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One of the interesting things with Chorfs will be seeing how they are affected by the existence of so many third party takes on the concept Because of GW's disinterest in Chorfs, for whatever reason, they never really locked down an aesthetic- their two existing presentations were pretty radically different from each other. So third party Chorf proxies have likewise been pretty creative abd many of them very good. My thinking/hope looking at the Hobgrots and their armour, and even things like the Sashimimos on the backs of some of the orruks, is that they're going to go with a Samurai weaponsmith culture- think hobgrot style armour but also with kabuki masks and the like. They're an obvious swap to me because futher to their strict martial hierarchical culture, which is a big part of Chorf lore, early modern samurai armies were pioneering in the use of mass gunpowder units. Also the Oni mythos is an obvious stand in for the middle Eastern inspired demons of the Chorfs as well as a hirthero untapped artistic source for GW which is so imitated elsewhere that respectful cultural representation needn't be a major headache.

Finished up my Gutrippaz for Path to Glory. Few close ups of the model kit options because you don't see them much, they're superb.

Those are nice. I tend to write lists around throwing as few dice as possible. I played with a friends Gitz army a few times and had blobs of 60 shooters etc. I just didn't ever roll for them in combat. They were there to get punched.

Order of preference A) Any dice that are cheap because they're dice, who cares B) £15 for a product of some degree of novelty/ingenuity that might also work as dice in a pinch C) £15 for dice that are the same as A) except they have a motif on them but there's about 100 less dice

Man the new dice sets are really rubbish these days huh Most of the older ones in 2.0 were really creative and felt like novel products as of themselves These are just like Blue dice Orange dice

Looks like the GW art mandate to reproduce visuals of models is extended to Soulbound. I mean they're cool pictures and all but especially for a role-playing game where presumably the deal is that you can go "off grid" they don't give any more flavour to the role and idetity of the species or just as importantly, the world they Inhabit, than the existing models do. I think this is probably the one area where GW gets it undeniably wrong from a commercial aspect. People are far more inclined to buy stuff if their imagination is fuelled Into creating a world for GW products to reside in, rather than just buy literal Interpretations of the picture they see. The former relies on the consumers imagination, which they're obviously biassed towards. The latter on the consumer liking an image, pretty much.

It wasn't a casual discussion about matched play. It was a discussion about new rules applicable to all formats of the game . I stated an opinion you disagreed with into an open forum, as I'm entitled to. There's no other criteria for entry that I'm aware of. You're right that AOS is full of rules which are very much counter intuitive or just outright inferior to alternatives within matched play, which is why I don't find them worth consideration as anything more than what they are and basically seem intended to be for. In this instance I think "more sharks" was literally the point, and no other considerations were involved. Same as how Skyllbugz is obviously meant to be "more monsters" even though it barely amounts to a competitive incentive for that outside the flavour text.

It's an optional rule, so likewise why would you care? Rules apply to every format which AOS shares, theres still a format there, all those systems are designed in keeping with the archeture of a single rulset around how factions play and ate represented on the tabletop. It's a good rule if you want to play with lots of sharks. Which for me would be a big incentive to play Idoneth. Sharks are great. No-one else gets sharks.

I don't personally invest much in the competitive format of a system which is apparently so fragile that an entirely optional rule can jeopardise it. I am one of the many, if not majority, of people who don't play with the matched play rules system in which character and theme are abandoned In favour of maths. In which situation lots of flying sharks are a justification on the basis of being lots of flying sharks, and that's cool. GW has always doted on that kind of community, and did so long before mathammer. Not even everything in the books GW release about playing with toy soldiers is dedicated to matched play. Or any other ruleset. Its designed with all their formats in mind, two of which are basically antithetical to each other. That's because they know their audience/consumer base. I'd suggest you read my other posts if you think I'm in the buisness of praising GW unequivocally though.

These posts are sort of weird in that anyone posting in here, including the author, "accepts this mess" to a degree. Because you're still investing your time and energy into its existence or a belief its somehow redeemable, or that GW just need to be convinced enough to make a change, which simply isn't true. In all the areas that matter to GW, its not a mess. Its the most polished, complete, marketable, profitable, accessible form the company has ever been in, from their perspective. You can get on board with any level of it, or not at all, as you choose. But the consensus by every metric is that more people than ever agree with the direction GW are going Because the other hard truth is that the hobby of playing with beautiful little models in any number of systems is more diverse, accessible affordable, than ever before, by an order of magnitude. If you dont want to do things GW's way but want to maintain the hobby, it's never been easier on literally every front. From my perspective, GW continues to suck at the things it has always sucked at, and that's a feature not a bug. My expectations are realistic and low, so I'm not remotley invested in that sense. Like any corporate directed franchise, the artistic direction and vision is long sacrificed. There's no novelty left, only cannabilisation of existing lore and tropes and other more commercially successful franchises. That's just what happens to these artistic properties when creative direction is lost or farmed out. GW art is rubbish now, but it's intended as a replica of models rather than a the vision of a few auteurs. I accept that and move on. It's not like as an adult with expendable income its hard for me to find artistic and creative inspiration elsewhere. Plus now that I'm not 15 anymore I'm not particularly wowed by the initial riff on existing eurocentric history and mythology that comprises the Old World anyway. The best of Warhammer from that era is less the lore and more the self consciousness and joy with which it was imbued. The nature of GW in the 21st century, like most cottage industries become commercial empires, is that they become, by design, impervious to personality. Duncan Rhodes treatment is a perfect example of this. My hobbying benefits from having a massive second hand market by which models I like and would never purchase full price are made cheap, and I can use those models in any number of superior rulesets as well as the few decent GW ones. Their financial sucsess means an increasing release schedule of great models which I'm going to be able to get at easily half their retail value if I'm patient. Usually I fund them by selling models from GW into said guaranteed marketplace. The thing so many people seem to miss about GW- you buy their stuff, *it's yours*. You own it. They even *tell you that themselves*. You don't have to use their rules, you don't have to call them the things that they call them, you don't have to follow the lore slavishly like a personal faith. Basically- it's only as much of a mess as you allow it to be. You lock yourself in. Nobody else.

I am also upset about the possibility that an entirely optional rule around playing with more toy flying sharks might be uncompetitive in one format of the game

One thing that really became apparent to me over the past few years is just how middle class GW is. I don't mean that perjorativley, just that throughout the pandemic, like most things, it quickly became apparent that most people who play GW wargames have not just the money to buy miniatures, but also the space in which to store them/paint them (not infrequently they have a literal room or reserved space for this) cars to transport their models, and also money for everything else on top like raising a family etc. So while as with a lot if things *in theory* the ceiling of entry financially is pretty low, in reality most people who play have the associated middle class priveleges and commodity of money, time, space which are increasingly hard to keep up with if you don't have a comparable level. By the same token, I've seen a lot of people selling up in this period because they couldn't keep up financially. This isn't new, but its notable as someone growing up In a poor home that these things are greatly exacerbated now compared to when I was a kid. Even the fact growing up it wasn't unusual to see pictures in WD of battles fought around cups, on hills made of books etc. That might not sound significant, but as someone growing up in a home whete there never was space or tidiness, the message that wargames were accessible within a context of domestic detritus or upper lower class reality was huge. On the other hand, back then a lot of wargaming took place in garages of affordable semi detached houses, houses which now are unavailable for less than nearly half a million pounds. But basically what I'm saying is as a luxury product, GW's main demographic of consumers are conformably within the threshold of dealing with price rises like this. And in fact given the way capitalism works (as in, it dosent), the more expensive it gets, the more catered for they will actually be.

I think AOS is a great system for skirmish level and about 1500 points is it at its best. Any system, in anything, that requires you to roll 60+ dice at once and then sift through them, I just can't put into words how shockingly poor design that is from multiple perspectives. AOS at 200p points just feels like a maths lesson to me. Maths and matching games, pick out all the plus 4+s etc. The literal physical act of rolling dice obstructs the game for me at that point.

Lol at that 40k "Battlebox" with 15 guys Scufflebox

It's a hilariously bad implementation of a system But then it's within the context of a game where throwing like TWENTY DICE is routine

Good Barbarians and Underworld set Otherwise very underwhelming Although I've always wanted basically just those Genestealer Cult models so looks like I'll be able to buy them cheap off some Custodes players

Excellent Barbarian type sculpt that.

Bang on. AOS at heart is and always has been a way for GW to trademark fantasy concepts that had evolved within their systems beyond the initial archetypes and fantasy universe that inspired Warhammer in the first place. It made more sense to literally expand the Warhammer Universe to fill with IP than to try and find existing places within the Old World. What's interesting about it to me is that its a decision which increasingly feels very much of a place and time- early 2010's- which now feels *very* distant and irrelevant. The past 6 years have been so full volatile and of their own logic that cultural trends have shifted much faster than tends to be the case within that tineframe. Ironically by far the biggest trend in Sci and fantasy right now is nostalgia. The majority of People currently want what they remember, the sense of a comforting known quantity they can hide in. GW have definitely being trying to pivot back towards this with AOS- hence the Kruelboyz and most obviously the Old World- but their size makes catching the zeitgeist the equivalent of having to turn an oil tanker. In many ways I think its commercially a mistake for them to be doing this; they can't replicate or capture retro fantasy by definition of what their Fantasy brand now is. AOS is at its best when it looks to sources that WH didnt- namely non eurocentric sources and inspiration. And looking at the likes of Shang Chi and Dune, you've now got two bold, non eurocentric re-articulations and repudiations of visionary textbook fantasy which will have a strong influence on cultural trends in the near future. I've a strong feeling that in 5 years time the reason that the Old World looked dated in the early '10's will be to the fore once again, and rather than be positioned to capitalise on that with a confident, developed IP with a real sense of itself, AOS will look confused and compromised between what its cone from and what it refuses to leave behind.

Very much so, but it was by way of being in conversation and identifying with a very gentle and modest British left wing cultural revolution- things like Terry Pratchett, Viz, 2000 AD and Alternative comedy- rather than through overt ideological observations or statements as was the case in 40k.

The vast majority of the people who made GW lore what it was are no longer involved. So I'm not sure they necessarily can do it. GW flavour text these days reads precisley to me like people who know in theory what makes GW stuff tick, but can't actually produce it. For me, the reason is pretty straight forward. The secret about the greatest most inspirational fantasy and Sci fi lore is that its basically always about more than just itself, usually about greater artistic human themes and drawing from classic cultural touchstones and subjects. That's why they appeal to so many people- their themes are universal. What we see now though in pretty much all of the most popular Sci fi and fantasy licenses are authors who are fans, writing for fans. They rarely reach outside the universe they are writing within and the logic of it is very congruent on itself. Its insular, designed to excite and titilate people who are already involved than reach for something more ambitious. The main comic book franchise properties went through this about 30 years ago if not before. This also adds into another key aspect missing from most modern fantastical IP's- they take themselves too seriously. When I got into GW in the mid 90's, there was a sense of self awareness and whimsy. Because actually, you know what, these things are trivial, they don't actually matter in the grand scheme. It was escapism that knew it was escapism. It didn't require voluminous investment to understand what was going on. Also, there was no attempt to hide that they were proudly working within a tradition and culture where ideas were borrowed, Inherited, built upon etc. More of an open source culture. They wernt trying to claim ownership of a monolithic property in which they are free to steal ideas and concepts from others while ruthlessly pursuing those they even claim to be doing the same to them. Comics went through their golden era when they were conscious of their origins as disposable kids entertainment. Attempts to turn really immature subject matter into something gritty fails 90% of the time. Something is going to give if (When, let's be honest) GW pursue their fiction as their main commercial property.

Spiderguy or Dynamically posed and well proportioned man who looks like multiple other dynamically posed and well proportioned men supposedly from entirely different contexts Chaos has gotten a bit less chaotic of late

I think the fundamental issues boil down to a sense that they're not changing the things that need changing and messing around with stuff that worked fine. There's a sense that GW have bigger ambitions for it now and those are overriding what players have enjoyed about it up to this point.

AOS rules are terrible. Too complex to serve as a quick, elegant system. Too simple to serve as a complex, deep system. GW's solution to controlling IP by renaming races through the device of adding a random selection of vowels to existing fantasy archetypes is just the dumbest s***

This is the other side of the sword to capitalism. If you're making money hand over fist, you shouldn't *need money* in a crisis. You already have it, you spent it 9n something that was less secure than just keeping it? Then you ****** up

I'm usually the first to point out that GW know what they're doing better than we do, but there has usually been a lot of fairly obvious savvy in their decision making, or at least a case of giving with one hand while taking with the other. Their current output reeks of profiteering and short term thinking though. Which- you know, capitalism. I don't meant it in a moral sense. Just that they seem to have abandoned a fairly consistent methodical approach to economy in favour of CHARGE MORE FOR EVERYTHING, NOW