The living lorebook: an alternative to rule book obsolescence

[Greybeard86]

I am a grognard. I fell in love with the hobby many years ago, I felt grumpy when GW killed WHFB, loved wargames over board games and  dream of running a months long campaign of Mordheim. However, putting aside my taste for tradition, old things, and dusty stuff, I want to share with you this idea for an alternative to the current rule books (codex, battletome).

Over the years, GW has put out a lot of army books for each faction, often radically changing how they played, looked, and their background between editions. The vast majority of times this was completely dependent on the whims of the studio and the designers at a time, and rarely it offered any reason for the changes included. I has always bugged me, and, given that they charge a hefty amount for the books, it seems that it bugs others as well.

This got me thinking, what would be a good way to create a rule book that offered continuity across editions, was lore consistent, allowed players to retain old units? This is how I thought about the Living Lorebook, a modular design for a rule book that grows with the setting. What if you could just add pages to your book, instead of tearing them apart? If the points increase for a certain type unit, say cavalry, it may be because there is a shortage of horses due to an event in the setting. Write a story about it! Link it to a black book novel! And then add a page to be placed in that unit's section reflecting the change. Those events could also be reflected in the model range through the inclusion of backwards compatible upgrade packs for models, as well as event specific special sculpts. For instance, a special standard bearer or champion.

Similar ideas could be used to keep old models around. Nowadays, old units are retired and moved to legends, where they just go to die. Instead, create a category for such units in the Living Lorebook! For instance, old empire and bretonnia cavalry regiments could be assembled into a more general category of "Freeguild Militia cavalry", the model differences reflecting the traditions behind each unit, and the equipment being kept across generations, precious remnants of the Old World.

A new battletome would bring new flavor, new stories, new options, without just burning the old ones. I feel I would be far more likely to collect such additions. Make them truly expandable, with physical books that allow us to add pages. Old pages would be desired! Do limited releases of those. Old players could show new players truly old yellow paper editions of the tome, and tell stories of how the world came to be.

Am I day dreaming too much?

[Ggom]

Isn't the 9th Age like this? A living ruleset that is maintained by the player base?

There's little incentive for GW to move to this, but it's certainly a neat approach with a different set of advantages and pitfalls. Really curious if there are folks with more experience with that who would weigh in.

[Overread]

You might want to look at Warmachine MK3 because this is sort of what they tried to do and it works great - for the hyper competitive top end players.

However, it basically backfired and (along with other things) contributed to their market starting to crumble for casual to intermediate players and newbies. The lore connections actually fell apart enough that they had to pull most of their lore writing aspects and scale back a lot.

 

 

See the problem with living-rules sets is that they are continually in a state of change. For computer games this works fine because the game handles all the numbers; it does all the remembering of changes and it does all the updating. So you can  change things on the fly and everyone keeps up automatically. Plus its all through the same digital medium

When you try and translate that to a tabletop game you hit barriers

1) Time - don't forget wargames take a long time and many might only get one or two games a week. If the rules are constantly changing people don't get much time to play before its changing and shifting. Factor in that people have to also buy and build models and a fast changing system might mean your army plans are scuppered long before you've even got them going. 

2) Maintenance - it requires effort to double check changes; even if handled by a good app, its still changing things. People have to remember that their stats for a unit are changing all the time. 

3) Devalues physical products - digital is nice, but physical products are often desirable. They are often good to reference and there's a host of reasons why some prefer using them over digital. Furthermore physical stats/rules/content is a great way to introduce new people and keep them interested. Losing that can be losing a major element in recruitment and retention of players. Just look at the other brands, almost any game that can produce a printed manual will do so - even if they make extensive use of digital mediums and have free rules. 

4) Confusion - fast changing rules creates more potential confusion. Players already have trouble iwth GW's current speed; speed it up more and you create more potential confusion. 

5) Lore. I love the idea of pairing some stat adaptations to lore, but its important to realise that many games won't read the lore. They engage with the lore in the rule book and their battletome and perhaps in white dwarf; but many will often choose to spend on the models before a novel. It's no shock, their hobby is wargaming building, painting and playing elements; lore is secondary to all that. Heck I didn't read any BL stuff for over a decade. 
It's just the same as how people into Total War Warhammer are not all buying AoS; or those into Horus Heresy are all buying HH models off FW. Some will yes, but many won't. 

 

 

I like the idea of a living system, it has merit, but it also has pitfalls and I think its important to be aware of them and what it can mean.

[Greybeard86]

I think I failed to explain myself. I am not advocating for faster or slower releases of battletomes. Truth is, we are already in a constantly changing rule set anyway, and my point is not about that.

What I am saying is that current battletomes replace each other between editions, and the changes between them are often not lore justified or connected to a story. For example, is no explanation as to why all of a sudden certain units are more prevalent (point decreases) and others less (point hikes). And still, a new battletome means the old one is effectively just completely obsolete. That’s why many people feel annoyed at having to buy a new book, I think, as it just seems you are rebuying your old book with some changes. But at full price.

What if you just bought additional pages to your book? Literally pages you could attach to your book and reflected over time how the setting is changing.  Take say a given unit of cavalry in a battletome. In 2019, they were 20 points a model and did no MW on the charge. In 2020 GW releases and expansion and gives them rend and MW in the charge if they are part of a new battalion that costs 100 points. They write a story about how some hero / military genius reformed the way these types of units fought, and then it made them so much more effective but also meant they took longer to train (point increases).  Release a miniature for the champion of that unit, limited event release. Now, if a new player comes, he/she just buys the latest version. But if an old player is around, his/her book has two pages for that unit. 

Those battletomes thus reflect the chronology of the setting, and how the story has evolved over time. It is not a reprint with some often retconned changes, or changes that aren’t mentioned at all. The old pages are still worth something because the are part of the living lore, it is not just wasted space on the shelve. The truth is that GW is already attempting something like this, to an extent. There is the Morathi expansion, or in 40k Cawl s new primaries and indomitus. However, it is a partial integration at best. 
 

Finally, what happens if a unit is discontinued? Say empire, brettonia, and we archers. Simply write a story about how they became obsolete in terms of fighting style, but nonetheless integrate them into an existing category. Either a catch it all for old stuff, or make them quirky versions of a new one. This is what people are doing anyway, I think it was @Double Misfire who wrote a wonderful guide about it. 
 

I would have been delighted to collect pages for such a book. Imagine a book with 10+ years of lore over some unit, telling its ups and downs over decades in the setting. If you are going to a tourney, pull out the latest pages. Otherwise, show off to the younglings and bring your relic that tells the story of demtygryph knights. Or perhaps what happened to some old fighting styles, no longer as prevalent, but still used in some remote locations...

 

[ian0delond]

You can't make a story why sword are suddenly more slashy. You can try to make the sword feel slashy in game, but game mechanic justifications and toy catalogs make poor stories.

[Greybeard86]

43 minutes ago, ian0delond said:

You can't make a story why sword are suddenly more slashy. You can try to make the sword feel slashy in game, but game mechanic justifications and toy catalogs make poor stories.

Then maybe it shouldn't be more slashy? The rules are supposed to be writen so that we can represent the battles in the fluff with the miniatures. If the fluff cannot justify what the miniatures are doing, maybe the miniatures shouldn't be doing it.

On 1/29/2021 at 1:29 AM, Ggom said:

Isn't the 9th Age like this? A living ruleset that is maintained by the player base?

There's little incentive for GW to move to this, but it's certainly a neat approach with a different set of advantages and pitfalls. Really curious if there are folks with more experience with that who would weigh in.

Not exactly. I think I wasn't very clear in my first post. It is living in the sense that they balance frequently, but the changes do not reflect changes in the "fluff/lore/setting", rather decisions to better balance competitive play.

What I am suggesting is to ground changes and additions to the rules on the setting and its timeline. So, now say little goblins get a "horde bonus". One may write a story about how they superpopulated and then learnt to fight in bigger numbers.

But the key to my proposal would be the actually adding physical pages to the book, as opposed to reprinting endless semi-copy paste of the same tome over editions. At the moment, old books hold extremely little value (old AoS battletomes), and it can feel aggravating to buy essentially a 75% identical book with some extra rules and a few new drawings. Instead, sell new content with the updates, and let the battletome be a chronology of that faction over the eras.

Wasn't one of the complaints about WHFB that nothing ever changed?

[Frowny]

This sounds kinda fun. 

Sounds like mostly a lore suggestion rather than a balance one. Just have them write short stories when there are major in points to help sell the new stats. 

Like a greatswords company gets decimated in a hard battle Bit learns from it, now being rarer but better, justifying a stat+point increase that they wanted to make anyway for unrelated balance reasons either internal or external

[Kadeton]

All of this sounds excellent... for players. From GW's perspective, I would imagine this just sounds like a lot more work for less return. And they definitely don't want to "allow players to retain old units", unfortunately.

More broadly, I also think the lore in AoS strongly resists being tied down to specific dates and events. The setting is (intentionally) too vast for an individual event on the scale of a battle or a plague to propagate sweeping changes across the realms. Only world-shattering events like the Necroquake are significant enough to be felt everywhere, and become part of the ongoing lore.

Take the "shortage of horses" idea as a justification for a points increase in a cavalry unit as an example. For starters, where is this horse shortage occurring? If it's localised, say to Hammerhal, then why are my cavalry from the Living City affected? Okay, let's scale it up - some terrible horse-plague has swept like wildfire across all the realms. But wait a sec... why has the Horsepocalypse only affected Freeguild Pistoliers, and not any of the other units that use horses? Do we need to account for why all those other units weren't affected in their lore entries, too?

I think it's a lovely concept, but it would be much more suited to something like the Old World, where units are actually tied to a specific time and place, instead of being from vaguely everywhere. Also, it's not something that GW would actually want to do within their business model.

That said, you could absolutely do this for your own army, building up a book of lore for your regiments and heroes as they change over time, recording significant victories and defeats, and so on. That could be a really cool creative hobby project to do alongside modelling and painting.

Edit: Now I want to write a chronicle or saga for my Beastclaw Raiders army, written by the terrified Freeguild soldier who's bound, gagged and dangling from a meathook on the back of my Frostlord's Stonehorn. That guy's really been through some stuff.

Edited January 31, 2021 by Kadeton

[Greybeard86]

On 1/30/2021 at 4:34 PM, Frowny said:

This sounds kinda fun. 

Sounds like mostly a lore suggestion rather than a balance one. Just have them write short stories when there are major in points to help sell the new stats. 

Like a greatswords company gets decimated in a hard battle Bit learns from it, now being rarer but better, justifying a stat+point increase that they wanted to make anyway for unrelated balance reasons either internal or external

Indeed, it is not about balance. Rather, a response to the current feeling that often battletomes feel copy-pasted version with little extra value from the previous ones.

14 hours ago, Kadeton said:

All of this sounds excellent... for players. From GW's perspective, I would imagine this just sounds like a lot more work for less return. And they definitely don't want to "allow players to retain old units", unfortunately.

I am a player, I was just thinking of "creative" ways to give more value to newer and older books.

Quote

More broadly, I also think the lore in AoS strongly resists being tied down to specific dates and events. The setting is (intentionally) too vast for an individual event on the scale of a battle or a plague to propagate sweeping changes across the realms. Only world-shattering events like the Necroquake are significant enough to be felt everywhere, and become part of the ongoing lore.

Take the "shortage of horses" idea as a justification for a points increase in a cavalry unit as an example. For starters, where is this horse shortage occurring? If it's localised, say to Hammerhal, then why are my cavalry from the Living City affected? Okay, let's scale it up - some terrible horse-plague has swept like wildfire across all the realms. But wait a sec... why has the Horsepocalypse only affected Freeguild Pistoliers, and not any of the other units that use horses? Do we need to account for why all those other units weren't affected in their lore entries, too?

Doesn't need to be horses, you know . Nevertheless, a common complaint about WHFB is that nothing really changed. So, personally, I would love to see them having to commit to the changes they make and integrate them into the setting.

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I think it's a lovely concept, but it would be much more suited to something like the Old World, where units are actually tied to a specific time and place, instead of being from vaguely everywhere.

I find that to be quite unappealing, to be honest; everything is "too vague". It seems that GW is actually changing that with books like Morathi's.

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Also, it's not something that GW would actually want to do within their business model.

Of course, easier to do the current thing: update a battle tome, copy paste lore and drawings, change stat sheets and a couple other things. But that's a complaint I have seen also for 40k, that lore pages are increasingly scarce in the new codexes, and hardly ever anything new is in them. New units do not really have much of an introduction to the setting either.

IMHO, the current business model is consumer unfriendly, and lots of people are resorting to battlescribe / wahapedia types of resources to avoid having to buy the ever changing books. To me, this means that people consider they aren't getting enough value from the books. I think so too, to be honest, and as I said elswhere I have great foundness for some of the old books.

Quote

That said, you could absolutely do this for your own army, building up a book of lore for your regiments and heroes as they change over time, recording significant victories and defeats, and so on. That could be a really cool creative hobby project to do alongside modelling and painting.

Edit: Now I want to write a chronicle or saga for my Beastclaw Raiders army, written by the terrified Freeguild soldier who's bound, gagged and dangling from a meathook on the back of my Frostlord's Stonehorn. That guy's really been through some stuff.

This is something I considered, frankly. But then all the other threads here and elsewhere about battletomes / codexes being a scam got me thinking.

Thanks for your feedback, though, I can see well where you are coming from.

Edited January 31, 2021 by Greybeard86

[Kadeton]

10 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

Doesn't need to be horses, you know . Nevertheless, a common complaint about WHFB is that nothing really changed. So, personally, I would love to see them having to commit to the changes they make and integrate them into the setting.

The horse thing is just an example... you just know that carelessly-written lore entries would be contradicting each other all over the place in short order, and then the players would be up in arms about how such-and-such a change doesn't make sense because of blah blah blah.

It would be cool to see small but meaningful lore changes, for sure. In some ways, I like the total disconnect between stats changes and lore, since I'm more focused on game balance as a priority (and I'm more than happy to make up my own lore), and not linking them allows the designers to make arbitrary changes in the name of said balance. I tend to think of stats changes as an adjustment of the abstraction model rather than indicative that anything actually changed in the in-game world. But doing it the other way is definitely a neat idea, and I'd love to see a game company attempt it some day! I just strongly doubt it will be GW.

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I find that to be quite unappealing, to be honest; everything is "too vague". It seems that GW is actually changing that with books like Morathi's.

It's a double-edged sword, I think. Things are certainly vague, but that vagueness allows the players much greater freedom to come up with their own narratives, since their stories won't conflict with what's "canon". Charitably, I assume that's what the writers were originally going for, even if they seem to be dialling it back a bit and bringing in more pressure to nail down dates and events to conform to "official" records.

Quote

Of course, easier to do the current thing: update a battle tome, copy paste lore and drawings, change stat sheets and a couple other things. But that's a complaint I have seen also for 40k, that lore pages are increasingly scarce in the new codexes, and hardly ever anything new is in them. New units do not really have much of an introduction to the setting either.

IMHO, the current business model is consumer unfriendly, and lots of people are resorting to battlescribe / wahapedia types of resources to avoid having to buy the ever changing books. To me, this means that people consider they aren't getting enough value from the books. I think so too, to be honest, and as I said elswhere I have great foundness for some of the old books.

It's absolutely not consumer-friendly, I agree. Personally I have no qualms about not buying the books, so I'm unaffected by the current wave of disillusionment about battletome value.

Fundamentally, that's the real issue with GW taking this idea on board: they're comfortable with the current value proposition of battletomes, and their sales data tells them they're right to be comfortable. You've suggested a really interesting way to add value to the tomes, but their business mindset says the current cost to value ratio is what the market will bear, so if they're going to add value then they also need to increase cost. However that shakes out, they'll be targeting roughly the same level of consumer satisfaction, so a lot of players will still be unhappy. Keeping an undercurrent of simmering resentment that's never quite boiling over into actual revolt is GW's intent - it's what makes "business sense".

Anyway, depressingly bland evil nature of the business world aside, I really like your idea.

Edited February 1, 2021 by Kadeton

[Greybeard86]

14 hours ago, Kadeton said:

It would be cool to see small but meaningful lore changes, for sure. In some ways, I like the total disconnect between stats changes and lore, since I'm more focused on game balance as a priority (and I'm more than happy to make up my own lore), and not linking them allows the designers to make arbitrary changes in the name of said balance. I tend to think of stats changes as an adjustment of the abstraction model rather than indicative that anything actually changed in the in-game world. But doing it the other way is definitely a neat idea, and I'd love to see a game company attempt it some day! I just strongly doubt it will be GW.

For me, this is about putting thought into the balance changes, and how the setting translates unto the table. At the moment, I cannot help but feel that sometimes this is lacking.

14 hours ago, Kadeton said:

It's a double-edged sword, I think. Things are certainly vague, but that vagueness allows the players much greater freedom to come up with their own narratives, since their stories won't conflict with what's "canon". Charitably, I assume that's what the writers were originally going for, even if they seem to be dialling it back a bit and bringing in more pressure to nail down dates and events to conform to "official" records.

It's absolutely not consumer-friendly, I agree. Personally I have no qualms about not buying the books, so I'm unaffected by the current wave of disillusionment about battletome value.

Same boat. I simply haven't bought a single book since my return, although I have spent a lot on miniatures. And I do like having the books, in principle, but not in these terms.

14 hours ago, Kadeton said:

Fundamentally, that's the real issue with GW taking this idea on board: they're comfortable with the current value proposition of battletomes, and their sales data tells them they're right to be comfortable.

It may be true, of course. Then you see the incredible detail in the HH books and it makes you wonder. Sometimes GW feels like a hydra that bites itself.

[Popisdead]

You can do this now.  

GW supports tournament play with Matched Points as a focus.  Tournaments drive competitive play, people search out competitive builds to use locally in games either tournaments or pick-up games.  The threads here are driven mostly by more competitive players (not narrative or older gamers who have enjoyed lore and creativity).  

Nothing is stopping anyone from using the original Warscrolls, older battalions, playing in any manner.  

The problem is the player base.  Have you seen anyone play Cities of Death in 40k?  No cause a few vocal power gamers ruined it by complaining about how you can just do one things (keep space marine army in reserve) and killed off people trying it.  Same with Storm of Magic.  "oh you can put a HE dragon mage on the balewind and ruin the game?  never playing it".  I played Storm of Magic and had a hoot.  

Also AoS is hugely immersive, the first year was primarily community driven work and GW picked up on that and well,.. they didn't curate it very well.

Vince and Rob had a really good chat involving other game systems as well on a recent Honest WArgamer (you can find this on youtube most likely).  Vince mentions how AoS could be much more and akin to what you are saying.  I've always seen the hindrance as power gamers/WAAC as they tend to get vocal, not wanting change they cannot control (i.e. loser game play, more narrative fun).

[Greybeard86]

On 2/2/2021 at 8:08 PM, Popisdead said:

Vince and Rob had a really good chat involving other game systems as well on a recent Honest WArgamer (you can find this on youtube most likely).  Vince mentions how AoS could be much more and akin to what you are saying.  I've always seen the hindrance as power gamers/WAAC as they tend to get vocal, not wanting change they cannot control (i.e. loser game play, more narrative fun).

Honestly, while I am a fan of math hammer and war games I d tend to agree. War hammer games are simply not well suited for true competitive play due to their heavy hobby side. But GW is big on insisting on beefing up that side of the game, with constant point updates and  what not. So at least let’s try to discipline it a bit and integrate it into the setting.

[EMMachine]

I would say it this way. For regular units something like the living lore book could be a little problematic because a change would normally impact 8 realms (each one a size many times our entire world) and most of the time it's on pure balancing,

But I would see potential in other cases.

In the lore their are units mentioned like the Black Marines (Kharadron Overlords better suited to fight against Nighthaunt), or the Forgefangs, units of Stormvermin, wearing weapons that are closer to those of a Warlock Engineer and are better armoured. For such stuff a living lorebook could actually be nice.

[Popisdead]

14 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

Honestly, while I am a fan of math hammer and war games I d tend to agree. War hammer games are simply not well suited for true competitive play due to their heavy hobby side. But GW is big on insisting on beefing up that side of the game, with constant point updates and  what not. So at least let’s try to discipline it a bit and integrate it into the setting.

It's also impossible to balance this game.  The granularity fails and since we don't value synergy, traits, spells or items that is a huge issue (think DoK vs BoC).  

The problem is people's expectations.  I've played Wood Elves forever (started buying them in 1987).  In 2005 they were so OP I could just put them on the table and win without paying much attention.   People who were used to being dominant local WAAC gamers were furious I had the best painted army in town and could beat people at their own game.  Then 7th ed hit and 8th.  I kept playing the army.  And AoS.  I get to use them again as LC CoS and they are good and I'm happy.  I love the models and I'm happy enough converting old models to new warscrolls. 

All the while I had people arguing about balance in the game, etc and I just thought "your army has ups and downs and unless you magically picked one that's always a winner, just enjoy.  It's not always your day in the sun"

[Greybeard86]

I have a lot of sympathy for that style, and WE certainly have a lot of character. I wish GW would focus more on that side than on "metawatches".

[Kaleb Daark]

slightly on an aside, what do you do with your old battletomes and GHB's?

o you keep them, do you throw them, do you sell them on - Is there a collectors market for such things?

[Fairbanks]

Are we complaining about not getting Battletome Updates or having to buy a book again?

Basically every army since the first Hedonites (and Sylvaneth), which was DOA) needs an update to be tournament competitive.

There was a combination of issues with Warmahordes’ CID updates. Leaving out the fact PP necked all their semi-casuals (by saying everything was balanced moving into the new edition, but the worst army pre-update was somehow even worse, then by nuking their own forums because the criticism hurt their fee-fees). When you are left with only hyper-competitive players you only played with the CID rules. When your army was ‘featured’, it was updated near weekly,  meaning the army you submitted a month ago could no longer function or be legal the day of a tournament.

Personally, I’d rather just pay $50 every two years than ever see an AoS CID. If there are major issues *cough* Kroak *cough* fix it in the FAQ and wash your hands.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

I wish GW would introduce a subscription service where you get access to the digital versions of all rules material for, like, a tenner a month. It does not even have to be all books. All rules would be enough for me. That way, they could print battletomes and general's handbooks as frequently as they wanted, and players would not have to feel bad about not getting enough use out of their books. And there would finally be a way to read up on other faction's rules without breaking the bank or having to piece them together from a bunch of previews and wikis.

[EMMachine]

23 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I wish GW would introduce a subscription service where you get access to the digital versions of all rules material for, like, a tenner a month. It does not even have to be all books. All rules would be enough for me. That way, they could print battletomes and general's handbooks as frequently as they wanted, and players would not have to feel bad about not getting enough use out of their books. And there would finally be a way to read up on other faction's rules without breaking the bank or having to piece them together from a bunch of previews and wikis.

Isn't that what the "Azyr" Subscription in the AoS App is for. Or is it really only for armylists?

 

21 hours ago, Kaleb Daark said:

slightly on an aside, what do you do with your old battletomes and GHB's?

o you keep them, do you throw them, do you sell them on - Is there a collectors market for such things?

The oldest battletomes often have some shortstory lore you won't find in later battletomes. As for the Generals Handbooks, not every generals Handbook has the same content for open and Narrative section, so it can be interesting to have older books as well.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

5 minutes ago, EMMachine said:

Isn't that what the "Azyr" Subscription in the AoS App is for. Or is it really only for armylists?

If it is I am fully prepared to put my money where my mouth is. I don't think you get all the rules, though, just points and composition rules updates. At least as far as I can tell. That it is so difficult to find out what the Azyr subscription does is kind of a problem in it's own right. As far as I can tell you still have to buy all your books separately, though.

[EMMachine]

12 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

If it is I am fully prepared to put my money where my mouth is. I don't think you get all the rules, though, just points and composition rules updates. At least as far as I can tell.

I don't use Azyr, only buy the battletomes, so I don't know what you get extra, for subscribing except for the Armybuilder.

12 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

 That it is so difficult to find out what the Azyr subscription does is kind of a problem in it's own right. As far as I can tell you still have to buy all your books separately, though.

I think the thing you wan't is what 40k has done, but I don't know if it is really what we want. The App we have right now, we get the most recent version of  the warscrolls at least.

Since the 40k App came out it is not possible anymore to buy onlineversions of codizes, so you need the subscription or the bookcode for the book (and you really only get the rule part, as it looks like).

I have the german versions of the Battletomes as Print + the english ones in the app. So I can check the english wording of the rules as well as of the lore (and also can look at the german translation).

Edited February 15, 2021 by EMMachine

[Greybeard86]

On 2/15/2021 at 10:27 AM, EMMachine said:

Isn't that what the "Azyr" Subscription in the AoS App is for. Or is it really only for armylists?

 

The oldest battletomes often have some shortstory lore you won't find in later battletomes. As for the Generals Handbooks, not every generals Handbook has the same content for open and Narrative section, so it can be interesting to have older books as well.

 

On 2/15/2021 at 9:54 AM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I wish GW would introduce a subscription service where you get access to the digital versions of all rules material for, like, a tenner a month. It does not even have to be all books. All rules would be enough for me. That way, they could print battletomes and general's handbooks as frequently as they wanted, and players would not have to feel bad about not getting enough use out of their books. And there would finally be a way to read up on other faction's rules without breaking the bank or having to piece them together from a bunch of previews and wikis.

I agree that a subscription service seems like a must. That said, I do think that "some" people would like the idea of tying further rules to lore, and actually telling a coherent story that informs the changes in the army.

Let's be frank, who doesn't think that having the decades of fantaysd or 40k story telling compilled into the codex wouldn't be awesome?