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

[ManlyMuppet88]

I’m kinda in the middle on this. I wanna see only new factions being released but they should incorporate the old range into them - a re-branding or a re-launch, so to speak, rather than outright turfing them.

Daughters of Khaine is the perfect example,

[Aeryenn]

Selfish here: make new factions and update AoS factions in turns and completely leave leftovers like shadowblades and order draconis after giving them a LoN style battletome. Moonclan - update Fyreslayers with few new units - Darkoath - update Ironjawz - Slaanesh - update Kharadrons or Khorne. That pattern. I have zero interest in pre-AoS factions and I believe most AoS newcomers would feel the same which is good for further customer pool development. The longer it takes GW to update Fyreslayers and Ironjawz the less interest people have and will have in them in the future. On the other hand we need a constant flow of new factions so that the game feels fresh and interesting. There are at least several factions that are a MUST to be redone and created in AoS style: Skaven deserve at least 2 factions, High and Dark Elves, Grots, Vampires, Skelletons, Slaanesh.

[adreal]

For tomb kings, just expand on death rattle, put in chariots (add as a mount to a white king) put in the catapult. Have liche wizards make contracts and make the casket of souls a endless spell. 

 

That way the Egyptian tomb king players can use the new rules and have fun, and new models can be made to fit in with deathrattle

[Black Waltz]

8 hours ago, kenshin620 said:

What Crowded Fantasy Market?

 

I should have clarified, I meant in terms of popular entertainment rather than specifically wargames. There's been a glut of new fantasy worlds popping over the past decade; with series such as The Witcher taking fresh looks at the standard tropes while others such as Rat Queens has fun with these archetypes. I feel it's important AoS continues to tread new ground to avoid looking tired in comparison to the worlds created in other mediums.

[Overread]

Fantasy was never new ground it was basically Lord of the Rings inspired with a twist and as it grew up alongside things like Warcraft and DnD they all copied, inspired and shared ideas (intentionally and unintentionally) between them. Often as not that's how the bulk of fantasy works - and bigger companies often promote it as they track the trends that are popular and follow them. Sigmar is exactly that - its shifted from the Lord of the Rings style into a full high-epic fantasy setting closer to what we might think of as an MMO or something like Malazan Book of the Fallen.

 

Part of that is a shift in fantasy to more "epic" and part of it is that GW's plastic casting is good enough now that they can make outstanding ogres and liondragon mounts and undead lords riding atop undead horses made of skulls etc... In the past a lot of the warhammer fantasy models were far more subtle and even things like dragons were limited in how they could appear  as they were all metal and thus were far more serepentine - thin bodies meaning less material and thus cheaper to produce and cast. 

The material advance has been a revolution for fantasy and is in part why a shift into Sigmar isn't a bad thing as it has given the creative direction far more freedom. The nature of the realms also means GW can throw in as many wildcard creations as they like without limit or having to work out how to fit it into the old lore. Of course the counteraction is that their current lore needs a lot of bulking up to get up to standard

[Arkanaut Admiral]

I’m going to say, why not both?!

For Order, I reckon 3 big Legions Of Nagash style books, one for humans (freeguild, colligate arcane, current human ironweld...actually just all the old empire stuff minus the devoted of Sigmar), one for duardin and one for Aelves.  Done and dusted, and from there you can expand as needed.  Ironweld (proper clockpunk Ironweld) and devoted of Sigmar can get their own tomes, as can the wanderers.  

[michu]

I think that Free Cities Battletome would be good, but it should encompass Aelves, Duardins and humans as they live in the same cities.

[Overread]

Just now, michu said:

I think that Free Cities Battletome would be good, but it should encompass Aelves, Duardins and humans as they live in the same cities.

Yes and no.

There are already alliance blocks for high, dark and wood aelves and for human groups. I wouldn't like to see those made even more confusing with a single Free Cities army release. Instead I'd say GW could do one of two major things

1) Free Cities - one single book but which encompasses the 4 different sub-alliance blocks within it. Gets it all done in one, but is kind of messy.

2) Release a "free cities" style book for each of the alliance blocks. Simpler and makes it easier as one book now covers one alliance group. It gives those forces some unity as until/if GW releases updates for them they will have to draw on allies to field full armies anyway and it can mean that between those smaller groups they can have more freedom to choose allies without the point limits. Shift point limited allies to allies drawn from a different battletome rather than just a different army. It means groups like Shadowblades which only have 2 models can be retained with their own identity, but doesn't mean that GW has to release a full Battletome for them alone and invest huge amounts in building a full faction for them. They can exist as the shadowy inquisition force and GW can give them a bone or two whenever; knowing that giving a new model to anything else in the general "dark elf" book would help them out too. Meanwhile full armies like Idoneth and Daughters, who are still in the same alliance block, are still in their own Battletome and thus can draw on those forces for allies; or be used as allies themselves; but with the points restrictions. 

[Moonlightwolf]

I hope to see more fleshing out of older factions in the same manner as daughters of khaine and nighthaunt. Take a strong concept and expand it out into a collectible army. That said it would be good if they released battletomes for some of the complete factions like wanderers and gutbusters that are already full armies that just require a little more lore and rules love to bring them fully formed into AoS. I think legions of nagash proved they are willing to create faction amalgamation armies and it would be great if we saw one of these for each grand alliance. I'm thinking battletome free cities for order. A battletome for destruction that gives grot orruk and ogor alliances and Slaves to darkness covering not just that faction but all the other non-god specific chaos factions.

[warhammernerd]

Soulblight being a good example. But there are many many others more deserving I know.

[AaronWilson]

I'd like to them to stop and start going over those old factions and get them up to date personally.

[Jator]

  Even after the culling of TK and bretonians, and the gradual dissapareance of finecast, there's no way GW can keep all the old units and keep producing (and storing!) all their cool new plastic kits (which is where the money is). In fact, the rumours that announced AoS after the End Times pointed out that this was one of the reasons behind the change: keeping a more manageable number of boxes (and mostly new).
   Now, I understand GW might want to save themselves the backlash of squating any more armies, but I think it would be better for everyone to put units out of production now than letting them slowly fade into oblivion. This way players will know where they stand, and no one will start collecting unknowingly a squated army.

  Now, I don't say they should get rid of all the Old World range. That would be a waste! And all-old minis battletomes like Bonesplitters, FEC or LoN are relatively inexpensive for them to do. Maybe one of the reasons some of the obvious ones take so much time in seeing the light (like the unified skavens battletome) is because they're not entirely sure what they want to keep and what not.

  Anyway, without entirely forgetting the Old, AoS should (and will) focus on the New, which is not only what brings money home, but what catches the eye of new (and old!) players.

[kenshin620]

While the optimism here is great, my old tinted cynic glasses can't look past the fact that this still is GW. The company that didn't update bretonnia past 2003, the company that perma split up chaos (except for Tamurkhan and end times) into 3 factions for the last 2 editions of fantasy battle (and condemning Beastmen into bottom tier), the company that made more than a dozen "codex supplements" for 40k that are basically are as useful as kindling in 8th (unless you got a digital copy in which case is a really expensive wikipedia article).

Even into AoS the only faction books they have reprinted have been Stormcast and (by technicality) Khorne. And rumors have been the rest of Malign Portent factions have to get their books. While I will be glad for Darkoath (crossing fingers for chaos undivided) and Moonclan (or some sort of Grot overhaul), it seems like you can't really expect even AoS Factions like Fyreslayers or Ironjawz to get updated in the next 6-8 months. Especially since now they probably want to make new 40k models (ork update must be around the corner with all the speedfreak models). Heck the AoS 2.0 Launch Schedule was oddly drawn out over nearly 2 months.

 

Sometimes I wonder if Legions of Nagash is suppose to be a book Template, or a One Off. And as time goes on without more LON style books, I am thinking it was a One Off "we need to replace GA: Death" thing.

 

On a side note about fantasy settings, I always do find it funny when LOTR is labeled the generic fantasy when its Deep Lore is anything but (like Gandalf being nothing like a traditional "I cast Fireball" Wizard). But I suppose the movies couldn't really get into the deep lore, mostly because it would have been boring to explain everything.

[Arkanaut Admiral]

They should really look at those old factions who are almost there with regards to having a fully fledged Battletome.  I'm looking at Wanderers for example.  They've got a Trait, Command Abilities, Artifacts plus an almost completely plastic range.  Give them spells and prayers and a couple of big plastic beasts (lesser versions of the Wardroth Beetle?) and there you go.  Maybe bring out new plastic versions of the resin characters?  A Nomad Prince riding some sort of big beast as a centerpiece model?  Easily done.

Chaos just needs a dedicated to a god army for the four (and we have 3/4 of them already), plus imo, a Legions style book for Skaven, then a massive Legions style book for Slaves To Darkness, which includes every beastman, 'marauder' style chaos human and all the chaos monsters and 'undivided' demons like the Furies and the Soul Grinder under one banner.  And then there is the Everchosen, who if I could, would be comprised of all the 'warrior' style chaos humans as the truly elite chaos faction.   Then one day, Chaos Dwarves, and if I've added that up right that's eight separate chaos factions...one for each point of the star. 

 

 

[dmorley21]

So I just returned to the hobby this summer and choosing a faction was really difficult because I couldn't understand what was a currently supported faction.

The Daughters of Khaine recent release really threw me. Could I expect similar updates for Dispossessed and Ironweld Arsenal, both of which I had models for already?

Eventually I sold all my old Dwarfs and bought Nighthaunt, but from the perspective of a new player they really need to clean up their factions, especially on their website. It was really confusing. 

So I would go with organizing or retiring current factions then continuing new armies. 

[BobbyB]

Personally I'd like to see a hard break with WHFB, and have gw only focus on post-aos and new factions and only do releases with miniatures. It'd certainly help compound the sigmar aesthetic and build the world. I think the majority of the stuff that is shoehorned in from before the end of the old world feels out of place and at the very least needs re-theming. I definitely don't want to see them go back and do a long string of book only releases for the older factions, more stuff like nighthaunt and less like legion of nagash for me.

[Arkanaut Admiral]

I do agree up to a point.  I definitely feel like there’s some baggage left over from the Old World.  But, they’re there, nothing can be done from that, and there’s some nice models that deserve a second chance.

[AGPO]

What I'd really love to see GW do is properly AoSify the older factions from a modelling perspective. At the moment I can't stop thinking of Darkling Covens as Dark Elves and Freeguild as Empire, not least because the studio armies are identical. give some limited releases (maybe through Forge World) to help convert say your Freeguild to be from Hammerhal, or to put sigmarite symbols on the shields and banners of your duardin and aelves. A couple of conversion kits and some transfer sheets would be great, combined with some kitbashing features and a thorough kitbashing of the studio armies, along with a cohesive colour scheme so you have aelvan spearmen forming a battle line with dwarfen warriors and human guardsmen in the colours of their Free City. 

They could do this with rules too. Have city troops (Darklings, Dispossessed and Freeeguild) who's abilities can all influence one another.  Then you could add the outlying factions like the devoted of sigmar, amalgamated shadowblade/swifthawks, dragon knights (draconis and serpentis), ironweld, phoenix temple etc. as seperate orders with their own synergies to represent that they're other parts of Sigmar's forces not primarily tied to a free city.

Rules wise, I'd like to see armies like Fyreslayers, Seraphon and Ironjawz get a proper update more than anything else, but a LoN style book which combined Aelves, Duardin and humans as either "Free Cities" or "Warriors of Azyr" would be fantastic. Any future update to the faction could concentrate on unifying the faction aesthetic more closely.

Following that one off release, and a similar release for destruction and chaos undivided/beastmen, new factions all the way please!

[Avatar Rage]

I think GW has struck a nice balance lately. Expanding some existing alliances (Nurgle, Daughters of Khaine, Legions of Nagash) and bringing in new ones (Nighthaunt, Idoneth Deepkin). As long as we get a bit of mix I'm a happy player.

[Arkanaut Admiral]

Good suggestions here.

 

I’ve been thinking of how Age Of Sigmar might have developed if there was no previous game.  As in it’s just the new factions and the lore.  What I figured was that it would be exactly the same as it is now but with ‘tidier’ factions.  And greater interconnectivity between them too. 

 

Here’s what I mean; the free peoples are 90% human and have the new AoS aesthetic, looking like smaller less well armoured Stormcast rather than the Germanic look.

 

However, instead of the ironweld arsenal, the Overlords came down from the skies and started trading with the humans, setting up workshops and selling them aethermatic weaponary.  So they would have Aether cannon and volley gun artillery peices, aetheric tanks and aetheric  ornithopters, crewed by overlords based in the cities.  They might even have masked humans wielding aetheric carbines.

 

Same for magic.  They’d have the arcane colleges, mostly humans but with the involvement of aevles, who’d be in charge.  Maybe aelf warriors wearing sigmarifed armour as elites.

 

This is all coulda woulda shoulda though.

[TheDayman]

Honestly I think they need to thanos the AoS product line, means they can get rid of a lot of the sub factions that aren't going anywhere to make room for new stuff, but also build upon the old stuff that is left from the cull.

[Overread]

Honestly I'd rather they at least kept the structure that they've established and build on it or combine the subfactions  rather than remove it.

 

They can keep the Shadowblades and the Lions of Charace and the Dragon lot and all the rest. By all means retire the old plastic and finecast models, but re-release them with new updated versions for the game. That way they retire old things; secure new things with new fancy sculpts and players with existing collections can just keep using their old models and update if/as they wish too.

 

That way everyone wins. I think outright removing whole options isn't sensible unless those options are a bit like some of the Death groups which have 1 single model which is already used by one of the larger fleshed out (hehe see the pun Death faction, flesh, fleshing.. ok fine) factions. 

[Barkanaut]

GW needs to rip the fantasy band aid off. As soon as you can get rid of the fantasy armies you have no intention of supporting. I know some new players are very confused about me explaining some of their armies  might get updated and some might not and who knows which. GW you need to be strong and just cut the cord on factions you don’t really intend to support. 

I also think that some of the early armies are in dire need of updates and these should be done soon. Fyre, Ironjaws, and Kharadron are frequently name dropped by players as needing big fleshing out to make the, work and to make them more appealing to collect and not so limited. Other than this I would keep adding new armies with adding in the occasional whf army if GW can make them work in the new setting. Though to be fair I feel most of the good whf armies that can work are here barring sepharon and skaven. 

[Wraith01]

New factions!

Update everything to fit in with the new setting and story. 

[The_Yellow_Sign]

I'd prefer that they focus on the existing factions. The new stuff either doesn't interest me (Sea elves) or I find it annoying (Sigmarines).

Beastmen, Bretonnia, Skaven, Saurus, Empire are my favourites, and I'd love to see them get some attention (though obviously they've decided to get rid of Bretonnia so it won't happen for them).