Greybeard86

How on earth can they provide true support for yet more factions? They are already unable to keep some factions relevant both rules and model wise right now. My bet is on consolidation of armies with some expansions in the form of subfactions. New traditional dwarves plus soup, then new kurnothi plus soup with wanderers and sylvaneth.

I am with you. I get that people playing KO and FS want to preserve their ranges, but I long for a true varied army of dwarfs. The contrasts between steam punk, slayer crazy, and more traditional dwarfs made for very interesting armies. I know that a multi themed army seems to go against the core design philosophy of AoS but still, that’s my preferred approach. Let the specialized options subsist, though, if you also create a soup force.

I think that's it. What was bad form was removing all mention from the website of future expansions, essentially retconning their own marketing. I imagine some people bought it because they had claimed that the game would be receiving further support. And then they decided they wouldn't, but instead of admitting to it (it would have been bad already), they pretended that this hadn't happened and deleted media claims to the contrary. Frankly, appalingly bad communication. There might have been a "good" excuse for it (covid, brexit, who knows), but the overall way in which they navigated it is as dishonest as possible. If, on top, it was a pure business decision (not to predate on other sales), then it is just frustratingly anti-consumer. All that said, I do like a lot the minis, and that's why I originally bought it.

Stop! I cannot, I will not, bow to Hashut... Seriously, let this thread be a testimony to the enthusiasm we feel over the old chorfs. Many sculpts can be re-used, and they have room to add either more infernal-industrial creation, re-imagined chorf warriors (infernal folks were a subfaction), or even more chaos spawned hybrids. Do it, GW!

Yes, indeed. Much like chorfs had centaurs. That said, the more extreme the baseline is, the harder it is to create the "exception". Contrast becomes more challenging. Cities, poor cities. Can anyone, in good faith, recommend a new player cities as a starting army? It is a cluedo game of who will get legended next.

C'mon, post your Hashut's followers, driven by endless greed and with no regard for the harm they cause. That is, does anyone have some cool chorf armies to share?

Personally, I have detached myself from GW's release schedule and, to an extent, rules. I keep an eye out for some new releases, but I already have a large pile of shame. If they start unbalancing the game too much, I stop playing. If they price to highly, I don't buy or look for alternatives (2nd hand or others). I realize this is easier for me because, atm, I am mostly hobby oriented. But I think that in order to prevent some of the super aggressive pricing and rule pushing, we all have to take a step back and a deep breath before we decide whether to buy or play by their rules.

I loved all of them, but I think the not-so-goofy ones are a bit better for modern standards.

Right, it might be for a reason There is some appeal in the idea of men&women with pointy sticks poking at terriying monsters. And the romanticism of taking back orc&goblin infested ancentral homes...one day...

That is almost the definition of anti-competitive. How do you think companies operate, with masked men and guns?

This! Evil industrial dwarves with demons mixed in is an awesome theme. I hope we don't lose it. So dark, such a good story of uncontrolled industrialism and exploitation, humorous on top, it just had it all. They could be the fantasy counterpart to a story by Dickens.

Admech is crazy bad point/$. Also, admech is really good on the table, and some of the top performers in the faction have the worst point/$ (chicken walkers, doggos). The new release lowers point costs for admech. How is that good for the hobby? Or the whole radukar at 160$ bucks thing, which is just nuts. All of this is coming from the same place, market dominance. Although I could get radukar for 10$ if I wanted to, and the whole court at less than a third of the price. The whole cursed city debacle and the subsequent pricing will likely push some people in the direction of "3rd party" and "3d printing", but so far it seems that GW can stomach that and still come on top.

Well, technically anti-competition agreements and practices are what is ilegal, not the “uniqueness” aspect. But splitting hairs from our perspective. For example, banning 3rd party bits from tournaments and pushing other parties to do so is, IMO, a clear case of anti-competitive actions. Then there is the whole planned obsolescence bit via legends and rule changes, but that’s just anti-consumer that works because of market power, not something they do to increase market power. Some people seem to think that we need GW to be a super dominant corporation to have a great game. As in we need them to do very well and have massive profit to ensure the survival of the game. When in reality a super dominant company can be quite harmful for the hobby. High prices keeping people from participating, and those participating from engaging more. And market power allowing them to have anti-consumer approaches such as the mini and rule planned obsolescence I mentioned.

Good observation. Still, I think that AoS turned that to 11. You can even see it in the battalions allowing you to take rare things as battle line. What can I say, while seeing an “all slayer” army was cool as a concept, since it seemed very unique, having experienced that in AoS across many factions I can say that it gets old fast. Give me back the days of moderation, even if what you say is true. Better to see one steam tank often than 10.

Other have said it better, but my take. They are unique and wacky, but with clearly recognizable and hence relatable historical elements. They are evil, but they seem to have a good reason for it (survival), so it is almost relatable. They have insane looking things, but bound by a very coherent background theme. I very much hope they bring them back. It is an army I will likely collect in the future, with or without GW s support.

I read this sort of argumentation quite often. What triggers people is that GW prices reflect market power far more than production costs. It does not matter that there are more expensive thing out there, or that it is obviously optional to buy these things. We could have a more affordable hobby if GW was not able to price based on their market dominance. And for those wondering, economists have long established that market dominance is actually bad for society, hence the many anti trust laws. It’s just that in a world with bigger battles to big, mini markets are not the priority of such authorities.

You are right, I have the impression that some of the new releases allow for what you are saying. Almost as if AoS were gravitating back to WHFB, in that sense 😜 As for Gitz, I think they are a tad odd, with a diverse range, but it is not about blending the subfactions. You go all out in one or another, but mixing is extremely discouraged. I do it, but that's because atm I am not competing for anything but looks. PS - I'd love to be able to have some KO units in a more "diverse" dawi faction...I just cannot paint an entire army of them.

Pretty much. I also liked the flexibility of having different themes within an army. Do I want to field more of this or that, and for them to look very different then. Now, in AoS, my impression is that, for that, often you'd need to jump to a different army. But this is more personal preference.

I expected as much I do not think all "old dwarves" looked the same, at least not until their last plastic kit. http://toyarmies.com/wiki/index.php/Dwarfs I can very well tell apart warriors (more basic armor, simpler weapons and beards) from hammerers (classic TH massive hammers, weird pose that I learnt to love), longbeards (warior-like but with massive beards), or ironbreakers (completely covered in armor). As I said, I think fyreslayers are a relic from a different era (AoS 1) in which it was about having "warband" like armies, smaller amounts of minis, and just keep rotating them as they release new sculpts. Hence the "skirmish" rules over rank and file, and so on.

But this would be great and thematic. It makes no sense that a tiny human general on foot would stand aside and wave a flag to make it easier to be identified and get shot to pieces. Of course, if you are riding a ginormous megamonster, then you cannot hide among your minions, but hopefully there is some risk-reward element that is well balanced. The current implementation only makes sense in a low shooting setting, but that isn't the game anymore. It is also not a skirmish game anymore

On the topic of "grounded" vs "crazy" or "high fantasy" vs "low fantasy". Personally, I loved the balance that was achieved in WHFB prior to 8th edition. While I love some AoS sculpts (I am collecting a Goblins & Trolls army), I think sometimes the setting is so over the top that nothing feels "special". We discussed some time ago the case of dwarves, which went from a diverse faction grounded on a more "down to earth" core to separate themes of extremes. Before we had some naked dwarves with crazy hair and axes. They stood out because they looked "insane" compared to regular dwarf clansmen / warriors. Now they look "sameish" in a faction of "all slAyeRs", to the point that it is hard to tell apart what units they are supposed to represent. We also have the "steam punk" theme, with gyrocopters and various warmachines. It looked special, but once you make a whole "steam punk" dwarf faction, it gets lost. I think this was a major issue with the design of AoS. I heard it was supposed to be seasonal, like the current AoS based mini-games, with armies with narrow ranges and constant renewal. I think this was discarted at some point, but armies like fyreslayers have never recovered. So small ranges and hiper focused wacky sculpts /units that you paint in a year and rotate out. As opposed to slowly growing collections decades old. The setting in AoS also reflects that, evolving and with flashy events; do not forget that the setting is mostly marketing to sell miniatures. Now, for TOW I'd like the return of the old design philosophy. More grounded, larger collections within an army, support for a longer time.

Having bad players pilot a "top list" is not polluting anything, it is just the nature of the game and its community. Any balancing exercise should account for how the game is actually being played. The problem I have is different and it is related to how balance is assessed by listbot. I think we will all agree that having accurate balance statistics is good and helpful, and it allows us to move beyond "in my experience" sort of comments, or biased personal evaluations regarding how armies should perform.

That is my opinion. MW seem the "easy way" designers have to just avoid thinking about multiple interactions of rules. The sort of "I want to guarantee it will, with few exceptions, do X expected damage".

The point is not whether there are good or bad players, or good or bad factions. It is obvious that the answer is an unambiguous yes to both. What we are trying to find out is the weight of lists / factions in the odds of "winning", as a roundabout way to assess whether factions are properly balanced or not. I am just explaining how the current metric is flawed. Maybe I was right, and the very top players are mostly choosing top factions. Or maybe the data says otherwise. But the flaw that I pointed out remains, which means that this is not a good metric. It cannot ascertain correctly the "power boost" for players that stick to factions of a similar "power level". It is a flawed estimator of the power of a faction. I focused on the results for the very top players because they were very flashy and attracted lots of attention. However, the exact same problems takes place among the bottom players, for which JP reports a similar result. If bottom players are people mostly sticking to flavor outdated armies (or other "low power" armies), listbot will incorrectly assume they are "bad players". Because they perform poorly across armies, but those armies are mostly "bad" armies. Is he around? Of course, I appreciate his effort to bring data to the matter and I am sure we could come up with a better measure of skill. I insist, the current one is, in my opinion, flawed.

Where are my beasties? While I wouldn't mind if they released more kits for the stick people, please do not tell me that they are a replacement for the kurnothi beasties.