Poll: Soup

[Gitzdee]

Title says it all.

Lets get one huge Greenskinz Soup option back for nostalgia reasons (j/k). Lets give Gitmob their own tome with Grotbag Scuttlers plz.

Wanderers + Sylvaneth = Yes XD

Duardin = No

Daemons = No

Guess no soup for me.

Edited November 30, 2022 by Gitzdee

[xking]

Gitmob should be in their own tome

 

[OkayestDM]

I went with "no soup," but if I'm honest, it doesn't really bother me personally either way. 

I sympathize with the argument that souping factions erodes their identity, and can understand people wanting to steer clear of that. 

I think souping is an efficient means of releasing rules for several similar, smaller factions - and can see why GW might lean in that direction, given how many factions they already have in AoS - but efficient doesn't always mean correct.

[mojojojo101]

Yeh, strong in the 'no soup' camp over here.

 

AoS' smaller, more focused factions are a big selling point for me and one of the things I like most about the setting / game.

 

I do wonder how much this lines up with nostalgia for WHFB. Personally I have no real nostalgia for the setting and would much rather see AoS' development move further away from those old tropes than the opposite.

[zilberfrid]

No soup for me. Soup seems to mean "no new boxes". Except an infantry hero here and there.

Were I to care about rules, it erodes one layer of faction specific options.

[Gitzdee]

I do think the O&G book was a ton of fun. Being able to mix up everything and really build your own custom army was awesome. Lets be honest most lists are quite similar except for maybe stormcast lists or a few lists that exploit 1 fotm unit.

[Baron Klatz]

No Soup. That was fine back in 2019 when they had a 100 sub-factions floating around and needed organization but now AoS is at a solid place it can focus down on it’s factions and build them up in very unique ways. Even split some back off again and build them from there.

Soup should only happen when we hit critical mass with all the Grand Alliances sub-factions again like if Destruction grows to have 12 factions (ex: Orruks, Ogors, Behemat, Gloomspite, Gitmob, Grotbags, Silent People, Realm Scions, Elementals, Abyss Hunters, Aetar skylords, Drogrukh Returned) Then it’d make sense to combine a few to get it down for balance.

As is, AoS needs to continuing growing and expanding. Not consolidating when it’s still at it’s stride in getting bigger. 

Edited November 30, 2022 by Baron Klatz

[JerekKruger]

4 hours ago, mojojojo101 said:

I do wonder how much this lines up with nostalgia for WHFB. Personally I have no real nostalgia for the setting and would much rather see AoS' development move further away from those old tropes than the opposite.

Just one data point, but I have huge WFB nostalgia, but but no soup.

Then again, I am not looking to recreate WFB in AoS. I like the new identities factions have in AoS.

[Gareth 🍄]

No soup as long as they flesh out some factions a bit more. Basically I really want more Kruleboyz!

[Red Bull]

I'm pro soup. Less books the better imo. WHFB was my main game for most of my life too, so it could be some nostalgia there

I mostly think about elves, and in my head it makes sense for each elf army to have their 2 Gods (or near gods) in the same book. So Tyrion/Teclis, Malerion/Morathi, Arielle/Orion. Keep Deepkin on their own I guess? 

Also, I could see a more classic Dwarf faction tying together the KO and the Slayers. Kinda like they did with Orcs already

To me, it just makes sense. Less books, more rules in each book, more options for the player

[Skreech Verminking]

I sadly can not submit any votes since there are two different kinds of believes I currently have.

do I want the gitmob grots to have their own codex, yes definitely.

they don’t really fit the idea of what the more moon fanatics believe in.

but personally I don’t want to see the gloomspite gitz book to be entirely ripped apart.

troggoth and squigs truly are a part of the gloomy gits, and I really would like to see them stay with the faction.
I think the only faction that could maybe work on their own, would be the spiderfang grots, should they at some point get their own infantry units of cheap meatshield 

[Ganigumo]

"Soup" is fine. They still release rules in physical books, at a relatively steady cadence, which kind of puts a soft cap on the number of armies we can have in the game.

Souping is a way around this.

Just because a book gets souped doesn't mean the individual pieces lose their identity or playstyle either, both warclans and gitz are examples of this.

I just want good rules, as bad rules are what plagued the warclans book, specifically kruleboyz.

[EccentricCircle]

Controversial opinion, I want all of the rules of the game in as few books as possible. Give me a single compendium like Warcry, or at worst one per GA like in first edition and old warcry. Put everything up front where I can find it, and don't dole it out over the course of dozens of books.

By all means give each faction a dedicated lore book with lots of juicy information about them, I am the sort of person who will absolutely buy campaign books, lore books, art books, or codices for factions I don't play if the lore and art are good enough. But what I object to is planned obsolescence. I don't want to have to rebuy the same thing every couple of years with minimal changes because Games Workshop's share holders wanted more yachts.

The best way to achieve that is to decouple the lore from the rules.

They won't do that, because they are terrified that if they do so then people won't buy it. Maybe they are right, but the fast Codex cycle is self destructive, and sooner or later it will come back to bite them.

 

[Ganigumo]

1 minute ago, EccentricCircle said:

Controversial opinion, I want all of the rules of the game in as few books as possible. Give me a single compendium like Warcry, or at worst one per GA like in first edition and old warcry. Put everything up front where I can find it, and don't dole it out over the course of dozens of books.

By all means give each faction a dedicated lore book with lots of juicy information about them, I am the sort of person who will absolutely buy campaign books, lore books, art books, or codices for factions I don't play if the lore and art are good enough. But what I object to is planned obsolescence. I don't want to have to rebuy the same thing every couple of years with minimal changes because Games Workshop's share holders wanted more yachts.

The best way to achieve that is to decouple the lore from the rules.

They won't do that, because they are terrified that if they do so then people won't buy it. Maybe they are right, but the fast Codex cycle is self destructive, and sooner or later it will come back to bite them.

 

The biggest issue with throwing all the rules into one (or a couple) books is that the development time goes way up for those books, which probably makes that system less profitable/sustainable. Plus it would definitely hurt player engagement. 

Sure it sucks waiting for a rules update, but throwing all the rules out on day 1 of the edition (as the extreme example) doesn't leave much to be released over the course of the edition.

The answer is probably digital rules, but they'd need to be monetized, and plenty of players like playing with physical books instead of phones, although maybe white dwarf could be flexed to address the latter part a bit.
Honestly I wouldn't hate a subscription based service for access to the rules if it led to a more involved release and balancing strategy.

[EccentricCircle]

1 hour ago, Ganigumo said:

The biggest issue with throwing all the rules into one (or a couple) books is that the development time goes way up for those books, which probably makes that system less profitable/sustainable. Plus it would definitely hurt player engagement. 

Sure it sucks waiting for a rules update, but throwing all the rules out on day 1 of the edition (as the extreme example) doesn't leave much to be released over the course of the edition.

The answer is probably digital rules, but they'd need to be monetized, and plenty of players like playing with physical books instead of phones, although maybe white dwarf could be flexed to address the latter part a bit.
Honestly I wouldn't hate a subscription based service for access to the rules if it led to a more involved release and balancing strategy.

Oh for sure. That's the main reason I don't think they'll do it. As a consumer I'd be perfectly happy if they take their time, get it right, and then make a single solid product that will stand us in good stead for years. Basically do an update every time they release a new faction, and then it stays like that. I'm not a competitive player though, so I'm perfectly happy just having a working game on the shelf forever. I know that others will feel differently.

[JerekKruger]

23 hours ago, Red Bull said:

Keep Deepkin on their own I guess? 

Their god is Teclis too, they're just misotheists. So stick them in with Lumineth 😆 (don't actually do that)

[Nacnudllah]

I'm anti-soup. I think there should be a different tome for each Stormcast Chamber. I think Chaos armies should be split into a Mortal allegiance and a Daemon one. I think Skeletons, Vampires, Creatures of the Night, and Soulblight should be three separate factions. My preference is for each faction to be as niche as possible and for some kind of Grand Alliance soupiness allowed in Open & Narrative play. This would allow for tighter design and greater collectability of armies (as in, you can collect everything you'll ever need for an allegiance, then move on to collecting a new one).

[Baron Klatz]

46 minutes ago, Nacnudllah said:

Creatures of the Night

Honestly push comes to shove this could probably be Deadwalker Legions with creatures on the side(or made into another faction of Shyishian God-beast offspring, would love cairn hounds & bone hydras to get their own thing)

We already have several zombie leaders that can even be expanded with the Kosargi zombie ogors getting some commanders alongside Crelis from Soul Wars:

“Crelis Arul the Lady of All Flesh, mistress of Deadwalkers is a Deathlord in the service of Nagash. She is famed for her charnel gardens and their potent fragrance. 

She travels atop a palanquin draped in rotting and stained finery with her features hidden behind a crudely stitched leather mask. Her eyes are flat and milk coloured, her voice is like a liquid slur and akin to her subjects she stinks of rot and decay. She is inevitably accompanied by two great dire wolves, their ribcages showing through tattered fur and their skulls bare to the moonlight. 

Her bones are carved with words and sigil’s in an ancient language”

Add a few more zombie heroes, Zombified beasts & zombie-tossing catapults and the Exiled Dead made into both an electrifying horde of Tesla experiments and elite Frankensteins on top of faction terrain of Corpse Gardens that act similar to Skaven Gnaw-holes that sprout on the battlefield to disgorge undead but also enhance enemies turned into zombies via their life-seeking vines and you can get a great faction that represents the militias of Shyish and lower ranking hierarchy of zombie-ran estates. 🧟‍♂️ 🧟‍♀️ 

Edited December 3, 2022 by Baron Klatz

[NinthMusketeer]

There just isn't enough context in the original question for me to cast an honest vote. But if we're wishlisting...

My dream would be a three-tiered system of progressively stronger allegiance abilities as a reward for progressively more narrow unit choices. One of the reasons the Grand Alliances worked (well at least in Warhammer terms anyways) was because their abilities were, explicitly and by design, much weaker. What did they have instead? The entire roster of their grand alliance to choose from! They could cherry pick the best units from each army to make up for their lack of layered allegiance abilities.

So that's tier 1 - Grand Alliances. Tier 3 is the battletomes we have now, with potential for further subdivision within them that (literally or practically) locks out certain options. I would also like to see God-specific tomes have two extra allegiance abilities each; one for all-mortal and one for all-daemon, each preventing the army from having the other but offering some benefit to compensate.

Tier 2? Well that's in-between. This is where the allegiances for Aelf, Duardin, Human, Deathrattle, Vampire, Grot, Orruk*, Ogor*, Daemon, and whatever else reside. They aren't as strong as full battletomes, but they aren't as weak as Grand Alliances either. Reminds me of when I made allegiance abilities for mixed-Duardin armies, but there was little to no interest.

*Split them back up into their own tomes; we've seen it works, Destruction needs the army diversity, it lets the writers really capitalize on each faction's unique identity, and no one cares if different tomes share an allegiance ability or two.

[Lord Krungharr]

For Duardin, I want soup, at least a City in the next Cities book where they can trade their various golds, gems, and wares....and all benefit from a new mighty centerpiece model that is the Anvil of Doom!

[Dawi not Duardin]

22 hours ago, Nacnudllah said:

I'm anti-soup. I think there should be a different tome for each Stormcast Chamber. I think Chaos armies should be split into a Mortal allegiance and a Daemon one. I think Skeletons, Vampires, Creatures of the Night, and Soulblight should be three separate factions. My preference is for each faction to be as niche as possible and for some kind of Grand Alliance soupiness allowed in Open & Narrative play. This would allow for tighter design and greater collectability of armies (as in, you can collect everything you'll ever need for an allegiance, then move on to collecting a new one).

This is interesting because I am pro-soup for exactly the same reason. I agree with these distinctions, except what you call grand alliances are what I would call factions, and what you call factions I would call sub-factions. For example, I have a reasonably strong preference for having just one Undead faction (in my terminology), but with millions of possibilities rather than the distinct factions we have now. So maybe this debate is to some extent terminological?

[Baron Klatz]

46 minutes ago, Dawi not Duardin said:

So maybe this debate is to some extent terminological?

I mean you already stated how it’s different.

46 minutes ago, Dawi not Duardin said:

rather than the distinct factions we have now.

We want them seperated into more distinct factions with more books focusing on a faction alone so instead of say Beastclaw Raiders being treated as cursed nomad versions of Gutbusters or Spider-grots the Shyish forest cousins of Moonclans it’s back to being full tomes just on them and their seperate tribal cultures, gods, battles and army configuration abilities along with model ranges that fleshes their specific themes as individual forces out rather than give variety that makes them feel like add-ons.

The variety would come through the GA’s allowing combinations(you get all the above unit choices but lose special abilities that buff the certain army)

Your take on Death being one faction would fall apart as soon as we started expanding past it with stuff like Shyishian mortal armies, void entities, Stygxx River guardians, Hallost companions, Primordial Tomb Sons of Gnorros, Frost Titan legions of Okaenos, etc.

Same as if you compared something like the Grand Alliance Order as a simple Faction and that Seraphon being in the same book as Deepkin would be normal.

Edited December 4, 2022 by Baron Klatz

[Dawi not Duardin]

1 hour ago, Baron Klatz said:

I mean you already stated how it’s different.

We want them seperated into more distinct factions with more books focusing on a faction alone so instead of say Beastclaw Raiders being treated as cursed nomad versions of Gutbusters or Spider-grots the Shyish forest cousins of Moonclans it’s back to being full tomes just on them and their seperate tribal cultures, gods, battles and army configuration abilities along with model ranges that fleshes their specific themes as individual forces out rather than give variety that makes them feel like add-ons.

The variety would come through the GA’s allowing combinations(you get all the above unit choices but lose special abilities that buff the certain army)

Your take on Death being one faction would fall apart as soon as we started expanding past it with stuff like Shyishian mortal armies, void entities, Stygxx River guardians, Hallost companions, Primordial Tomb Sons of Gnorros, Frost Titan legions of Okaenos, etc.

Same as if you compared something like the Grand Alliance Order as a simple Faction and that Seraphon being in the same book as Deepkin would be normal.

I'm not so sure how it is different other than in terminology. For example, let's say there are four factions (Free Peoples, Undead, Destruction, and Chaos). They could still have several battletomes each (e.g. Free Peoples: Aelves, Free Peoples: Cities of Sigmar, Free Peoples: Duardin, etc), for faction-souping need not entail battletome souping. You could expand them pretty much infinitely either by introducing new subfactions or making older ones more fine-grained. Though I would also want the more fine-grained divisions to be of roughly equal size: I don't like that some armies (e.g. Stormcast) have much more unit choice than others, as that gives them far more versatility. But it doesn't make a difference if you call these four factions 'factions' with several sub-factions or grand alliances with several factions, IMO.

You could also expand my hypothetical Undead faction example like that. Having mortal units in there is nothing new: necromancers, bats and ghouls always were. But call the faction Death or Legions of Nagash or something instead if that works better. The point is that you want a unified core entity, which is the main faction or alliance depending on your terminology, and then can split it in more fine-grained details.

Edited December 4, 2022 by Dawi not Duardin

[Baron Klatz]

55 minutes ago, Dawi not Duardin said:

for faction-souping need not entail battletome souping.

Then I think you’re actually anti-soup because that’s the real debate here. 😛 

I think you’re just grouping factors like posterboy favoritism and Grand Alliances into it when flavorful cooperation is perfectly fine. Just like Dawncrusades have humans, city-aelves, dispossessed, fyreslayers, Daughters of Khaine and Stormcast working together. We want that stuff but not someone saying they have to cram them into fewer tomes to work(Duardin +Fyreslayers, DoK+city aelves, humans +Stormcast)

That stuff can be symbolized by allies and coalitions but keep the over-arching seperate GA’s, factions and sub-factions and letting the various detailed races have room to expand themselves.

 

Edited December 4, 2022 by Baron Klatz

[Arzalyn]

On 12/1/2022 at 9:32 AM, Red Bull said:

Less books, more rules in each book, more options for the player

I used to defend soup for this reason before I started kruleboyz, but now I really don't thing GW do this with soup.

Sure you get more factions options, but I side each faction you actually get less rules. All the warclans get around 3 traits and 4 artefacts, while the majority of the standalone tomes get 6 each, if not more. 

Also, getting the combined allegiance sounds cool as "new away to play", but the lack of synergy between the souped factions make it mostly like playing with a grand allegiance with some bonus rules. With many flavour rules moving to allegiances in this edition, you may even loose a important part of your allegiance by using the combined one.

If the soup tome got the same treatment as the singular tomes get rules wise (meaning it is like 3 tomes in one), I would be all in the souping. As it is now, I prefer to have more options for the faction I liked than getting less and getting a boring new away to play the faction.