The life expectancy of a model/range...

[JPjr]

So I've woken up with a headful of questions and one in particular prompted by several comments in the Rumours/Wishlisting threads is... what is a reasonable length of time to expect GW to 'support' a model or indeed entire range of models? Keeping in mind that when they do discontinue models or entire armies they don't come round your house with a hammer and ****** wreck them there and then and nothing stops you carrying on playing them with your mates.

Sure that might be a negative for hardcore tournament players but aren't they chasing 'the meta' and the new hot thing anyway?

Do GW have an obligation to keep old models 'valid' in new editions, or indeed new game systems, and, importantly, if so for how long*? Should they still be providing updated AoS2.0 rules and points for Gob Lobbers, Nippon Ninjas with Colt45s and the weird medieval theatre company set they once produced?

A couple of people were saying they could retire models if they replaced those sculpts/ranges with new like-for-like models but leaving aside the work involved doesn't that just still leave us with an ever expanding range, with old models acting as a millstone keeping AoS tied to the past instead of finding its own way?

Not saying there's a right or wrong here and I can totally understand how gutting it must be if your pride and joy army gets binned just interested to hear what people think...

 

 

 

 

*incidentally bonus prize for anyone who can identify the oldest model(s) still on sale today.

 

[michu]

Answer is: "Warlock with Witch Blade and Shuriken Pistol" - 1991.

[JPjr]

@michu this bro? 27 years! that's quite something.

 

 

[michu]

Yep, it's older than me. And I think that means model life expectancy is "we will update it when we feel like it". But when they finally do it, it's awesome (e.g. Ork Buggy 1993-2018)

[Gaz Taylor]

26 minutes ago, michu said:

Yep, it's older than me.

I think that particular Warlock was from around 93 as it was one of Mike McVey's first sculpts. I think the oldest models that are currently on sale (which aren't part of limited runs) are either the Aeldari (Eldar) Pheonix Lords or Ragnar Blackmane. I can't quite remember which ones came first (I think it was the Phoenix Lords).

28 minutes ago, michu said:

And I think that means model life expectancy is "we will update it when we feel like it". But when they finally do it, it's awesome (e.g. Ork Buggy 1993-2018)

100% this.

There are lots of reasons why they might retire a model, but I think the general rule of thumb is when they want to. The people in the Design Studio are a very creative bunch and love coming up with new stuff but this is often limited by things like shelf space and costs to develop and produce the models. I think now they are in a very good spot where they can manage this really well. 

[kenshin620]

Yea it is completely dependent on the design team wanting to update something.

 

As a reminder, almost all the Chaos Space Marine characters were made in 2nd edition of 40k and haven't got an updated model until late 7th-early 8th edition (the ones that updated anyways)!

[HollowHills]

31 minutes ago, kenshin620 said:

Yea it is completely dependent on the design team wanting to update something.

 

As a reminder, almost all the Chaos Space Marine characters were made in 2nd edition of 40k and haven't got an updated model until late 7th-early 8th edition (the ones that updated anyways)!

BSF has come to save the CSM range from itself.

[Sleboda]

Personally, I believe that all models for a given system that were released as part of an army should be given rules pretty much in perpetuity. They don't need new sculpts or new full army books (battletomes), but given the nature of this hobby and the fact that models themselves last forever and become little works of art for those who paint them, I just don't accept them leaving the system.

Along with this there needs to be a clear, loud statement from GW that says something like "These are the current, valid, 100% legit rules for these models in the current rules set. Don't try to age-shame people for using them." They then need to work with tournaments to let them know, clearly, that they consider these rules 100% compatible with the 10 armies that are sold in stores and they have zero reason to disallow them from their events.

Frankly, I don't even care if they new rules for an army are less involved than those for a New Hotness army or if they were even to say "use this as that" for some things (for instance, how  hard is it for Tomb Guard to be a direct analog to Grave Guard???). Just create a situation where your most loyal and long-term customers can feel like they are not getting tossed by the wayside when new stuff comes.

Incidentally, this approach would help them get new gamers in.  Instead of hearing "Yeah kid, enjoy your Daughters of Khaine while they last, because in a few years they will be invalidated" and thus deterring the purchase of a $700 army, you would hear "Heck yeah! Get those Daughters of Khaine. You'll have a force to last a hobby lifetime. Sure, you're eventually going to be tempted to buy like 16 other armies too, but your first love will stick by you has you date the new girls, too.  Heck, with allies and such, maybe your Daughters and the next army can play with you on the table at the same time!"

 

Win, win.  Win.

 

Bottom line: Telling people that their once-legit models are no longer welcome is _always_ a bad idea.

[Kyriakin]

The problem is that a new player could buy a faction they like the look of but not realise they are old (e.g. Darkling Covens), and then, not long later, *poof* they're gone. Entering a shop for the first time now, there is nothing to tell someone if a white box unit is older or newer than any other. Hell, even the terrible Zombies are white boxed now.

Squattings should be avoided at all costs IMHO. Being a TK guy (seriously GW, why?), I gave GW one more chance by going all-in with BCR. Move the goalposts again by squatting BCR, and I'm done. I don't want to spend my whole hobby wondering and worrying if my faction is new enough be allowed to exist, and having the Sword of Damocles over it is really demotivating painting-wise.

Finally, as I mentioned on the other thread, squattings spook other players. For example, if, say, Wanderers were cut, Dispossessed (etc.) players might suddenly get very nervous.

[JPjr]

3 hours ago, Sleboda said:

all models for a given system

ok, sounds fair enough but what constitutes 'a given system'? 

do different editions count as different systems? does AoS count as a different system to WHFB? or is Aos 2 just a direct continuation of WHFB 1st edition and so anything released since 1983 should be valid?

[Bufkin]

If you are old-school enough to own a lot of older models you are also old-school enough to know that tournaments, points, fixed rule sets and so on are a new concept.

When you bought the models there were no promise that a tournament scene even would exist.

When I started playing we played with everything and if one side had 4000 and the other had 5000 we played anyway. If something did not have rules we created them and we used umpires during our games that could change rules and throw curve balls. The normal games were giant battles that took a day or two and if a friend dropped by in the middle of a game we gave them some units on the field to play with while they were there.

If you are old-school enough to have lots of old models you should be perfectly happy with narrative gaming or just use old rules edition, another gaming system or just make your own rules.

I love tournaments, I prefer them over any other form of gaming, and I’m happy that I can use some of my old models, but its much more important to me that it’s an even playing field and it would not be fair if I would have an edge just because I have access to models that new players can’t even buy.

[Zambo]

I am in total agreement with Sleboda 

Tthe product GW produce is so much more than just models people spend years of their lives working on the armies that they love and that has been largely respected by the company for decades!

Think most people agree that the previous management dropped the ball spectacularly and isolated many of their following, and looking at the relaunch of 40k 8th lessons were learned and all factions got support extremely quickly by AoS standards

It would be a damaging and a backwards step to start squatting more armies just as the company looks to be rediscovering it’s roots 

 

[paul7926]

It's an interesting question for sure.  I have some Ogres in the garage on square bases that will probably never see the light of day again since they were bought before Ogres were fractured into multiple 'forces' some of which are too small to even use despite having rules.  On a personal level I'm not that bothered by it as I indulge in way more than one army for one system when it comes to GW.  I know that if I wanted to use them I could find an opponent that would allow them to be some sort of 'counts as' in a casual setting.  I can easily use them under other rules sets as well.   So whilst they are not really a current force I'm certainly not buying any more of them to try and make up the numbers.  If tomorrow GW said that they were unusable in tournament AoS 2 I'd not really care.

The only problem I do have is that they are still being sold by GW.  I know enough to not buy any more but someone new to the hobby might make a purchase based on looks that they regret much sooner than if they bought into Stormcast Eternals. 

I guess you have to decide what is more important to you and how you view the hobby.  If you want to keep up with tournament meta then you will be buying into the latest thing every few months anyway and if you are into narrative games then you should be able to house rule old models into your games without too many problems.

Personally I'd not like the balance of the competitive side of the hobby to be forever hampered by models that were made years ago.

[Future]

I think Age of Sigmar is a new game. If they wanted to get rid of armies they could have and did do it after 8th. I think this is fair. I think offering support for older ranges in age of sigmar is a grey area. On one hand it let people hop into a new game without a new investment, which is right and fair after killing the game they loved. On the other hand now you have a lot of players asking, "whens it my armies turn in the spotlight?" when frankly for most of these older faction the answer is going to be never.

I think beasts of chaos, daughters, and lizard men were handled magnificently in terms of recycling models well. However lets face it lizard men will never have their day in the story again and are sidelined indefinitely in that regard. Again I think that is a fine concession but as others have mentioned what about the new player coming in, how were they supposed to know?

We see this a lot with factions like stormcast and the bitterness to the many releases they receive, however the game in fact revolves around them. More so than warhammer 40k --- in this case the game is quite literally named after sigmar and his gold people. 

GWs biggest sin here was a lack of road map day 1. They needed to say these are transition armies and WILL be gone TK etc. these other armies will exist in the world but aren't a major player but might get a page or two in a book (lizard men, boc, dok, grots). Everything else is new and highly supported. In fact even new armies are feeling the burn because now GW has spread itself wide modernizing these old ranges and rules and new army players like fireslayers and Kharadron Overlords are getting no updates to ranges that should be updated very regularly as the story progresses -- just as we see with SC and NH.

[JPjr]

1 minute ago, Future said:

GWs biggest sin here was a lack of road map day 1.

I sometimes think that they'd have been better off launching AoS as more of a Kill Team sized game. Kick off with 10 or so factions rolled out in the way the KT boxes have been, either re-designed/re-imagined or completely new for the launch of the new system to set the tone and look of each new faction and establish who would be a priority going forward.

Just rip the sticking plaster off in one go rather than gently tugging at it mm by mm, leaving a confusion of factions that people aren't sure will be around and being stuck with ranges that dont fit the new direction, aesthetically or lore wise.

Then they could start adding to it and building it up from a small skirmish game to a full size war-game.

But thankfully I will never be in a position to make a decision like that which would probably have been a DISASTROUS idea that would have sunk the company, so what do I know!

[JPjr]

on top of that sometimes I look at the way they split up the old armies into these micro factions and think well actually maybe that's almost what they were originally aiming for but at the last minute bottled it.

a faction with just a bare handful of models to choose from is clearly a rubbish choice for a large (or even medium skirmish sized) army, but in a game where you might only have just up to a dozen models per side then these smaller factions makes a lot more sense.

 

[Overread]

I think the original plan was to do away with proper "rules" and have Age of Sigmar embrace the ethos of "we just make cool models and people buy them". I think fracturing the armies was designed to let GW drop armies in bits here and there at a whim without having to worry about a huge backlash or worries. At the same time they could then release 3 or 4 new model kits every so often as a brand new army. Hence why the Realms themselves are so highly fractured and variable - it leaves the door wide open for total creative freedom. 

I think that rolling approach is what the old Kirby management wanted to test based on the peak sales that they'd get when they'd launch a "new army" or major resculpts. So they followed through on that (without market research because Kirby didn't believe in that). I think we would have seen a continual rolling series of updates with armies being lost and introduced and no real rules system ever being developed - a boutique line of models. 

 

So AoS didn't work like that and now its had a massive overhaul and change, but its still got that legacy. Quite why GW doesn't just impose their final plan on most factions in advance of book releases is unknown. 

[Ollie Grimwood]

“Counts as” I think is the order of the day. 

If it’s on the correct base size I doubt most people will mind. There’s usually a Warscroll that fits and if you want to really go to town a few name changes for attacks and special abilities can make the fit better. 

Certaibly in the UK independent events seem very relaxed about this sort of thing (models from non GW sources as well).  I’ve found GW pretty reasonable on “counts as” as well, when it comes to their models. 

[RuneBrush]

GW seem to be taking the approach that out of production models will end up living as a "Legends" entity, so playable outside of Matched Play.

[sorokyl]

4 hours ago, Future said:

  these other armies will exist in the world but aren't a major player but might get a page or two in a book (lizard men, boc, dok, grots). Everything else is new and highly supported. In fact even new armies are feeling the burn because now GW has spread itself wide modernizing these old ranges and rules and new army players like fireslayers and Kharadron Overlords are getting no updates to ranges that should be updated very regularly as the story progresses -- just as we see with SC and NH

21

I disagree with your perspective completely

The first and strongest counterpoint is the entire Chaos grand alliance. Every single one of these factions existed in WFB.  The Chaos Gods are a huge part of the story line (Age of Chaos, Realm Gate Wars, First 3 years of AoS focused on Sigmar vs Chaos).  Most of these models are from WFB and fit great. But I will further critique your comments

>> these other armies will exist in the world but aren't a major player but might get a page or two in a book
There is no fundamental line between factions that were created for AoS that have new models and factions created for AoS that recycle WFB models.   Take DoK for example, Morathi is certainly very involved in the lore of AoS, and I think the faction as a whole fits perfectly into the game.  Seraphon is kind of a "oh okay these lizards showed up via space ship, that's interesting", and haven't really played a big role yet, but whose to say they won't? They certainly have enough flavor.   See the factions themselves were created with AoS in mind, the same as any of the new factions. They simply recycle models. If the models support the flavor, these factions are just as "AoS" as newer factions.    

>>Everything else is new and highly supported
You are telling me that KO and fireslayers are better supported than DoK, Seraphon, BoC? That's really interesting... Rules wise, absolutely not.  Store retail wise, they have already made KO heroes webstore only. Meanwhile,  Irondrakes and Ogors just got repackaged and shipped out. 

>> GW has spread itself wide modernizing these old ranges
Reusing existing models and just regrouping things and updating rules is a lot easier than making a whole new army.  I personally would rather see 3 battletomes for existing factions/models than 1 new faction.  

>>players like fireslayers and Kharadron Overlords are getting no updates to ranges that should be updated very regularly as the story progresses
The current story is Soul Wars,  Morath iDoK has a much bigger part to play in this than both fireslayers and KO . again GW seems to be showing no preferential treatment in the story for new armies. Nighthaunt is not a new army.

New factions are great, but I don't think they will be any better supported (lore, models, rules) than some of the older factions GW has shown they care about.  Idoneth Deepkin, for example, I can't see them being involved in every story arc from here on, they honestly seem kind of fringe, while Nagash and the Chaos Gods will probably often be a big part of the story. 

[sorokyl]

To put it another way,  You could completely scrub Fireslayers, KO, and Deepkin from the lore today and it doesn't really break anything.  

Try removing Nagash, A chaos God, Archaon, the Aelve Gods, Skaven, etc from the lore. You don't really have a story anymore. 

The sad thing here is you could pretty much remove the entire Grand Alliance Destruction from the lore and it still works. That's pretty sad and hopefully something that will be addressed over the next couple of years. 

Fun fact you can just replace the word "lore" with "competitive scene" and it kind of still works. heh. 

[paul7926]

52 minutes ago, sorokyl said:

The sad thing here is you could pretty much remove the entire Grand Alliance Destruction from the lore and it still works. That's pretty sad and hopefully something that will be addressed over the next couple of years. 

 

Now don't get me wrong here, I love my IronJawz but to be honest, the destruction part of the "lore" simply breaks down to "this lot like to fight coz it's fun". 

It's not exactly a deep and meaningful interaction and necessary to any plot.  As long as that is the only thing that defines a "destruction" army then they will always be unnecessary to the lore.  By definition they have no grand design, no goals and no meaningful interaction with those that do other than to slow them down a bit by accident maybe.  

I often wondered why they are not simply folded into the existing Chaos powers.  Khorne if the focus is on pure fighting and gaining power from it, Slaanesh if the focus is more on the pleasure gained from fighting without real purpose.  Supposedly Khorne cares not from where the blood flows so why is he picky about not having Orruk followers and only having Human ones?  Slaanesh is supposed to be all about excess so an entire race that exists only to wage war sounds like they should be excessive enough to warrant inclusion. 

Ogors for example are supposed to always be hungry and kill and eat anything, another Slaanesh excess if you ask me.

If they are to remain a distinct entity then they simply need a better reason to exist.  They need to care enough about something to take an active part in the lore and help shape the story line.

[kenshin620]

1 minute ago, paul7926 said:

I often wondered why they are not simply folded into the existing Chaos powers. 

I mean they kind of did back in the day (chaos ogres).

Heck even 40k had Chaos Orks way back when (and probably still exist).

I think though it would also be a redundancy issue (well theres already that issue). If chaos had orruks, then beasts of chaos would be very redundant.

 

[Overread]

Stormcast are basically the same - they fight because they hate chaos and not much more. 

I think that a lot of the missing "depth" is mostly due to AoS being so terribly new whilst at the same time being married to a lore that is supposed to be really old (its the 3rd age so in world the races have been around for thousands of years in the realms); and coming right off the back of a VERY mature lore from the old Warhammer Fantasy. 

Orks also suffer a bit because, a bit like Chaos, they get mixed up with the lore and theme of orks from 40K (which is ironic as since fantasy came first the original situation was that orks of 40K were too heavily inspired by orks of Fantasy - heck early ork models and designs were VERY fantsay style in terms of how they dressed and armed themselves)

 

Again its a maturity of lore issue that should overcome itself once GW gives them more Battletomes, more lore, more world building and more novels that go into the faction as a people and beyond just battles (a lot of early AoS lore and novels are focused very heavily on just detailing battles because most of the races need to shrug off the shackles of Chaos invasion to get their heads up and establish themselves. So there's a LOT of war going on-  in theory this should ease off after the initial spread of Stormcast and the pushback against Chaos and we should then see more adventuring stories; longer novels that have characters interacting with politics and other aspects of society. 

 

[JPjr]

19 minutes ago, paul7926 said:

It's not exactly a deep and meaningful interaction and necessary to any plot

Yeah, funnily enough my 2nd question of the day that I never got round to posting was pretty much all this. I just thought no one needs a double dose of my nonsense in one day but essentially it was...

 

At the moment, of the 4 factions, Destruction seems to be the poor relation and you can't throw a stick in this forum without hitting someone grumbling about how hard done by they are.  Now do we think the relative lack of love, perceived or otherwise, is just a matter of scheduling and their time will come or is it symptomatic of a bigger problem with Destruction finding its place in AoS? 

It feels like the forces of Order, Chaos & Death (and their sub-factions) now all have very clear-cut objectives, motivations and goals that helps drive the wider narrative forward, puts them central to the story and helps define their place in the mortal realms. 

Whereas the various Destruction forces feel like they  haven't really found their role yet and certainly Orks are still stuck in the same comedy, football hooligan turned up to 11 mode they have been in since the 80s, which with Chaos as the big bad essentially from mid 3rd edition on has kind of relegated them to the side.

Plus with the 'World That Was' as it was at least a vaguely recognisable planet with countries and the like you could at least create a story for them, endless battles for territory in the mountains and caves with Dwarves etc. One problem, as I see it, is the shift to high fantasy with AoS has also made it more about philosophical battles (and yes I know this is an incredibly pseud's corner thing to say about plastic model fighting each other), ORDER vs. CHAOS, yes that conflict was always there in the old world but it was more grounded, whereas here it is actual gods playing with armies like they're toys to advance their belief systems.

DEATH has it's own take on this, with Nagash attempting to create a sterile form of order where 'All is Nagash, and Nagash is All' which gives them some flavour. But how does 'DESTRUCTION' fit into this, without just being CHAOS without the weird stuff. 

Certainly there seems to be very little, if any, substantial fiction dealing with them (and I can imagine writing 300 pages of Ork speak to be even less fun than reading it) but is that holding them back? Narratively I'd say yes of course but how much influence does that actually have on the game side of things (battle tomes, new models etc)? Personally I assume fairly little but it would at least give a new lease of life.

Do they need some kind of big event, some necroquake style shenanigans to give them more purpose other than smash stuff, eat stuff and repeat. Or is that their sole purpose and in terms of the actual lore they'll always be a side-show to the main event now, so just wait patiently for a battletome to drop?

Or do Orcs and Goblins as a kind of comedy relief not make sense anymore, I love their ramshackle craziness but you could swap out any bit of orc fluff from 1988 with today and I dont think it would show, there's been no evolution and maybe that's holding them back.