Would you like GW to focus on new factions, or help old factions?

[Enoby]

While it's certainly not a case that GW can't release new factions and bring old factions up to scratch at the same time, focusing on one does bring attention away from the other. I was recently discussing this with my brother, and we thought it'd be awesome if GW did something similar to what it did in 40k - that is, release battletomes like they're being fired from an avenging gatling cannon. If they did this, I doubt they would have the manpower to release many new models alongside especially as AoS has so many subfactions (I'm not sure that even GW knows what to do with all of them). 

What do you guys think? Would you like GW to put a lot of focus on rapidly releasing fully fledged battletomes for the older factions (I'd assume that includes things like Seraphon and Ironjawz too) or would you prefer they keep at the current pace (lots of new models and some new factions, but a slow battletome release schedule compared to 40k)?

[Overread]

I'd personally prefer GW to shift into full AOS overdrive like 40K had. I accept that 40 still needs a few codex to finish, but once Genestealers is out I'd like to see them give AoS the same treatment that 40K has had. It's not just fair its about building off the good launch that 2.0 is and strengthening their fantasy line. 40K will still sell like crazy, but Sigmar needs equal attention otherwise it will founder in time like fantasy did.

 

I will happily settle for equal volume of releases/attention too.

 

As for new VS old my personal view is that GW needs to tidy up the armies for Age of Sigmar. They need to clean up what is happening with all the little subfactions. I don't mind what they do (except if they get rid of models*) so long as they make it clear. Combine them into an allied force; release updates to make them minifactions; keep them as small groups that rely heavily on allies or are more designed to be allied into other forces etc... However htey want to do it I'd rather see them clear that up before they push for more new armies.

 

Of course some new armies might clear up some of the minor groups into themselves. I was surprised that GW didn't do this for Idoneth and have the Scourge Privateers slip into their force in some form (the surface face of the Idoneth).

 

Thing is GW has given many of those little background groups some fiction - some is quite strong. Eg Shadowblades have 1 model that is finecast and unique to it and one that is shared with Daughters of Khaine; yet they are supposed to basically be the Sigmar equivalent of the Inquisition and Assassins force. So in theory quite a strong group and ripe to be fleshed out. 

 

This is thing; right now there is so much POTENTIAL on the table; almost too much. Sigmar needs attention that tells gamers what is and what isn't going to survive long term. Rules in the generals handbook are fantastic don't get me wrong, but I want to know if Shadowblades or the Phoenix group or the Dragon Knights will be around tomorrow not just today. 

 

 

So yes if GW gives us new armies and new models I won't complain, but I'd just like, if nothing else, assurance as to the future of the other factions if GW can't give them battletomes/updates yet. 

 

*Note that word models not armies/subfactions

[amysrevenge]

I think revisiting battletomes for currently in-production models would be valuable.  As much as I would like more personally, I think the GHB treatment for anything older still is about the best that can be hoped for.

It's not all one or the other - there is no two-way switch to put them either all on new stuff or all on re-hashing older stuff.  All I'm saying is that I would like to see a slightly larger spending of design (and printing) resources spent on improving the older battletomes.

[Gaz Taylor]

For me personally I would like them to concentrate on new stuff as well as go back and tweak anything that had a battletome to bring it into the new edition. 

I can't see them doing the same model they did with 40K, mainly as it's been a few years since the end of the Warhammer world and the birth of the new realms and I don't think it make sense to go back and do this when they are kind of doing it with support with the Generals Handbook. The people in the Design Studio are very talented and I would rather they put their effort into new stuff than trying to work with old stuff.

[BaldoBeardo]

Main difference is that 40k the game changed, not the setting - all each faction needed was a codex and a lipservice mini release and you're set.

In AoS, so many factions got split up, mixed or diminished, there's a *lot* of mini work needed.

So many factions need fleshing out, placed in the background properly.

I'll settle for the GA books to be replaced with LoN style tomes that allow a mixed Force without being completely neutered.  The order one could incorporate the concept of free cities.

[Tittliewinks22]

Some of the older battletomes do need some love (Kharadron, Beastclaw, Clan Pestilence, etc).

I think it would be good if they released updated allegiance abilities and such in the GHBs.

[Enoby]

44 minutes ago, Overread said:

As for new VS old my personal view is that GW needs to tidy up the armies for Age of Sigmar. They need to clean up what is happening with all the little subfactions. I don't mind what they do (except if they get rid of models*) so long as they make it clear. Combine them into an allied force; release updates to make them minifactions; keep them as small groups that rely heavily on allies or are more designed to be allied into other forces etc... However htey want to do it I'd rather see them clear that up before they push for more new armies.

I think this hits the nail on the head for me; when the GHB2017 came out with all of those allegiance abilities, and also with the message that those which were included were set to not get anything for a while, I think that some people (including myself) thought that those which were not included were set to get something soon. While this was true for LoN, Nurgle, and DoK, many other factions have received nothing. This is especially confusing when you consider the fact that Nighthaunt (a GHB army) got something, and Brayherd and Slaanesh are also rumoured to get something soon.

What does this mean for all of those armies without GHB allegiance abilities and without a battletome? Are GW unsure on what to do with them? Did they want to combine some of the missing Destruction armies into a mega faction (ala LoN)? Was there a schedule change? Are some of those factions destined for obscurity/absorption? I'd really like to know, and I think many new players may be put off/confused by this; if they really liked Greenskinz, but were unsure about the future of the faction, they may not want to start them. 

[Overread]

To be honest I think Destruction, Death and Chaos are "mostly" safe. For the most part they are only a few factions each and for chaos we know the 4 core gods are pretty much 100% safe. 

 

Order is where the real mess is because old GW broke the elves and human factions into a huge number of little bits. They took perhaps 5 or so full armies and broke them into dozens of subgroups. It's very messy on the store page to even see what fits with what and confusing to a new player. Plus many of them are only one or two model kits. Players have no idea if they will be fleshed out or retired or absorbed. 

Plus they've added to this list. There are at least 3 new Aelf factions - Idonth, the "Dark aelves" and the "Angel aelves" (latter two still to come) who, if they follow Idoneth, will be full faction releases - ergo big fully fleshed out armies. So right now it seems set to increase the confusion.

 

 

Long term prognosis is also confusing; GW can keep a lot up in the air but even half factions like Daughters of Khaine - there is no real idea if or when GW will ever have time to add new things for that faction. Granted the ally system means that in theory they can at least draft in new models from outside; but that is going to be a long thorn in fans of specific factions come 5 years time when their faction (or factions) have had nothing "new" *

 

40K is also looking like it will suffer from this, esp as GW appears dead set on releasing a billion different Space marine chapters in full. Now granted 40K's other issue is that most of the armies are quite well fleshed out now; even Necrons have quite a wide variety of units to choose from. So chances are in the future updates might be less numerous and more focused on heroes or new sculpts of existing models. 

 

 

*Note by new I don't always mean new models, but also re-sculpts of older ones. 

[Black Waltz]

Keep on pumping out the new factions I say. They help AoS distance itself from fantasy archetypes and find it's own niche in a pretty crowded fantasy market, not to mention how much they energise the fanbase. It also gives GW a chance to mix up the play styles and move away from big blocks of spear wielding infantry.

The older armies should be an easy enough fix; as many others have stated a free cities style book could roll in the various order subfactions easily while preventing the allies system being too heavily exploited. Plus there's nothing stopping destruction and Chaos getting similar books (switch "Free Cities" for "Wandering tribes of Destruction" and "Hordes of Chaos") with the same blend of flavour and focus while tossing existing factions a bone.

[adreal]

A update of the grand alliance books like legions of nagash maybe with abit more of a racial focus (greenskin hordes, aelves of the realms, mountain duardin, free cites, oogor tribes, slaves to darkness). That way older gamers have thier random fantasy stuff all taken care of, the older battletomes could be fixed up then. And after all of that, then do some new races with new model lines.

 

One thing though,  if a unit is included in a battletome, make sure you can atleast buy the model on the website (looking at you swifthawk agents)

[NurglesFirstChosen]

Concentrate on the creation of new factions. The deepkin/dok are amazing concepts n design, and I look forward to seeing what is done to the rest of the aelven race. I feel the same about the duardin, the KOs especially are awesome. I love how the possibilities are endless, and tbh I think the Tolkien inspired fantasy stuff is massively uncreative. Please note that I do adore Tolkien’s novels, and old world lore, but the newer factions are so goddam cool, so it’d be a shame not to forcus on moving forward. Bigger, more creative, basically turning it up to 11. 

[Vhordrai]

I don't think it's ok to just leave parts of your range missing/ incomplete or outdated to the point of no longer being a viable option.  I'd like to see a free cities battletome to clean up Order once and for all,  as well as update factions like Slaves to Darkness before finally moving forward and turning new factions up to 11.

[kenshin620]

2 hours ago, Black Waltz said:

find it's own niche in a pretty crowded fantasy market

What Crowded Fantasy Market?

The 2nd most popular Fantasy wargame is probably Warmachine/Hordes. Which is NOT traditional fantasy. Malifaux isn't that either. The closest thing I can think of is Games Workshop's own Lord of the Rings game, and thats a completely different scale (25mm).

Heck most "traditional" fantasy miniatures are either old metal models created by old british guys (thats not an insult!) , single models used for RPGs, or Warhammer proxies (well in fairness, Mantic is trying to do its own thing, that and appeal to 9th Age players).

I mean if I missed a Mass Combat 28mm-32mm Traditional Fantasy Wargame thats Popular, let me know.

 

Anyways I'd unfortunately kiss some models goodbye eventually, like Lion Rangers. I mean if they had the ability to create books like Firestorm, Malign Portents, Malign Sorcery, etc, then surely it would have been not hard to make...oh I don't know A PROPER SKAVEN BOOK! ?

[TheMuphinMan]

Personally I like the idea of "vanilla" fantasy factions getting fleshed out with some spice thrown in.

For example,  DoK seems pretty vanilla for a bulk of the army. You have blood crazed fanatics (witch aelves/sisters of slaughters) led by cult leaders (slaughter/hag queens) who are sometimes on warshrines (cauldron). Those units provide a nice base for the army and also provide contrast to make the spice (snakes and bird ladies) of the army pop more. If there was an WFB Deepkin faction that consisted of the namarti and some of the more vanilla heroes, the rest of the range would be the exact treatment most of the mini-factions need to appease both groups. Give them their equivalents of giant snake ladies and flying turtles to let people both feel "hey my Order Draconis units I spent hours painting are finally going to hit the table" and "I have epic-fantasy half-dragon aelves as my elite troops" at the same time

[Olincay]

[Vasshpit]

Probably unpopular opinion here but id of like to of seen GW completely wipe the slate clean when AoS launched and started from scratch. (AKA: the ashes of the old world.)

It would of been pretty ballsy but it also would of let them focus entirely on creating this wonderful new setting instead of being forced to find wsys of shoehorning in older relics, so to speak.

So, my opinion is all new. 

[Vasshpit]

-Double post-

[Gryphon]

I would like GW to focus on old factions.  Here's why:  I feel with the advent of each new codex for 8th edition there has been a slow power creep (ala every edition that appeared before) so much that they out perform other factions.   Not every faction mind you, but a good number of them.  I would love to see the Iron Hands be revisited and given named and stat-ed characters, improved Feel No Pain (since 6+ in this edition is even more useless in 8th than it was in 7th Ed.) and a new Clan Raukaan book allowing dreads to be both elite and heavy choices.

---

[froo]

I think they should do two things.

I do think they need to do their big release factions with battletomes, refreshing ranges and all the marketing stuff that goes with that. New toys are always a good thing for a company that makes money selling those to people.

I also think that they might need to set up a smaller team that perhaps takes a look over the current stuff to see if anything needs to be changed, even if it's only updating the older warscrolls to the newer layout format and consistent wording. They have a huge depth of materials that already exists that is seemingly being ignored in favour of the new shinies. That's great for selling new toys, but what about the people who might be interested in purchasing stuff from existing ranges?

As much as I would love to see some love for some of the stuff I'm interested in, I think that at least I'd like to see the supporting materials standardised with the FAQ changes added in for those units that have seen those.

[angrycontra]

What I'd like is that GW would spend good year improving pre-existing factions (and release proper skaven book) with the help of few new models and new battletomes. One of the reasons I didn't like the stormcast side of the soul wars was because most of the new stuff for SCE was so redundant and pointless. Did SCE really need new battleline infantry? Did they need new shooter unit? Was it really necessary to make bazillion variants of their lord-arcanum? Did they really need both mounted and footed evocators? What is lord-exorcist's purpose? They could have made minimal SCE releases (war machine, evocators (1 variant) and wizards (knight + 1 lord-arcanum)) and made tons of models for pre-existing line-up for other factions. Take fyreslayers for example: with but 2 new kits, 2 NEW KITS, they could become much more cooler and wholer as a faction (these kits being "baby" magmadroth cavalry/chariots and some kind of magma golems (that could carry cannons as an option to give fyreslayers artillery unit) maybe extra third kit like Gotrek special character). Same for ironjawz, bcr, sylvaneth, bonesplitterz, fec, etc. etc.

[Greyshadow]

Interesting question, right now I am painting up some new units for my Freeguild army. I would love a Freeguild book more than a new army if I am honest. That said those Kharadron Overlords are calling me - I am finding them hard to resist. So I think a bit of both, even though it might slow things down a bit (which would be fine by me).

[Nixon]

This is a hard question to answer. One is good for me the other is good for the game. What I mean is, of course I what a new battletome for my army even if it got one recently and I also want  new and exiting moldels. I would love the design team to spend all there time on my army of choice.

That just would not evolve the game and the setting as a whole.

I would like GW to give all factions the AOS treatment before returning to updated ones.

[stato]

6 hours ago, Vhordrai said:

I don't think it's ok to just leave parts of your range missing/ incomplete or outdated to the point of no longer being a viable option.  

It’s perfectly ok to do that.  Not everything needs to be able to field a 2000pt army. The game exists at 500/750pt for a lot of people. These factions exist fine as allies. They exist fine as part of a mixed order force. 

GW works on multiples of years if not decade long plan of releases.  Not everything needs to be done ‘right now’. 

People constantly obsess over the untidiness of Order, but look at it this way, if they release a ‘Free people’s’ Book and people collect that army then GW now only have 2 choice. Leave them alone other than very long term refresh, or tear it apart and ****** everyone off when they want to release a new army with some part of what they grouped together ‘because people didn’t want it untidy’.  

Im always surprised Death players are happy about the new Legion battletome, because that has essentially sealed that entire allegiance up now, other than another new faction. Death don’t look like they will be getting anything for  a good long while. 

[Enoby]

5 minutes ago, stato said:

Im always surprised Death players are happy about the new Legion battletome, because that has essentially sealed that entire allegiance up now, other than another new faction. Death don’t look like they will be getting anything for  a good long while.

Wasn't Nighthaunt included as a subsection in that book? If so, doesn't that mean Soulblight (and other subfactions) are able to be expanded upon?

[JackStreicher]

Imo combining some splitted faction with a BT like LoN is a must (looking at you Beastmen and Dark Elves).

apart from that I love new Factions which can also mean adding new Units to old Factions (DoK as example).

Most importantly: Bring TK and Bretonnians back. Bret’s can be reimagined with some even having survived the old world due to a holy relic (the grail), change the snake to Knights of the burning Lilly, male Aborash their leader and place them in Ulgu.

bring TK as allies for LoN. (Heck they even appear in the Nagash Novel)