Help save BoC! (Desperate)

[Kosmion]

Hello fellow mortal realmers,

just wanted to bring this petition to light in case anyone had missed. A somewhat desperate attempt to save our beloved faction that will prob not result in anything - but it may at least send a message to GW that people will rise up when they axe a faction and betray its loyal fans just like that.

 

cheers!

 

https://www.change.org/p/prevent-the-cancellation-of-beasts-of-chaos-faction-in-age-of-sigmar-4e

[Son Of Morghur]

I think, writing them a mail is also underrated (if you guys have the time.....)

[Nuriel]

It's no use. I think that the only way to "save" BoC is to normalize playing Legends and homebrew Legacy battletomes.

[Chikout]

1 minute ago, Nuriel said:

It's no use. I think that the only way to "save" BoC is to normalize playing Legends and homebrew Legacy battletomes.

I don't think bringing them back is possible. One thing that might be possible is extending the match play deadline to the end of the edition. 

[JerekKruger]

3 hours ago, Son Of Morghur said:

I think, writing them a mail is also underrated (if you guys have the time.....)

Agreed. Be polite, but make it clear that you are disappointed and would get much like BoC to remain in AoS.

Don't expect them to actually change their mind in the short term by the way. BoC will be retired as planned. What might change however is them bringing BoC in, say, AoS 5th and/or extending the officialdom of BoC in 4th.

[Skreech Verminking]

3 hours ago, Kosmion said:

Hello fellow mortal realmers,

just wanted to bring this petition to light in case anyone had missed. A somewhat desperate attempt to save our beloved faction that will prob not result in anything - but it may at least send a message to GW that people will rise up when they axe a faction and betray its loyal fans just like that.

 

cheers!

 

https://www.change.org/p/prevent-the-cancellation-of-beasts-of-chaos-faction-in-age-of-sigmar-4e

I signed in but do not know if it will change anything,

still good luck

[Kosmion]

1 hour ago, Skreech Verminking said:

I signed in but do not know if it will change anything,

still good luck

Many thanks, great-mighty lord Screech

[brocktoon]

2 hours ago, Nuriel said:

It's no use. I think that the only way to "save" BoC is to normalize playing Legends and homebrew Legacy battletomes.

This is the way. I'm not saying don't play tournaments, though a part of this is the inevitability of a massive company having to satisfy multiple styles of play and not really being able to. But there are other modes of playing, of setting up your own local tournaments, and different groups of people to play with which allow you to do this. More people should vary it up.

[Sception]

A petition is not how you get this sort of thing changed.  The main thing you'll need to do is gather some like-minded beastmen die hards - preferably including as many tournament vets as possible - with long running gaming groups who like them and are willing to go out of their way to keep playing against them even if it means allowing homebrew content.  Once you've got a decent set of people behind you, you'll also want to talk to major independent AoS event organizers to ask for their player data.  Fortunately you've got a year of promised active support from games workshop - not just playable 4e ruleset, but one that will be matched play legal and will receive balance updates the same as anyone else in that time.  That's time you can and should use to attend as many events with your Beastmen as you can manage, and get as many online beastman player contacts as you can to do the same.  DO NOT bin your armies, you want to be actively and visibly playing them, both to demonstrate visibly that there's still a player base for them and because going to events is how you meet the tournament vets and event organizers you need.  So that's a year's grace period to gather the people you need to pick up where gw leaves off.

When the year is up and you get kicked to legends.  After that point you'll need to put in your own effort to produce:

1) a balanced homebrew battletome in line with the official battle-tomes of 4th edition, something that's not just fun to play but that looks actively fun and cool to play against, so that people who read through it casually think 'oh, that's cool, I want to see how that plays out on the table'.  You'll need to have this thoroughly tested against various opponents, which is why you need a bunch of existing AoS beastmen players with active gaming groups they can draw on for that.  To make this look professional, you'll need pictures of people's models and armies as well as battlefield pictures, so again multiple beastmen playing project contributors with active player communities are key.  You'll also need some new art - ideally you'll get an emotionally invested artist contributor willing to donate work, but more realistically expect to have to collect a few hundred US dollars at least for commissions - which is difficult since you can't charge for anything or even collect donations without risking getting slapped with a C&D.  You'll also need at least a few people with access to and at least basic experience with software capable of producing professional looking PDFs.  IIRC open office has tools for this, and that's free.  There may be other better alternatives.  A homebrew battletome is a major undertaking - I've bogged down on them before trying to do them solo.  You'll want multiple people on this, and you'll want them to be willing to commit to the slow, hard, difficult, unfun parts (page formatting, artwork/minis photos, lore write ups, COPY EDITING, people who can work on that stuff without getting hung up on exactly what the rules should be, which everyone will have an opinion on and all of them will be different.

2) regular balance updates each time GW releases their official ones.  In order to make this happen, you'll need player data, and that's where independent aos event organizers come in.  Many of them may be willing to keep allowing the pdf beastmen rules for a while after they officially go to legends so you'll need their numbers, and those are the people you need to appeal to once you have your homebrew battletome in order to try to get them to allow people to use it at their events, and you'll then need numbers back from them after

....

This was the route taken by Chaos Dwarf players in old Warhammer Fantasy after their faction was squatted, and they were successful enough at it - in particular getting enough independent events to allow their homebrew book as though it were a real faction - that GW eventually relented and released their own revised chaos dwarves.  That faction looked little like the homebrew stuff, but it did mean a first party revival of their faction, which is what they wanted in the first place, even if a significant portion of their existing armies got retired in the process.

Things will be harder nowadays because events in general are more formal and GW themselves are more involved in them, able to put more pressure on organizers to follow official formats, with players who kind of expect that as well.  It's a bigger ask to get modern AoS events to allow homebrew than it was for warhammer fantasy events back in the day.  Even so, the fact that many Old World events are allowing the 'unofficial/unsupported/not-matched-play-legal' legacy pdf factions should be a positive sign.  Many of those who care the most about AoS and are most excited for 4e - including event organizers naturally, you've really got to be passionate about a game to put in that amount of work - don't like these culls, ESPECIALLY the beastment cull (most of the removed stormcast are probably coming back in thunderstrike sooner or later, very few people played bonesplitters and those that did still have other orcs they can run, so it's pretty commonly recognized that beastmen are the worst done by), so there will be some emotional impetus to support you, and you'll need all the wind at your back that you can get.

If, a year from now, you're ready to pick up where GW left off and can get at least a few major events to allow your rules, and if two years from now and three years from now you've been able to maintain the project and events are ~still~ allowing beastmen, then that's what puts pressure on GW to come back in to fill the space with an official alternative.

Edited April 9 by Sception

[The Red King]

3 hours ago, Chikout said:

I don't think bringing them back is possible. One thing that might be possible is extending the match play deadline to the end of the edition. 

Bringing them back from where? I mean I know it's now what you meant but also they're literally not gone as they will continue to sell them for ToW.

 

This is not a "get over it" post. It's me saying GW only has to do the BAREST work in the form of a book they are already releasing to make them playable at least until the end of the edition and even going forward. Like if you told me "BoC will get no new models" but kept giving them rules updates I'd keep playing because I already thought they'd never be updated lol

[RetconnedLegion]

1 hour ago, The Red King said:

Bringing them back from where? I mean I know it's now what you meant but also they're literally not gone as they will continue to sell them for ToW.

That’s what’s going to be difficult about the boosting Legends play route. If i buy some beasts in solidarity, that sale is a tick for The Old World - so any increase in sales sends the message that it was the right move them to TOW. But conversely, if I don’t buy Beasts, that’s a sign they aren’t selling, sending the message there’s not enough demand.

[Son Of Morghur]

Thanks for your advice! @Sception

 

Someone on Reddit is already planning such a tome, maybe we can contact him or get in touch with him? He plans to add the new rules into the tome once we get legacy....

https://www.reddit.com/r/BeastsOfChaos/comments/1by01nd/some_quick_scans_of_the_unofficial_battletome_im/

I have no reddit nor insta socials tho

Edited April 8 by Son Of Morghur
Corrections

[wayfarer]

I was hopeful to almost end that the Beasts would stay.

I used Quakefray at a recent tournament in Lenton. Talking to the event team (some I have know for many years) was uncomfortable when the future of Beats was mentioned. It was clear they were going away, but the events team clearly knew and had been told not to let on.

I would like to think that when the move to Legends happens a revival with a new and different take would be announced. But no, that would be a pipe dream

I have been in this game long enough to see many things squatted to reappear.

My best hope is that by the time the move to Legends happens Chaos Dwarfs are back (confirmed at least?). The Ghorgons at least would be a good fit for the Siege Giants if they still exist.

[Big Kim Woof-Woof]

I put my name down... although I fear it may be too late to reverse the decision regarding the poor beasties, at least it might make GW a bit more thoughtful before axing any further factions from a game. 

[Gaz Taylor]

3 hours ago, Big Kim Woof-Woof said:

I put my name down... although I fear it may be too late to reverse the decision regarding the poor beasties, at least it might make GW a bit more thoughtful before axing any further factions from a game. 

I'm pretty sure it is unfortunately. This would have been a decision made months and months ago and I doubt this would reverse it. 

However, it might demonstrate that people are interested in the idea of Beasts of Chaos and if GW aren't doing anything already, might start playing around with the concept.

But there is little chance that this would change the decision.

[Son Of Morghur]

What other choice do we have?

I think, that it is really important to signal to Games Workshop, that this kind of behavior is not well accepted by it's community. They will definitely dare to do these kind of things again if we do not step in, hence it is even more important to show some form of discontent! This can be seen in so many industries, where sometimes really useful things are abandoned and dumb things become standard forcing you to buy and consume even more (like removable phone batteries, mac avoiding any form of reparation of their products). These things come - in many industries - at the cost of the environment and the consumers. If we let them do these kind of things, they will push these cuts even further and wherever they can, and I honestly don't think that anyone would like the results coming out of this.

It is especially dumb in this perspective, because the warhammer community is a really passionate (and in many cases kind community, especially towards GW itself) community where most people are ready to spend a lot of money on extremely  overpriced products. We are already supporting GW by a 100% and they already milk this community extremly hard (I mean, just look at the steady price increases, I am also pretty sure that there will be a certain point, where the community will definitely start to be unhappy about it, because it starts to be a real investment just to start the hobby and to keep up with it, which becomes really absurd if you ask me and we are definitely not all able to afford regular costs for miniatures if the prices are so high).

Writing them a letter is probably the most effective way, especially if everyone who was unhappy would do it, they for sure wouldn't and couldn't ignore this! Also by discontent I do not mean any violent, aggressive, insulting or angry message! We should be constructive!

[Sarouan]

I think GW doesn't need a petition about bringing beastmen back : I think it's already decided waaaay before they announced removing the current range.

On 4/8/2024 at 4:50 PM, Sception said:

It's a bigger ask to get modern AoS events to allow homebrew than it was for warhammer fantasy events back in the day.  Even so, the fact that many Old World events are allowing the 'unofficial/unsupported/not-matched-play-legal' legacy pdf factions should be a positive sign.

In reality, this is nothing new and it was equally as bad at the time Warhammer Battle was still officially supported by GW - and it was the fault of competitive scene players / tournament organizers on that matter (GW didn't really get involved as much as nowadays, it was really the competitive community that "imposed" these rules on the rest because "it's how you play it right").

In truth, events that didn't care for matched play / competitive tournaments and focused more on the narrative / fun / "just bring your most craziest miniatures" mindset were always the one allowing "unofficially supported material". I still remember fondly these "Forgeworld allowed" events 20 years ago, at the time FW stuff was looked as horribly overpowered and banned from all official organized events (the same with named characters, funny isn't it ?).

That's indeed where the work is to be done : with your local group of players. Well, until GW brings beastmen back to AoS, obviously - just not the same miniatures, like they will do with Chaos Dwarves soon.

Edited April 10 by Sarouan