EccentricCircle

There is also an accessibility issue to consider. I've always been able to download scrolls, and print out large print versions of them, making A3 sized roster sheets with a three or so scrolls all with a larger text size than they appear in the book, let alone on the instruction manuals. I can cope with the size of print in the books, for the most part, but it slows me down. There is no way I will ever be able to comfortably read something off of a phone screen, and honestly even trying to use an app on a table in the "heat of battle" is going to be uncomfortable and distracting. I'm sure there aren't a vast number of partially sighted warhammer players, but nonetheless, its always frustrating when a bit of good accessibility is taken away. (Even if it was always accidental in the first place, and no one in power ever considered the issue in the first place). I have no idea how the app would compare to the pdf if using screen readers, but would be interested to know. So, from my point of view, even if they do remain "free" in some shape or form, they are effectively beyond my reach. I'm not going to pay for an app which I can barely use, and which will adversely affect my enjoyment. As it happens I'm pretty much done with AoS for the time being anyway, so its not a big deal, but its another nail in the coffin for me. I'll be sticking with more accessible games from now on (though I should hasten to add that I'm still excited about the minis/painting, and will be frequenting this community. I'm just burnt out on the game itself, which I barely played anyway).

If they're going to call themselves "fyreslayers" then they should damn well put fires out rather than start them. Trollslayers slay trolls, dragonslayers slay dragons... Fyreslayers need to get down to the business of slaying fire or cut their beards off in shame! What are the Dawi coming to... *incoherant longbeard grumbling*

in my gaming group I've actually proposed a campaign called Warhammer fifty thousand, where the idea is that its even further in the future, the Imperium has collapsed into civil war, and all bet s are off. Anyone can ally with anyone else, and combinations which wouldn't normally be legal are encouraged. We can convert our force however we want to fit our own narrative of what the future of 40k might look like.

I love all of those ideas, but the Revolutionary Ghouls is the best!

Oh I absolutely agree with you. D&D books also add a lot more to the fabric of the game than iterative wargame updates, which are often essentially the same book with a few numbers changed in the name of balance (which will never actually work). I'm just a pedantic D&D collector who can't pass up the chance to tell people on the internet how many editions of D&D there have been!

I absolutely agree with you that the short edition cycle for GW wargames is a major problem. I would like my books to be good for at least five years ideally. That said D&D is perhaps not the best comparison, as its not really a comparable game. I also feel the need to point out that while we're all merrily playing "fifth edition" Dungeons and Dragons, it is neither the fifth edition of the game, nor have there been five editions of the game. 5e is the fifth "full" edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, however there have been between 2 and 4 "half editions" depending on how you count. 3.5 was the most famous, but 2e also had a revised edition, 4e had D&D Essentials, and many consider Unearthed Arcana to be "AD&D 1.5" in retrospect. That's on top of the Original edition of D&D (which wasn't the same thing as 1st edition AD&D). OD&D was updated as Basic/Expert D&D which went through approximately five iterations. So... while its true that even the shortest lived of those editions has been slightly longer running than a GW book cycle (and many of them overlapped) we are actually up to around the 14th version of D&D (and that's not counting spin offs and retroclones!)

Yes, I agree with this wholeheartedly. I'm honestly more of an RPG player, and barely ever use my models for their intended mass battle games. Still seem to be glued to the rumour thread though, which is why I'm not quite sure how they got me...

Not sure how unpopular this one will be, but Hype is a bad thing. We're all sat here, waiting for the adverts to be released, so that we can overanalyse them and obsess over wanting the things. I'm sure this isn't how its supposed to work, but I have no idea how to disengage. They've some how made the speculation fun, and so you want to play "the rumour game", but in doing so you expose yourself to all of their FOMO based pressure marketing.

I believe that 11 is traditionally the number of Malal, but that is very unlikely to get referenced.

Yep, the online community is in no way representative of players as a whole. We are the most obsessed gamers, painters, collectors etc. Thinking that what we think is even a blip on the radar is just asking to be disappointed. Unpopular opinion: Shadow elves haven't been nearly as imminent as everyone seems to think. Even if they ultimately see release in the next year or so GW would have had time to design them twice over in the time everyone has be sure that they were next. Thousands of pixels have been wasted speculating about them, when for most of that time GW themselves likely didn't even know. Popular opinion. We should definitely write rules for Critters and Keys.

I'd quite like to do a narrative game set in a jungle where the two sides aren't omniscient. Everyone deploys at onve, and don't watch each others deployment. Then command and move phases happen simultaneously and the armies only become aware of each other 's positions when they get line of sight. Shooting and melee alternate for convenience still.

Morathi and the Bow Snakes sounds like a good name for a band.

I'd play this. Everything else seems to alternate. Igoyougo is really just warhamer being old fashioned at this point.

In 40k it is definitely more overt. It is there in wfb, but best seen in the RPG books and black library novels. In many ways those were what really soldifed the setting and themes of warhammer above and beyond what tje wargame could spotlight. For those wanting more of a sense of place and depth to the aos setting and not finding it in battle tomes should maybe try Soulbound. Only read the core book so far, but they certainly have a strong range of topics being covered.

Why thank you. Your post was much more concise!

I absolutely agree. I've been listening to a lot of the Black Library audio books on audible recently, from both the old world and the new, and there is such a stark divide in the quality of the storytelling. Not so much in how the prose is written, but the atmosphere and the attitude of the books. The older novels are more rough around the edges, but they feel more believable, and I think are much closer to being actual fiction for its own sake. They are writing books which happen to be set in the shared universe of warhammer. Not writing warhammer books to be warhammer books because that's the brief. I think there is a key difference in the demographic of people who write games now, from how it was when warhammer was getting started. In essence gaming is now big enough that you can have professional game designers who do it as a day job (not everyone mind, but certainly everyone at GW). And gaming is now old enough that you have people writing warhammer products who grew up reading warhammer books. The probably read other fantasy as well, but there is a fair chance that warhammer itself was one of the big cultural influences on their work. After all, they are now working for Games Workshop. This means that you have a kind of ouroboros effect, where things become more and more self referential, and the in depth knowledge of the original inspirations are lost. If you go back twenty years, being a gamer was much less common, if you go back 30 it was basically impossible to have grown up playing these games, because they didn't exist. The original crew of Games Workshop brought with them a varied suite of interests. They were fans of historical wargames naturally, but that also meant they were fans of real world history, because the folk who are into those games tend to be very knowledgeable about it. They clearly had an eclectic taste in movies and fantasy novels, you can tell just how widely read they must have been by the amount of weird stuff they were referencing and parodying. Lastly it wasn't yet a big business, so they weren't taking it as seriously as they do now. You also get the definite sense that there was a counter cultural element to it, which isn't the case any more. So what we got was an anarchic, "punk rock" fantasy setting of over the top parody of history, and because it wasn't filtered through a corporate entity, it was free to reflect that anarchic politics and ideology. It was satire. Read any of the old Gotrek and Felix or Genevive novels and its all about class war, its about corrupt nobles, and totalitarian regimes (especially 40K, but still WFB to a great extent). They were commenting on their own politics through the medium of fantasy. They were writing about the 80s through the lens of the far future, and parodying the Holy Roman Empire of all things because they happened to be quite knowledgeable about it, and those were the cultural touchstones they had. The touchstones for the younger generation of games writers, are games. And that means that they probably don't have as deep an understanding of the stuff that inspired those games, or if they do then its out of having deliberately researched it, not because of having lived it. I bet relatively few of the people writing Black Library novels today have an in depth knowledge of the Holy Roman Empire, because really who does? So they aren't going to create a nation in the new setting with as well thought out and historical of a foundation. I'm sure that there are good world builders among the GW staff, but I'm not convinced that they are writing in a space which will allow them the freedom to go all out on creating an in depth and believable setting. They probably aren't writing what they love. Many of them are probably doing work for hire, writing to a brief, or writing a pitch which they think will sell. This means that the attitude and atmosphere that made warhammer what it was is diluted. The grimdark is there because that's the brand, and that's what they have to write, not necessarily because they want to make a salient point about society. Its just the difference between someone within a corporate framework, and a hobbiest who's turned their hobby into a job. In many ways the former potentially has advantages. They have more resources, more stability, more people looking into what will sell well, and what won't. However, they don't have creative freedom unless the company decides to give it to them. We often hear that GW has a models first approach. For better or worse they decided that the sculptors were the ones who needed that creative freedom the most, and it filters down from there.

The other game to compare things to is Lord of the Rings. Like HH really shows that the whole "GW only write rules for characters with models" isn't true at all when its not one of their flagship games. For the current edition there is a core rules manual, and then a big book of army stats for each of the Lord of the Rings era and the Hobbit era. Between them they listed every model which had ever been released for the game. That was then followed up by a series of campaign books, each focusing on a specific part of the War of the Ring (E.g. Gondor, Rohan, the Scouring of the Shire). All of the old plastic sprues are kept in production, as are enough of the resin and metal to form a core set for the most popular armies (Rohan, Gondor, Mordor, etc.) They then rotate the less popular armies (Dunland, Harad, the Shire etc) into and out of production so that they always support the areas they have covered in campaign books. Old metal heroes are gradually getting new plastic releases, and new heroes in forgeworld resin are coming out fairly regularly. There have been new plastic scenery kits pretty regularly, but we've not got new plastic troops fora while. That said, the bases are largely covered at this point. I really don't think it would be hard at all for them to give Old World a similar level of support. I absolutely think that they will be able to have rules for all of the classic factions, definitely within a couple of campaign book releases, but likely even in the first wave. In terms of model support, there is already a lot of stuff they can draw on. Lets break down the old WFB factions into Ready to go, just need some heroes appropriate to the era: Warriors of Chaos (Mostly still out there as S2D) Beasts of Chaos (All still in production as themselves) Skaven (All still in production as themselves) Lizardmen (All still in production as Seraphon) Ogre Kingdoms (All still in production as mawtribes) Dark Elves (Almost all still in production as part of CoS) The Empire (Almost all still in Cities, but might need an update to match the aesthetic of the earlier era, if Dawnbringers are coming, expect there to be Crossover potential!) High Elves (Half the Lumineth range is usable as updated High Elves) Vampire Counts (Half the Soulblight range is usable as updated VC) Night Goblins (Half the Gloomspite range is usable as updated Night Goblins) Still have a core of models, but would benefit from more variety Wood Elves (Still a few in Cities, and half of Sylvaneth covers the tree spirits, mostly. New Glade Guard, Ariel and Orion, and Tree kin, and you'd basically be there. I could see that and a few other shiny things coming with a "battle for Athel Loren campaign book, and us being done!) Dwarfs (They still have a core of stuff in cities, but are missing enough that they would need a fairly big release to cover the gaps. You can't really use fyreslayers as slayers, we need thunderers, quarellers, regular dwarfs, and of course heroes, if dispossessed are coming, expect there to be crossover potential!) Savage Orcs (You could make the case for expanding bonesplitters and making a more solid Savage Orcs army at the same time, but they were always a subfaction anyway, so I don't think its that likely they'd get devoted support) Can't really use anything currently on sale, so would need a rerelease: Tomb Kings (None of the current undead really fit, but you could put the Sphynx, Snake and Tomb Guard kits back into production, and then you'd basically just need skeleton archers and some updated chariots. Since we've not got skelly archers in soulblight there could even be some crossoever potential there if they did a Nu-lamia update paired with an updated Tomb Kings release.) Chaos Dwarfs (but there are all those rumours right? I'd expect that if they do come, half the range will match their old loadout while the other half with be realms-y like the elves and vampires.) Brettonia (This is the first big one. Like Tomb Kings they have a lot of old kits, but I feel like fewer hold up, and would be likely to be rereleased as is. I think that a Kislev style campaign/expansion where they really update and expand them would be sure to get them brownie points with the diehard fanbase though. I could see it being one of the earlier campaigns. Until then though people can probably muddle through with old models or knights and peasants from other manufacturers. Somewhere a GW accountant would be crying, but the fanbase would be ok.) Orcs and Goblins (This is the other really big gap in the line, and in my opinion the most important one. We could get by without Bretonians or even my beloved Tomb Kings until such time as they saw fit to do an expansion centred on them. Classic orcs and goblins though as such a central threat to the old world that I think they would have to do something with them. Again I'm not sure that the old kits hold up too well, and its not long since they were phased out. Unlike the other recently updated armies Kruleboyz just don't replicate the classic army. so wouldn't be usable as proxies I don't think. We've not heard much about orcs in the previews so far, but if I had to pick a faction to be invading Kislev in the starter set, its they and not chaos whom I would choose.) So there you have it. All three Chaos factions already have pretty good support, as do High Elves and possibly The Empire, who were always the other most popular hero factions. It would take a few solid releases to get full coverage, but not out of step with the kind of support blood bowl or necromunda gets, averaged over a year or two.

That may be how general language evolves, but not technical language. Insect and arachnid, beetle and spider all have very specific meanings and refer to how those animals fit into a well defined system of classification. Even if it becomes common usage to call spiders "insects" in either English or Polish, it will still be wrong.

Well you were talking about a gradual shift into painting, so the change to colour as the post goes on is certainly thematic!

I'd argue the trick is to not make them racist. I absolutely see where you ar coming from though. The non human options are great, and I certainly don't want to lose them. It would just be good to have more diversity within each culture. this is I think one of the best things about the AoS setting. Any race can come from any realm, and there is no end of narrtive and hobby potential in that. It just takes a bit more work than the ready defined a relatable old world. The question s just, is it relatable to everyone?

I don't know how unpopular this one actually is, but here goes: They should have brought back Felix instead of Gotrek. Gotrek, while not a completely uninteresting character, isn't the focus of the old stories. He is a belligerent force of nature and exists as the catalyst of adventure. He drags Felix into whatever ridiculous scenario they are going to be mixed up in, and then gets them out of it by brute force and determination. As the Narrator of those stories, its Felix's voice that you hear, not Gotreks. The point of those books is for him to go and experience a bit of Warhammer lore, comment wryly upon it , and somehow escape with his life. He has most of the more meaningful relationships, and the more interesting character development. Gotrek gets relatively little of either which wasn't set in stone before he became a slayer. So why would Felix be a better fit for AoS? Well, simply because he is the worse fit for AoS. As a nigh indestructable demi god with issues Gotrek isn't really special in the new setting. He's just one of a whole pantheon of powered up WFB characters, who have become forces of nature in the new setting and are now wandering around dictating the narrative. Bringing him back doesn't add anything new to the Realms, and his perspective on them isn't very interesting to read about, because a) its completely predictable knowing what we do about him, and b) he is never a viewpoint character anyway. If you brought back Felix, you would get that perspective on the Realms from the Old World view point which they like to claim Gotrek brings. You can pair him up with any other crazy character, or maybe more than one, and send him off on over the top adventures. Then he can comment wryly on them, and you get to see the realms through his eyes, and explore all those weird little corners of the setting like they did with WFB. You can have a rotating cast of characters as his companion to highlight and feature different factions. Since everyone in the Realms is over the top, they will all work pretty well as a catalyst for adventure. (And despite his protestations Felix never actually needed that much convincing, his being more happened upon than happening is pretty much an affectation by the middle of the series at least.)

The narrative crowd here have discussed why this might be a few times. We've largely come to the conclusion that there is just more to talk about when it comes to rules and matched play. People are constantly discussing lists, rules, advice, army building etc. All of that is quite faction specific, and so spawns a lot of different threads. Whereas there tend to be just a couple of pretty contained threads when something major happens regarding the lore or background. It just doesn't generate as much discussion. What you do see people post as narrative players are hobby blogs, or threads where they share their fiction and background. However, these don't really inspire debate. They are fun to read, but all you can often post is "This is great, keep doing it!" Everyone's narrative lore is their own at the end of the day, and so it doesn't need to be policed or interpreted in the way that rules changes do. Those sorts of threads also take a lot of work, as do those that post the story or set up of a narrative campaign in a lot of detail. Its far easier to casually interact with the threads on matched play than it is to dive in to writing up all of your narrative, even if that's what you are having most fun doing with your games. Narrative threads also tend to be tucked away in the narrative section, where they don't get nearly as much traffic. I know that despite describing myself as a 100% narrative player, I rarely have time to read that section in depth, so tend to just skim a handful of threads here in AoS discussions. I'm not sure there is really a solution, but rest assured when a narrative thread does spring up, we will all be there to discuss it in a heartbeat!

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check that out!

So this one might be slightly difficult to explain, but here goes... So there is often a lot of talk about how old WFB models were more "generic fantasy" and games workshop have (to a greater or lesser extent) been trying to move away from that and make their ranges more unique. For me though, this raises a few points, which I suspect might be a little controversial. First I don't think that they will ever completely phase out their generic fantasy line, and if they did I think it would actually be a massive misstep. They've gradually done this with 40K, because 40K is the biggest tabletop game in the fantasy genre, and so the majority of people who are painting sci fi minis either want 40K ones, or want ones which are hyperspecific to a rival brand like Star Wars or whatever. That isn't the case with fantasy, where actually the "standard fantasy setting" is so prevalent that it is kind of a bigger brand than AoS will ever be. If they stopped making normal dwarves, skeletons, elves, etc. I think they would just be leaving money on the table. People are always going to want those things. You need them for D&D, you need them for most other games on the market, and trying to make AoS more unique or distinct doesn't make all of the more traditional expressions of the fantasy genre less popular. I think GW know this, and that's why the unique and "weird" models for lumineth and gravelords have also come with a lot of reimagined versions of the really traditional high elves and undead stuff. They don't want a situation where someone walks into a Games Workshop store and says "Can I have some skeleton warriors please" and the cashier has to say "No sorry, we don't sell those, these are the reasons why Ossiarch Bonereapers are awesome, and you should want those instead" and the new player doesn't care because they don't actually play warhammer. They should always want to be able to sell that box of skeletons, regardless of whether they convert someone to warhammer or not, not have the sale be dependant on the conversion. Now the really controversial bit... the more unique and Age of Sigmar specific they make those models, the more like off-brand toys they look. Ironically in striving to avoid genericity, they make them look really, really generic to an audience who isn't already primed to know about and like AoS models. I find this makes the game a really hard sell for people who I game with, whereas WFB always gave newer players a foot in the door, by being on the surface a setting they were more familiar with.

Narrative is far and away my favourite. I'm not a very competitive player at all, and really its all about the story that we create. I think I'm coming to the conclusion that I don't actually enjoy playing mass battle wargames for their own sake. I really enjoy painting big armies, and creating entire tables of terrain to fight over, but playing the actual game often leaves me burnt out. I find it frustrating, tiring and not especially rewarding. What I think I really want is a sprawling strategic scale RPG, where warhammer battles are used to resolve big scale conflicts, and every battle advances the plot of the more personal and story driven RPG campaign. I suspect that's quite an unusual stance though!