The Rumour Thread

[Aphotic]

1 minute ago, The Lost Sigmarite said:

This is a very important statement because it shows what is happening right now isn't new - it's part of a time honored GW tradition going back to 2000. 

More than big hats; in the change from 6th, which included Storm of Chaos, to 7th edition, the Slayer army, Valten's peasants, the original Grimgor Blorc army, and the traditional demonic legions were all removed.

 

At the time, I owned 3 Demon legions (all converted from metals, and fully painted to GT standards, as I played heavily in the NE Fantasy GT circuit from MD to NY), Chaos Dwarfs, AND the Black Orc based army. all of it was essentially a sales grab, selling us piles of models that GW had no intention of carrying into 7th edition. 

[Sception]

1 minute ago, Ejecutor said:

Really an army with less than 6 years has "old kits begging for a refresh"? Wow. I hope you talk about the three or four fantasy ones.

Yes, I am talking about the three or four fantasy ones.  😛

[Aphotic]

1 minute ago, The Red King said:

For the better right? Changing over to a system that prioritizes churn and burn profits over everything else made things better of course... right?

Well, from the perspective of their shareholders and executives, the Magic-ifying of these games has been a stellar success.

 

AOS armies nowadays barely resemble army construction as I remember it. Hyper-fixation on data and book skew has rendered many of the AOS armies to be almost identical across faction when you play competitively. Workshop has done the impossible; they've turned a miniatures game into a card game.

[CommissarRotke]

7 hours ago, TrawlingCleaner said:

I might need to pick some Sacrosanct units and Beastmen up then 🤔

i have Sacrosanct i had already planned on selling to make space. if you're interested and in the USA, DM me

i love the wizard paladin vibe but I need space for my original love: Lizardmen/Seraphon.

[Grungnisson]

Now, having had an another look at the SCE cuts, am I the only one thinking not enough heroes are being culled?

I'm guessing this:

can actually mean a handful of minis, but I'm still hoping that with what's left, we'll at least see pooling all Knights and Lords into a single hero profiles.

[Ganigumo]

12 minutes ago, The Red King said:

I don't understand how only selling the miniatures in ToW could possibly generate more income than selling them in both when they're already going to keep producing the miniatures. Like again they gain the cost of one book in exchange for every BoC sale that might have gone to AoS as well as people like me (who are probably a minority) who are mad enough to stop buying from them entirely. 

 

Like maybe you're just saying the AoS sales are so small it doesn't matter but again it's free money when you're already producing them. 

If I understand correctly its not about the money exactly, but about tracking the metrics properly. Don't want to overinvest in old world based on AoS sales or vice versa.
Splitting up the ownership of the range between the teams is another factor.
They would probably actually make more money if they didn't split up the range, but this also forces players who play both systems to own 2 armies I guess.

For all this doom and gloom stuff over investors and profits I don't actually believe it. I think its just poor planning. Well run companies understand keeping customers happy is important over the long term. I can't remember the name, but there is a type of investor that will go hard into a company, push them to effectively burn through all their customer goodwill for short term profits, then bail before things blow up. I don't think GW is in that situation though, just mismanagement and planning issues.

A huge amount of their schedule is built around these new edition starter boxes, but I'm not sure they even really need to change much of the rules to make these things successful. Its a box, featuring completely new models for two armies, at a steep discount relative to the rest of their products, but they're unwilling to gamble on something this lucrative.

[Ejecutor]

32 minutes ago, Sarouan said:

It's actually the competitive players who are hurt the most. They're the ones who invest money in an army that is solely and purely aimed at AoS tournaments. If the said factions aren't "official" anymore (or are said to be dropped at a specific point in time), that kills the motivation for them to invest any further in this.

That's why I said the competitive scene can't be trusted and kills the fun in games. Because GW knows very well competitive players are the most driven to scrupulously follow the best meta and the most likely to buy a whole new army to keep being at the top. They also know putting an army on Legend is basically a death sentence for the life of these factions in competitive scene tournaments. Casual and narrative players, it's no big deal for them - they already have everything to keep playing at their pace and don't care about "official" or "balance" nonsense.

Devastating news for competite BOC players, they have all rights to be angry and throw ungor spearmen point first at AoS tournament posters in their training room.

I have no source, but I would say competitive players are the minority of the sales, but the bigger voice in the social media.

[Aphotic]

Just now, Ganigumo said:

If I understand correctly its not about the money exactly, but about tracking the metrics properly. Don't want to overinvest in old world based on AoS sales or vice versa.
Splitting up the ownership of the range between the teams is another factor.
They would probably actually make more money if they didn't split up the range, but this also forces players who play both systems to own 2 armies I guess.

For all this doom and gloom stuff over investors and profits I don't actually believe it. I think its just poor planning. Well run companies understand keeping customers happy is important over the long term. I can't remember the name, but there is a type of investor that will go hard into a company, push them to effectively burn through all their customer goodwill for short term profits, then bail before things blow up. I don't think GW is in that situation though, just mismanagement and planning issues.

A huge amount of their schedule is built around these new edition starter boxes, but I'm not sure they even really need to change much of the rules to make these things successful. Its a box, featuring completely new models for two armies, at a steep discount relative to the rest of their products, but they're unwilling to gamble on something this lucrative.

TBF the discussion about investors and executives was explicitly related to Workshop going public, and modelling their war games slowly but surely to become board games that pretend to be war games. This change over - when workshop began to focus on investor returns - was when you saw the clamp down on IP, ablative companies providing model upgrades workshop didn't make, culminating in an absurd lawsuit against a woman for using Space Marine in a novel.

I suspect the decision here is based on a few things. Apparently, there was infighting with the TOW dev team, which was supposedly primarily FW folks. This lead to a spillover when workshop took over the project. This then lead to the problem we're seeing with the AOS dev team, for obvious reasons, wanting to protect their project from TOW data pollution.

I'm not making a moral judgment on the issue, simply stating the speculation as I understand it.

The issue for Workshop is very simple; every time they do this, they lose customers to other companies. The SMART thing Workshop should have done was allowed FW to handle TOW. Period, end of story. IF the rumors are true - of course.

[Aphotic]

5 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

I have no source, but I would say competitive players are the minority of the sales, but the bigger voice in the social media.

This is true; but competitive players also drive -what- is sold, if not the volume a company like workshop relies on to be profitable, I'd wager.

[The Red King]

6 minutes ago, Ganigumo said:

If I understand correctly its not about the money exactly, but about tracking the metrics properly. Don't want to overinvest in old world based on AoS sales or vice versa.
Splitting up the ownership of the range between the teams is another factor.
They would probably actually make more money if they didn't split up the range, but this also forces players who play both systems to own 2 armies I guess.

For all this doom and gloom stuff over investors and profits I don't actually believe it. I think its just poor planning. Well run companies understand keeping customers happy is important over the long term. I can't remember the name, but there is a type of investor that will go hard into a company, push them to effectively burn through all their customer goodwill for short term profits, then bail before things blow up. I don't think GW is in that situation though, just mismanagement and planning issues.

A huge amount of their schedule is built around these new edition starter boxes, but I'm not sure they even really need to change much of the rules to make these things successful. Its a box, featuring completely new models for two armies, at a steep discount relative to the rest of their products, but they're unwilling to gamble on something this lucrative.

I know it's called corporate raiding but I don't know the investor names I don't think they're there yet.

[Pizzaprez]

3 minutes ago, The Lost Sigmarite said:

This is a very important statement because it shows what is happening right now isn't new - it's part of a time honored GW tradition going back to 2000. 

Difference is Chaos Dwarfs were a White Dwarf-published supplement that then got "get-you-by" rules alongside lots of other armies in the Ravening Hordes book and then we nuked from orbit by being the only Ravening Hordes faction to never make it out of that book again.

Technically, the army was (theoretically) never actually dropped. It was just so un-updated running it was not ideal. Tamurkhan sort of helped things, but that was back when people hyperventilated online about whether or not forgeworld was "official." 

They made the jump to AoS with their Forgeworld list, but got "not quite deleted!" with their own get-you-by list for AoS that was axed. Really it wasnt until the WHF -> AoS jump that I ever saw armies that had their own self-contained books start getting deleted from both the store and the game altogether. 

White Dwarf Presents: Chaos Dwarfs was a unique case of a whole race/faction existing in a semi-official book; usually it was stuff like the Storm of Chaos mashup armies or unique stuff from supplements like Lost and the Damned or, more recently, the Legion of Grief. Always sucks when the characterful subfactions get dropped. The only other army I can think of that's like a whole faction gone forever was the Vampire Coast subfaction but even then most that stuff was "Vampire counts but wet" outside of like the cannon.

GW has really never dropped Codexs, Armybooks, or Battletome armies before AoS and its a garbage approach. Looking back on years of 40k, it was super normal for armies to have a few variations of a similar thing; it's trash that Darkhoath is (long-term) replacing the Warcry stuff. Unless the Darkhoath Marauder unit is so flexible with gear options that it could represent all the Warcry stuff, it sucks. 

GW has never gone back and deleted an entire subfaction of Space Marines within two editions. Maybe their unique and special book, but not the models from the rules and setting.

"all the sancrosanct went to azyr! you can represent this on the tabletop next fall by putting your miniatures into the trash."

Like, any other miniatures from GW I feel the need to buy will almost certainly never be used in a GW game. I never thought I'd miss when I could run 6th Edition Bretonnia in 8th Edition Fantasy. If constant iterations to the game means it's impossible to keep the factions in-tact..... maybe slow the roll and make a game that actually has legs enough that it won't need an almost complete reboot in three years.

[Sealven]

3 minutes ago, Grungnisson said:

Now, having had an another look at the SCE cuts, am I the only one thinking not enough heroes are being culled?

I'm guessing this:

can actually mean a handful of minis, but I'm still hoping that with what's left, we'll at least see pooling all Knights and Lords into a single hero profiles.

Someone in the Stormkeep discord channel put together this visualization of the Stormcast range before and after the announcement.  

 

There's really only like two or three more heroes they could have cut without just axing everything that came out before third.

[Aphotic]

1 minute ago, Pizzaprez said:

Difference is Chaos Dwarfs were a White Dwarf-published supplement that then got "get-you-by" rules alongside lots of other armies in the Ravening Hordes book and then we nuked from orbit by being the only Ravening Hordes faction to never make it out of that book again.

Technically, the army was (theoretically) never actually dropped. It was just so un-updated running it was not ideal. Tamurkhan sort of helped things, but that was back when people hyperventilated online about whether or not forgeworld was "official." 

They made the jump to AoS with their Forgeworld list, but got "not quite deleted!" with their own get-you-by list for AoS that was axed. Really it wasnt until the WHF -> AoS jump that I ever saw armies that had their own self-contained books start getting deleted from both the store and the game altogether. 

White Dwarf Presents: Chaos Dwarfs was a unique case of a whole race/faction existing in a semi-official book; usually it was stuff like the Storm of Chaos mashup armies or unique stuff from supplements like Lost and the Damned or, more recently, the Legion of Grief. Always sucks when the characterful subfactions get dropped. The only other army I can think of that's like a whole faction gone forever was the Vampire Coast subfaction but even then most that stuff was "Vampire counts but wet" outside of like the cannon.

GW has really never dropped Codexs, Armybooks, or Battletome armies before AoS and its a garbage approach. Looking back on years of 40k, it was super normal for armies to have a few variations of a similar thing; it's trash that Darkhoath is (long-term) replacing the Warcry stuff. Unless the Darkhoath Marauder unit is so flexible with gear options that it could represent all the Warcry stuff, it sucks. 

GW has never gone back and deleted an entire subfaction of Space Marines within two editions. Maybe their unique and special book, but not the models from the rules and setting.

"all the sancrosanct went to azyr! you can represent this on the tabletop next fall by putting your miniatures into the trash."

Like, any other miniatures from GW I feel the need to buy will almost certainly never be used in a GW game. I never thought I'd miss when I could run 6th Edition Bretonnia in 8th Edition Fantasy. If constant iterations to the game means it's impossible to keep the factions in-tact..... maybe slow the roll and make a game that actually has legs enough that it won't need an almost complete reboot in three years.

This is a good insight; I remember (and still have) my WD with the original release for CD. 

[The Lost Sigmarite]

1 minute ago, Aphotic said:

The issue for Workshop is very simple; every time they do this, they lose customers to other companies. The SMART thing Workshop should have done was allowed FW to handle TOW. Period, end of story. IF the rumors are true - of course.

Yeah they'll definitely lose some customers over that, but those will be replaced by new players brought in by the new starter sets.

I think GW, like other big companies, works on a benefit/risk system. Looks like they wanted to trim down the AoS catalogue becasue they felt it was becoming bloated, they calculated the risks (losing customers), then the benefits (less range bloat, less costs, redirecting money to other more profitable projects) and decided the benefits outweighted the risk and gave the green light for squatting.

Is this a cold decision entirely based on numbers, stats and probabilities, driven by mercantile goals ? Yes. Is it how big companies operate now ? Sadly also yes. 

[Shiro Kabocha]

We'll never see Alarielle vs Morghur in AoS. A damn shame.....

[Pizzaprez]

5 minutes ago, Aphotic said:

This is a good insight; I remember (and still have) my WD with the original release for CD. 

Ah! Very envious of you there! I missed picking it up on eBay before they hit TOW and the book like tripled in price. I always liked the Chaos Dwarfs, even when they were already running an "out of date" book when I discovered them as a teen. I liked them enough I wanted to see 'em on the table, even if it was mostly losses.

Part of the appeal of a miniatures game is "these are my dudes; i made them!" and I plan on riding that crew through highs and lows in balance..... but you can't get too much lower than "deleted entirely."

  

3 minutes ago, Shiro Kabocha said:

We'll never see Alarielle vs Morghur in AoS. A damn shame.....

Can't exaggerate how disappointed I am with this part in particular. It was the narrative beat I was anticipating the most. Morghur was shaping up to be an antagonist for the first time like ever outside of "this dude in the woods is bad news!" Like, I don't even care about the setting much at all anymore. Can't see myself even finishing the back half of Dawnbringers; what's the point? There isn't actually a plan for the story.

Edited April 4 by Pizzaprez

[Ejecutor]

31 minutes ago, Loskelodd said:

 

I've seen Kragnos' people be mentioned earlier in the thread. I don't think that one is happening if Kragnos is representative of his species. Destruction already has a Giants faction. Of course it's always possible it's an entire faction of mini-Kragnos but I doubt it. 😄

 

I don't care for the Stormcast kits by themselves, but it's ominous to have an entire swathe of the posterboys get the axe like that. If they can get eliminated so easily, it does not bode well for smaller factions that don't receive nearly as much support. The Wacry news also worry me. I was thinking of getting in with Briar and Bones but I am reconsidering. Those kits might not even be legal a year or two after release for all I know.

 

 

Kragnos is their god in steroids. The Drogrukh would be smaller. A bit like the Dracothian Cavalry vs Karazay and his brother.

[DD-Lord]

Ok, now I've somewhat sobered up, and I can finally give a calm, analytical rundown of my thoughts regarding this whole thing.

Stormcast: Okay, sure, we all fully expected all the oldcast to eventually be replaced by the new thunderstrikecast, but still, that's too soon, and the fact that they are shelving the sacrosanct is extra sad since those were technically the first refreshes before the thunderstrike came into the picture. I will most certainly be missing the sequitors, the evocators, and their dracolines as much as I will also miss the Paladins, but I will not be missing the judicators, though, because the existence of the vigilators had already made them obsolete a while back. Also, I am kind of angry that the Vanguard-Raptors and hunters are not included in the list; those were two units that really didn't have much reason to exist, and I personally would not be including them, but that is probably not good enough for GeeDubs. 

Skaven: Everything is just as expected; they are already confirmed to be the main actors of the 4th edition. If anything, having most of their range covered is a good thing, as it confirms that lost or new stuff is on the way, and those were ancient anyway.

Beastmen: (sigh) Remember how we all kept believing that the beastlord was confirmation that the beasts were staying? Funny how none of us even considered that the beastlord could just be moved to the Old World. This is just sad, man.

Bonespliterz: If the Beastmen news was sad, then this one is downright devastating. Yes, the models were old, but they still had some interesting concepts in goodbye. Bone-Gits, I'll miss you very much.

Warcry: Now this is just outright infuriating. Who thought this was a good idea? And why are the Horns of Hashut included? If anything, the Darkoath savagers being shelved would have at least been expected, but somehow GeeDubs sees them as more valuable than all the warbands that started this together with a newer one. 

[Mungrun]

Am I the only one who finds it odd that they showed the beastmen in the 4th edition teaser trailer and now they've removed them? 🤔

[Ejecutor]

36 minutes ago, The Red King said:

I don't understand how only selling the miniatures in ToW could possibly generate more income than selling them in both when they're already going to keep producing the miniatures. Like again they gain the cost of one book in exchange for every BoC sale that might have gone to AoS as well as people like me (who are probably a minority) who are mad enough to stop buying from them entirely. 

 

Like maybe you're just saying the AoS sales are so small it doesn't matter but again it's free money when you're already producing them. 

Because their price would be cheaper.

[Ogregut]

1 hour ago, Ejecutor said:

Chorfs.

You say that but with the removal of the Warcry warbands there are no chaos dwarf models or followers in AoS now.

Chaos Dwarfs squatted again before they even became a full faction 😂

[Whitefang]

2 minutes ago, Mungrun said:

Am I the only one who finds it odd that they showed the beastmen in the 4th edition teaser trailer and now they've removed them? 🤔

that's a god-gor, not gor-gor

[EonChao]

1 hour ago, Ejecutor said:

Do you mean the one with the Griph-hound that is a UW warband? I think that's the only thing outside of the Soul Wars sprue that sold them, which IMO wouldn't be considered a unit box.

You have it the wrong way around, it was originally released as a regular release first, shortly after 2nd ed launched in 2018, as a wave of easy to build kits for Stormcast. There was Astreia Solbright, the Celestar Ballista, a trio of Sequitors and the Castigators with Gryph-Hound.

Later on they were repackaged in late 2021, after 3rd ed had started, in a Warhammer Underworlds starter set.

[EntMan]

2 minutes ago, Mungrun said:

Am I the only one who finds it odd that they showed the beastmen in the 4th edition teaser trailer and now they've removed them? 🤔

Wasn't that a Tzaangor?

[The Red King]

2 minutes ago, Mungrun said:

Am I the only one who finds it odd that they showed the beastmen in the 4th edition teaser trailer and now they've removed them? 🤔

This is why I was so angrily adamant that those were tzaangor NOT beastmen.

@Ejecutor not if you just keep selling them as AoS kits like Gloomspite mangler squigs that also have ToW rules.