Skabnoze

Every army goes through highs and lows for the most part if you follow them long enough. Orcs & Goblins certainly did have points where they were pretty effective, but I cannot recall a time in Warhammer Fantasy from 4th to 8th where they were ever sitting on the top of the competitive pack. Even in 8th, when they had some very good units and builds they were not the top tier force. And Orcs & Goblins arguably were in middle of the pack or a bit lower in terms of competitiveness for most of those years - mainly due to being built around a high degree of randomness. The army was never able to get out of the shackles of the Animosity rules until Age of Sigmar came along. I agree. GW has shown that they want to keep a lot of the old themes of Orcs but are willing to move them away from some of the old mechanics that always held them back - such as animosity. So that is a good sign to me for future iterations of both Ironjawz and Bonesplitterz. Both of those armies are heavily influenced by, and expand upon, the old themes of Black Orcs & Savage Orcs but they also both tossed away animosity and removed much of the old randomness with just a bit remaining in some of the magic. Goblins, especially night goblins, were where most of the truly weird and random shenanigans traditionally were in the Orc & Goblin army and it seems that GW has decided to continue that trend in Gloomspite. So it seems that they may finally be willing to let Orcs concentrate on their more brutal nature and let goblins fully take over the comedic side of things.

Yeah, Bonesplitterz are the next destruction tome that I am expecting to see. As I posted earlier, my local GW store was required to send all copies of the Bonesplitter book back to the corporate office a couple months ago. The fact that they pulled the product from store shelves implies they are replacing it. The fact that they are specifically handling Ironjawz in the General's Handbook with expanded allegiance stuff implies that the Ironjawz rework is further down the road and so the GHB is being used to shore them up for a while. I think this is a good choice by GW and if I was in their shoes I would make the same decision. I like Bonesplitterz and Ironjawz equally, but to me it seems that the Ironjawz force is on the whole in better shape. The Bonesplitterz are a bit of a mess in my opinion as the original force did not seem to come out much like GW wanted it to and some allegiance rules & point tweaks probably won't fix it. You could probably make the Kunnin Rukk built more competitive through those options, but fundamentally what Bonesplitterz need is a rework of pretty much the whole book - but especially warscrolls. The main emphasis of the army has always been a force of frenzied berserking orcs led by powerful wizards. This is basically the Zulu force of Warhammer. The primarily ranged competitive army build always seemed like something accidental that GW did not anticipate. That said, I hope that they keep the concept of a ranged-emphasis build within the army but still shift it into the primary melee/magic force that it was meant to be. Archer units fit the strong theme of big-game hunters so I would hate to see it removed - but it also should not be the primary strength of the force. The Ironjawz force already does what it was meant to do for the most part - punch people in the face. They just need some modernized allegiance rules (a spell lore also please). The Bonesplitterz need more of a rules rework so that there is a purpose and use for standard savage orruks with spears. So that there is a compelling difference between Morboyz and Savage Orruks aside from Morboyz simply being much much better. The two units should do different things. The same thing goes for the two boar units. And the various wizards should be better at both blasting the enemy apart with bolts of green energy and also buffing up the hordes of boys into a savage green tide.

I see no reason why they cannot use the "prayer" mechanic on a model and also not make them a wizard.. Sure, Bonesplitterz are technically "religious" but for Orcs & goblins you cannot really separate "religion" from "magic" - they are basically the exact same thing for these armies. Greenskin magic is generally seen as tapping into some form of GorkaMorka's divine power. On the topic of "priests" they did add this mechanic to Gloomspite in the form of the non-wizard members of the Gobbapalooza. So there is now precedence for the "prayer" mechanic within Destruction. They named it "Gobbapalooza know-wotz", but aside from that it is the same mechanic as prayers. It is worth noting that the mechanic is the same as prayers, but these models do not have the "Priest" keyword - so GW has shown that you don't need to be a priest to use a version of the prayer mechanic. I fully expect that another Orc/Goblin army is going to end up using some form of the prayer mechanic. It could potentially be Bonesplitterz, and if so then I would expect them to make a broader "juju dance" mechanic that heroes can use, but I don't see any reason why those models would have to lose their ability to cast spells. It would basically be the same thing that Wardokks do now, but altered to use a common rule framework - and it could be something they could apply in a broader way to other heroes. However, I don't know that they will necessarily do this. Bonesplitterz are pretty much exactly the old-school savage orcs turned into a full Age of Sigmar army. They gave them some different fluff, and a monster hunter theme, but other than that they are changed very little and still follow all of the same broad themes. They are all considered by other orcs to be some level of just plain crazy. Rather than follow warbosses they gather behind the leadership of shaman/witch-doctors. They are absurdly superstitious, they use magic tattoos for protection, they purposefully shun technology and instead utilize traditional bone & stone weapons, and they are a horde of frenzied lunatics. Shaman and magic are a big defining feature of this army. It appears to me that this is meant to be the Orc army that specializes in spell casters. Ironjawz have their Weirdnob, but I expect that magic is always going to be a minor part of Ironjawz and instead it is going to take center-stage for Bonesplitterz. They may decide to add prayers into Bonesplitterz, but to me that feels like it might fit more thematically into Ironjawz. Prayers are simply a mechanics framework in AoS now and they don't necessarily have to represent "religion" - Gloomspite showed us that. So a prayer mechanic within Ironjawz would let them expand out buffing abilities without having to make wizards & magic a big important part of the army - similar to Daughters of Khaine.

Sigmar finally got around to reading the owner’s manual now that he has some free time to sit around in his capital.

I recommend one of you takes Wednesday, Friday, Sunday and the other takes Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. Then you both split custody on Mondays.

People have laid out a lot of the best steps already. I suggest you talk to others in your circle about this person and feel out explicitly where other people are on the matter. In the end you will all need to make a collective decision to deal with this problem in the way that works best for your whole group. However, I would suggest you try to frame the conversation in a positive way before you go nuclear. I don't want to go into the political side of things, the same as you mentioned, but no matter where you lie you cannot argue that this person most likely has some serious emotional issues in their life that they will ultimately have to work through. Everyone has issues to some degree - but some of us have it worse than others. In my experience the people who are so focused on "winning" games for a hobby rather than enjoying the shared experience of spending time with others who like playing with toys is that they are trying to fill a void that exists elsewhere in their life. Many of these people I have encountered often suffer from poor self-esteem, or are often excluded socially, or just got dealt a poor hand from life in general. The best outcome is if you can change this person's view away from being focused on winning as the outcome of the game into shared enjoyment of the experience with others in the group. It is not always easy to achieve this, but I find that the best way to do this is through example. For tournaments there should be a well known and enforced code of conduct and people should not be allowed to follow bad behavior. It should be called out early and enforced strictly and fairly. In friendly games the stakes should be lower and having fun should be encouraged. Bad behavior should still not be allowed, but try to do different things such as play weird scenarios or put odd but fun lists on the table. Minimize the reward for being the winner and maximize the reward for being participants. Other ways of doing this are to engage in narrative campaigns, play multi-player or team games, or just play really weird games. As an example, a while ago I attended a fun game at my local GW that was a big monster mash. The players were allowed to bring 1 behemoth model and then the game was structured so that turn priority was randomized (poker card draw) and if your monster was killed it could come in from a different board edge at the start of the next turn. There was no real reward for winning this silly competition and the game itself was highly absurd. I knew going into this event that people were going to bring models like Archaon, Morathi, etc. I brought a simple Giant (Ale Guzzler Gargant). It gave me an opportunity to play in a fun event with a model that I painted 20 years ago and was a sculpt that most players had not even seen. I also was obviously not gunning to win this thing. But I ran around the board getting killed just about ever turn and getting in fights that I honestly had no business to be in. I also got to damage an enemy model and set them up for someone else to be killed or run in and snipe out the last health of something that had already been weakened. I just ran an underdog model around the table as an absurd distraction and had a grand time doing it. Olaf (my giant) also quickly became a favorite on the table with people rooting for him in fights or delighting in the chance to kill him and see where he would pop up next. One other player played in a similar fashion to me with a Thundertusk. The end result was that our absurd antics took some of the edge off an event that some more competitive minded players, and also some younger players, went into in a more serious way and I think everyone involved had more fun in the end. I think the person that you are mentioning sounds like what they really want, even if they don't realize it, is a place where they can interact with people in a positive manner. Right now they view that as winning, but they would probably be better served with a place that allowed them to have fun without being self-conscious about the other things going on in their life and enjoy a shared experience with other people. Hopefully they can come around to that view - but not everyone does. I fully support the nuclear option of excluding people from a group if they are continually so badly behaved that they damage the larger group. But sometimes it is worthwhile to try to change that behavior if you can. So talk with others and try to set a positive example and encourage them to change with some subtle positive reinforcement. If that does not work then do what you have to.

I agree 100%. The longer I have played wargames the more I have enjoyed and leaned into skirmish games rather than the big multi-hour commitments big games like 40k, Warhammer Fantasy, and AoS generally are. I really enjoy Age of Sigmar and while it is fun at 1k, the rules and army books are obviously not really meant for that point level and AoS suffers some of the same issues that Warhammer Fantasy did when you scale it down. A rules framework meant to make these types of games work better is a great idea. I am also extremely interested in Warcry for much the same reason. Regardless of whether you like all of these various smaller side products being developed in the AoS universe - I think we all have to admit that it is a good thing on the whole that AoS has grown to the point where GW finds it a worth endeavor to explore the broader universe rather than just concentrate solely on the main core game. A game becoming popular enough to reach that point means it is growing and in a very good position in regards to the core game and it provides new avenues to onboard people into the main game.

There is a lot to unpack in your reply, and I am not really going to do it for sake of not heavily derailing the main thread. What you say is mostly true for wargames in today's world, but it was not always so. If you go back to the 80s you will find that most wargames, including GWs, were much closer to Role Playing games. 40k included a 3rd player "Judge" as a sort of Dungeon Master arbitrator in Rogue Trader and only lost that when it moved to 2nd edition. Editions of Warhammer Fantasy prior to 4th edition were very different beasts as well. Remember that GW miniatures began as D&D models similar to what Reaper is today and the game of Warhammer grew out of a desire to create a game specifically for use with these miniatures. In today's world Wargames have developed into a distinct genre and most of them have some shared characteristics - such as more formal army/forces construction rules that we take for granted anymore. If you go back far enough the wargames scene was quite the wild-west in terms of what was out there and the ideas that many games tried out. For example, Battletech went through numerous "match play" frameworks from squad-based (Lances/Stars) construction, to tonnage, to abstract point values. And then there are games such as Historicals which have been around for a stupid long time and are generally trying to accomplish something much different from most wargames. My ultimate point was that Age of Sigmar on first release looks very much like an effort to roll back the clock almost 30 years. There is nothing wrong with that, but GW has spent that amount of time grooming their customer base with certain expectations for their products. In addition, Games Workshop has always had such an outsized position in this niche market that most successful competitors were forced to structure their games very similarly and so the broader market has much of the same expectations. There is room in the market for niche products and AoS at launch was very much a niche product. GW was obviously not satisfied with it being so niche and once it became obvious to them that the product did not have as much appeal as they hoped they were forced to change direction by adding those frameworks back into the game. That effort has been an ongoing evolution, and 2nd edition was a major step, but it truly began with the General's Handbook. But as I said originally, we are just arguing over a minor detail. I think we are both on the same page for the most part with the broad strokes.

I agree with your overall point, but I would argue the point where it turned around and became relevant was the first General's Handbook. It is a minor quibble though. Prior to the General's Handbook Age of Sigmar was till a perfectly fine game. However, the lack of organization structure within the provided rules shifted that burden onto the players and meant that it was highly unlikely to ever reach a broad audience. There is nothing wrong with games that put a heavier emphasis on making the players agree on the parameters of how they will play it. Dungeons & Dragons and role playing games in general have pretty much built their entire model upon this. But the miniature wargames space, despite starting off that way, had already spent decades creating frameworks to remove much of the social contract burden from the players. By the time GW tried to shift Age of Sigmar back to a much earlier time the broader market was already used to these frameworks and expected them to exist. The first General's Handbook was when GW officially added this back into the game and you can really see the broader rate of adoption from that point.

This is true, but it is also exceedingly rare. The vast majority of the games that they have pulled the plug on over the years are the small side games and they have killed the majority of them. Discussing their core games is a different matter. The most drastic changes they have ever made to their games that I can remember in the course of my playing (late 80s) was the shift from 2nd to 3rd ed 40k - which invalidated massive swathes of player collections across most armies and the swap from Warhammer Fantasy to Age of Sigmar - which heavily shook up the game and split factions apart but it had less turmoil in regards to making existing collections unplayable. The number of factions in core games that have been completely stripped from the game is pretty small. Age of Sigmar has pruned the most factions from the game - but they provided free rule sets for those armies in the form of the Legends compendiums so they are not 100% useless. For the most part the writing is on the wall for many of those forces. In regards to armies that have no equivalent way to play the only one I can think of are Squats. But I would also say that your point also lends even more weight to the concept that these campaign books must be generating enough of an expected return for GW to find them worthwhile to pursue. They have been doing these sorts of things as full products for well over 10 years and they have not stopped making them. That may change in the future, but Forbidden Power shows they are still making them so at least in the world we live in today GW finds these products to be a worthwhile product development.

Technically all miniatures are statues...

It is the same phenomenon that has existed for over a decade with campaign supplements and yet GW still makes them. That is my point. If GW was not making an effective enough profit on these products at this point I expect they would have simply stopped trying. The fact that they regularly churn these out for both 40k and AoS indicates that they feel it is worthwhile to do so.

Meh. Not every product has to mainly cater to a specific portion of the player-base. There is room for product that cater to narrative players, ones for competitive players, and products in between. And nobody really knows how well this sold outside of GW themselves. All of our various insights are purely anecdotal.

That was a good read. Thanks for linking it. This solidified my interest in the line since I really enjoy highlighting but I find the preceding base coat & shading steps to be fairly tedious. If these can cut down that tedium and let me spend more time on the parts of painting that I enjoy then to me it is a good product. It will probably get me to paint more than I currently do.

Malign Sorcery is set up as a core product and probably is meant to have smaller individual profit margins that they will make up in sales volume since it is a product they expect the vast majority of the player-base to pick up - just like the core rulebook. I am willing to bet that they don't expect as much of the player-base to purchase Forbidden Power and so it is priced to have larger margins per unit sold, a shorter shelf life, and a smaller manufacturing run. It is most likely as simple as that.

I won't argue with this. My point was mainly that these things are really not anything new. They have been following these patterns for quite a few years now. I am not saying that I like this sales strategy, but we should also be able to see it for what it is and not totally fall into the hype. In the grand scheme of things missing a relatively small update for a hobby game is not the end of the world. If you want it THAT bad, then get it. If it is something you don't NEED then only buy it if you want. We should all do ourselves a favor and realize that the Community articles, facebook posts, convention reveals, etc are all just pure marketing tools and little else. They are meant to stoke player hype in order to shift more units of product. I would say that in general as a consumer it is better to take a skeptical approach to the products from any company. The society we live in and the way that corporations are legally structured means that they go for profits first and foremost the vast majority of the time. That does not necessarily mean they are purely greedy evil things, but it means that their primary interest is not necessarily in delivering excellent value to customers and more to maximizing what they can get out of you. Be skeptical of all of their advertising, don't fall for tactics that prey on personal desperation, and plan your purchases for what you think will best serve you. GW is unlikely to change their behavior unless it negatively impacts their bottom line so the best you can do is be conscious of your behavior as a consumer.

Some products are considered core products and others are not. Core products usually last the entire duration of a game edition. So things like the core rulebook, the 2 player starter set, and also core supplements like Malign Sorcery. GWs General sales pattern has been to sell those at a lower price point than other products in their game range. Campaign books often seem to be non-core products as they sometimes stop printing them during an edition. For non-core products like these that include both books and models the trend that I have seen is to initially sell them in a big package at a higher price point and then eventually repackage the models into different products later on. Look at what GW did in 40k recently with the Urban Conquest box set. That was pretty much the same as Forbidden Power. They sold a game supplement book and a bunch of cool urban ruins terrain that matched up with the Sector Imperialis terrain sets they make. The obvious main draw for that product for many people was the terrain and they packaged that box for $100. Now they have pulled that terrain out and repackaged it into a number of cheaper KillTeam boxes. They tend to do this with most of their products. Initially they sell them to early adopters at a premium and then they repackage them into cheaper bundle deals or individual packs later on. They do this with armies by not making Start Collecting until a long time after initial release. They do this with terrain sets by not making bundle collections on first release also. If youbhave patience then you can usually get stuff cheaper down the road. I am not saying this is the sales patterns that I would prefer - but GW is at least pretty consistent with what you can expect.

It depends on what you are looking for in a product. If economic cost of paint is what you want then I would argue that you should never be looking at GW’s paint lines in the first place since they are not the cheapest on the market. They are not the most expensive either - but low cost is not really a feature of their line. It seems to me that the niche that the Contrast paint line is intending to fill is general ease of use and time-saving. There are people who will happily pay a premium for something that is easier to use and also people who will pay a premium for things that save them time. I am willing to spend money on things that save me time as at my point in life time is easily the most valuable resource that I have. I have a time-consuming career, a wife, children, a home, and a number of other hobbies that compete for the little spare time that I can dig up. When I was younger and had less money I was willing to spend more time if I could do things cheaper, but at this stage of my life things are different and I have much more spare money than time. Everyone’s situation is different and not every product is going to appeal to everyone. For me, I am willing to pay extra for things that will save me time and tedium and help me spend my spare time doing the things that I enjoy. I enjoy modeling and painting, but I mainly enjoy that on a handful of special models and not on churning out huge units of chumps. If this product can help me reduce the time spent but still get results that I am happy with then to me it is money well spent. Your mileage may vary and that is fine.

I am pretty sure that GW has different sales expectations for different types of products. And most likely they are also purposefully testing the waters in regards to making various products appeal more to the broader audience and watching the purchase patterns. Campaign products are not a new thing for GW. They have made them for the last few editions of Warhammer Fantasy and also 40k. Those have always been products that are not usually brought by the wider playerbase but they obviously have a decent enough sales rate or GW would have stopped making them a while ago. The main difference that I can see with Forbidden Power is that it contains a piece of terrain and some endless spells. I would not be overly surprised if at some point in the future GW repackaged those into individual sets if the full Forbidden Power box set sales heavily slow down. GW books seem to have high profit margins because they have drastically ramped up their book production over the last few years. Businesses don’t make shifts like that unless there is money to be made. I don’t think we will see GW stop making campaign style supplements anytime soon. They will keep dropping one every so often.

There is always a chance existing models get resculpted. However, predicting when and what will be resculpted is a talent that nobody has a high success rate at.

To be fair, you could pretty much apply this to Orcs & Goblins for just about any edition of Warhammer. That does not mean it should always be this way, but historically it has been to a fair degree. Orcs & Goblins (of all types) has generally been an army you play primarily because you really like the theme and models of the army and less because it is objectively good on the table. Hopefully Ironjawz version 2.0 changes this.

Probably when @Thomas Lyons stops playing them - or at least stops being vocal about wanting stuff for them. Let's take a look at things that Tom publicly likes: Kharadron Overlords - myriad issues (no reason to restate them) that makes the current army a bit of a mess Moonclan - Tom sold the army he had and then GW immediately gave them a full revamp with the Gloomspite book. I extend a very heartfelt Thank You to Tom for disassociating himself with this army so that we could have this glorious book. Spiderfang - Gloomspite was a huge grots overhaul, but for the most part Spiderfang was ignored and got some basic quality of life improvements. Still considered by most to not really be competitive (hope someone proves everyone wrong). Why could you have not sold off all of these models as well Tom? Imagine what we could have now if you had done so... Fyreslayers - new book gave them nice modern rules, but absolutely nothing new for the range aside from terrain + endless spells Duardin - radio silence Daughters of Khaine - a good strong book, but Tom did not play them until after they released. They will probably be beaten flat by the nerf bat in the new GHB, not because they are too powerful but simply because Tom finished painting them. Swifthawk Agents - 😂... Warhammer Legends bound just because of how much Island of Blood models he bought. The moral of the story is to not pick an army Tom likes. He is the reason you can't have nice things. The best strategy for purchasing a new army is to send him a PM and ask him his honest opinion of an army and then to go with the ones he actively dislikes. Ignore this advice at your own peril!

Is the medium they are selling really much different from the variety of acrylic mediums you can get from an artist supply store? I mean, the main difference between artist/craft/model acrylic paints is how pigments are handled. When you take pigments out of the equation is there a real reason to pay more for medium that you may be able to buy in larger bulk? I'll probably buy a single pot of GWs medium - and then compare it to artist stuff on the market and see if there is a marked difference.

Well Gloomspite were all existing allegiances that had no book outside of General Destruction. Every allegiance that does not have a dedicated book for Death is in Legions of Nagash currently. So either they will get something entirely new, or else Legions of Nagash will end up being split up to some degree. At this point only GW knows what their future plans are. The rest of us are just having fun prognosticating.

This is my thoughts. While I feel that I am a good painter those are 2 colors that I never really figured out how to do well (because I never spent the time). I am currently trying to get my small Empire force for Star Wars: Legion onto the table and it is not an army that I feel the need to paint to 100% and I am perfectly fine going for a table-top quality. So my plans are to pick up the white and black paints and then use my Legion army of Storm Troopers to play around with these paints and get a handle on working with them. From there I will invest in other colors for different armies once I have more experience with the range and have need of the other colors. I will probably pick up a couple browns at launch as well to use for painting the robes of my moonclan.