Warhammer - The Old World

[SunStorm]

31 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

I think you're misreading this one.  There's still plans for a number of more black books (think they worked out up to book 15) and The Old World has a separate design team to Age of Darkness.

Not saying that's not correct, but since the passing of Alan Bligh, I can't see FW producing another 6 black books. He was the driving force and main ideas man behind it.

The last book Crusade while good, doesn't quite match the previous 8 (literally in 1 sense the book is smaller and doesn't quite match the others on the book shelf)

I could seem them wrapping it up with a final book to make it 10, but we've heard nothing on that as far as I can tell. 

 

 

[RuneBrush]

5 minutes ago, SunStorm said:

Not saying that's not correct, but since the passing of Alan Bligh, I can't see FW producing another 6 black books. He was the driving force and main ideas man behind it.

The last book Crusade while good, doesn't quite match the previous 8 (literally in 1 sense the book is smaller and doesn't quite match the others on the book shelf)

I could seem them wrapping it up with a final book to make it 10, but we've heard nothing on that as far as I can tell. 

Although Alan was the driving force behind much, Neil Green is still there who worked with Alan pretty much from the start.  Alan also left a mass of notes behind mapping out pretty much the whole of the black book arc.  Genuinely an amazing bloke in truth!

I'm inclined to agree that I don't think we're going to get all the way to 15, but I do think we're going to see them get up to the Siege of Terra in some form.  Afterwards - who knows!  At one point there was a line of thinking to do the Siege of Terra as an independent ruleset (more akin to 8th ed 40k).  Bringing it back on topic, The Old World has it's own pool of resources and is being written as a separate project to AoD and although plans may have changed in the last year, AoD was still considered an active project too.

[SunStorm]

2 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

Although Alan was the driving force behind much, Neil Green is still there who worked with Alan pretty much from the start.  Alan also left a mass of notes behind mapping out pretty much the whole of the black book arc.  Genuinely an amazing bloke in truth!

I'm inclined to agree that I don't think we're going to get all the way to 15, but I do think we're going to see them get up to the Siege of Terra in some form.  Afterwards - who knows!  At one point there was a line of thinking to do the Siege of Terra as an independent ruleset (more akin to 8th ed 40k).  Bringing it back on topic, The Old World has it's own pool of resources and is being written as a separate project to AoD and although plans may have changed in the last year, AoD was still considered an active project too.

I think that's right, it could just be the lack of communication around anything 30k that makes it seem like it's no longer a priority. 

I am looking forward to The Old World, the art shown off so far looks amazing, but I'm not expecting it for a few years yet. 

 

[TheTuninator]

11 hours ago, Vomikron said:

Games Workshop and Forge World are obviously setting up a replacement for Horus Heresy but I for one doubt it’s ability to take the roll. I love the Old World but I really don’t want to spend endless amounts of money on beautiful campaign books for a super crunchy game system.
If it were Warmaster scale I might be tempted, but that would limit their ability to attract non Old World gamers to buy miniatures. Even if an AoS player doesn’t play they will still buy minis to use in their army. Same goes for Horus Heresy.
I know everyone thinks Primaris will fully take over regular space marines but that would leave a lot of Heresy players with useable armies and no 30k support. We already see them sprinkling in 30k tech into 40K (Neo-vulkite, dreadnoughts). I think the same philosophy will apply the Old World. 

Do we even think that TOW is going to follow the HH model? This still feels like speculation based off that we know FW staff are working on TOW to me. Logically, you would think TOW would be oriented to attract TWWH & Vermintide players, which would suggest at least all the core troops at a minimum would need to be in plastic.

[Vomikron]

33 minutes ago, TheTuninator said:

Do we even think that TOW is going to follow the HH model? This still feels like speculation based off that we know FW staff are working on TOW to me. Logically, you would think TOW would be oriented to attract TWWH & Vermintide players, which would suggest at least all the core troops at a minimum would need to be in plastic.

I would love if this were true. 

[Snorri Nelriksson]

If they'll do TOW with the same process of HH modelwise (majority of models in resin) i think it will hurt the game.
FW fantasy part always sold less than 40k\30k, still i'd love the detail of the HH books for Tow ones.
 

Edited May 11, 2021 by Snorri Nelriksson

[Gaz Taylor]

5 hours ago, TheTuninator said:

Do we even think that TOW is going to follow the HH model? This still feels like speculation based off that we know FW staff are working on TOW to me. Logically, you would think TOW would be oriented to attract TWWH & Vermintide players, which would suggest at least all the core troops at a minimum would need to be in plastic.

It’s possible and was mentioned when news first dropped but no idea if that’s still the case. As I suspect they want to sell new models, I’m expecting a hybrid between fantasy battles and Warmaster. The models can be a scale between both and borrow rules from both systems. But then I’m thinking this due to the popularity of Total War

[TheTuninator]

2 hours ago, Gaz Taylor said:

It’s possible and was mentioned when news first dropped but no idea if that’s still the case. As I suspect they want to sell new models, I’m expecting a hybrid between fantasy battles and Warmaster. The models can be a scale between both and borrow rules from both systems. But then I’m thinking this due to the popularity of Total War

I personally would be shocked if it's anything but 28mm heroic. I base this off two things, the first being that GW is a models company first and foremost, and the second being that the game will likely be targeted primarily not at WHFB players, but people who have come into the hobby more recently & TWWH players.

 

As GW is a models company, they have a lot of people who collect the models but don't play the game, and smaller scales like ~15mm hold a lot less appeal to this demographic due to the reduced detail. As far as the second issue, getting people to rebuy models is not a concern which warrants a scale shift because GW already knows that the old WHFB fanbase can't be relied on to sustain a major product line - else we'd still have WHFB today! They won't be primarily targeting people with existing WHFB armies, but rather newer players/people who never played WHFB (which will be a substantial % of the playerbase given churn/the outsize popularity of 40k) and trying to on-ramp TWWH players as well. Rebuying is not a concern for these people. While they will still want to attract WHFB grogs as well, this is where factions like Kislev and others (maybe Norsca?) come in, enticing WHFB grogs with a brand-new model line without requiring any kind of dramatic scale shift.

 

And all that aside, of course, the history of GW shows that people are often quite willing to rebuy a nicer version of what they already had! I'd certainly scramble to throw more money at GW for new Bretonnians if given the chance.

[Noserenda]

We've been over it already earlier in the thread but tbh, given how much support for Warhammer is coming from the computer games crowd these days, a smaller scale absolutely makes sense given the majority of the time in Total war games you are looking at the battlefield super zoomed out

[Vomikron]

14 minutes ago, Noserenda said:

We've been over it already earlier in the thread but tbh, given how much support for Warhammer is coming from the computer games crowd these days, a smaller scale absolutely makes sense given the majority of the time in Total war games you are looking at the battlefield super zoomed out

I think this is a good point. They also teased the return of square bases, which Warmaster would need, way back when and for some reason I find it hard to believe that they would go back to rank and file units, it just seems so outdated for 32mm scale. Considering how popular Age of Sigmar has become im worried The Old World will be a step backward. I suppose you can easily make the argument that nostalgia by definition is a step backward though.

I would much prefer the Boxed Games crew to take over The Old World in 10-12mm and have Forge World do supplementary units. 

Edited May 12, 2021 by Vomikron

[Jefferson Skarsnik]

Most Warmaster bases weren't squares

[Kaleb Daark]

12 hours ago, Vomikron said:

I think this is a good point. They also teased the return of square bases, which Warmaster would need, way back when and for some reason I find it hard to believe that they would go back to rank and file units, it just seems so outdated for 32mm scale. Considering how popular Age of Sigmar has become im worried The Old World will be a step backward. I suppose you can easily make the argument that nostalgia by definition is a step backward though.

I would much prefer the Boxed Games crew to take over The Old World in 10-12mm and have Forge World do supplementary units. 

They won't be a step backwards.

They'll be two very separate flavours of games, much like 30k and 40k rulesets are now.

Fantasy was built around ranks and flanks and the movement  thereof.

AoS is a much more fluid ruleset much like 40k was to fantasy, and was at the time better able to handle skirmishing and more dynamic movement.  The fact that AoS has the model count of an old fantasy battle army is by the by.

I can see them keeping the rulessets and model scales very separate, maybe keeping the fantasy at 28mm, in the same way that LoTR kept everything at a 25mm scale.  There would be less cross contamination that way, and it also gives GW the opportunity to retire older model lines it inherited from the old system back to that system and update / delete that faction from AoS, thereby fulfilling it's initial statement made at the beginning of AoS when it was born.

By doing that as well, they would have a cost effective model based on very little expense apart from new development as most of the core troops are already there, and you now they were designed around being ranked, so if movement trays and all that jazz are a thing they'll work with that as well.

[TheTuninator]

14 hours ago, Noserenda said:

We've been over it already earlier in the thread but tbh, given how much support for Warhammer is coming from the computer games crowd these days, a smaller scale absolutely makes sense given the majority of the time in Total war games you are looking at the battlefield super zoomed out

IMO the goal isn't to sell a tabletop version of TWWH to TWWH gamers, it's to pull TWWH gamers into the GW hobby and convert them into long-term GW fans. Making a game that operates in a completely different way from the rest of the GW hobby ecosystem just doesn't make sense here.

14 hours ago, Vomikron said:

I think this is a good point. They also teased the return of square bases, which Warmaster would need, way back when and for some reason I find it hard to believe that they would go back to rank and file units, it just seems so outdated for 32mm scale. Considering how popular Age of Sigmar has become im worried The Old World will be a step backward. I suppose you can easily make the argument that nostalgia by definition is a step backward though.

I would much prefer the Boxed Games crew to take over The Old World in 10-12mm and have Forge World do supplementary units. 

An additional problem with 10mm-12mm is that it puts GW in direct competition with 3D printers; sculpting and printing detailed 10mm-12mm at scale for affordable prices is very feasible & harder for GW to contest on copyright grounds given the greater degree of abstraction. Somebody like Forest Dragon, for example, is able to quickly create entire model ranges with very limited resources at a similar or equal quality to what GW could do in 10mm, which would not be the case in 28mm heroic, where GW's institutional advantages over independent 3D printing competition are far stronger.

Edited May 12, 2021 by TheTuninator

[Clan's Cynic]

17 hours ago, Noserenda said:

We've been over it already earlier in the thread but tbh, given how much support for Warhammer is coming from the computer games crowd these days, a smaller scale absolutely makes sense given the majority of the time in Total war games you are looking at the battlefield super zoomed out

I'm usually the last person to beat the "GW are worried about 3D printing" drum but I think when it comes to 15mm there's some truth to it. The detail at 15mm is so minimal that it would take very little trouble for people to replicate the sprues almost identically and it wouldn't take long at all for duplicates to circulate, whether that people printing them off and selling them, or people just buying a printer for personal use.

I suspect this is also why we won't see Epic no matter how successful Titanicus is.

Also, Warmaster was a flop and Battle of the Five Armies was a flop, whilst for all people talk about WHFB having been a 'dead game' (it wasn't) it's one that did last around twenty years, as opposed to Warmaster's one and BotFA's- well, it had it's launch and that was it.

I say this as somebody who's gotten pretty deep into the 12mm-15mm side of wargaming recently. I'd be fine if was 15mm, but I just don't see it happening.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Clan's Cynic

[AaronWilson]

I would love ToW to be 28mm (WHFB Scale) so I can simply slot my large High Elf army into it. 

[Noserenda]

Yeah Warmaster was a great set of rules for wargames, just not for warhammer which is why it flopped i think and Battle of Five armies was awesome but produced purely for licencing reasons apparently so GW never had much investment in it.

I think if it is produced in a 28ishmm scale it is going to be designed to cross over with AoS, regardless of what Old World itself ends up being, it would just be too much of a gamble otherwise.

I dont think smaller scales are inherently easier to 3d print either tbh, a friend got a 3d printer last week and has already made 2kg of Imperial fists (Mostly Heavy Intercessors and Gravis characters) for 40k that look pretty great so the scanners or artists are already out there. I think FWs main problem is recasters, if they try to do a resin focused mass battle game its the recasters that will cut into their profits, so either way they are going to have issues.

Personally id rather they embraced 3d printing sooner rather than later, plenty of companies seem to be springing up selling STLs and the like and they can still sell minis to luddites like me I mean they are already using 3d printing to make masters and the like so most of the work is already done.

[RuneBrush]

18 hours ago, Clan's Cynic said:

Also, Warmaster was a flop and Battle of the Five Armies was a flop, whilst for all people talk about WHFB having been a 'dead game' (it wasn't) it's one that did last around twenty years, as opposed to Warmaster's one and BotFA's- well, it had it's launch and that was it.

I'd not say that Warmaster was a flop, there's a pretty big community that still plays Warmaster and that's growing as there's a company producing miniatures for it again.  BoFA I think was only really intended as a one off.

I reckon there would be a space in GW's catalogue of games to fit in a 10~12mm scale fantasy game.  Although you would get people 3d printing their own models, you know that GW will simply produce better and more detailed models in plastic.

18 hours ago, Clan's Cynic said:

I suspect this is also why we won't see Epic no matter how successful Titanicus is.

Interesting fact.  When the rules for Titanicus were created, they did work out basic rules for smaller units.

[HorticulusTGA]

I'm still 100% sure TOW will be the right size (aka 28-32mm Heroic scale). 

On a related note, the TWW III trailer was quite interesting. As other have said, we have pretty High Fantasy looking units for Kislev, and straight-out-of-AOS Blood Warriors for the Khorne-marked Chaos Warriors....

I'm just bothered by the fact there seem to be no big distance between Northern Kislev (aka Troll Country) and the Realm Of Chaos. The Kislevite and her bear just walked through a forest and ended up in front of the very BRASS CITADEL.

Did they forgot Norsca and the deadly Chaos Wastes inbetween Kislev and the Chaos rift at the North Pole ??? Which should also kill the girl and mutate the bear at the very least 

That sight (which was probably just a "vision") with Khorne's shadow at the end was dope though

[HorticulusTGA]

RE : 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/05/13/a-giant-bear-beats-up-daemons-in-total-war-warhammer-iiis-new-gameplay-trailer/

Some new map for TOW at the end of the article. 

(BTW I'm not convinced by the gameplay trailer.... As I said in my post above, doesn't look very conform to the fluff....)

[Sunshine]

I hope we will be seeing a model for little grom when The Old World comes about.

[SunStorm]

Has there been any hints that ToW is a different scale or is it just speculation they won't do "standard" 28-32mm heroic?

[Marcvs]

11 minutes ago, SunStorm said:

Has there been any hints that ToW is a different scale or is it just speculation they won't do "standard" 28-32mm heroic?

There isn't any indication that it will be 28-32mm either, so every statement about scale (or everything else really) is just speculation

[Snorri Nelriksson]

1 hour ago, Sunshine said:

I hope we will be seeing a model for little grom when The Old World comes about.

IIRC TOW should be too early for him (timeline should be set between 1360 IC and Magnus the Pious).

Seeing the trailer though it seems a little bit different this iteration of Kislev, while bear riders and ice witches already existed in the lore the cannon sled seems a bit too much, the same for too much bears in some regards (like the space wolves using a wolf cavalry and so on).
I hope they'll not exaggerate the concepts for TOW, the wilder ideas are for Aos and still the old world had also wilder ideas that could be capitalized without changing too much.

Edited May 13, 2021 by Snorri Nelriksson

[Gotz]

regarding the 10-15mm range debate about 3d printing. Currently home printers get nice results, but when compared next to pro-printed miniatures, the difference in quality is cristal clear. 

And in my opinion, home 3D printing is currently too cumbersome for mainstream public and requires quite some space (and good ventilation). And for the prize of a printer you probably could get like 3 warmaster sized armies and without fighting with the printer settings. Nowadays is something for hardcore hobbists, but that probably will change in not that much time.

 

[FFJump]

At the bottom of that article they posted another map "of Kislev as it appeared in the time of heroes like Louen Orc-Slayer." I noticed something very interesting to me personally.

Chaos Dwarfs represented on the map  .