Rachmani

They have a grip on the miniatures used, because in most people's mind the game, lore etc. is linked to the miniatures. And it's understandable, reasonable even, to a degree. Third party competition (meaning alternative miniatures for system X) is in a way always cannibalizing someone else's intellectual property. (I also think that on an Etsy level it simply doesn't matter iRL, but we'll pretend it does, for the sake of the argument.) The problem is, however, that GW is not up to snuff and sells old stuff at a premium. That behavior basically forces competition to exist and diminishes the value of their own IP. In a way, GW pushes for competition to exist through corporate behavior, even though they so strongly oppose it. In the same sense, price hikes - whether reasonable or not - are perceived as bad when potential customers already had the feeling that they weren't getting their money's worth. I experience it myself. I'm in the blessed situation that I can basically buy as much GW as I want without giving it a thought. So when I want to build Kruleboys, sculpts I love, I buy them when I need/want them. But there is no power GW could possibly evoke that could make me buy the old free guild stuff (or the not Thunderstrike Stormcast, for that matter). And if that means I can't field them in a tournament (because I can't 3rd party proxy) etc., it means I won't play that army. And if someone who has had the fortune of being well off thinks that way, how will the rest of their customers think? And *that* is completely their fault.

Exactly. That’s basically what I was hinting at. Could have specified better, though. Don‘t get me wrong, I enjoy the dirty tournament filth as much as the next guy, when… I wanna play a tournament with dirty tournament filth. But I also enjoy tournaments (actually not just tournaments but games in general) with a different mindset even more, one more rooted in story, narrative and frankly with cooler looking armies. Basically the stuff I want to spend time painting and playing with instead of the stuff I want to win with. Smaller games could be a good entry into that world.

The good thing about it being the GHB is, that… it’s the GHB. Meaning, the next one could just as well change things up a bit. I would love some separate 1k & 1.5k battleplans and in general some love for smaller game sizes. 1k tournament could be super relaxed for example.

I‘ve come to or more precisely am coming to the same conclusion. It even lets me value my minis more. I‘m in the progress of building my own Kruleboys after testing them out with proxies for a bit (to see if I like them) and with the goal of 1000 points for starters I value each single gutrippa differently & it shows. And even though I‘ve always had a strong narrative in my armies (charakters have names and stories etc.) Boss Shashlikk (yeah, sorry not sorry) and his acquired taste is on his way to legend right from the get go & without any effort. He survived his two 600 points games so far and is on fire.

I really love the feel of 1k up to 1.5k battles & how they play out. You have to have players of a similar mindset, though. Or additional restrictions. But my local gaming circle & I are as of now „heavily“ investing in smaller games, building specifically tinkered terrain & gaming plates for it. I‘d love for someone to take the first step in the direction of more organised 1 or 1.5k games.

For what it is worth, I speculated about Fyreslayers getting army wide sworn protector some 50 something pages earlier and Whitefang likeed that post. So I‘d say the chances are bigger than zero.

My case: Profits aren’t necessarily bad or a sign of an evil corp. Profits can be reinvested etc. In this particular case? Dunno personally I‘m on the whatever side. Takes me ages to paint my models, I give many of them the „individual“ treatment. There surely is less well spent money in my case. Still, I don’t like the combination of „one hero refreshes“ and keeping high profits. But then again, I‘m not sure how hard really brexit & the pandemic hit. All in all I‘m not sure GW‘s balance of price & return is completely justified. But it certainly feels like competition is rising so we will see. Competition would be best for all of us.

And you missed out Battletome: Hungrineth Moot Lords!

Glorious! Glorious indeed. So good.

PepeChorf, I'm dying! My gosh, is that glorious.

The Disappointed will get souped with the Dispossessed & the Kharadron Overlords. Mark my words. Battletome: Dispossessed Overdisappointed, was the plan all along. They no longer heed grudges, but nourish disappointments instead. Only through stories though, as they somehow lost all their stuff. Including books and ships. The latter were stolen by GW marketing, who now use them liberally on prints.

Absolutely. They’re done really well & easily expandable. Hobgrot cavalry, Orc cavalry, some monsters. The range can diversify without the fear of making stuff obsolete with ease.

Given their time-tables, that seems reasonable. Tyrion wave etc. for Lumineth is probably also just ready to launch, while they first have do design a giant crab for the Idoneth. So that takes longer, even though people are really into crabby errr… Duinclaw?

I think you might be decyphering his sarcasm here.

It was a surprisingly good Nighthaunt reveal, though!

Well, I‘m guessing China issues. They are not the only ones affected by the paper shortage. I‘d even go so far as to say that they could hold back models as without new battletomes (or campaign books) they only ever release them in battle boxes.

I‘m pleasantly surprised by the new Nighthaunt. A new unit? How did that come to pass? But I won’t complain. Now revamp the Hexwraiths and give the Nighthaunt some solid rules and they are good to go. Probably the most complete army in all of AoS. Awesome range of models. Tons of options

He has also reacted to my speculation about the bodyguard rule in fyreslayers. Positively I might add.

I don't think we can tell how soup's gonna be, by looking at the warclans book. Maggotkin just got a measly hero and what's rumored about Deepkin doesn't make it seem like they'd be getting a lot either. So Fyreslayer soup instead of Fyreslayer solo without new stuff ends up being the same. The real discussion, I think, isn't about soup, it's about meaningless updates vs. big updates. That just somehow get's watered down to a soup argument, as if the soup would come and steal our goodies & preventing the soup would somehow summon an expansive update.

Nighthaunt are probably the one faction that just needs new rules, given the vast amount of units they have.

It’s tricky because as it looks now, the heroes buff range is rather limited (if you want to charge with your units, that is). So as a work around your heroes (buff heroes) would have to charge as well. Imo that validates a bodyguard rule that does „something“ in melee as well.

I have a feeling that the Fyreslayers get bodyguard as an army wide rule. Frankly every Army should, for <10 wound heroes.

Designers ever so often have to play by the rules the company (meaning their higher-ups) make. Criticize GW all you want, the company is faceless, so to speak. But bin guy aims at specific persons, who might not have had a say (or the final word) about the release & the rules. That‘s the difference between valid criticism and picking on someone.

I‘d personally go as far as to say, they‘re also a bad experience to play *with*. Those breath attacks are frustratingly swingy. Playing them you‘re slave to the same randomness your opponents are, just with overall better odds, as you can move those damn drakes and decide where to aim =D.

All solutions targeting dragons specificly would not prevent the next spam, regardless if dragons need it or not. To stop spam AoS needs the rules to stop spam or make it unattractive.