Rachmani
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Posts posted by Rachmani
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It's not just the last 10+ posts. Feels like every post ever on every new army on the horizon and beyond.
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6 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:
I think this could be considered a tone-deaf comment, given the thread
There are many things here worth unpacking.
First, what we do with our miniatures is not something the company can or should try to control, as long as it is within our legal right (which extends far). For example, I imagine some people use GW's minis in DnD games (as using minis in DnD sessions seems to be popular now, it wasn't in my era). Can you imagine if WOTC said that only certain brands could be used for that? There is no legal basis for attempting to control how we play warhammer, but certainly GW is pushing (and succeeding) to get non-GW products out of tournament tables (not everywhere, not all the time).
Second, intellectual property. There is a fine line and it is not about being a "rebel". However, ultimately, one might want to consider exactly why we have intellectual property laws, whether that applies here, and to which extent GW can stop others from producing their own version of the miniatures inspired by GW's lore. It certainly did not stop GW from ripping off fantasy and sci fi ideas early on. And some argue it is the basis for their transition to the wackier AoS races (how on earth can someone pretend to copyright medieval knights chasing the grail or mummy kings). Note, however, that a lot in AoS is actually derivative of what we had in WHFB, or outright the same (lizardmen, orks, elves).
I think that, for this part, it would help to have others bring their experience. If I read a dragonlance book, like it, and start sculpting and selling dragonlance inspired miniatures, can I be sued by WOTC? Obviously the answer is yes if I pretend that my minis are from another company's lines (e.g. recasts). But otherwise, is it forbidden? How does this change with concepts used in multiple franchises, such as elves?
It’s not meant to be tone deaf. In fact the opposite. I wanted to make the argument that prices don’t exist in a vacuum and people of all incomes can be sensitive to what they get in return. So while you might want to pay a premium on the best miniature ever, you certainly wont on 20 year old freeguild. That’s GWs biggest problem. They undermine the strength of their IP by charging a premium but not always delivering on the quality of the product.
The hobby was always an expensive one. The price hikes exist in a long row of price hikes, met with the same arguments that led to very little. GW stayed the way it was.You can meet that with different responses. One of which are third party miniatures. To me they are band aid I can sympathise with but they stay a band aid. It‘s an acknowledgment of GWs strength as a gaming system, which they have a strong influence on. They might rip of tropes or other IPs and what not; but in the end, they’re producing it. You bring up WotC and DnD and sure; what you do at home nobody cares about, but try bringing proxy cards to a Magic Tournament?
In my opinion, what we really need is strong competition outside GW. Strong games they have no direct influence on, so that through competition their products will become better. (Or something better replaces them.)
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3 hours ago, madmac said:
No Doom and Gloom, but I'm pretty sure that's it for Fuethan. One rule and maybe some kind of conditional battleline, that's all you get for subfactions in 3E, just going by every other tome so far.
Maybe, but we don't know what rules get rolled into other stuff. It might end up being a command trait, on the sharks war scroll etc.
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9 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:
I am not sure I understand the point. Is it that by being "well off" prices don't matter as much to you? Or that no one can force you to buy sculpts you do not like?
As for 3rd party sculpts "cannibalizing someone else's intellectual property", that is pretty much what GW did to grow. Every single science-fantasy or medieval-fantasy idea they included was recycled from existing tropes, in a more or less thinly disguised way (aliens - tyranid, ork - orcs, and so on). The universe eventually grew to have its own identity but if others had been as trigger happy with copyrights we wouldn't have had warhammer at all. Same for many of the Tolkien-inspired franchises that resulted in dragonlance, forgotten realms and many other universes.
Our rules with our miniatures is strictly a sales ploy and I don't see why we should support it. It is THEIR bottom line, not ours.
I'm well off, so I don't have to worry about prices, but even though I am - and here lies their mistake I think - they'd never get me to buy those old ugly a** sculpts. So even if I like parts of an army (let's take the new Thunderstrike Stormcasts, but Cities of Sigmar, Seraphs or Skaven would be equal examples), I wouldn't buy into it, if I couldn't build something that works well on the tabletop side of things with out those old sculpts - I'm looking at you Longstrikes etc. . So in that sense, they either lose money (as I don't have a fixed hobby budget and stuff I've always wanted to buy instead - I just buy less) or they could give me the incentive to buy some of their stuff by allowing third party miniatures to some degree. (Before you get the wrong impression. It's not that I buy tons of miniatures every month, throwing money at GW. Even though playing the game is important to me, I still paint more than I play etc. I just don't have to do the math when I like a release. Basically I sit down with the army book and if I feel like I can build cool & somewhat good armies with miniatures I like, I buy them and work my way through them. Kruleboys were one of those armies, SCE could have been, but the old stuff is too important, so I opted out.)
The second part of the argument you bring up has some merit in my opinion, but there is still a clear difference between using tropes and going of to create your own IP and blatantly producing third party material for an existing IP. It's still not an easy case though, what is ok and what not, difficult enough in fact, that I'm pretty sure even lawyers would scratch their heads. And you can be all rebel about it (which is fair) but by not agreeing with "our rules with our miniatures" (which, again, I'm not saying you shouldn't) you're also saying "I want to use your universe, your IP, your intellectual property - but I don't want to pay you extra". And that's fine on a personal level, but I wouldn't expect any leeway, support or acceptance from the guys that want to sell you miniatures to their games. And as long as miniatures make up for the majority of income, it will stay that way.
Now, what you should absolutely do and what I 100% support, is branch out, try other games, push for them to get more significant market shares, so that GW gets actual competition.
P.S. Small producers imo don't hurt anyone and should be left alone. If anything they're the little bit of competition that there is.
P.S.S. I think it was Games Workshop that came up with or at least had a big part in the original design of what would later become the stereotypical "orc". So it's not like their IPs don't get recycled as well.
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On 2/15/2022 at 12:32 PM, Greybeard86 said:
@Noserenda There are plenty of very nice centerpieces, but they are resin based mostly AFAIK. Take a look at top miniatures in the minipainting subreddit. I can find dragons, demons and amazing monsters that are at the same level as GW (I posted an example below
In any case, all I am saying is that I welcome the massive etsy & related competition that is coming. 3d printers are not as good as the current mass production GW is capable of (they cost more, take longer, it is simply not comparable tech atm). But they are good enough that, coupled with GW's insane market power fueled prices, they can put up a fight.
Now we just need to kill the reticence to accept 3rd party kits in tournaments. It is the last holdout for GW, honestly. Plenty of groups / clubs already accept them, but the idea that you won't be able to travel with them (to tournies and some stores) still hurts adoption,
I want GW to have to compete with these fantastic outside options. Sometimes, I choose GW. Other times, I don't want to pay more for something that is, IMO, inferior. That is the ideal scenario for the hobby.
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.
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1 hour ago, Marcvs said:
It could be, but, just as a 2k one, it would require some rules or TO intervention to be so. I still remember that little 1250 pts tournament in AoS 2.0 where I had the pleasure of playing vs Kroak and 3x3 salamander packs [shivers]
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.
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19 hours ago, BadDice0809 said:
I blame the GHB for the 2k de facto standard. Interestingly, the core rulebook mentions 1.5k as it's own battlesize. Then, suddenly, in the GHB, all mention of 1.5 disappears. All the battle plans are assumed to fit 2k games, and use the standard 2k board size metrics. Further, unlike in the 40k equilivalent, there are not any separate missions for 1k games in the GHB. Its like whoever wrote the Core Rules wanted to leave open the possibility for expansion in smaller level games (in the similar 'matched play' format). Then... whoever gave input in the GHB (I'd assume playtesters) promptly removed it from contention.
I wish AoS had something like 'Incursion' sized missions to legitimize lower point match play style games. Frankly, meeting engagements was a complete mess. From the 'just hang the model off the base,' to the not!Warcry deployment... I dont know how that idea got through any feedback.
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.
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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.-
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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.
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5 hours ago, Beliman said:
Btw, @Whitefang has wrote that some warscroll abilities are going to be removed from their warscrolls and moved to their battletome... anyone remember if fyreslayer's warscrolls lost any ability? Sworn Protectors anyone?
I know, it's just wishlist, but it could be really good for an army with so many heroes.
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.
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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.
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8 hours ago, EntMan said:
You missed out Battletome: Silent Moot Wardens.
And you missed out Battletome: Hungrineth Moot Lords!
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6 hours ago, Public Universal Duardin said:
I have created 8 thus far, usually 1 every time a new Chorf rumour pops up. By the time we finally get a new army I might have chorfified every pepe in existence!
Glorious! Glorious indeed. So good.
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PepeChorf, I'm dying! My gosh, is that glorious.
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21 minutes ago, Jymmy said:
New battletome: Grand Alliance Disappointment
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.-
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4 hours ago, Scurvydog said:
The Big Bird is a pretty handy unit for Kruleboyz exactly as it is both a fast and flying monster, point are tight though, but I think he has a place, could switch with Gobsprakk for this purpose as well.
The army is not all that competitive though no matter what, it ironically is pretty well balanced and has pros and cons and need to sacrifice stuff to gain other stuff, problem is some other armies, who also happen to do MWs on 6s a lot, can do everything without compromise
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.
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44 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:
I would guess that GW probably went all-out in the design phase for Nighthaunt and has a billion unreleased sculpts for units still on file which they chose not to put into production during their first wave. Same for Lumineth, actually.
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?
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8 minutes ago, Austin said:
I suppose my point, though admittedly sarcastic, is that I have a very hard time believing shipping issues are the problem. That’s not to say shipping issues don’t exist in the world, of course they do, just that the evidence suggests that’s not the problem here.
When shipping was the issue for 40k codexes, GW made sure to tell everyone the codexes were delayed. If shipping was the issue with Idoneth battletome, etc, why wouldn’t GW show the cover and say it’s been held up and is coming soon?
I think you might be decyphering his sarcasm here.
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It was a surprisingly good Nighthaunt reveal, though!
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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
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4 hours ago, Clan's Cynic said:
Well for what it's worth he's reacted to my Grombrindal theory a few times, so there's that.
He has also reacted to my speculation about the bodyguard rule in fyreslayers. Positively I might add.
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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.
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5 hours ago, Neverchosen said:
If it is GW why can't they leak something for AOS and remind the online discourse that the game still exists?
But don't worry Nighthaunt will be a big new release not just a hero:
Nighthaunt are probably the one faction that just needs new rules, given the vast amount of units they have.
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The Rumour Thread
in Age of Sigmar Discussions
Posted
Remember everyone was underwhelmed by Nurgle up until release. Now it seems to be in a good spot.