How safe is my faction?

[Mortal Wound]

I think the paradigm has shifted so much that you really can't make predictions like this any more. Two weeks ago Sacrosanct would be firmly SAFE and stuff like Dracoths or Vanguard would be endangered over them. Back up a few months or a year and objectively speaking, Flesh Eater Courts would seem way more endangered than Beasts of Chaos.

They could just as well rework the entire Fyreslayers line in a month (I mean, you would only really need to re-do two kits to give them pants and better proportions) and drop half of the units in Hedonites down the Mariana Trench (I mean, they have four different cavalry units on the same exact tongue snakes...)

We're in uncharted territory.

Edited April 10 by Mortal Wound

[BarakUrbaz]

41 minutes ago, Mortal Wound said:

I think the paradigm has shifted so much that you really can't make predictions like this any more. Two weeks ago Sacrosanct would be firmly SAFE and stuff like Dracoths or Vanguard would be endangered over them. Back up a few months or a year and objectively speaking, Flesh Eater Courts would seem way more endangered than Beasts of Chaos.

They could just as well rework the entire Fyreslayers line in a month (I mean, you would only really need to re-do two kits to give them pants and better proportions) and drop half of the units in Hedonites down the Mariana Trench (I mean, they have four different cavalry units on the same exact tongue snakes...)

We're in uncharted territory.

Yeah, a lot of the talk about which factions are "safe" kind of reminds me of this endless cycle I see mainly in 40k. A certain faction hasn't gotten any refreshes in a while, people constantly whine about how neglected they are, GW finally gets around to updating said faction, people move onto complaining about the next faction that hasn't gotten an update.

Its just that now since the always present "is this army going to get squatted" paranoia from AoS fans has been kicked into overdrive from the recent tragedies this has morphed into "any army that hasn't gotten sufficient updates is prime candidate for squatting". When Ogors and Fyreslayers get updated people are going to start to say that Kharadron and Idoneth will be on the chopping block. 

Edited April 10 by BarakUrbaz

[The Red King]

1 hour ago, BarakUrbaz said:

Yeah, a lot of the talk about which factions are "safe" kind of reminds me of this endless cycle I see mainly in 40k. A certain faction hasn't gotten any refreshes in a while, people constantly whine about how neglected they are, GW finally gets around to updating said faction, people move onto complaining about the next faction that hasn't gotten an update.

Its just that now since the always present "is this army going to get squatted" paranoia from AoS fans has been kicked into overdrive from the recent tragedies this has morphed into "any army that hasn't gotten sufficient updates is prime candidate for squatting". When Ogors and Fyreslayers get updated people are going to start to say that Kharadron and Idoneth will be on the chopping block. 

What a terrible state of affairs for GW to put its customers in.

[Big Kim Woof-Woof]

2 hours ago, Mortal Wound said:

...and drop half of the units in Hedonites down the Mariana Trench (I mean, they have four different cavalry units on the same exact tongue snakes...)

Five if you're counting the two different flavours of Hellstrider....

No! No... Slaanesh is eternal. Nothing's ever getting the chop! 

[Sarouan]

7 hours ago, The Red King said:

What a terrible state of affairs for GW to put its customers in.

Not really. See on Ebay what insane prices out of production GW old miniatures get and how they plummet once GW sells them again. If anything, it's actually a gift to own an army that's not supported by GW anymore : its value suddenly skyrockets*.

*In reality, most people are attached to their collection and tend to keep it even if they don't play with it anymore, unless they really have to get rid of it like no more space to store them or need for quick money.
 

9 hours ago, Mortal Wound said:

We're in uncharted territory.

We always were. AoS players who started with that game may not have been aware of it, but GW already "squatted" entire armies / factions in their previous games / editions a lot of time in their history. Squats, witch hunters, chaos dwarves, fimirs...some did go back (some even did multiple times of coming back then being squatted then coming back again). It's just a matter of circonstances, different leads / directions and well, times.

Drama comes always the first time you experience it, then you tend to relativise.

Edited April 11 by Sarouan

[RetconnedLegion]

9 hours ago, BarakUrbaz said:

Yeah, a lot of the talk about which factions are "safe" kind of reminds me of this endless cycle I see mainly in 40k. A certain faction hasn't gotten any refreshes in a while, people constantly whine about how neglected they are, GW finally gets around to updating said faction, people move onto complaining about the next faction that hasn't gotten an update.
 

That cycle is why the Beastcull has surprised so many. Despite some claims, the GW model has typically been to leave armies for substantial amount of time and then add something or refresh the range. “Squatting” a whole army, rather than the occasional unit, isn’t common at all.

Nor is dropping a range of plastics after only six years. The fact my Catachan army is still based around a kit released in the late nineties is an example of how the opposite has been the norm, that plastic kits linger.

As a Bonesplitterz player, did I expect new models? Nope. Did I expect a brand new Battletome exclusively for them? Nope. Did I even expect them to be on the store shelves at my local GW? Nope. I expected them to remain as is, maybe updated rules with the next Orruk book, online only to buy. But still available. 

That for GW was the norm. Instead there’s a rules update but I can’t buy anything new for my collection. It’s literally the case where I WANT to give GW money, and I can’t.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

10 minutes ago, RetconnedLegion said:

Nor is dropping a range of plastics after only six years. The fact my Catachan army is still based around a kit released in the late nineties is an example of how the opposite has been the norm, that plastic kits linger.

I found the point Tom Lyons made on the most recent Warhammer Weekly pretty interesting. His idea was that the removal of the Stormcast Sacrosanct models is explained by a shift in product management of the Stormcast line. Sacrosanct would have been sculpted and put into production during a time when the overall plan for Stormcast potentially still was for them to be fantasy Space Marines, with all that would entail. Specifically, with separate kits and books for different Stormhosts or Chambers.

The realities of how the AoS player base interacts with Stormcast turned out to be so that this plan had to be changed. Looking at the current wave of Stormcast, with its focus on refreshed models and a new unified aesthetic, So the shift would be from Stormcast as a huge faction with potentially books and model lines for its individual subfactions to a more regular faction that works like everyone else.

[RetconnedLegion]

7 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I found the point Tom Lyons made on the most recent Warhammer Weekly pretty interesting. His idea was that the removal of the Stormcast Sacrosanct models is explained by a shift in product management of the Stormcast line. Sacrosanct would have been sculpted and put into production during a time when the overall plan for Stormcast potentially still was for them to be fantasy Space Marines, with all that would entail. Specifically, with separate kits and books for different Stormhosts or Chambers.

The realities of how the AoS player base interacts with Stormcast turned out to be so that this plan had to be changed. Looking at the current wave of Stormcast, with its focus on refreshed models and a new unified aesthetic, So the shift would be from Stormcast as a huge faction with potentially books and model lines for its individual subfactions to a more regular faction that works like everyone else.

Entirely possible, and I imagine the continuous production woes for the last several years played a significant role. I think it’s certainly clear something has changed in GWs plans for supporting products.

[Son Of Morghur]

2 hours ago, Sarouan said:

If anything, it's actually a gift to own an army that's not supported by GW anymore : its value suddenly skyrockets*.

This is definitely not the case. I own a LOT of now "abandonned" miniatures: The price those miniatures are trying to get sold by their owners is nearly always absolutely unimaginably high, and they do not get sold at those high prices. Just go check on ebay, a lot of miniatures that aren't produced anymore, are either:

- Way too high priced and won't sell until their price drops

- "pro painted" and way too high

- Absolutely horribly painted and sold at a decent/low price (low if it is a REALLY badly painted model with paint slapped on it)

- Okayish price a little bit more than the official price

Most of the time, these overpriced miniatures do not sell well or at all. They do sell well during the first "panic" weeks, like we saw during the great squatting of WHFB and tomb kings.

As someone who has been trying to get his hands on some limited editions, I can assure you, that people always try to sell those items at a random dumb value (like 200 for a limited edition battletome/codex) and then either give up or bring the price down to it's near initial GW price (maybe 10/20% margins, but it really depends, dice do seems to sell pretty well even at higher costs, miniatures definitely not always).

 

3 hours ago, Sarouan said:

GW already "squatted" entire armies / factions in their previous games / editions a lot of time in their history. Squats, witch hunters, chaos dwarves, fimirs

With the difference of these never being fleshed out factions and more or less just dwelling in the lore. These never had a fleshed out battletome nor a codex. They also weren't supported and had miniatures 10 years into the game.

[Skreech Verminking]

1 hour ago, Son Of Morghur said:

This is definitely not the case. I own a LOT of now "abandonned" miniatures: The price those miniatures are trying to get sold by their owners is nearly always absolutely unimaginably high, and they do not get sold at those high prices. Just go check on ebay, a lot of miniatures that aren't produced anymore, are either:

- Way too high priced and won't sell until their price drops

- "pro painted" and way too high

- Absolutely horribly painted and sold at a decent/low price (low if it is a REALLY badly painted model with paint slapped on it)

- Okayish price a little bit more than the official price

Most of the time, these overpriced miniatures do not sell well or at all. They do sell well during the first "panic" weeks, like we saw during the great squatting of WHFB and tomb kings.

As someone who has been trying to get his hands on some limited editions, I can assure you, that people always try to sell those items at a random dumb value (like 200 for a limited edition battletome/codex) and then either give up or bring the price down to it's near initial GW price (maybe 10/20% margins, but it really depends, dice do seems to sell pretty well even at higher costs, miniatures definitely not always).

 

With the difference of these never being fleshed out factions and more or less just dwelling in the lore. These never had a fleshed out battletome nor a codex. They also weren't supported and had miniatures 10 years into the game.

Don’t forget those people who sell their models for a too expensive price with the tag of pro painted on it, till you notice how horrible painted they are😂

[pnkdth]

Plus, BoC isn't going OOP. Without scarcity there's no incentive to buy high. They're just moving over to TOW and most people who might be interested in TOW BoC probably is looking at all the AoS BoC players for a cheap deal. Which ironically means BoC will look it is having poor sales in TOW as well. 

For AoS, it wasn't much of a riddle. BoC was given no minis, questionable rules, bare minimum of attention, and be like, hmmm, I wonder why people aren't buying into this "brand new faction which definitely isn't just a bunch of repackaged WHFB models." Which gets even sillier now that they're being repackaged again for their original game system.

Perhaps this is the chaos gods going full meta to ****** over the GOATs.

 

[Sarouan]

2 hours ago, Son Of Morghur said:

With the difference of these never being fleshed out factions and more or less just dwelling in the lore. These never had a fleshed out battletome nor a codex. They also weren't supported and had miniatures 10 years into the game.

What ? Witch Hunters, chaos dwarves and squats all had a very official army book in their time (different editions of 40k and Battle). Fimirs had very official rules too in very old books.

What you're saying is not true. GW did remove these entire miniature ranges at the time, render non official their factions to be able to play for years before some came back and it had the same impact on their respective communities too at that time.

[Kempak]

I think warcry is going the way of kill team also. It will be a way for them to introduce niche elite units and redisgn existing ones without a full faction refresh. I purchased the gorger/wildercorps box as I have use in a current army and a future cities project, but going forward will be a  lot more cautious on purchasing specialist games as they have the highest likelyness of being squatted.

It's sad I have nearly all the warcry warbands except corvus cabal. With the darkoath box was planning a massive mortal/cultist army but suppose that will purely be a building a painting project now.

I use to buy underworlds till a year or two ago when the price increase became to much to justify for the models. If they have a cool stand in model for an existing unit like the new necromancer then I consider it. But I think this is the most indanger specialist game for aos. They always seemed like they were testing out new sculpts for the future, but £26 for for four push fit models with bad rules normally is a bit much.

Fyreslayers were my first main army after I bought soul wars, the only unit I am missing is the warcry warband and the new hero that was in dawnbringers. As I don't feel they do to much for the Army, I think eventually we'll get a fec equivelant update another unit like a squad of kynefroths and some cavalry then I would purschase them.

Funnily enough my second army was ogor mawtribes this has the opposite problem in my eyes, heros and synergy because the beastclaw raiders and gluttons were seperate they don't gel to well in lists, I haven't played much of third once when it first came out so can't say to much of the current meta. But I think they need an ironjawz treatments and get a couple cool sub heros. I think the fact bonesplittez are gone leaves the destruction faction a bit bare and as they are not a core old world force I don't think they'll be squatted any time soon. If anything I hope they go more down the pirate/mercenary route with their designs.

I think the purge of 2024 has a lot of people shook, rightly so. Some will leave the hobby others will find an alternate game mode/army. 

GW will bury their heads and hope 4 edition starter will make everyone forget I am personally not the biggest fan of the new thunderstrike liberators the shown helm is a bit meh. 

I think the bloat was real the only reason spacemarines were kept for so long before legened was because they made a lot more money than sacrosanct. I love sacrosanct, I have a sons of mallus army I doubt I'll buy into thunderstrike but we'll see how tasty the starter is. 

 

Edited April 11 by Kempak

[The Red King]

6 hours ago, Sarouan said:

GW old miniatures get and how they plummet once GW sells them again. If anything, it's actually a gift to own an army that's not supported by GW anymore : its value suddenly skyrockets*.

I know you kind of address it on your subtext but:

"Actually you should thank the guy who ran over your dog because now you can maybe make a bunch of money off a kickstarter for his medical bills!" 

Is just... it makes it easier because you're either having a laugh or just completely out of touch. 

I didn't get into AoS to make money and compared to the time and energy people put into their armies the rate of return would be pennies on the hour.

[Sarouan]

20 minutes ago, The Red King said:

I know you kind of address it on your subtext but:

"Actually you should thank the guy who ran over your dog because now you can maybe make a bunch of money off a kickstarter for his medical bills!" 

Is just... it makes it easier because you're either having a laugh or just completely out of touch. 

I didn't get into AoS to make money and compared to the time and energy people put into their armies the rate of return would be pennies on the hour.

Like I said before, I experienced many times this exact same thing : it's not the first time GW does that, the most famous being the death of Warhammer Battle and complete disappearance of Tomb Kings / Bretonnians for a decade (at that time, their players were rightfully outraged too and reacted exactly the same with their collection). I also invested a lot (more) of money in different games that were great looking at the time but now completely disappeared with their companies. Some collections, I got rid of them in a fit of rage when I was young or needed to make space (and regretted it deeply afterwards). Those said collections were "worth" hundreds of dollars (at least that's what I spent at the time), and it was all lost. What can I say, I just love miniatures and games.

So I do know how it feels, mind you. But with age (and experience), you learn to relativise and not act in the emotion. And you end up seeing what you actually do : putting a lot of money in something that's basically not worth the money it asks, and can disappear suddenly without warning because it's just a game sold by a company that's not eternal or bound to keep working the same like before. In the end, all you have left is your collection and your memories. Though, with some time and effort, you can also keep your group of players to keep playing forever (that's how I kept playing Warhammer Battle during these 10 years before The Old World - with all the books I still kept and players who loved the game and world, and I ended up having a "free army" ready to be used in TOW so no regret !).

Maybe you'll be in the same situation than me, maybe not. Your choice, your feelings. Take  /keep the ones that suit you the best.

Edited April 11 by Sarouan

[The Red King]

50 minutes ago, Sarouan said:

And you end up seeing what you actually do : putting a lot of money in something that's basically not worth the money it asks,

I already see this. It isn't emotion driving me to stop buying from this company. Relativistically I am under no delusion about how serious (or in this case not) this situation is, but my reaction to it is valid and I don't feel like telling people they'll get over it when they're older and wiser is helpful unless your goal is to shield GW from the consequences of their actions.

 

I don't think you haven't experienced what angry players are feeling. I just think you're not giving consumer outrage it's due credit. Every time we excuse bad business practices we invite bad business practices. I for one don't have any desire to get sucker punched again.

[pnkdth]

55 minutes ago, The Red King said:

I already see this. It isn't emotion driving me to stop buying from this company. Relativistically I am under no delusion about how serious (or in this case not) this situation is, but my reaction to it is valid and I don't feel like telling people they'll get over it when they're older and wiser is helpful unless your goal is to shield GW from the consequences of their actions.

 

I don't think you haven't experienced what angry players are feeling. I just think you're not giving consumer outrage it's due credit. Every time we excuse bad business practices we invite bad business practices. I for one don't have any desire to get sucker punched again.

I admit to feeling some anger but mostly I feel deflated and disappointed. I had already started exploring other games ever since they started with their Activision Games Workshop shenanigans. Not boycotting GW as a whole but AoS/40k isn't on the map any more. 

[wayfarer]

15 hours ago, Big Kim Woof-Woof said:

Five if you're counting the two different flavours of Hellstrider....

No! No... Slaanesh is eternal. Nothing's ever getting the chop! 

Nothing Slaanesh should get the chop. After all I am planning to go back to Slaanesh from Beasts

[RetconnedLegion]

9 hours ago, Sarouan said:

What ? Witch Hunters, chaos dwarves and squats all had a very official army book in their time (different editions of 40k and Battle). Fimirs had very official rules too in very old books.

What you're saying is not true. GW did remove these entire miniature ranges at the time, render non official their factions to be able to play for years before some came back and it had the same impact on their respective communities too at that time.

Witch Hunters are Sisters of Battle, no squatting just a rename, Chaos Dwarfs didn’t have an army book, we had a collection of White Dwarf articles and there was no Codex Squats because they stopped being sold at the start of 2nd edition, not 3rd. Fimir were a handful of models. A far cry from removing a full range of plastic miniatures.

Regardless it’s a moot point. The dropping of small ranges of mostly metal miniatures in the early ‘90’s is hardly a trend when it’s literal decades before its done again.

[Big Kim Woof-Woof]

12 hours ago, wayfarer said:

Nothing Slaanesh should get the chop. After all I am planning to go back to Slaanesh from Beasts

Excellent choice.... so long as you're not bringing any unlucky squatting vibes with you. 

[Skreech Verminking]

19 hours ago, pnkdth said:

Plus, BoC isn't going OOP. Without scarcity there's no incentive to buy high. They're just moving over to TOW and most people who might be interested in TOW BoC probably is looking at all the AoS BoC players for a cheap deal. Which ironically means BoC will look it is having poor sales in TOW as well. 

For AoS, it wasn't much of a riddle. BoC was given no minis, questionable rules, bare minimum of attention, and be like, hmmm, I wonder why people aren't buying into this "brand new faction which definitely isn't just a bunch of repackaged WHFB models." Which gets even sillier now that they're being repackaged again for their original game system.

Perhaps this is the chaos gods going full meta to ****** over the GOATs.

 

Funnily enough after having played a few games with the beasts in aos, they really at least put their heart into creating the two books that where released in second and third edition.

unlike the skaven tome that was with third nothing but a worser copy of its original second edition tome

Edited April 12 by Skreech Verminking

[JerekKruger]

8 hours ago, RetconnedLegion said:

Witch Hunters are Sisters of Battle, no squatting just a rename, Chaos Dwarfs didn’t have an army book, we had a collection of White Dwarf articles and there was no Codex Squats because they stopped being sold at the start of 2nd edition, not 3rd. Fimir were a handful of models. A far cry from removing a full range of plastic miniatures.

I'd say Squats were the nearest to being equivalent in this case (when they were dropped they were equivalent to other factions at the same time in terms of support), and there's a reason people talk about things being "Squatted".

Chaos Dwarfs are the next nearest, but as you say they were not a fully supported army at the time. I suspect I'm some ways they were reading there popularity via the WD army list, and found them not to be very popular so they didn't get official support.

Agreed completely on Witch Hunters (you can still buy some of their minis now from that era, and they have non-legends rules) and Fimirs (such a stretch).

[Sarouan]

19 hours ago, The Red King said:

I don't think you haven't experienced what angry players are feeling. I just think you're not giving consumer outrage it's due credit. Every time we excuse bad business practices we invite bad business practices. I for one don't have any desire to get sucker punched again.

Oh I did experience consumer outrage very well. I left GW for a long time after how they treated Battle and went to other games / companies thinking grass was greener there. Turned out it wasn't : after a death of a couple of them and even more loss of my money wasted in now useless miniatures / rules no one cared to play with anymore, I went back to GW. because they, at least, are still around and once their miniatures are out of production, either they come back after a long while (hello TOW) or at least you can find someone else interested in buying your collection more easily.

Consumer outrage is like anger : useless , stressfull and leading to bad decisions you end up regretting. Better keep a cool head.

  

12 hours ago, RetconnedLegion said:

Regardless it’s a moot point. The dropping of small ranges of mostly metal miniatures in the early ‘90’s is hardly a trend when it’s literal decades before its done again.

Now that is a moot point. Just because it was "smaller" and "in the early '90's" doesn't mean it didn't have the same emotionnal impact others are experiencing now. Times may have changed, scale was maybe different, but still - people were passionate and involved with their collection in these days too. Most important : they didn't know what would happen in the future afterwards, just like you now don't know what will happen years from there as well. And the fact some actually kept these lovely collections all this time even though "they can't be played / bought anymore" should tell a lot about how you should feel with your own collection of "dead miniatures" right now.

Just because you don't understand your previous generation of gamer's feelings don't mean they didn't count at that time they felt them.

And your semantics don't change the fact that GW did that in the past, even if you say  "it's just a change of name (no, there were witch hunter miniatures that were basically out of production after the change and sisters of battle were just a part of the army, not solely composing it) ", "it's just white dwarf articles (no, chaos dwarves did have a very official book, just not distributed everywhere : proof here )" or that a lot more of "smaller companies" went and die the most brutal way, leading to complete disappearance of their beloved games and miniature ranges. Those who invested a lot of money in these said collections were actually treated even more cruelly than you with AoS right now : most of the time, games / companies litterally disappeared the next day without warning, you were faced with the hard facts without an alternative. And at least, your AoS / Warcry miniatures are still worth something since the company that produced it is still around and a strong brand. Or they are being used in another supported game system and that means you'll still be able to buy them to finish your collection (like beastmen, since they're just moving to The Old World). No one cares on second market about an obscure small game with its even more obscure miniature range. Remember Anima Tactics ? No ? Well, that's my point.

Edited April 12 by Sarouan

[The Red King]

1 hour ago, Sarouan said:

Oh I did experience consumer outrage very well. I left GW for a long time after how they treated Battle and went to other games / companies thinking grass was greener there.

Eh I don't intend to try any other games either. If I feel like it I'll proxy my guys and if I don't I just won't play any miniatures game. Either way I won't buy anything and I can't imagine I'll come I'll ever come to regret not spending money hah.

[Sarouan]

2 minutes ago, The Red King said:

 Either way I won't buy anything and I can't imagine I'll come I'll ever come to regret not spending money hah.

I said that too, and see how I am now, drowned in more new miniatures I can count. Wish you better luck than I had.