EccentricCircle

Quite the contrary, actually writing out the rules is just the final step of a very complex design process. The simpler you want the end product to be the more research and development it takes to iterate down to that simple rules set, make sure it all still works, and figure out what elements of complexity you actually want to keep. A vast amount of playtesting is needed to make sure that your simple short rule set actually works and still effectively communicates the nuances of the game.

that all makes sense, but do you have evidence that the ninth and potentially tenth ed drafts were, mechanically speaking, a continuation of the wfb design philosophy, and not just the early stages of what would become AoS? I could well believe that AoS rules might have been intended for the old world at one stage, but that they finished an update cycle for the wfb core rules, were ready to publish, and only then decided to radically redesign the system doesn't seem to fit the development timeline. I'd have expected the ideas for AoS one to be well in development long before 8e came out?

It's not looking good. I decided to get a couple of things which I've wanted for a while, including the Dread maw. Just in case I can't later on. I'd have liked to get the dragons, but the magma dragon is just a bit too pricey, and I've missed my chance at getting the warpfire one.

Very nice! I really like the presentation, that's a cool castle!

Oh for sure! A lot of us out there are fans of it, but for a long time after the hobbit films, it didn't really feel like they were doing much with it. After LoTR finished, they kept releasing products, and expanding into the lore and stuff from the books that didn't make it into the film. There were various releases and new books for different areas and conflicts. With the Hobbit, they initially didn't even finish the stuff that was in the films, and it wasn't until it was passed over to specialist games that we started seeing new releases with any frequency. I was certainly still collecting and painting the models, but at least around here there didn't seem to be the same buzz about it, and after basically being a core game for almost a decade, it was sad to no longer even have a lord of the rings section in the high street stores.

It really felt like they had gotten to that point a short while ago when it was being neglected. I wonder if the recent wave of support that the game has been getting is partially to justify still having the license, and potentially make a renewal look more enticing to the other parties. If they were up for renewal and not doing anything for a year or two, then the Tolkien estate would be quite within their rights to give it to someone else.

I've wondered that. I've not been able to find a definitive source on when the LoTR license is next up though. I'm sure I remember reading something about it being renewed for ten years a while back(maybe around 2015-2017?), but I'm not sure how far through those ten years we are at this point.

So what is actually wrong with the old models? I often see people complain that kits need an update, but often I'm not convinced that they are actually bwd, just that their style isn't the current fashion. Just had a look at knights and warriors, and sure the new kits have more details, but the old kits still have a very ironic look, realised very well. They are nit zombies, or even their marauder allies who look a little derpy. I can see why you'd want as much detail as possible, but in a sense that style of model tends to be monopose, or "duopose", as we see with new ranges like idoneth. The new standard of detal just doesn't lend itself to true multi part troop kits. In a sense it feels like we 're getting the best of bith worlds. We have new hyper detailed squads, but still have the more varied kits to make up numbers, add variety and be quick to paint, so that you can lavish details on the new models. I feel like this is how it used to work when multipart plastic kits first came in. You could focus on the monopose metal models as champions and the frknt rank, and fill out the squad with lower quality plastic soldiers. We've just arrived at the point where it's happening in reverse now.

That would be an interesting development for sure. Its really surprising to start seeing Start Collecting sets are release of a new range, rather than a year or so later, but if they do take it in that direction then it could be a very useful "core" product. It feels like some of the start collecting sets almost invalidate the sets with the kits they include. I can't see why anyone would want to buy a single zombie dragon for example, unless they were already swimming in ghouls. Having unique models in the sets could be a good way to make them complementary to the rest of the range, rather than just another way to buy it. It would be a shame to lose that as a way of getting discounts going forwards though.

That's unfortunate, thanks for confirming that.

So does the warcry book tell you everything you need to play the game with one of these double strength AoS boxes, or do you still need to get the warcry set for the cardsvand tokens, even id yiu already get the warbands for use in AoS? I've held off jumping into warcry, but would still like to at some point, so its hard to know whether these new sets would be useful in that respect.

My first thought on seeing the preview was "I said there'd be spikes!"

That is kind of cool. I'd not spotted that at all, as I wasn't paying too much attention to the announcements that time around. There is definitely potential for some cool animated stuff there. I kind of wish that whoever made the trailers for Total Warhammer would take their system for doing that, and just make a proper Warhammer animated series (either Old World, or AoS, I'm not fussy). All of those short trailer sequences are really cool, so if they've got the assets for all of those different troop types then it couldn't be that tricky to make a basic story using them.

I love how the background books are written from an in universe point of view. You can excuse any discrepancies in Liber Necris, because its literally just Manfred von Carstein writing the history of the Undead for his own amusement. I'm sure it would have been longer if they'd kept all of the dark spells and secret rites of the undead in there, rather than trimming out pages upon pages of necromantic gibberish, which our mortal minds couldn't comprehend anyway. The Genevieve novels are actually back in print as part of Warhammer Horror, there are good audio book versions of Drachenfels and Gevevieve Undead, and I believe the other two are out in paper back.

They do have a theme. Their theme is SPIKES! How you turn that into endless spells is another matter, but that is definitely their theme!

There was a 9th edition book?

Definitely! You could also mix and match some really unconventional ones in the style of the Merc companies. A free city with unusual demographics, a chaos tribe that has slaves of a different faction, undead worshiping freeguild fighting along side their ancestors. The key words system is massively flexible, and you can do so much stuff with it, that in some senses its a shame that its mostly been used to spin off new factions, or rebuild classic ones so far. The sky really is the limit of how you can mix and match the small sub factions.

Waiting to see what happens with the new game certainly makes sense, but I would like to point out that the Old World as a setting isn't just limited to whatever this new game turns out to be. In this thread we've already had discussion about Mordheim, Warmaster, Dreadfleet, and various other extant games based on that setting. You could argue that those aren't really relevant to Age of Sigmar discussions, but since they are the history of the game this forum is about (both mechanically and lorewise), I think they are an important facet of what this forum is about. If anything GW's renewed interest in the Old World setting shows that they consider it an extension of the current game. This forum sometimes feels as though it lacks a proper space for "off topic" discussions, and as a result they end up springing up in Age of Sigmar related topics. Rather than trying to get things back on track everytime 40K or the old world comes up, why not have an area for "Other games" or Other GW games" in general, where that kind of discussion can go? This forum is a brilliant community, one of the best I've ever encountered in the tabletop gaming sphere, but it does sometimes feel a little too focused on its niche of that hobby.

Its worth remembering that the sales people at Games Workshop stores don't actually have any more information than we do. They don't get briefed on new releases more than a week or two in advance, if that. some keep up with the rumour stuff, and pass that on to shoppers who don't read threads like these, but their information generally doesn't have any more authenticity because of the fact that they work in a GW shop. Many don't keep up with the rumour discussion, and so know less about whats going on than many of the people on forums like this do.

Of late I've been reading a fair amount about the history of Warhammer, Games workshop and Citadel Miniatures recently, and its fascinating to see how the modern fantasy minis scene has come about. What I'd really like more information on though, is what came before Games Workshop. Clearly early Citadel got a big boost from D&D, and I'm aware of a few other brands which were around back then, such as Grenadier, Minifigs and Ral Partha, but they all seem to have really gotten going when D&D took off in the mid seventies, and its not clear what if anything was around before that. So what figures did people use to play chainmail? Were fantasy figures available before that, or did you just convert medieval figures from historical games? How did fantasy gaming, as we know it today, evolve out of historical wargames etc? If anyone knows of any good write ups of those early years, or a good source of history or commentary on the very early days of our hobby I'd be very interested to hear. I've found the Realm of Chaos blog (http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.com/) to be a very useful resource in this regard, since it has a lot of interviews with various GW designers and modellers. However I've not delved much deeper into the Oldhammer scene, since I'm not quite sure where to start.

28 mm is a standard across the miniatures industry though, and not just for wargames, so I'm not sure that GW would deliberately deviate from it, particularly for a game which will allow them to keep "classic fantasy" stuff in production. Its easy to think that GW just want to scrap all of their classic fantasy stuff, and move to only producing models related to their distinct IP, certainly that is the way AoS has been going, and 40K did so a long time ago. However I think that would actually be a mistake. Ideally GW want everyone to only play their games, and buy models which can only be used for their games. However that isn't ever going to actually be the case. There is a growing market for people who don't care about warhammer at all, but do want a model of an elf or a dwarf to use as their D&D character. I'm very much on the RPG side of the hobby, so I frequently see people who don't buy full armies, but do buy a squad of goblins or beastmen here or there, to use for an RPG, or sometimes for more "model agnostic" wargames like frostgrave. I know a lot of RPG players who have gotten into the hobby recently, and want to buy and paint their first mini. They don't know all of the options, so naturally gravitate towards the brand that they've heard of, and which has a shop on every high street. However they don't want to buy a Kharadron Overlord, or a Fyreslayer, because they don't know what those are. If they go into games workshop and find that they can't just buy a normal dwarf, then some are going to be put off, and look elsewhere, whcih is also increasingly easy. This means that they won't be tempted to look into Warhammer further, or pick up any of the other cool stuff they see while in there. Games Workshop have been the market leader in wargamming for a long time and that can breed a certain complacency. If they believe that their brand and their IP is the be all and end all, then they risk being in for a nasty shock if the bubble bursts, or something happens in pop culture which makes the over the top fantasy aesthetic of Age of Sigmar fall out of fashion. Conversely there will always be a bit of a market for the stuff that's stood the test of time for decades, even if it isn't currently in vogue. I think they do know this, because its notable that despite discontinuing a lot with Cities of Sigmar, they have kept at least one standard kit in production for each of the main fantasy archetypes. You can still buy traditional dwarves and elves with bows, even if the variety isn't as great as it once was, or you have to look to Lord of the Rings rather than Warhammer. One of the worrying things about the Cities of Sigmar discontinuations, is that we largely saw GW stop making most of the models that were appropriate for single RPG characters, like the wood elf and High elf heroes, and the warrior priests. There are a few left, but in no way a coherant range. GW's hero figure variety hadn't been great for a long time, but even so this can be seen as them effectively ceding the field, and leaving an entire, growing, sector of the fantasy miniatures market open for Reaper and Wizkids. For the time being I suspect the Warhammer brand is strong enough that that won't be a problem, but the more popular RPGs become, with streaming bringing in new blood, the bigger that section of the market is going to get. I wouldn't be at all surprised if one day games workshop look at that, and decide they need to release packs of hero figures like the ones that Citadel started out making before Warhammer was a twinkle in their eye.

Indeed. While you can actually play wargames with a GM, it isn't often the done thing. However the way the game operates is quite distinct as well. In effect a Wargame starts with basic parameters, which interact to produce unexpected results, but ultimately that complexity is temporary and after a certain point the game should become less complex until one side wins and the other loses. An RPG has the opposite approach, every interaction spins out a lot more possibilities and opens up the potential for more complexity down the way. The result is a far more emergent experience than anything you get in other games. To bring this back to the topic at hand, I think that this makes it easier to pitch a "schismatic" RPG, because only one player, the GM, actually needs to have a clear idea of where things are going to go and what it is going to be about. If the players bring that sort of stuff to the table too then that is great, but they can in theory turn up with nothing but trust in the GM to deliver an engaging experience. This means that games can be very open to new players joining. There is no real buy in besides a basic willingness to learn and engage with the scenario. If you don't like the published lore then that isn't a problem, because the GM will inevitably be putting their own spin on it, and you can steer clear of the bits you aren't engaged with. As GM you have total creative freedom to run the kind of game you want, so long as your players are up for it, and continue to have fun. For wargames there has to be much more parity of purpose. Both players have to come to the table with the same idea, and a strong setting and background helps to make it easier for them to adopt a narrative, without having to do much of the work that the GM of an RPG would do to prepare their game, or Narrative play enthusiasts pour into a custom campaign. In short the narrative is supposed to arise emergently from the interactions on the table, rather than being directed by a controlling player. Thus there cannot be as much creative freedom for players to put their own spin on things, except as you say in painting and background writing, which has minimal effect on the plot of the resulting game. I think that this is unavoidable, but it does, strictly speaking make narrative games less accessible than "kill them all" type competitive games. If you want that more narrative experience then every player has to put in that extra work, and very much buy in to the concept. Conversely in an RPG that happens more or less by itself (so long as the GM is doing their job well, and no players are actively forcing a more hack and slash approach). There is a lot more work for the GM, but a lot less for everyone else involved. I'm not sure precisely what we can learn from this for making wargames more accessible. Certainly a GM could be useful to teach new people to play, and being able to provide a ready army for a new gamer to use on their first go can help get them hooked without having to tell them to go off and paint a hundred soldiers first. I'd love to do a GM driven narrative campaign, but finding a group for that sort of thing is easier said than done in my experience.

For a lot of RPGs, the DM's job involves many of the same stuff that wargaming does. You often source, build and paint miniatures, read stats in the books, and prepare battles and scenery, often in far more detail than either player would need to for a game of warhammer. However its true that for a player, once you have built your character there is less to do away from the gaming table. One big difference for RPGs, as has been discussed earlier, is that they often take the form of a toolbox, that presents lots of ideas and options for the players to use however they like. Even games that are very much tied to a setting can quite easily be adapted to different worlds and ideas, and you are actively encouraged to create your own character, world and story, rather than using preexisting stuff. This is almost completely contrary to the way GW games work, with a very tight focus on using GW rules and GW models, to play a game in GW's world, which adheres to their lore. It is certainly possible to "file the serial numbers off" and use AoS as an engine for a different setting, but you very rarely see people actually do so, and you would get a very odd look if you turned up to a store or club and said that you wanted to do a battle set in the forgotten realms rather than the mortal realms for example. To some extent I think this comes from the way wargames are set up, but it really doesn't have to, and there are games which are far less coupled to their lore and model line than GWs are. I think that some of the appeal of the Oldhammer movement is going back to a time when you could more easily do things your own way.

Excerpt from today's inner monologue: "It just needs a certain je ne sais quoi, and by je ne sais quoi I mean Greenstuff."

I could see them go the way they did with Middle Earth in its latest edtion actually. There is one rulebook (to rule them all), and then two "army books" one covering everything in the Lord of the Rings, and one covering everything in the Hobbit. They included all of the units in the games, even the ones that didn't presently have model support. So basically with those three books, you have all the stats, and weren't left waiting for the various campaign books to get to your preferred faction. Clearly said campaign books each add a few more profiles to the army lists, but that is an add on to what was, at launch, a complete game system.