The Rumour Thread

[NauticalSoup]

3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

I really hate it when the LGS has this kind of culture. It's all but a guarantee that the hobby dies slowly in that area because the new blood gets turned away while the store owners are too afraid of losing core customers to confront the people that are hamstringing their business.

A smart store will identify people who can be ambassadors to new players and steer the new folks toward the kind of people who are more positive about the hobby and who will actually make an effort to make new players feel welcome and play down to that level when needed.

The more time I spend in this hobby (and other in-person gaming hobbies), the more convinced I am that a hugely underrated factor in the success or failure of LGS is the emotional intelligence of the owner and core employees.

I think this is too hard on my FLGS owner and our players. Just because the old grumblers have the tenacity to stick it out for the long haul doesn't automatically make an environment unwelcoming. We have excellent ambassadors which is how we have grown our Sigmar community and 40k communities so large. People come from far and wide to play in events here, and both games have never stopped growing their populations since 2.0 and 8th edition. Our local TO has put in an enormous amount of effort trying to set up casual events where new players feel welcome while also catering to WAAC types who want to get that hardcore play to win experience.

But you can only get flattened by Iron Hands air or dread spam so many times and still genuinely enjoy the game. 8th edition being a piece of ****** was a huge catalyst for me recruiting as many people as I could to AoS as an alternative, and bringing in new players and providing support and encouragement can only go so far to overcome the faults of the game you're pulling them into. The early Sigmar and 7th edition 40k devastated the local player-base, it was so punishing that if you weren't a WAAC player you were destined to have a bad time at any event. 40k, not Sigmar - there was just nobody playing Sigmar because of WHFB salt. 

I think it's very unfair to blame a gaming culture on a FLGS when GW has done so much to cultivate the game in that direction with tomes of fiddly complex rules and incredibly unforgiving meta-games that they do the bare minimum necessary to control. Sigmar 2.0 has some of this too (less than 40k natch) - every time a player gets into the scene from a Soul Wars box they have a very high chance of bouncing off, because let's be honest: it takes a LOT of effort to avoid mashing somebody running new-guy Stormcast or Nighthaunts with just about anything that isn't also Stormcast or Nighthaunts. It's an uphill slog to extract a fun matched points game when one of the sides is perpetually hamstrung by their terrible army book, and no matter how friendly and accommodating their opponents, new players are probably going to notice very quickly that their expensive minis just can't do work on the table.

That said, I am personally somewhat ambivalent about deliberately downplaying the bad parts of the hobby to new potentials. It's rather expensive and people burn out on it for good reason, especially when it comes to dissatisfaction with the game side. These days I just opt not to talk about 40k at the store. We'll see if things change much with 9th, but I'm not holding my breath.

Edit: this sorta turned into a defensive off-topic rant, so -

TLDR I probably overstated how bad it is, but I also don't think there's anything wrong with having a good grumble (within reason)

 

Edited July 25, 2020 by NauticalSoup

[swarmofseals]

@NauticalSoup I don't disagree with there being a place for a good grumble. I just don't think it's appropriate or helpful to vent like that at newer players and it's kinda insensitive to do it at the store unless you're keeping it private among the group that you are directly playing with (and even then it's a bit rude). There's a big difference between  giving new players helpful information and just being negative and discouraging. Clearly your scene has helpful and encouraging people in addition to the negative types, which is good. My post was just responding to what you said in your original post, which clearly wasn't the full picture.

To elaborate the question of whether it's reasonable to grumble in the store or not: can you imagine another business where it would be considered OK to hang out at a store and talk trash about the products to various customers? If you did that at basically any other business you'd probably be kicked out of the store. If you were at a restaurant and sat there all meal talking about how much the food sucks every time you came in, you'd be within your rights for sure but still pretty damn rude. If you started talking about how bad the food is to random people in the restaurant then you'd probably be kicked out.

Also, while I agree that SCE and Nighthaunt are not in a good place for competitive play I'm pretty sure that I could make a list for any faction in the game that would give a fair match to even a sub-optimal SCE or Nighthaunt opponent. There are a few factions where this might be a challenge but for the vast majority it's possible.

 

 

[NauticalSoup]

@swarmofseals List making sure, but do you carry around a bunch of minis you never use just in case you have to play a game against someone with a bad army? Good for you if you do I guess, I don't think that's a reasonable expectation though. New players are eventually going to play regular pick-up games anyway so you can't spare them the reality forever, which is that their army is going to struggle in most match-ups. Being accommodating and helpful is one thing but you're doing them a disservice if you bait them into easy games without communicating that you're making a softer list. That's why I always determine ASAP if a new player is interested in comp or not, because it will absolutely inform the type of advice you give and the type of experience you cultivate.

As to the other point, I think this is a completely ridiculous notion. Unless you're at a place that only has one offering, you can say you think a product is bad and you're not going to get kicked out. The staff won't even care. If you're harassing customers then yes, you might not be welcome to stay - because you're harassing customers not because you have a negative opinion of a product. I was a manager at a McDonalds' for years, you might be shocked what service employees are expected to put up with for potential clients! Had an older gentleman who complained about the coffee come in every morning for years to get his. He was absolutely welcome to stay, because he was a paying customer.

I'll just add, I never said any of these players were venting AT newer players, just that they generally outlasted the new ones.

[Kramer]

11 hours ago, El Antiguo Guardián said:

Vampires in december/januarty. Xmas. Real life problems.

 

I hope they will release the undead first, please haha

Wouldn’t a weird pun be more likely with GW ? 🤔

Vampires in Novampire... 

[KingBrodd]

52 minutes ago, Kramer said:

Wouldn’t a weird pun be more likely with GW ? 🤔

Vampires in Novampire... 

I hope they tease them for Halloween.

[Clan's Cynic]

13 hours ago, NauticalSoup said:

Where I come from the regulars are almost exclusively made up of people who hate the game or GW in some dimension or other. The ones who burn out and leave are typically the newbies who start out all starry eyed and end up turned off the hobby thanks to punishing balance issues, extreme price of the newer ranges and frankly insane rules complexity.

Seems like every week there's some new guy playing Primaris Space Marines who shows up a few times and then vanishes, while the salty grognards keep the tables hot, grumbling all the while but never really separating themselves from the hobby. I think Sigmar only changed this up from Fantasy because the End Times fiasco pushed out almost the entire ambient population all at once.

Sunk Cost Fallacy. People grumble and gripe about GW's big games like 40k, but stick with them because they don't want to take the risk they'll invest in other systems they'd enjoy but then lack the same sized community they do with GW products. I've said it before at the risk of sounding like a broken record, but I fully believe this is 95% of the reason GW generally has such a negative fandom overall (not that it's without hardcore shills and white knights, especially YouTube influencers). Hell, even I'm very guilty of this as I doubt I'd be playing as long as I have if communities of other games didn't wax and wane whilst GW is always the safe bet.

The Old World will probably be the same result. A large chunk of formally scorned WHFB players will return, stating 9th Age/Kings of War/ASOI&F/Conquest are better rulesets (which is probably going to be a reasonable statement) but stick nigh-exclusively to TOW because... well, it's a GW rank-and-file game and will never lack for new blood.

Edited July 25, 2020 by Clan's Cynic

[Souleater]

6 hours ago, KingBrodd said:

I hope they tease them for Halloween.

I hope they release them for Halloween! That would be ace. 

[Aelfric]

2 hours ago, Clan's Cynic said:

it's a GW rank-and-file game and will never lack for new blood.

Old Fantasy was a rank and file game that died partly because there was no new blood.  The fact that it was a GW game wasn't enough to save it.  The new Old World would have to be a much simplified version of rank and file to have any chance of persuading me to try it.  Perhaps if it was Epic scale, I'd be interested.

[Neverchosen]

I loved Old Fantasy's rank and file system but it was finicky and non-intuitive. I hope that the Old World Strikes a balance because there was a lot to love but significantly more to hate. 

[KingBrodd]

1 hour ago, Souleater said:

I hope they release them for Halloween! That would be ace. 

That would be incredible!! Maybe theyll start with a Warcry Warband?

[Bayul]

2 hours ago, Souleater said:

I hope they release them for Halloween! That would be ace. 

Hey, Spooktober should be for Nighthaunt / Legion of Nagash releases.

[willange]

11 minutes ago, Bayul said:

Hey, Spooktober should be for Nighthaunt / Legion of Nagash releases.

I think you mispelled what will actually happen... Necrons

[Neverchosen]

The new models preview for 40k had a number of pieces that seem to correlate to various rumour engine images. Namely that cool dagger which seems to be a Dark Eldar model and the tubes/chords which are clearly something related to Chaos:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/07/25/the-warhammer-40000-launch-party-preview/

[Grimrock]

The preview also said that the new space marine and necron codexes will be coming out in October. That puts the AoS schedule at a bit of risk. If September is for the rest of the lumineth and October is 40k, then either sons get a sneaky release in September or we might not see them until November. That'd be really lame.

[RandyRyan]

SONtember?

[Aelfric]

Fo-fum-ber?

[Mutton]

Carry on my wayward Sons.

[KingBrodd]

2 hours ago, Grimrock said:

The preview also said that the new space marine and necron codexes will be coming out in October. That puts the AoS schedule at a bit of risk. If September is for the rest of the lumineth and October is 40k, then either sons get a sneaky release in September or we might not see them until November. That'd be really lame.

Oh no...please give them a sneaky August/September release GW!! November will be just such a pain in a Gargant sized ass.

1 hour ago, RandyRyan said:

SONtember?

 

1 hour ago, Aelfric said:

Fo-fum-ber?

 

1 hour ago, Mutton said:

Carry on my wayward Sons.

You 3 beautiful SOB's. And I dont mean Sons of Behemat.

[Ogregut]

I wouldn't be surprised to see tomorrows coming next week be gargants now indomitus is realesed 

That or just lots of black library stuff as character week starts. 

[Carnelian]

8 hours ago, Clan's Cynic said:

Sunk Cost Fallacy. People grumble and gripe about GW's big games like 40k, but stick with them because they don't want to take the risk they'll invest in other systems they'd enjoy but then lack the same sized community they do with GW products. I've said it before at the risk of sounding like a broken record, but I fully believe this is 95% of the reason GW generally has such a negative fandom overall (not that it's without hardcore shills and white knights, especially YouTube influencers). Hell, even I'm very guilty of this as I doubt I'd be playing as long as I have if communities of other games didn't wax and wane whilst GW is always the safe bet.

The Old World will probably be the same result. A large chunk of formally scorned WHFB players will return, stating 9th Age/Kings of War/ASOI&F/Conquest are better rulesets (which is probably going to be a reasonable statement) but stick nigh-exclusively to TOW because... well, it's a GW rank-and-file game and will never lack for new blood.

This is me being a bit pedantic but what you describe is not Sunk Cost Fallacy. You are describing a decision to invest in a less enjoyable game because it has a stable fan base so there will be more chance of finding players.

In this context, Sunk Cost Fallacy would be when gamers continue to invest their time and money in Warhammer because they are worried that if they stopped doing this, their past investments of time and money would have been a waste.

That said, I definitely think the Sunk Cost Fallacy applies and is one of the reasons why some wargamers persist with wargaming even when it no longer brings them joy.

But that's slightly different from reasoning that you want to play a certain system cos you know it's gonna have enough players to get games regularly.

[KingBrodd]

4 hours ago, Ogregut said:

I wouldn't be surprised to see tomorrows coming next week be gargants now indomitus is realesed 

That or just lots of black library stuff as character week starts. 

Dont do that. Dont give me hope.

That being said I'd love more Black Library for AOS!!

[FallenSerf]

What has been announced but is unreleased? I recall two Underworlds war bands to finish season 3 that will be released in August, Underworlds season 4 in December, the last original WarCry war bands from the WarCry core book, the remaining Lumineth that are due in September, and the SoB mini(s) and codex. Is there anything else? 

[Raviv]

4 hours ago, FallenSerf said:

What has been announced but is unreleased? I recall two Underworlds war bands to finish season 3 that will be released in August, Underworlds season 4 in December, the last original WarCry war bands from the WarCry core book, the remaining Lumineth that are due in September, and the SoB mini(s) and codex. Is there anything else? 

Another Warcry warband - Khainite Shadowstalkers

[alghero81]

2 hours ago, Raviv said:

Another Warcry warband - Khainite Shadowstalkers

Yep that’s about it. We know that AoS Warhammer Fest preview never happened, but Who knows what was there. Maybe just new 40k stuff, maybe by then they would already had few things to show off for AoS. 

[Lowki]

Not sure if anyone already mentioned it, but I think the rumour engine of 7th july and 30 of june are both in the new models for 40k video in the article from 25 of july (launch party)

Edited July 26, 2020 by Lowki