What if GW AoSified 40k?

[hobgoblinclub]

AoS seems to be taking off (for the purposes of this discussion, let's all assume this to be true).  Having had it's haters, it seems the game is really finding its feet.  Apparently old Fantasy accounted for a tiny fraction of GW sales.  Recent rumours have put AoS at 30% of recent numbers, possibly even more!  It may well be that these numbers are simply guesswork and therefore complete twoddle, however, what if they are genuine?  If AoS has not only saved Fantasy but has begun to drive huge numbers of sales, what could this mean for the future of 40k, or more importantly, for the future of AoS?  

'This isn't the forum for such discussions!' I hear you say.  Ah ha!  But it is.  First up, I don't play 40k.  Never really even collected the minis, bar a few scattered purchases of Space Orks in mid 90s just before I dropped out of the hobby.  My point is, if GW were to bring out the 40k equivalent of 'End Times' and turn the game into an AoS style rule set, it could have a massively beneficial impact on AoS itself.  If the two rulesets were the same, it would make it possible to dive into 40k just as easy as it is to dive into AoS.  I for one would run out and grab a start collecting box.

Now that Fantasy has been rebranded 'Warhammer: Age of Sigmar', could we be headed for 40k getting renamed, 'Warhammer: Age of the Imperium'?  Could 30k become, 'Warhammer: Age of Heresy'?  All you'd have to do is decide with your mates which era you wanted to play in each time. Could we even see a crossover of miniatures?  You want to play with your AoS force but your mate wants to play with his 40k force?  Fine!  Just play each other with armies from different systems and make up some fluffy reason that one side travelled through the ages to fight.

I've been thinking about this even since GW started rebranding all of their stores to simply 'Warhammer' around the time that AoS dropped.  Hmn, I thought to myself.  That's a very generic title.  Are they driving for one all-encompassing brand?  Round bases?  Sigmarines?  Could this be a merging of the rules and of the fluff?

What do you think?  It seems unlikely that GW would scrap their prize asset, but I'm sure we all scoffed at the idea that Fantasy might go away.  If the easy-access rules of AoS have boosted the appeal and the sales of Fantasy, imagine what a similar move might do for the mass appeal of space marines and tanks!  Imagine how popular GW could boast their core system was if all GW fans were playing the same core system!

[Dez]

I can't see both games being made compatible (a la Warmahordes). I can see them cutting some of the bloat off of 40., I used to be a fanatical Ork player...now they sit on my shelf. I jokingly refer to learning 40K as equivalent to taking a course in college. I'd love for them to streamline it, to be sure.

[Soulsmith]

I think keeping AoS as a quicker, generally smaller system makes more sense to GW. They already focus on being the top-quality miniature manufacturer, so by having an "easier" game and a "professional" game (Both obviously are blurred, aos can be comp, 40k can be casual etc) it gives them more of the market to target.

Personally I have never dipped into 40K. It's interesting, but theres even more favourtism from GW than whfb ever saw. I mean the guy who wrote the SM codex literally said how much he adores Ultramarines and how all should be like them. My interest in SM is squarely with those non codex chapters with actually interesting facets and stories, not cookie cutter marines.

And I would rather play orks anyway, but they seem to be going mroe and more towards selling gigantic, uninspired mechs for all factions, and the greenskins apparently suck rules-wise. So no thanks, I'll stick to fantasy.

[Dr_Keenbean]

40k is in desperate need of streamlining. I don't know that they should go as drastic as WFHB -> AoS nor do I think they need to, financially. But it really needs some serious trimming. They've already been getting away from traditional force organization, though that has actually caused more bloat.

I would like to see it take some pages out of AoS' book though:

• Free Warscrolls
• Fluffy campaign books with scenarios that you can use with any armies
• Special rules moved to Warscrolls
• Scalability. 40k has become Epic in 28mm and that's exactly the type of thing that drove people away from WHFB

[Carnelian]

Peraonally im probably in a minoriry but I would like them to go full AoS for 40k. But with points values to begin with. I say this because as it stands, there are too many different match ups that don't work for a fun game. I want to bE able to put whatever models I like on the table and know we can have a tight game, like in AoS,  but if I did that I'd end up with loads of guardsmen with Las guns or loads of genestealer and they literally couldn't hurt the landraiders and imperial Knights they'd be up against. In AoS, anything can kill anything. I hope they even up 40k in the same way. Let enough of my lasguns bring down landraiders!  Let my genestealers leap onto fighter jets and tear the pilots out of the cockpits! Let the humble bolter become mighty once more! Let frag grenades detonate wraithknights! 

Also, my friend who has started AoS loves the look of 40k but was not willing to read a giant rulebook so decided not to invest in the models. I'm sure he is not alone!

[Garxia]

First of all, being new to the hobby, I've never played 40k, but the main reason is that 40k is a bloated mess of supplements and rules.

You need your codex (and some mini-codex), rules, errata...

It's not newbie friendly and seems hard to learn, not even talking about armies imbalances.

My gut tells me that GW is testing waters with AoS, before risking their goose that laid the golden eggs.

[polarbear]

I'd get into 40k if that happened. I like a lot of the models but I don't even want to look at the rules. Plus the forums full of arguments about what's overpowered or not is a major turnoff.

[Malakithe]

I tried 40k before AoS but it's waaaaaay to crazy for a new player...it's way more expensive model wise and you need multiple 300+ page books. Way to daunting for new players

[Knight of Ruin]

40k is the main money maker of GW, and it would be financially irresponsible to go the way of AoS.

I stopped playing 40k for the most part. I play it at the yearly tournament for fun and giggles, but not to win. 40k suffers from a few things:

1) Balance issues, both inter codex, and in the main rules

2) Bloat of special rules. Too many special rules doing (nearly) the same.

3) Bloat of source material. A starting player for say, Black legion, needs the main rulebook, the Chaos Space marine codex, the Black legion supplement, possibly a few dataslates, and to really unluck some cool (and sometimes important, good gamewise) units, some forgeworld books, like IA: 13. That alone is 200,- euros right there, if not more. Then they need miniatures still! This is definitely a huge bonus for AoS, with the rules on the website and app!

4) Miniatures required. When i started playing 40k, back in 5th edition. 500-750 point battles were fairly common. Most were 1000-1500 points. Now most games are 1650-2500 points. I never got into WFB because i needed 2400 points of models, which equaled 500 euro's worth of miniatures for most armies. That meant back then, 2 years of collecting before i could play. 40k is going the same direction.

 

All that said though. 40k has a huge fan base, and i do not think that a rulesheet like AoS will suit 40k that well. There are plenty of reasons, and i am sure 40k will work in an AoS format, i just don't think it will be the best. Not to forget to mention the risk of losing long time fans. (Most WFB i know, never really gave AoS a fair chance due to the 4 page rule sheet).

 

In the end. 40k needs a redone. Just not to the extend of AoS.

[Brunel.Richard]

If it were to happen portals direct to hell would open from every internet access point on earth, a million "serious" 40k gamers would fall down dead in fits and forests world-wide would set themselves alight in anticipation of the flame wars about to start. The online forums would make the Eye of Terror look tame and there would be fist fights in every GW and FLGS. 

 

That said, if they did AoS 40k, it would be great. I don't think it will happen, but then again I didn't think Trump had a chance either. 

[Dez]

I've been mulling this over, and I think we are going to see multiple ways to play in 40K. Battle at (for?) Vendros is going to be a turning point, and potentially a streamlined rules system for play that these rumors are coming from.

[Shane]

You could be right on the "Warhammer: XXXX" naming convention.

8th is said to be dropping next year. And they've just started to move the story timeline forward.

I play AoS more than 40k now. Which I did not see happening. 

I'm only really interested in massive games of it now. Last time we played was 4000pts. Big multiplayer game. At that points value it removes any real competitive edge and allows you to enjoy it more.

There's a lot of streamlining that can happen without a complete restart (which I would like overall):

• Less tables; inherit to the straight to hit stat
• Be clear on cover; don't have varying rules by unit type
• Sort overwatch out
• Gut special rules; move any to the unit dataslate
• Less random tables

 

 

[hopkins]

Streamlined? Yes, but not as far as they took it with AoS

The aforementioned bloat is the worst part, and the last game I played as like being in a library with my nose in books, flicking back and forth. Even using this handy pdf quick reference https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4104995/Games/7edRef_V8.pdf  the games gets too bogged down. I mean how many USRs do you need for the same thing?  (I'm looking at you Melta, Armourbane, Sunder and Tank Hunter)

Free dataslates with all the rules on them please, but no end times, maybe a few daemon primarchs returning

[Gaz Taylor]

My thoughts as 40K holds a special place in my heart as I've been playing it on and off since 2nd edition. Personally, will we see a cross over with Age of Sigmar? No.

Do I want to see 40K be streamlined and take a page out of the same design book as Age of Sigmar? Very much yes! 

[Hooves of Doom]

I haven't been too active in 40k for several years although I have played a few games recently. Some of the elements could really be streamlined. Does anyone playing AoS miss the hit/wound charts? I don't think that 40k necessarily needs to adopt every change made in AoS as there is room for both games to compliment the other.  With the announcement of three ways to play for AoS I think that mentality could be applied to 40k quite well. 

[RossMHoward]

I really enjoyed both, but the more I play AOS the more 40k seems like effort to me. I'd love for them to streamline it for purely selfish reasons. One it would incentivise me to play more often, and Two, it would cause such a massive outcry that I could survive on the internet vitriol for months. 

Right now I'm tempted to give Infinity a second try seeing how popular it is down at the club but again, like 40k, learning it is akin to learning a language by doing a crossword. 

[hobgoblinclub]

OK, so everyone seems to be agreeing that 40k is bloated and needs to be streamlined.  Common things being picked out are the 'to hit/to wound' tables, free rules and special rules moving to dataslates, which all seems very much things that AoS has got right. 

If all of these things need to go into 40k, yet most of you don't want to see it get a total AoS style revamp, what is it that you'd want to keep? What should 40k retain that AoS doesn't have? In effect, what did GW get wrong with AoS?

And remember, points are on their way. 

[Knight of Ruin]

I never had an issue with aos, but what i hear from others are;

1) Completely obliterated the old world. That alone caused huge resentment toward aos.

2) marketing. I think if age of sigmar had a few free battleplans so people could try out something other than the deathmatch (which isnt that fun), they would see other sides of aos. The good side ;p in addition if gw had marketed their game better the 4 page rule sheet wouldnt have been that bad. But now people saw no points, no special rules, and endless free models trough summoning. And that is quite scary.

 

3) pretece of balance. Age of sigmar has no easy way of telling how closely matched two forces are. I dont care that much myself. Playing chaos space marines in 40k is a huge point handicap, and this i havent played an equal battle in 40k in a while. And in aos the battleplans sort of tell you which side the bigger army has to be. 

But that takes experience. And without daring to try it out more often players will never really get that experience. 

This is linked to attitude though. One local guy here was all like: ah no points! So you can just put the meanest models on the table and 10x as much as your opponnent and sort of auto win. I tried to explain that that kind of player will have only one battle.. Then never play again as nobody is going yo play against that.

 

What i like about age of sigmar is that, once you have a bit of gam e experience, you can balance out your matches yourself instead of being locked in Rigid points.

 

Bit of a rant there. But what i would like 40k tk keep is its identity and lore. Keep the special rules and such, but just get rid of all the almost the same special rules. Or create aos like dataslates.

[hobgoblinclub]

Whoah! @Knight of Ruin steady now. I wanted to know what the good stuff in 40k was, that people wouldn't want to give up, not the top three AoS gripes (I know, you love it, not your words. Let's try to keep TGA a rant-free zone though.)

Maybe I'm on dangerous territory here. It just seems to me that everyone is keen to see AoS style features in 40k but very few want GW to go the whole hog. It is just fear? Fear of what might happen to the 40k community? Everyone feared for the Fantasy community remember, yet here we are.

[Bignewprinz]

I can see this happening, I'm just going too crack open a beer put my feet up and watch in awe at the sheer amount of hatred launched over the internet 

[Soulsmith]

I think they should probably keep it is a rigid system, but they do definitely need to start providing free versions of the rules as there are just so many different books covering even a single force, and a crazy amount of special rules which need streamlining. that, and the push with AoS to digitise a lot of it such as the dataslates really has gone quite a way to modernising the whole thing, I really like that for free I have the basic rules for every model in my pocket. Also the inclusion of the warscrolls in white dwarf is great, I picked up my first version of this slimmed down White Dwarf for the ironjawz release, and it feels worth the price. I just wish there was a battle report still.

I feel like GW really needs some committed playtesters and rulemakers, who keep themselves in touch closely wit the community to make 40K back into the pick up and play, yet competitive, main line of miniature wargaming.

Also more love and support for smaller, skirmish games would be great. Despite never playing it, Kill Team sounds like it makes for a fun match, especially if it was part of a larger campaign affecting a larger normal game.

[hobgoblinclub]

1 hour ago, Bignewprinz said:

I can see this happening, I'm just going too crack open a beer put my feet up and watch in awe at the sheer amount of hatred launched over the internet 

No hate here. Move along please. Nothing to see. 

[jascarr4]

Bring it on!  I sooo want to get into 40K, but I don't have a mint to spend on rulebooks.  Keep the fluff though, but push it along a bit.

[Knight of Ruin]

@hobgoblinclub

 

9 hours ago, hobgoblinclub said:

OK, so everyone seems to be agreeing that 40k is bloated and needs to be streamlined.  Common things being picked out are the 'to hit/to wound' tables, free rules and special rules moving to dataslates, which all seems very much things that AoS has got right. 

If all of these things need to go into 40k, yet most of you don't want to see it get a total AoS style revamp, what is it that you'd want to keep? What should 40k retain that AoS doesn't have? In effect, what did GW get wrong with AoS?

And remember, points are on their way. 

You did ask for what GW did wrong with AoS, which i tried to answer  .

It is indeed fear of what would happen to the community. Before this forum came about, there was no positive place to talk AoS, and even locally it's not the most comfortable to talk AoS with non-AoS players. Which brings me to my rant earlier   I love AoS, but they made significant mistakes that alienated players when it launched. The points i made are relatively simple solutions to lessen that impact. 

I think however, most important. Is that if they do this to 40k, they make it feel like it is the same game. So keep a similar structure with a rulebook, codeci, and special rules in the main book. Just lessen the amount of variation between special rules and expansions. 

 

As to your other question.. What to keep from 40k. If i look at it very selfishly, i dont care too much. I play the game for the fluff, so as long i can play fun games i will keep playing it. So an AoS styled setup would be near perfect really

[Carnelian]

Keep the special and heavy weapon option but make them all viable and less important than the main squad weapon  E.g. flamers and plasmas and missile launchers just add certain buffs to the bolter fire. For example choosing a missile launcher could add range whereas choosing a heavy bolter adds extra attack.