Evangelist of Cinders

I will admit I already began work on a AoSification of bretonnia as a Hysh army; though I took a lot of inspiration from Occitan then bretonnia(it's a slow builiding cities army project now)

Yeah it's been a boon in many ways, my local frequently has people come in showing interest in the hobby but get disappointed when they find the setting isn't supported.doesn't discourage most from joining the hobby but it's a lil effort and they often go to 40k instead of AoS. this is more cause the sale is easier rather then AoS being bad let me be clear, but hearing a system can be ended isn't encouraging to someone walking into the hobby and though the greybeards here LOVE AoS they encourage folks to get something they will like and not be uphill to learn the game (if you gotta get stompped your first 30 games after 100+ hobby hours its super discouraging to get into which was a HUGE problem with WHFB) . I really hope the Old World is either a good beer and pretzal game at least if not balanced, I just know for me my Kislev and wood elfs (well and a bunch of Bretonnian bits I wanted to turn into a long Malian and Mossi inspired proxy kitbash) sat on a shelf more often then not because my first 20 some games of WHFB seemed more like who had memorized the technical manual best(clearly not me) rather then me learning a new game and being a better general It never felt like I had failed strategically just Bureaucratically . Though with a Forgeworld price range IDK if that style may be good or bad, I'll have to dwell on it

Edit:apologies for the many errors english isn't my first language and can falll apart when I get into technical things. I'm going to try to give some answers as someone who has some hobby and professional casting experience. I use to caste lead toy soldiers as a kid(this was a real thing kids use to do and i inherit a simple casting set from my great uncle with some molds), i studied and worked as a metallurgist and a machinist off and on for about 15 years now covering bronze age techniques to modern ones using 3d printers( though not the same tech as GW). The material science i m going to be kinda glossy on cause some things i m not too sharp on and others are trade secreats. Starting with the simple lead mini of your this is the simplest usually a sculpt is made as a master( carve it, greenstuff, miliput whatever) and this is pressed into a ceramic(or other industrial material such as steel and carbon coke) mold using usually a hydraulic press or similar tool. At this point some tooling may be used to carve out details in the mold but unless you got someone really good with an eye for it probably just have the mold put straight into production. The master can often be damaged right here in this process and be gone for good.(a similar method is done by resin sculpting hobbyist) You now just pour white metal into the mold till heat, or wear and tear cause a crack or carving leading it yo break(but like i said earlier white metal and a good mold can last a century but your limits by luck and what form you can carve as some will just guarantee a break simpler soft shapes most likely to last) the simplest form you can see this wear and tear is the mold lines on older designs. This is the method most scene by blackmarket re casters using a Original sprue as the master with zero to lil tooling done to improve the mold they make. Now this is a limited process, most industrial white metals sky rocketed in cost in the 90s and we tend to frown upon lead toys. Most have switched to plastic which tends to use molds at lower heat but weaker material(not like glass vs steel but enough to make a difference when scaled up production level). Either material you dont really wanna just rely on a crucible and a steady hand to produce your line. So most manufacturers use probably injection or spin casting(or something akin to it their is stuff like raising casting but it relies on similar principles). With injection the machining of the mold is paramount cause if the shape isnt done right the material wont fill the mold no matter what(this was probably the cause of much of the notorious fine cast flaws in the early days as it was a whole new way of tooling molds for GW). This leads to more complicates and worked molds leading to higher chances of a nick or dent that will eventually break the mold. Many mini companies use a spin process where a wheel of molds is made and spun using the centrifugal force to push the hot material into the mold again you can see how wear and tear would be likelier then my coke covered ceramic mold and casting sand. I should note this does not always mean a degrading quality over time I can definitely tell for example without looking at production numbers for example my bretonnian sprues got better in quality after a new mold was made the master is the same design of course but clearly the tooling and machining of the mold led to sharper detail. The design remained the same but the team at the factory or design level(it can vary from company to company) either got better tools or better practice(or less management oversight) and were more willing to spend time machining a mold to allow better details in casting Which brings me to 3d printers now professionally I am somewhat limited in my experience as they are something I mostly either order masters from a catalogue and it comes to me printed ready for a single casting(we use em for lost wax casting a method where you keep detail by having the molten metal fill the space the master is pressed in) or its some custom thing a customer designed on a shop front software. Very often however (especially the custom stuff) breaks easily or even in mold. As the designs are often made with only the 3d model in mind not the tooling or casting process let alone the material concern(thin bands, or a mold that structurally cant hold form in softer metals). Part of the price of the convenience of 3d design is the material structural needs of actually printing a master which is different from those of casting it.(less so with CNC machine designs and lathes but id bet these arent used much in the GW processs) Now some tooling and fixing can be done but it can often be not worth it for us production wise for a few reasons. Primarily you need the right eye and good skill to solve the issue not good for mass production. Materially cause the mold would need to be tooled for every cast, the master doesn't hold form in the shape it was machined/printed in we can usually tell before hand and send it back to the designer. Now in jewellery i can negotiate if a custom piece or mold fail and still make a single version similar with hand tools and torch. No company that produces minis can do that. I already work for a company that does a lot of production(I'm on the more one on one customer end but still probably have 150-300 pieces go through my workbench a day) and we try not to produce molds unless we have too cause it ends production at some level. there are a lot of technical differences between methods used but the general principle of wear and tear is hopefully explained well enough. Couple the every day problems with mass scale like GW does and i hope ive shed light onto what may be behind some decisions they make productionwise.

Part of it is thematic and part mechanical; AoS is a game of sort of Bronze Age story aesthetic in a way. Legendary heroes fighting each other and terrible primordial monsters, units and the tactics of them arent really part of the background so much as chaff to show how powerful that demigod is(Hector, Cuchulain, Guan Yu like heroes are very AoS in their type). this has reflected in a rule set and design to emphasize these powerhouses heroes and monsters. Some power creep seemed definitely purposeful at the beginning of 2.0 to discourage folks using the free compendium armies and some secondhand armies which is good business sense on GWs part and some of this may be partially still in the design so you buy the new hotness but it's not as bad as it has been in the past(the era where some armies could inflict and shrug mortal wounds an others just had to suffer it comes to mind let alone points in 40k and WHFB history). in the end though it's a hobby you can try fun things with friends to fit your wants now and then(try low fantasy game where there is a minimum model count and max to spend on heroes for example). On top of that with Covid and all some of the cycle of the new hotness being a power house has been elongated as we are just playing less games

that's the inquisitor=]I[= it would be weird to use a symbol so synonymous with a 40k faction(being the cover for rule books from the old 54mm inquisitor game, stamped all over the inquisitor army lines from 3rdand 4th edition). the sun icon and were everywhere in the early 00s with gav thorpe's influence. not gonna straight out say that's what it is but it would like seeing a weapon withe the omega symbol turning out not to be ultramarines

Well that sort of tardiness is just plain unprofessional. I must alert James Workshop

Carful thats how i found a bunch of bretonnians after AoS 2.0

I mean they use to teach you how to make em in white dwarf but the days of GW giving money saving tips is long gone. Maybe they feel its too close to mantic or mayhaps it doesnt really work in a game of round bases. I say this though recognizing Katakros is a unit filler of a few heroes rules wise.

I think we are seeing GW experiment with that a little (Lumineth formation rule name escapes me) and that is somewhat part of their development strategy they tend to experiment with mechanics army or in a specialist game before placing it as a norm. They are probably aware of the weird scale some units have, bonus based on model count( "our line is thining we cant hold the defense =epic, vs AoS crud steve died guess all 39 of us got worse at stabbing), daisy chains of units a result of skirmish style rules( havent played a regiment game that would allow or at the very least not punish me for a thin line of chaf across the board). We will probably see more experiments here and there in the future Im not sure how big their department is but most of the more experienced designers when it came to non-skirmish games left the company. I'd be curious of how much of the deaign team who would be interested in implementing what you suggest shifted to the Old World

Nah mate it's next to that dusty old fishmen sea army clock from WHFB and the Hrud clock for 40k

though i do wish vampire players get their wish my feeling on GW demanding some IP control(that and I recall more info and lore items inthe old world then Aos for vampirates) I will def have some Schadenfreude if these all turn into slaanesh mortal bits

My first army from 3rd edition 40k Eldar is still in the field(most of the kits still being the ones GW sells), boy howdy are they ugly compared to my current paint skills but I still love em and I like seeing how I've progressed. I may someday do some touch ups(shade, edge highlight) but don't plan on strippin cause that keeps me from doing more projects and removes a part of my hobby journey

I would argue it is and that it has to be, though it definitely inherited elements from WHFB that were inherited by them from historically wargaming. A lot of the morale aspects come to mind but also the use of slight buffs. For much of WHFB history you could thematic scale your army from low to high fantasy both in look mechanics, it was one of the things i found unique and love about it, bringing a dwarf city militia to try to hold of god infused heavy infantry and sometimes win. Age of Sigmar is pretty squarely however in the realm of high fantasy and for the rules to reflect the lore. to make that feel work you need to concentrate on a unit or heroes special abilities, special equipment and fighting skills rather then formations, discipline and use of terrain.(more Romance of the Three kingdoms then art of War) while it does have larger unit sizes then many skirmish games this seems to be more due to scaling options then the games core mechanics(and GW desiring you to buy more minis at GW prices) I'm simply not going to produce a Varna, Canae or Tours, where my understanding of formations, terrain or psychology leads to my opponent getting decimated by bad formations, over extension of personnel or manipulating their desire to deal decisive blows. These are all things that would take away from the epic fantasy that is AoS and frankly would add game mechanics that punish most armies for behaving like they do in the world GW has created. Sure AoS can scale high but its still a place of named heroes and powerful forces smashing into each other with power metal playing in the background Even if its 40 grots against a celestant prime.

anything is possible this early in development, but on streams and ads they have emphasized it'll be square bases, also sales wise you don't want every AoS player with a proxyiable army NOT buying the new hotness

I'm sure some did as Order; but I doubt much as just Bretonnians after the advent of common implementation of mortal wounds, a few armies suffered as a result but most got new armies soon after.