they did was to put the rulebook in the box set. Giving us a "free" rule book - how awesome, right? Well, most people don't care about buying the books - because its 2017. You can borrow a friends book to learn the rules. Or you can take it a step further and take ultra HQ pics on your smartphone, then organize them into a PDF.  Or, of course, you can simply get them from someone else who did that. Even so, you can buy a discount version for your phone/tablet which is just as convenient for most people today. So when you add all that up, you get poor book sales.

Now, if you want to split the box online to sell to people who obviously only want one side of the box, you are stuck with this $60 value book you cant sell, and therefore you are likely to lose money. Seems GW is looking for ways to kill the eBay market. Now you have books essentially worth nothing and so the $50 value half-box goes up to $80 value half boxes. Its still an awesome deal but its really sticking a fork in the super discount entry to the game. At AoS launch I bought all the stormcast for $50. This is why almost every AoS player has some stormcast or Bloodbound, and it really drives the hobby. Same thing with Skaven, I got my 120 slaves for under $60 thanks to IoB. Now I have like 8k points of skaven and a very large stormcast collection with most of everything they released. Its a great entry point, not sure why they want to mess with this.

Next, most people are going to have to solve complex math equations in order to put their lists together. At first glance it seems simple, of course you have to add on the cost of that extra plasma gun upgrade you give to one of your models. But do you really have to add up the cost of a blight drone by adding its base cost with the cost of its mandatory and unique 2x Plagesplitters and Plague Probe? Yes .... you do. Making lists is a lengthy endeavor, so be prepared to take out your note book and calculator and clear your Saturday schedule. They will likely come out with tools to solve this problem, but it really was a problem that they could have easily just not created when designing this new edition. 

Next we have point balance. I haven't gone looking around a lot, so its scary what I'm finding at first glance. For example, a Lord of Contagion is (don't forget to pay for his mandatory unique Plaguereaper!) 184 points. Typhus, who has the same exact profile - including all of the same keywords and special abilities -164 points. 20 points cheaper with the same profile. Plus 2D6 super pistol shots. +1S on his weapon. Plus he boosts poxwalkers. plus hes a level 2 psyker.... So either there is a typo in the book, or there is basically no reason ever to take a Lord of Contagion over Typhus. Considering that the Lord of Contagion model is the main thing drawing me into 40k, this is really killing my mojo. Meanwhile Typhus is out of stock...

There is some silver lining here. The game seems pretty fun and the shooting rules are strict enough that it is unlikely some Skkyfire or Kurnoth Hunter equivalent is going to start vomiting all over the meta. Though it seems pretty inevitable that something will, but maybe there will be a good amount of time until somone finds it, or maybe GW will actually make FAQs and errata to get rid of nonsese (something we are still waiting on for AoS)

A lot of people, including myself honestly, like the additional complexity. 8 pages of rules seems more appropriate than 4 pages of rules when we are talking about an all-consuming hobby like warhammer.

So should I get the models? For sure, they are gorgeous models and you can get them for dirt cheap (until online vendors realize they are sitting on a stack of books that nobody is going to buy). But am I going to get into 40k? That is a hard sell right now. I'm not likely going to go buying boxes beyond the cheap starter models. Personally I would rather hold out for AoS hype in the form of GH2, new skeletons, new elves, or whatever comes next.  When I think about all this hype I've gotten drawn into, it makes me think about all the time and focus I could have put into working on cool AoS models. 

So how does the community feel? Are most people ready to dive in without looking back, or are there a lot of you feeling hesitation, or even overall disinterest? Are most AoS exclusives going to merge into dual-system hybrids? Is becoming an AoS player exclusively going to be a thing of the past, or is this just a fad hype that will die down in the coming months? Will the GH2 make the AoS fans forget about 40k, or is AoS going to take a big hit as large numbers of our ranks take up bolters and sink our wallets into pricey new Sci-Fi armies?

 

[Killax]

Hi, I really like AoS and think 40K will be a fine game. Not so much for overall balance, largely just because there are more players playing 40K locally (and I assume this is the case for many).

What I will do is wait and see how it all pans out, I've invested quite some time in AoS to create a well informed opinion about the game but this really costs a lot of time. So far I havnt found the reason to do this for 40K just yet, in that same vein I didn't dive into AoS just when it was released.

If you like the models, want to have a deeper rules experience and look for a game that has a solid foundation of rules and at leasts seem to aim for a balanced design from the start I think 40K will deliver. 

In regards to your many questions:

Quote

So how does the community feel?
Are most people ready to dive in without looking back, or are there a lot of you feeling hesitation, or even overall disinterest?
Are most AoS exclusives going to merge into dual-system hybrids?
Is becoming an AoS player exclusively going to be a thing of the past, or is this just a fad hype that will die down in the coming months?
Will the GH2 make the AoS fans forget about 40k, or is AoS going to take a big hit as large numbers of our ranks take up bolters and sink our wallets into pricey new Sci-Fi armies?

- I think those who played 40K before and went to AoS because of 7th will return to 40K and play AoS alongside it when it's possible.
- What we see is that 40K didn't change as much as 8th ed WFB to AoS. So I think most will dive into it regardless, there is no real feeling of hesitation because the game is different, but not turned upside down, flipped and painted differently so to say. As I follow some online communities there is a huge interest overall. 
- No, not yet at all. I think GW does play with the idea to merge the systems somewhere but will wait and see if the community will pick this up. What I expect is that AoS 3rd edition will look more like 40K and would technically allow for a blend of systems. Though this is very far in the future...
- Not really, but what we do see is that AoS is still feeling the backlash of rules that arn't written consistantly or clearly. GH tacked on a lot of stuff the game could have worked without. I hope to see that altered. 
- AoS doesn't exactly cater to the same market of 40K fans, 40K will be bigger because of this new edition but it allready was bigger. As above, previous 40K players logically will return to 40K aswell because they often allready have those armies.

[Spiky Norman]

The 280 page book, you call the rulebook, is much much more than the simple rules, though. From what I gathered, the basic 12 page rules will be available for free. The 280 page book is like the Generals Handbook (3 ways of Play etc) + 1 or more of the Realm Gate Wars books (Most of 280 pages are fluff) rolled into one book.

So even though the book has the rules, and you probably want the advanced rules from the same book, like most of us wants the additions from the GHB, it is not fair to compare the price of the book to the free 4-page PDF rules of AoS.

That said, I completely agree that they need to put out an app like AoS, and expand the (now official) scrollbuilder to work for 40k too. I honestly believe they will do one or both of those after launch. That's why I also simply see the Index books as our Grand Alliance books. They're nice to get started, but probably won't last you for years to come, as new Codexes gets put out and dataslates change.

At the end of the day, I'm diving into 8th 40k with a lot of optimism, as most everything I've seen and heard paints the picture that this may be the best version of 40k yet, even though I am certain it will have it's own set of flaws. Like AoS. :-)

[Arkiham]

3 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

But already I can see, its not without its problems. Instead of giving you a free set of core rules, you have to buy the $60 tome. Instead of having the model rules free online or in an app, you have to buy them in $25 books. Most likely the just know that they have a big enough fan base and they can get money out of it, so why throw away some profits? Because they have already set the precedent, that's why.  Going from a $0 price of entry to a $85 between game systems makes me feel like this "new" games workshop is relapsing back to their old ways.
 

The two systems are really comparable.

 

Aos was a entirely new game, they needed to get people on board, the same people whose game they just killed off (or did the community kill off the game..?)

Making the entry point free was a necessity, making the basic rules free allowed people to try it and get hooked, obviously for many this wasn't enough and desired "balance" or structure is probably a better way of saying it which they added for cost: arguably the entry into aos is £15.

The narrative.

The 40k narrative is just shifted slightly, compared to 8th edition where it was ended, (think of a popular tv series which went down hill towards the end, was ended and the spin off ended up more successful and 40k releasing a much hyped new season)

This hasn't alienated many of the player base, most of whom agree 7th edition is terrible rules wise, so you'll find many players will actually want to move on to 8th

The app for aos wasn't around on launch I believe.. and I fully expect there to be a app for 40k. Not doing so is inept on games workshops part. It's a big game with alot of rules but manageable.

I think it'll be fine, I suspect aos is self sufficient and doesn't require 40k to prop up sales for games workshop.

 

Moving forward with aos I expect all releases to be paid for, why? As the player base is there.

 

Drug dealers are great business in comparison.

if you have a new product, give them a free sample to get them into it, get them addicted then start to charge them.

they don't need to with 40k as it's already well established, and widely recognised.

[roberto]

My local gaming community is entirely 40k.  I turned to AoS because 7 ed. 40k is AWFUL.  I'm looking forward to krumpin' 'eads again with da boyz. 

[KillagoreFaceslasha]

I left 40k and dedicated myself entirely to sigmar back in early 2016. I'm considering going back but honestly my main game is going to still be Sigmar by a long shot. And I'm positive I'm not going to be the only one or one of very few.

[Sactownbri]

I'll be playing 40K. Looking forward to growing my ultramarine army. I've got models from twenty years ago through the current range, 30k and now in 40k they'll get big brothers and their Primarch. It doesn't mean I don't love fantasy. I'll never get rid of my Bretonian army. I've got a big undead army led by Nagash, and I've just started a Barak Zilfin army. GW as a whole is my game, including blood bowl, Armageddon and Skirmish, Heresy, AoS and 40K.


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[Nin Win]

You'll want way more terrain, but Age of Sigmar: Skirmish is compatible with 8th edition 40k and with all the models already have points per model and each upgrade in the index books means you don't need a renown list.  Multiply renown you get in the campaign by five.  As for 40k specific artifacts and terrain tables, either rename/reskin or wait until fan made ones come out.

[AlphaKennyThing]

8th Edition 40k is a massive breath of fresh air. I stopped playing 7th Edition because of formations spam. Same bollocks every game, just trainwrecked unless I played someone else who was running a non-formation list.

Now, my armies are viable again, and it's great. Scratches a different itch to AoS though, so playing one won't stop me playing the other, that's for sure.

There's a few battle reports up on Youtube now. Does look pretty balanced, and more importantly, a lot of fun.

[AverageBoss]

Deleted.

[Jamopower]

If it wouldn't be 40k, the rules wouldn't interest me at all, but as they are, of course they are interesting.

They seem to be bit less deep than AoS (of course I need an actual test on the table top to be sure) as the combat is simplified and there are less synergies, but on the other hand the limitation of not shooting in/out of combat opens a lot of tactics around that. Also the strength/toughness mechanism increases the rock, paper, scissors elements of the gaming. My first impression is that the army building will have much larger impact than in AoS as it's easier to tool your army to be very tough against certain armies e.g. due to availability of high toughness/wounds vehicles, which seem to be weak against hordes as they get dragged to combats they can't escape. Time will tell of course if it is so.

But yeah, I'm very interested getting in few games with my Word bearers after a long break.

[Greyshadow]

I decided years ago to dedicate my hobby time to fantasy. 8th edition is sounding awesome and I am having a hard time resisting starting a Skitari and Geanstealer cults army.

[Sleboda]

On 6/4/2017 at 2:27 AM, WoollyMammoth said:

. Now you have books essentially worth nothing 

That's a monumental leap based on bias and assumption. 

I get that you are disappointed that the core 12 pages of 40K rules are the only free rules, but you seem to be ignoring even that in order to bend things around to your argument that the old GW is coming back. 

 

Edit: Looking at more of your post, exaggeration is pervasive.  Tough to give your view consideration when there's so much ... stretching.

 

Edit 2: To answer the question it seems I gave up too soon to notice:

I preorderedthe box,  the dice, the gauge,  the cards, and the Index books.

Death Guard have me sold (Mortarion!!!!!) so I'm jumping 90% in.

[Captain Marius]

Ill be picking up where i left off with 40k and going back to splitting attention between fantasy and scifi. I havent played 40k for over a year tho ive kept on painting thru the neverending backlog.

It will be interesting to see if i retain my patience with aos. Ive given the game the benefit of the doubt with my 2 key problems of inconsistent updates (so we have 4 armies currently with proper allegiance abilities and points in the book, everything else is in varying degrees of limbo) and objectively unbalanced points (10 blood warriors with a champ costs the same as 10 blood warriors with a standard and champ equipped with goreglaive OR 3 enlightened on discs cost the same as 3 enlightened on foot OR 5 bow judicators cost the same as 5 crossbow judicators when they are far superior).

I know theyre just niggling issues but they add up and if i can escape them in 40k i just might. Hopefully GH2 will fix this tho!

[Gauche]

Being in the same meta as you @WoollyMammoth I have mixed feelings. I am going to play 40k because I don't think we have enough of a base to support a focus on AoS. It seems that AoS is going to continue the Fantasy trend, at least locally but likely abroad, of being second fiddle.

I think 40k looks like a great game, my issue is more the player differences. I'm competitive by nature but I'm always one to share what I know, help people improve (if they want to), and generally not take the game too seriously. 40k Players, in my experience over the last 10+ years, are a lot more serious and secretive. Everyone wants to keep the "broken" stuff to themselves and the competitive community feels less friendly. Again, these are just my impressions.

I wish I could focus on AoS as my primary game but it just doesn't seem to have the players.

[RuneBrush]

On 2017-6-4 at 8:27 AM, WoollyMammoth said:

But already I can see, its not without its problems. Instead of giving you a free set of core rules, you have to buy the $60 tome. Instead of having the model rules free online or in an app, you have to buy them in $25 books. Most likely the just know that they have a big enough fan base and they can get money out of it, so why throw away some profits? Because they have already set the precedent, that's why.  Going from a $0 price of entry to a $85 between game systems makes me feel like this "new" games workshop is relapsing back to their old ways. 

-- cont. --

Just to say that quite a bit of this is wrong.  The core rules are free - they're going to be available as a downloadable PDF and I would also imagine a free give away in stores too.  The 280-page rulebook contains mountains of background story, faction focus, the three way to play information, formations etc etc.  It also has the rules for the "expansions" they've released like cities of death etc.  You don't need it to play the game.

The dataslates for all of the existing model ranges will be available off the website (which will include Power points), it's only newly released models that don't have PDF dataslates - those will actually come in the model box.  You can purchase an Index book, which is roughly equivalent to our Grand Alliance books, but again for your existing models you're not going to need to.  Yes if you wish to run a Matched play game you'll need the relevant Index book, but it won't be long and those points will appear somewhere.  For the price point they're ridiculously good value - seriously they're thicker than any Codex/Army book I've ever seen and for half to a third of the price.

I was fortunate to be able to look through the contents of the box at a local gaming store this weekend and it's such good value it's beyond belief.  You get a cardboard set of the rules in addition to the rules printed in the big book, you get a mini-Codex for Death Guard and Primaris Marines and the quantity and quality of the models are the best released so far.  It's certainly a far cry from "old GW"

I also think it's too soon to comment on points, especially when comparing a named character model with a regular character model.  Most people I know are simply going to play narrative so use power points and leave matched play with the very granular point systems to the tournament players.

40k is going to have the "new big shiny" appeal factor for sure - how could it not?!  I'm sure we're going to see a lot of people jump over to give it a go and then a number simply not come back and I expect we see things quieten down a bit until AoS gets another big release such as when the Generals Handbook appears.  This could actually be a good thing - it's very easy to get used to the volume of the releases GW churn out and be sad when one week we only get two, the Dudley from Harry Potters "But last year I got 37 presents" syndrome

One thing I do see happening is people really liking the shooting character rules and sticking with 40k until AoS gets something similar.  Out of all of the rules we've seen, this is one that appears to have caused the most of discussion from AoS players (both for and against).

[KillagoreFaceslasha]

2 hours ago, Captain Marius said:

Ill be picking up where i left off with 40k and going back to splitting attention between fantasy and scifi. I havent played 40k for over a year tho ive kept on painting thru the neverending backlog.

It will be interesting to see if i retain my patience with aos. Ive given the game the benefit of the doubt with my 2 key problems of inconsistent updates (so we have 4 armies currently with proper allegiance abilities and points in the book, everything else is in varying degrees of limbo) and objectively unbalanced points (10 blood warriors with a champ costs the same as 10 blood warriors with a standard and champ equipped with goreglaive OR 3 enlightened on discs cost the same as 3 enlightened on foot OR 5 bow judicators cost the same as 5 crossbow judicators when they are far superior).

I know theyre just niggling issues but they add up and if i can escape them in 40k i just might. Hopefully GH2 will fix this tho!

I think you're kind of hitting on a nail here. I think that this nu-40k is also a sign that AoS could/some think (entirely within their right) should step up its game, increase granularity and be better defined. I THINK (and maybe hope) that GHB I was a bit like a band-aid, a hasty measure used to prepare the ground for the GHB Mk II and refine the ruleset. Some of the latter battletomes don't include the core-rules anymore, so maybe they will change them very soon (MAYBE). We will see.

[wayniac]

I think that it does kinda suck they didn't provide free downloads for unit sheets like with AOS, but it's also not unexpected given that 40k is their "cash cow" so they can get away with a lot more that prospective AOS players would hate.  Also the fact of putting the extra rules into a big $60 book instead of a cheap General's Handbook-like book.  However I also think they are going to be more conservative about what they do with 40k because they can get away with it e.g. we will probably see $50 codexes when AOS battletomes are slightly less, because 40k players will pay more.  It's crappy, but not necessarily unethical.

I do hope that AOS incorporates a lot of things from 40k; it is fairly clear the General's Handbook was a bandaid fix because AOS was "stillborn" (arguably of course, but it's almost certainly agreed that AOS was "revitalized" for the majority after the General's Handbook came out).  So I hope we see things like points per model make a comeback for more fine-grained army building.

[Captain Marius]

Whether i like the new 40k or not, gw are still gonna get 170 quid out of me just for the box and the index books. I am absolutely apprehensive about how the following codexes will render those books obsolete - not just by chucking in extra formations, stratagems and missions (thats fine) but when they hit on a new idea and subsequently change the whole direction of the game... which they always do!

[KillagoreFaceslasha]

45 minutes ago, wayniac said:

I think that it does kinda suck they didn't provide free downloads for unit sheets like with AOS, but it's also not unexpected given that 40k is their "cash cow" so they can get away with a lot more that prospective AOS players would hate.  Also the fact of putting the extra rules into a big $60 book instead of a cheap General's Handbook-like book.  However I also think they are going to be more conservative about what they do with 40k because they can get away with it e.g. we will probably see $50 codexes when AOS battletomes are slightly less, because 40k players will pay more.  It's crappy, but not necessarily unethical.

I do hope that AOS incorporates a lot of things from 40k; it is fairly clear the General's Handbook was a bandaid fix because AOS was "stillborn" (arguably of course, but it's almost certainly agreed that AOS was "revitalized" for the majority after the General's Handbook came out).  So I hope we see things like points per model make a comeback for more fine-grained army building.

Exactly. I honestly think that current points can be useful, if treated like power level. On a more competitive scene, though, it would be more recommendable to be more meticulous with the pricing.

[Sactownbri]

They seem to be bit less deep than AoS (of course I need an actual test on the table top to be sure) as the combat is simplified and there are less synergies...

I can't tell. Is this sarcasm? A joke?


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[RuneBrush]

12 hours ago, wayniac said:

I think that it does kinda suck they didn't provide free downloads for unit sheets like with AOS

Current thought is that they're going to be - yes you can read this two ways, but the suggestion is that you'll be able to play 40k with your army for free.

 

[Jamopower]

6 hours ago, Sactownbri said:

 

I can't tell. Is this sarcasm? A joke?


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Well that was my initial impression. It can change though when I have time to actually play. The reason for why I think so, are mainly two things. There are less synergies (no command abilities or batallions for example, though the stratagems can provide similar things) and the combat is simpler as charger always strike first, there are no ranges and the combat zone is smaller. The strength / toughness and no spreading of wounds to the unit brings it's own flavour, but it has bigger impact on armybuilding, which I don't enjoy so much in games. I prefer that the largest factor for winning is what you do on the tabletop, not what units you pick. The possibility to tie in shooting units is somethign I would like to have in AoS as well at some degree though. Of course the fixed initiative also gives less to worry about in the game, although I'm sure that it divides opinions. Straight determination of who has the initiative in the beginning of the game can also determine the game as well as double turn.

[Carnelian]

On 2017-6-5 at 0:39 PM, Greyshadow said:

I decided years ago to dedicate my hobby time to fantasy. 8th edition is sounding awesome and I am having a hard time resisting starting a Skitari and Geanstealer cults army.

Do it! Hail the four armed emperor! 

[daedalus81]

I'm all in.  I've played 5 games already and it's brilliant.  

I know this might burn the ears of some AoS folks, but I do hope the incorporate some of the design philosophy (not wholesale lifting of rules) here.