What do we think about the lack of releases for AoS?

[Chikout]

I wanted to clarify my point from earlier. 

The first is to be clear that I am frustrated but not angry. The kharadron release was amazing. It took my expectations and blew them out of the water. 

Since the kharadron first appeared it has been hinted that Aelves are next, whether it is the hints in the previous books, the art or the rumour engine pics. When the Ko were revealed before the adepticon event, many people thought they were clearing the way for a reveal of Aelves.

When it turned out, perhaps unsurprisingly, to be a very 40k event, I was a little disappointed.

Then the April reveal of Ko turned out to be mostly may. I had my own personal disappointment with the ironclad I ordered direct from GW arriving six weeks late. 

I thought then, not to worry,  there are still at least six weeks until 8th, plenty of time to fit in one more battletome. 

Now here we are at the end of July with the next battletome nowhere in sight. Meanwhile GW have announced the first 4 codexes and promised 6 more by Christmas.

It isn't so much the lack of releases as the lack of info that troubles me.

Even with the recent Ghb2 announcement I do not know why they cannot commit to an exact date. The white dwarf covering Ghb2 was finished two months ago so it is clear that they have settled on a date already. Why not share it with the customers? If someone with marketing knowledge could explain it to me I would be happy to eat my words. 

GW have improved in this regard in recent times. The info about upcoming 40k codexes is a good example of this but I believe there is still a way to go.

I was delighted to see gorechosen being previewed well in advance of its release date. The early previews of bloodbowl did not hurt it's sales at all. I would love it if this was the rule rather than the exception. 

As it stands, I am constantly thinking maybe I will get shadow Aelves next month and every month they don't come is a further disappointment. If they came out and said the next battletome is coming in October I would be much happier. 

[stato]

I do worry a lot of you seem to think your old whfb models will get a fancy new tome.  If you look at the factions that have received updates the majority use a very restricted number of kits, typically 4 plus a few legacy characters, the focus is much more on new factions. Look at the rumours for Aelves, certainly doesnt look like they match what Aelf models are available now, very high probability it will be an entirely new faction like Fyreslayers and Kharadron. Maybe death will fare better when (if) it gets a tome as skeletons or Malignants surely must feature, but id wager there will be significant anger at existing x/y units being excluded.

[EMMachine]

15 hours ago, Greasygeek said:

I understand that GW will put almost all attention in 40K for now but lots of factions need battletomes and small updates. I find it hard to understand how this is not prioritized before releasing a bunch of codexes. New 40K have just been released as for AOS it needs time to settle in on people. Releasing so many codexes seem weird. Just look at how many AOS tomes and books that have dropped in value all ready, due to not containing points, abilities and basically just because they were released before anyone found out how they wanted AOS to play out.

And now they are about to make that same mistake again?! Statistics clearly show that shooter armies win games but far from all factions have options to deploy effective shooting or counter shooting. We really need some battletomes containing command traits, spells and artifacts at the very least. 

There are some phases in the history of AoS where I can see what you mean

One points was july 2016. When my data is correct we got 5 books in that month. Sylvaneth, Bonesplitterz, Dominion of Chaos, Beastclaw Raiders and the Generals Handbook. One point is, why didn't these books Matched Play points? They had Allegiance Abilities. In the other way you could say, that it wasn't the best idea putting pitched battle lists into battletomes. Why?

1. Because you need the rules of the Generals Handbook to use the points, while Allegiance Abilities have rules posted in every Battletome.
2. Because you get some dead weight in your battletome when the pointvalues are changed. We see this with the old generals handbook when the second Stormcast Eternals battletome came out and we will have the same case when the new Generals Handbook comes. In 40k they already use the way, that they make downloadable pdfs for new models.
3. In case of the App, you had to buy every battletome that had pointsvalues, while you had all points first when you bought the generals Handbook in the app.

We also see the point in Path to Glory. First it was Chaos only, than they made the rules for the Generals Handbook but didn't include all army (not even all with a battletome). In Desciples of Tzeentch they started putting those lists for Path to Glory into the Battletomes. And now, 6 months after that they made the Path to Glory book, but changed the lists that much, that the lists which are printed into the battletome are outdated allready

We also had the missstab with the Grand Alliance Book destruction, that hasn't any Warscroll Battalions in it, so 10 sides of lore for all included factions is everything you got except for Warscrolls you could download for free.

And both the cases of Stormcast Eternals and Khorne feels a little rushed to me.

I read the first battletome of Stormcast Eternals and its background is just a recap what happend in the first two books of the Realmgate Wars (don't know, if bloodbound has the same problem) instead of making stories for that book that played in that time but wasn't printed in another book (we saw this working in the Stormcast Eternals Extremis Battletome where whey wrote the first Battle of Lord Celestant Imperius, that was mentioned in the character description of Imperius in Godbeasts? but written out in the battletome) and the second book has the problem that they brought out special characters about two month later, that had to include into Battalions by exceptional handling (even worst in the case of Khorgos Khul with Aqshy's Bane).

These are cases where I think we can see flaws in planning, where it could worked better if GW has waited longer with publishing or making pdfs instead of printing them (Pointvalues, Lists for Path to Glory)

On the other side and this is what bothers the most here, is the missplanning in case of splitting up the factions.

GW splitted the factions, partly to give them a theme or perhaps for balancing reasons with buffs. But some of these have this feeling that they are unfinished or merged together in a strange way. someone2040 made a good post in his blog with the name What's in Aesthetics in case of the High Aelves and Dark  Aelves faction.

GW made unfinished factions and left them in that state, while they made battletomes for new factions and for some old where models only got repacked with round bases (and some of them were already printed in this way in campaign books or a Grand Alliance Book).

Here GW could have planed better, too.

[Tzaangor Management]

@EMMachine, I think those are some interesting points, but I would look at them in a more positive manner, in that they show a degree of adaptability and flexibility not previously seen in GW's approach. While I agree that there could be more polish to some of the earlier releases, those we are seeing now are of higher quality and I think that this is in part due to the feedback from the community and a willingness on GW's part to listen to it.

They have absolutely not got everything right and I do think they could be accused of bad planning, or pushing half finished ideas to market in some cases, but I think a large part of it comes from the discrepancy between their vision for the game and the vision that much of the community had for it.

The solutions that we've seen have not always been bang on the money first time, but they have incrementally improved and an overhaul of the Grand Alliance system promised in GHB 2017 could very well provide an answer, or at least the beginning of one, to the problems of small incomplete factions.

 

[AverageBoss]

9 hours ago, Chikout said:

I wanted to clarify my point from earlier. 

The first is to be clear that I am frustrated but not angry. The kharadron release was amazing. It took my expectations and blew them out of the water. 

Since the kharadron first appeared it has been hinted that Aelves are next, whether it is the hints in the previous books, the art or the rumour engine pics. When the Ko were revealed before the adepticon event, many people thought they were clearing the way for a reveal of Aelves.

When it turned out, perhaps unsurprisingly, to be a very 40k event, I was a little disappointed.

Then the April reveal of Ko turned out to be mostly may. I had my own personal disappointment with the ironclad I ordered direct from GW arriving six weeks late. 

I thought then, not to worry,  there are still at least six weeks until 8th, plenty of time to fit in one more battletome. 

Now here we are at the end of July with the next battletome nowhere in sight. Meanwhile GW have announced the first 4 codexes and promised 6 more by Christmas.

It isn't so much the lack of releases as the lack of info that troubles me.

Even with the recent Ghb2 announcement I do not know why they cannot commit to an exact date. The white dwarf covering Ghb2 was finished two months ago so it is clear that they have settled on a date already. Why not share it with the customers? If someone with marketing knowledge could explain it to me I would be happy to eat my words. 

GW have improved in this regard in recent times. The info about upcoming 40k codexes is a good example of this but I believe there is still a way to go.

I was delighted to see gorechosen being previewed well in advance of its release date. The early previews of bloodbowl did not hurt it's sales at all. I would love it if this was the rule rather than the exception. 

As it stands, I am constantly thinking maybe I will get shadow Aelves next month and every month they don't come is a further disappointment. If they came out and said the next battletome is coming in October I would be much happier. 

They might have settled on a date in mind, by things happen, so its best to keep things vague until as close to release as possible.

GF9 has had alot of trouble in the past year with this over Star Trek Ascendancy. They announced expansions would be out August/September last year. The initial run turned out to be sloppily made by the printing company they hired. Then their lead designer died. Then they missed shipping for Chinese New Year. Then the shipping company they used went out of business, with the product still on the boat, and has been locked in a harbor ever since. They had to start over from scratch. 1 year later and these expansions are still not out and it has cost them alot of business and garnered many (justifiably) angry customers.

Even other mediums a vague. Video game companies often list release dates (even of ports) as just a month or quarter, getting more accurate the closer to release.

[wayniac]

On 7/24/2017 at 1:43 PM, chord said:

It feels like they only have one team.  So for awhile they work on AOS, then while that is getting manufactured and rolled out they are working on 40K,  then back to AOS, etc.

Why not do every other month, or every two months,  AOS, 40K, AOS, 40K. This keeps interest high in both.

GW does only have one team.  Their design team is like 5 people, it's woefully small for a company their size (should be at least 4 people per game, and then maybe 1-2 people working on the board game things).  that's always been their issue, they have a small group and constantly shift focus between their games.

Largely, I think GHB2017 is going to make or break AOS.  If it's good (and it looks to be!), shores up a lot of the weak points of the system, brings the older factions more in line with the newer ones, I think we can deal for a few more months until the new things come out.

[chord]

1 minute ago, wayniac said:

GW does only have one team.  Their design team is like 5 people, it's woefully small for a company their size (should be at least 4 people per game, and then maybe 1-2 people working on the board game things).  that's always been their issue, they have a small group and constantly shift focus between their games.

That is a huge problem if true.  Agreed it should be a couple per game.  

[wayniac]

Just now, chord said:

That is a huge problem if true.  Agreed it should be a couple per game.  

It's been an issue since the dawn of time.  Even back in 2nd and 3rd edition, their design team wasn't very large and was responsible for both games, hence why you saw alternating releases; because one month they'd be focused on 40k, the next on WHFB, etc.  Specialist Games were handled by like 1 person of the team mainly who grabbed the others to test things.

Ultimately I think part of the overall issue is that GW has come out with some interesting things:  Skirmish and Path to Glory, but the fact remains that a lot of (dare I say the majority) of gamers don't want that stuff, as it's open/narrative play.  They want rules suitable for tournaments and competitive gaming (while yes, Skirmish does have a page of matched play stuff, it's not really made for that), so anything that isn't a new battletome or new models is going to be met with a very lackluster response because it's not catering to the competitive mindset that pervades Warhammer (which I won't get into my thoughts on this).

[chord]

1 minute ago, wayniac said:

It's been an issue since the dawn of time.  Even back in 2nd and 3rd edition, their design team wasn't very large and was responsible for both games, hence why you saw alternating releases; because one month they'd be focused on 40k, the next on WHFB, etc.  Specialist Games were handled by like 1 person of the team mainly who grabbed the others to test things.

Ultimately I think part of the overall issue is that GW has come out with some interesting things:  Skirmish and Path to Glory, but the fact remains that a lot of (dare I say the majority) of gamers don't want that stuff, as it's open/narrative play.  They want rules suitable for tournaments and competitive gaming (while yes, Skirmish does have a page of matched play stuff, it's not really made for that), so anything that isn't a new battletome or new models is going to be met with a very lackluster response because it's not catering to the competitive mindset that pervades Warhammer (which I won't get into my thoughts on this).

I prefer narrative play.  I picked up skirmish but felt the quality was low, and have never been interested in path for glory.  

My kingdom for new Campaign books!

[chord]

22 minutes ago, Auticus said:

I'm working on Azyr Empires 2nd edition  

Cool.   Unluckily for you my kingdom has lots of loan debt as part of it